Najah Nadi

Lecturer in Islamic Studies

nn@cambridgemuslimcollege.ac.uk

Academic Bio

Dr. Najah Nadi is a traditionally trained academic with over two decades of learning experiences and over a decade of teaching experience. Her research focuses on Islamic classical theories of knowledge across disciplines of philosophy, theology, law, and spirituality, as well as fatwas and fatwa institutions.

Dr. Najah holds a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford, focusing on the scholarship of the immanent Persian polymath Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (d. 792/1390). She also holds an M.A. in Religious and Theological Studies from Boston University, as well as a B.A. in Islamic Studies from al-Azhar University in Cairo. Dr. Najah has completed several years of traditional training at al-Azhar Mosque, receiving teaching licenses (ijāzāt) in various Islamic sciences. Dr. Najah has served as a junior fellow at the Holberg seminar on Islamic history at Princeton University from 2015-2019, a fellow of peace and reconciliation at Virginia Theological Seminary from 2017-2021. Her teaching courses include Islamic legal theories, classical logic and ontology and Islamic spirituality and ethics.

Academic Memberships & Affiliations
  • Fellow of peace and reconciliation at the Center for Anglican Communion Studies, Virginia Theological Seminary, VA, USA – 2017-present
  • Member of the Princeton Holberg Seminar on Islamic History, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, USA, 2015-2020
  • Member then Facilitator of the Qur’ān and Bible reading seminars, Oxford Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, UK, 2016-2018
  • Member of Steering Committee, Centre for Islamic Legislations and Ethics (CILE), Faculty of Islamic Studies, Qatar, 2013-2015
  • Researcher and Academic Programme Coordinator, Egypt’s Official Fatwa Council, Egypt, 2011-2012

Education

  • DPHIL, Islamic Studies, University of Oxford, 2017 
  • MA, Arts, Religious Studies, Boston University, 2013
  • BA, Islamic Studies, Al-Azhar University, 2008

Research Interests

  • Islamic rationalist sciences (al-ma’qulāt)

Featured Lecture

Select Publications

Nadi, Najah “The Foundationalist and Occasionalist Features of Taftazānī’s (d.792/1390).” In Muna Tatari and Idris Nassery (eds.), Dynamics of Tradition: Law and Theology in Relation (Brill, 2023). Forthcoming

Nadi, Najah. “The Nature of Faith.” In Lejla Demiri, Philip Dorroll and Dale J. Correa (eds.), Māturīdī Theology: A Bilingual Reader, ‘Sapientia Islamica: Studies in Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism’ series, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck (2021). Access here

Nadi, Najah and Mosher, Lucinda, Book Chapter titled ‘God’s People in Inter- Religious Listening, Disagreeing, and Hospitality’ for the Church Publishing Incorporated (“CPI”) publisher in a book titled: God’s Church for God’s World: A Practical Approach to Partnership in Mission. Access here

Nadi, Najah. The Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur’ān (IEQ) II, Editor Iqbal, Muzaffar., s.v. “Blood Money (diya).” Canada: Center for Islamic Sciences Publication, 2021. Access here

Nadi, Najah. The Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur’ān (IEQ) II, Editor Iqbal, Muzaffar., s.v. “Despair (yaʾs).” Canada: Center for Islamic Sciences Publication, 2021. Access here

Nadi, Najah and Iqbal, Muzaffar. The Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur’ān (IEQ) II, Editor Iqbal, Muzaffar., s.v. “Companions (aṣḥāb).” Canada: Center for Islamic Sciences Publication, 2021. Access here

Nadi, Najah. The Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur’ān (IEQ) II, Editor Iqbal, Muzaffar., s.v. “Chambers of the Prophet’s wives (ḥujurāt).” Canada: Center for Islamic Sciences Publication, 2021. Access here

2016 “Al-Jawāhir al-Azhariyya wa-l-Durar al-ʿImādiyya”an annotated edition with introduction of Effet, Emad. Ḥāshiyat fatḥ al-qarīb al-mujīb [Cairo: Dār al-Shurūq, 2018].

Recent & Regularly Taught Courses