Faculty Profile

Since 2016, Essam Fahim has been on study leave to pursue his PhD at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, where he is a Jefferson Fellow. At UVa, he is focusing on modern religious thought, the relationship between philosophy and theology, and humanistic and social scientific studies of religion more broadly. He is especially interested in modern attempts that attempt to reform, revive and revitalize Islamic law, how Islamic thinkers imagine the nature of scriptural hermeneutics and ethics, how their projects relate to the contexts out of which they arise, as well as how they are received. He also works closely with the Religion, Politics and Conflict initiative at UVa, and participates in its study of religious language and behavior.

Before this, he taught at LUMS for three years, teaching the core Islamic Studies course along with courses in the early history of Islam. He completed his MPhil in Philosophy of Religion from the University of Cambridge in 2015, his MA in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from Indiana University in 2012, and his bachelors from LUMS in 2010.

His research interests include:

• Philosophical and Scriptural Hermeneutics
• Philosophical and Theological Ethics
• Ethnographic Approaches to Religion
• Religion and Violence
• Religion and Modernity
• Islamic Studies (especially Islamic Law and Islam in Pakistan)