Biography
Dr. Mukhtar Ali is a scholar of Islamic Studies, specializing in Sufism, Islamic philosophy and ethics. His areas of interest include Arabic and Persian literature, Qurʾānic studies, theology and comparative religion. He taught Arabic at Claremont McKenna College and theological and philosophical ethics at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar. He is the author of Philosophical Sufism: An Introduction to the School of Ibn al-ʿArabī (Routledge, 2021) and The Horizons of Being: The Metaphysics of Ibn al-ʿArabī in the Muqaddimat al-Qayṣarī (Brill, 2020) and his forthcoming work is an annotated translation of Jāmī’s Naqd al-nuṣūṣ fī sharḥ naqsh al-fuṣūṣ (Selected Texts Commenting on the “Engraving of the Fuṣūṣ”). He has also translated several works in classical and contemporary Islamic metaphysics, which include The Principles of Correspondences (2013) and The New Creation (2018). Dr. Ali earned his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, and his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in Philosophy.
He has translated several works in classical and contemporary Islamic metaphysics, which include The Principles of Correspondences (2013) and The New Creation (2018) and The Horizons of Being: The Metaphysics of Ibn al-ʿArabī in the Muqaddimat al-Qayṣarī (2020). His forthcoming work, 'The Horizons of Being: The Metaphysics of Ibn al-'Arabi in the Muqaddimat al-Qaysari', which is a parallel Arabic-English translation with commentary of a canonical text of Philosophical Sufism. His forthcoming work Philosophical Sufism: An Introduction to the School of Ibn al-'Arabi is an analysis of the main doctrines of Ibn al-ʿArabī and his followers.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Lecturer, Islamic Studies