Cosmic and Animal Piety in Islam

Walid Ghali

Walid Ghali is an Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at AKU-ISMC, specializing in the Arabic manuscript tradition. He also leads the Aga Khan Library in the United Kingdom. Ghali received his PhD in 2012 from Cairo University, Faculty of Arts, with a focus on Arabic manuscripts traditions. His primary research interests lie in Sufism and the Arabic manuscript tradition. He is currently engaged in a research project examining the Egyptian reformer Muhammad Abduh (1905) through newly discovered documents.

Guillaume de Vaulx

Guillaume de Vaulx is currently the coordinator of the Inistra (Institute of Islamic Studies Strasbourg). He earned his PhD in 2017 from Sorbonne University in Arabic Philosophy, with a thesis on the Epistles of the Brethren in Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa). His main research areas include the philosophy and theology of the 9th and 10th centuries (3rd and 4th centuries of Islam) and the history of Arabic zoology.

Asmaa El Maaroufi

Asmaa El Maaroufi is a Junior Professor of Islamic Philosophy at the Centre for Islamic Theology of Muenster University. She obtained her doctorate in Islamic theology with a dissertation titled “The Ethics of Being-with: Principles of Animal Ethics in Islamic Theology.” Her current research explores the possibilities and opportunities within Islamic philosophical ethics, as well as practical ethical issues such as medical, environmental, and animal ethics.

Nicolas Payen

Nicolas Payen is a Research and Teaching Assistant in Arabic Studies at ENS de Lyon. From 2020 to 2023, he was a doctoral candidate within the ERC-funded project “Animals in the Philosophy of the Islamic World,” under the supervision of Prof. Peter Adamson. Payen’s doctoral dissertation focuses on the concept of the animal and the evolution of zoography during the early Islamic civilization.