Shabbir Akhtar was aBritish philosopher, poet, researcher, writer and multilingual scholar. He was on the Faculty of Theology and Religions at theUniversity of Oxford. His interests includedpolitical Islam,Quranic exegesis, revival of philosophical discourse in Islam, Islamophobia, extremism, terrorism andChristian-Muslim relations as well as Islamic readings of theNew Testament. Shabbir Akhtar was also aSøren Kierkegaard scholar. Akhtar's articles have appeared both in academic journals and in the UK press. Several of his books have been translated into the major Islamic languages.
Shabbir Akhtar was born in Pakistan, raised inBradford in the United Kingdom. After studying philosophy (BA and MA degrees) atUniversity of Cambridge, Shabbir Akhtar got his PhD inphilosophy of religion fromUniversity of Calgary, Alberta, Canada (1984), his thesis being "Religion in the Age of Reason: Faith and the Apostasy of Humanism."[1]
Shabbir Akhtar held several academic appointments over the course of his career. From 2012 to 2023, he served as an Associate Member of the Faculty of Theology and Religions at theOxford University. Between 2002 and 2011, he was Associate Professor of Philosophy atOld Dominion University in the United States. Earlier, from 1994 to 1997, he taught as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at theInternational Islamic University inMalaysia.
His first book,Reason and the Radical Crisis of Faith (1987), examined the challenges of sustaining religious belief in a secular context. The book was well received, with philosopher and critic Keith Parsons writing that it “should be widely read,” and praising Akhtar’s “insight, wit, and lucidity,” as well as his “scrupulous fairness” in engaging with opposing viewpoints.[2]
In 1989, during the controversy surrounding the publication ofThe Satanic Verses bySalman Rushdie, Akhtar spoke on behalf of the Bradford Council of Mosques. In a provocative article published inThe Guardian on 27 February 1989, he wrote: "There is no choice in the matter. Anyone who fails to be offended by Rushdie's book ipso facto ceases to be a Muslim...Those Muslims who find it intolerable to live in a United Kingdom contaminated with the Rushdie virus need to seriously consider the Islamic alternatives of emigration (hijrah) to the House of Islam or a declaration of holy war (jihād) on the House of Rejection."[3]
The article also included a widely quoted line: "The next time there are gas chambers in Europe, there is no doubt concerning who'll be inside them."[4][5]
In the mid-1990s, Akhtar returned to academia in Malaysia, but became disillusioned with what he perceived as a lack of commitment to rational thought in educational practice within Muslim-majority societies.[6]
In later years, Akhtar published a number of philosophically rigorous and polemically engaged works aiming to articulate a contemporary Islamic philosophical framework.[7]
'Prophet Warning: Justification, Retribution and Salvation in Islam – A Comparative Study’, in P. Koslowski (ed.), The Anxiety of End-Time (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2012).
‘The Revival of Philosophy among Muslims’, in D. Cheetham and R. King (Eds.) Contemporary Practice and Method in the Philosophy of Religion (London: Continuum/T&T Clark, 2008).
‘The Dialogue of Islam and the World Faiths: The Role of Speculative Philosophy’, in P. Koslowski (ed.), Philosophy Bridging the World Religions (Boston, Mass.: Kluwer Academic, 2003).
‘The Limits of Internal Hermeneutics’ and ‘Critical Quranic Scholarship and Theological Puzzles’, in H. Vroom and J. Gort (eds.), Holy Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi, 1997).
‘The Possibility of a Philosophy of Islam’, in O. Leaman and S.H.Nasr (eds.), The Routledge History of Islamic Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1995).
‘Relationships Between Muslim Parents and Children in a Non-Muslim Country’, in M. King (ed.), God's Law versus State Law (London: Grey Seal, 1995).
‘The Future of Christian-Muslim Relations’, in D. Cohn-Sherbok (ed.), The Canterbury Papers, (London: Bellew, 1992).
‘The Limits of Liberalism’ in Bhikhu Parekh (ed.), Free Speech (London: Commission for Racial Equality, 1990).
‘Art or Literary Terrorism?’, in D. Cohn-Sherbok (ed.), The Salman Rushdie Controversy in Interreligious Perspective (Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1990).
