Raid Al-Daghistani, Ph.D.

Dr. Raid Al-Daghistani (born 1983) obtained his BA in Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts at the
University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), and undertook his postgraduate studies of Arabic and
Islamic Studies at the Institut für Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft of the University of
Münster (Germany), where he also received his PhD in Islamic Mysticism (the title of his
thesis: "Epistemologie des Herzens: Erkenntnisaspekte der islamischen Mystik"
(“Epistemology of the Heart – The Cognitive Aspects of Islamic Mysticism”). In the winter
semester of 2007/2008 he was enrolled in an exchange program at the Faculty of Philosophy
at the University of Freiburg (Germany), and in 2009/2010 he studied at the Islamic Faculty
at the University of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina). In 2012 (September-October) he
studied Arabic at Qalam wa Lawh Center for Arabic Studies in Rabat (Morocco), and in 2015
(May-June) in Noor Majan Training Institute in Ibri (Oman). He is currently a Postdoctoral
Researcher and a Lecturer at the Centre for Islamic Theology at the University of Münster
(Zentrum für Islamische Theologie Münster), where he just finished his habilitation thesis
(Habilitationsschrift) on the mystical theology of the 10th century Muslim mystic ʿAbd al-
Jabbār an-Niffarī (“Der (un)erkannte Gott: Die Grundzüge mystischer Theologie ʿAbd al-
Ǧabbār an-Niffarīs anhand seiner Schriften Kitāb al-Mawāqif und Kitāb al-Muḫātabāt”). He is
also a visiting lecturer at the Department of Islamic Theology and Religious Education at the
University of Innsbruck and a researcher fellow at the Department of Theological Faculty at
the University in Ljubljana.
His main areas of research are: Sufism (Islamic mysticism), Islamic mystical theology
(especially of ʿAbd al-Jabbār an-Niffarī), mystical epistemology (epistemic/noetic aspects of
mystical experiences in Islam), Islamic religious ethics (especially Sufi-ethics and virtue ethics
in the theory of Abū Hāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (d. 1111)), mystical/spiritual experience
in Islam, Islamic anthropology, classical Arabic-Islamic philosophy (mainly al-Kindī und
Avicenna), the question of body and bodiliness in Islamic spirituality, ecology from a Sufi
perspective, and interreligious dialog.
He has published several academic, scientific (also peer-review), and popular articles in both
national and international journals, as well as five books: “Odsevi in Sledi” (Ljubljana, 2009),
“Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali: Erkenntnislehre und Lebensweg” (Freiburg i. Br., 2014), “Falsafa:
Einführung in die klassische arabisch-islamische Philosophie” (Freiburg i. Br., 2016),
“Epistemologie des Herzens: Erkenntnisaspekte der islamischen Mystik” (Köln, 2017), and
“Razmišljanja o islamu. Zbrani eseji” (Ljubljana, 2023). He has also translated three books;
the first was from Germany into Slovenian: “Die Kultur der Ambiguität: Eine andere
Geschichte des Islams” by the German Expert and Leibniz-Prize Winner Thomas Bauer
(Krtina, Ljubljana 2014), the second was from Arabic into Slovenian: “Al-munqīḏ min aḍ-
ḍalāl” by the famous Muslim scholar Abū Hāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (Kud Logos, Ljubljana
2014), and the third was also from Arabic into Slovenian: Kitāb al-mawāqif wa-l-
mukhatabāt by an early Muslim mystic ʿAbd al-Jabbār an-Niffarī (Kud Logos, Ljubljana 2020).
He had a scholarship from the Maturidi-Studienförderung (ADSAM) and was a member of
AFAQ e.V. Association for Cultural and Social Collaboration.

Links:

https://www.uni-muenster.de/ZIT/Postdocs/personen_al-daghistani_raid.shtml
https://uni-m.academia.edu/raidaldaghistani
https://www.uibk.ac.at/islam-theol/personal/lehrbeauftragte.html.de
https://kalam-verlag.de/autoren/187-al-daghistani-raid