Research Profile

Mehmet Akif Aydın studied Islamic theology and philosophy at the University of Osnabrück. In 2024, he completed his MA in Islamic Theology at the University of Osnabrück with the thesis: “Möglichkeit metaphysischer Erkenntnis auf Grundlage der Vernunft – Eine kritische Analyse der Ansätze al-Ġazālīs und Immanuel Kants (Possibility of metaphysical knowledge on the basis of reason - A critical analysis of the concepts of al-Ġazālīs and Immanuel Kant)” which was then awarded and published as part of the BestMasters series by Springer.

He is currently working as a research associate at the Institute of Islamic Studies at Freie Universität Berlin and is preparing his PhD in Islamic intellectual history, focusing on Sufi epistemology in the Akbari school and its tension with rational theology (ʿilm al-kalām).

 

Dissertation Project

Kashf as a Form of Spiritual Epistemology in the Akbarī School

My research examines how Sufi thought, especially within the Akbarī tradition founded by Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240) understands knowledge beyond rational reasoning. At the center is the concept of kashf (spiritual unveiling), which represents a distinctive form of epistemology in Islamic mysticism. The project explores how this approach to knowledge developed in the Akbarī school and how it engages with rational theology and philosophy.