Dr. Carl Sharif El-Tobgui

Areas of Expertise

Arabic, theology, philosophy, hermeneutics

Biography

Dr. Carl Sharif El-Tobgui specializes in Islamic thought, particularly theology, law and jurisprudence, and the relationship between reason and revelation. He holds a B.S. in Arabic Language from Georgetown University and master’s and doctoral degrees in Islamic Studies from McGill University. He serves as Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Director of the Arabic Language Program at Brandeis University.

His publications include Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation (Brill, 2020), which he co-translated into Arabic, and his English translation of Farid Suleiman’s Ibn Taymiyya and the Attributes of God (Brill, 2024). He previously taught Arabic at Harvard University and the Middlebury College Summer Arabic Language School. His teaching brings together Islamic intellectual history, Classical Arabic, grammar, literature and poetry.

Selected Publications and Work

El-Tobgui, C.S., Ibn Taymiyya on Reason and Revelation: A Study of Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql. Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Leiden: Brill, 2020. El-Tobgui, Carl Sharif, and Jamie B. Turner. "The Ḥanbalī/Atharī Tradition: Ibn Taymiyya." In Seven Classical Perspectives for Islam and Science, pp. 267-307. Routledge, 2026. El-Tobgui, Carl Sharif. "Ibn Taymiyya on the Incoherence of the Theologians’ Universal Law: Reframing the Debate between Reason and Revelation in Medieval Islam." Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 18 (2018): 63-85. El-Tobgui, Carl Sharif. "From Legal Theory to Erkenntnistheorie: Ibn Taymiyya on Tawātur as the Ultimate Guarantor of Human Cognition." Oriens 46, no. 1-2 (2018): 6-61. El-Tobgui, Carl Sharif. "The Epistemology of Qiyas and Ta'lil Between the Mu'tazilite Abu'L-Husayn Al-Basri and Ibn Hazm Al-Zahiri." UCLA J. Islamic & Near EL 2 (2002): 281.

Selected BIS Teaching

• IRL-531 Islamic Belief and Faith (ʿAqīda)
• IRL-611 Intellectual Foundations of the Modern World
• IRL-501 Academic Writing for Islamic Studies

These are courses taught at BIS. For current academic information, explore the graduate program.

Professional and Community Service

Give lectures to Muslims on topics of contemporary concern in mosques, universities, and online learning platforms
Executive editor of the Journal of Hanafi Studies