We were recently delighted to announce Dr Ramon Harvey‘s promotion to Senior Lecturer in Islamic Studies. Dr Harvey first came to the College as a postdoctoral researcher ten years ago. In this piece, Dr Harvey reflects on his storied journey as an academic and researcher at Cambridge Muslim College and the College’s role as a cultivator of Islamic scholarship.
I joined Cambridge Muslim College ten years ago as a Research Fellow with a freshly minted doctorate from SOAS, University of London. I had written my dissertation on the theme of societal justice in the Qur’an and spent a good deal of my time at the College expanding that PhD project into a book published in late 2017: The Qur’an and the Just Society. My memories from those days often return to coffee breaks with my fellow postdoc and friend, Harith Ramli, in which we would sit in Unity House and discuss the topics about which we were writing and a lot more besides. During these conversations, my interests started to shift to questions of intellectual history – at first about the Qur’an and its reading traditions – as well as to those of Islamic theology. I also recall a profound encounter with a hedgehog in the CMC wooded area that we dubbed Professor Prickles. At that time there was not yet a BA course at the College, though we were enriched by the presence of students on the Diploma in Contextual Islamic Studies and Leadership (CISL). I greatly enjoyed engaging with these Darul Uloom graduates and memorably had the opportunity to travel to Rome in their company.
After my research fellowship concluded, I started as a lecturer at Ebrahim College, a well-known institute in London that teaches a version of the traditional Dars Nizami ‘alim course. It was not long, however, before I was back at CMC. The time had come to launch the BA in Islamic Studies, and I rejoined the team in a visiting capacity as Aziz Foundation Lecturer in Islamic Studies, lecturing on the Qur’an and Hadith to its first cohort. In 2021, I transitioned to a full-time member of the faculty. My second book, Transcendent God, Rational World: A Māturīdī Theology, had just been published as the first title in a monograph series that I edit for Edinburgh University Press. My development as a theologian provoked a change in my focus as a lecturer too. I took up responsibility for Islamic Theology on the BA, and as part of the College’s revalidation team, had the opportunity to shape its content, just as our lively students shaped me. Here, I would like to pay special tribute to the blessed memory of Fahim Khalil from the BA Class of 2023 who sadly passed away from cancer earlier this year.
As the College has continued to grow in terms of our faculty and physical campus, I had the opportunity to apply for a promotion to Senior Lecturer in Islamic Studies, which has been happily confirmed in the past month. In penning these reflections, I am struck by the extent that CMC has impacted my own intellectual growth. Crucial is the vision for a kind of barzakh – a meeting of the seas – between the scholarly legacy of the Islamic tradition and the academic one of the West. In this little pocket of space, I have been able to both dig into hidden history of Māturīdī theology and to add a new twist, touching on contemporary themes, from the philosophy of mathematics to phenomenology and quantum mechanics. This has been made possible not just by our excellent staff and students, but also by the visiting lecturers and researchers who regularly enrich our conversations, making our small College a major hub of intellectual and spiritual fellowship. I am grateful to be part of the story of a truly unique institution and look forward to continuing to tell it together with my colleagues.