Maribel Fierro is Research Professor at the Institute for the Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). PhD Universidad Complutense Madrid 1985. She has published on the political and intellectual history of the pre-modern Islamic West (al-Andalus and North Africa), on Islamic law and on the representation of violence in Islamic societies. Among her books: ¿Qué sabemos de … al-Andalus? (2024), ʽAbd al-Muʼmin. Mahdism and caliphate in the Islamic West (2021), ʽAbd al-Rahman III, the first Cordoban caliph (2005), The Almohad revolution (2012) and Al-Andalus: saberes e intercambios culturales (2001; translated into French and Arabic). She has edited The Routledge Handbook on Muslim Iberia (2020). Orthodoxy and heresy in Islam: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies (2013) and The Western Islamic world, eleventh-eighteenth centuries, vol. II of The New Cambridge History of Islam (2010); with Sonja Brentjes and Tilman Seidensticker, Rulers as authors in Islamic societies (2024); with Mayte Penelas, The Maghrib in the Mashriq. Knowledge, travel and identity (2021) and with Christian Lange Public violence in Islamic societies: Power, discipline and the construction of the public sphere (7th-19th centuries CE) (2009). She has held visiting positions at the universities of Chicago, Hamburg, Leiden, Exeter, Paris-1, Toulouse and EHESS (Paris). Her work has been supported by Spanish Ministry of Education, the European Research Council and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Professor of Psychology, Georgia Southern University

I am prof. Mohammad Tawalbeh,  working at Yarmouk University 1995, and got the "prof" in 2015.

Anar Gafarov was born on July 1, 1979, in Baku, Azerbaijan. He graduated from Secondary School No. 177 in Baku in 1997. Between 1997 and 2002, he pursued double majors at the Faculty of Theology of Baku State University, completing undergraduate and graduate studies in Theology and Arabic Language Teaching with a thesis entitled “Traditional Turkic Religious Beliefs and Their Manifestations in Contemporary Azerbaijan.” He graduated with a diploma of outstanding achievement.

From 2002 to 2004, he completed a master’s degree at the Institute of Social Sciences of Marmara University (Republic of Türkiye), Department of Islamic Philosophy. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Mustafa Çağrıcı, he successfully completed his master’s thesis titled “Rāghib al-Isfahānī’s Conception of Human Nature and Ethics.” Between 2005 and 2009, Gafarov pursued doctoral studies at the Institute of Social Sciences of Ankara University, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Mehmet Bayraktar, he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Moral Philosophy,” earning the title of Doctor of Philosophy.

During his undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral studies, Anar Gafarov actively participated in social responsibility initiatives, knowledge competitions, and civilizational projects, receiving several awards. These include an Honor Certificate (2001) awarded by the Rectorate of Baku State University for success in knowledge competitions; the Successful Article Author Award (2007) in a scientific article competition titled “Heydar Aliyev and the Contemporary Azerbaijani State,” organized by the Azerbaijani Consulate General in Istanbul; and the Teacher of the Year Award (2012) presented by the President of the Directorate of Religious Affairs of Türkiye at the TDV Baku Turkish High School.

In 2009, Gafarov briefly served as a regional advisor and as an expert in foreign relations and press security at the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Between 2010 and 2014, he taught courses in philosophy and the history of education at Azerbaijan Slavic University, Khazar University, and Azerbaijan State University of Economics. Additionally, from 2010 to 2012, he delivered seminars and lectures at the Faculty of Theology of Midwestern Lombard University in the United States and at relevant departments of other universities on topics such as “True Islam and Muslim Identity” and “The Concept of the Perfect Human Being in Islamic Thought.”

In 2013, Gafarov contributed as a coordinator and reviewer to the special issue (No. 22) of the Journal of Social Sciences of Türkiye, dedicated to the memory of National Leader Heydar Aliyev. In 2012, the international symposium titled “Middle Eastern Realities in the Context of Scientific Research: Legal, Political, Socio-Economic, and Psychological Dimensions” was held as part of a project prepared by Anar Gafarov and his team with the support of the Middle East Research Center of Türkiye. Within the scope of projects to which he provided scholarly contributions, international conferences titled “The Genocide of Azerbaijanis in Archival Documents” and “The Armenian Question in Azerbaijani and Turkish Literature” were organized in Baku on March 29–30, 2013, with the support of the Azerbaijan and Turkey Writers’ Unions, during which he engaged in both academic and practical activities.

Furthermore, with the support of the Ministry of Family and Social Policies of Türkiye, Gafarov implemented projects focused on “Our Dreams, Goals, and Values” and organized training seminars for educators working in children’s homes within the framework of social responsibility projects. With the support of the ILKE (Science, Culture, and Education) Research Center, he made scholarly contributions to workshops held in Istanbul in 2015–2016 titled “Islamic Moral Thought Project I: The Source of Morality” and “Islamic Moral Thought Project II: Conscience,” presenting studies entitled “The Source of Moral Propositions in Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī” and “The Concept of Conscience in Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī.” Both studies were published as co-authored books by Nobel Publishing.

Between 2009 and 2010, Gafarov worked as a researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences; from 2010 to 2014, at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology; from 2014 to 2017, as a contracted faculty member at the Faculty of Theology of Bülent Ecevit University (Türkiye); from 2017 to 2021, as an associate researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences; and from 2018 to 2021, as an associate professor at the Azerbaijan Institute of Theology. Since 2021, he has been serving as the Head of the Department of Religious Studies at the Azerbaijan Institute of Theology.

Throughout his academic career in domestic and international universities, Anar Gafarov has taught courses in Islamic philosophy, moral philosophy, philosophy of religion, kalām (Islamic theology), contemporary Islamic thought, history of religions, history of Islamic sects, psychology of religion, sociology of religion, history of Islamic civilization, history of education, religious education, and Islamic ethics. His primary research interests include Islamic philosophy, Islamic political thought, moral philosophy, the relationship between politics and ethics, medieval philosophy, and moral psychology.

The author of 16 single- and co-authored books, Gafarov has also served as the scientific editor of nine books and the editor of two books published in Azerbaijan and Türkiye. He has translated ten books from Arabic, Persian, English, and Turkish in the fields of philosophy, moral philosophy, Sufism, and Islamic ethics. He has published 25 articles in national and international academic journals and has contributed with his research to numerous national and international conferences and symposia. In addition, he has carried out 11 projects in Azerbaijan and Türkiye in the areas of social responsibility and modern scientific research methods and serves on the editorial boards of eight national and international academic journals.

Dr. Abdullah Demir, a native of Yozgat, was born in Kırşehir in 1980...

Dr Seyfeddin Kara is an Assistant Professor of Islamic Origins at the University of Groningen. He holds a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Durham. Dr Kara’s academic journey includes a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship, with research terms at the University of Toronto, Lund University, and the University of Göttingen. 
He has received significant grants from the European Union, Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and other funding bodies.
Dr Kara has also taught at the University of Durham, UK, and served as an Assistant Professor at Hartford International University, US. His scholarly work encompasses research articles in journals such as the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, the Muslim World, and Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. Kara authored The Integrity of the Qur’an: Sunni and Shi‘i Historical Narratives (2024) and In Search of Ali ibn Abi Talib's Codex: History and Traditions of the Earliest Copy of the Qurʾan (2018). He specialises in the study of early Islam, the Qur'an, hadith, Sunni and Shiʿi Islam, as well as the study of Muslims in Europe. He also works with Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models (LLMs) to develop new methods for studying Islamic texts. He is presently open to supervising PhD candidates.