FALL 2025

Multiple Degrees of Being in Sufism: An Interpretive Tool for Religious Understanding

FALL 2025 Lecture Series

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Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Being and Consciousness

September 5, 2025 - 12:00PM (EST) - 1 hour

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Carl Ernst

Modern Misreadings of Mystical Commentaries on Hafez

September 10, 2025 - 7:00PM (EST) - 1 hour

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Asma Afsaruddin

An Islamic Ethics of War and Peace

September 17, 2025 - 12:00PM (EST) - 1 hour

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Shawkat Toorawa

Rhyme’s Reason: Translating the Qur’an’s (Most) Important Features

September 24, 2025 - 10:00AM (EST) - 1 hour

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Abdallah Rothman

What is “Islamic” about "Islamic Psychology?

October 1, 2025 - 11:30AM (EST) - 1 hour

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Maria Dakake

The Relationship between Prophecy and Sanctity: The Significance of Non-Prophetic Figures in the Qur’an

October 8, 2025 - 12:00PM (EST) - 1 hour

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Mahmut Erol Kılıç

Multiple Degrees of Being in Sufism: An Interpretive Tool for Religious Understanding

October 15, 2025 - 12:00PM (EST) - 1 hour

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Peter Adamson

From Ibn Sina’s Necessary Existent to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi’s God

October 24, 2025 - 10:00AM (EST) - 1 hour

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What this course gives you
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A working command of the vocabulary of Islamic metaphysics — wujūd, māhiyya, the gradation of being — used precisely, not loosely.

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The capacity to read primary texts of Ibn Sīnā and Mullā Ṣadrā with comprehension rather than reverence alone.

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An understanding of why the tradition treats metaphysics as the science of realities — and what that claim asks of the knower.

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Direct exchange with Professor Nasr in open Q&A after every session — the part no book can replace.

Your instructor
Professor Mahmut Erol Kılıç

Mahmut Erol Kılıç is one of Türkiye’s foremost scholars of Sufism and Islamic philosophy. A distinguished academic, author, and diplomat, his work has focused on Islamic spirituality, the metaphysics of Ibn ʿArabī, Ottoman intellectual history, and the continuing relevance of the Islamic spiritual tradition in the modern world. Through his scholarship, public lectures, and cultural leadership, Professor Kılıç has played a major role in promoting the study of Islamic intellectual and spiritual heritage both within Türkiye and internationally.