Eyad Abuali is a historian of medieval Sufism. His work interrogates questions of intellectual, social, and cultural history in the Islamic world. He received his PhD in Middle Eastern Studies from SOAS focusing on the Kubrawī school of Sufism. Prior to lecturing at King's, he held positions at Cardiff, the Humboldt, and Utrecht Universities.

His work is rooted in historical and philological methods, in combination with theories and methods in the study of material religion, embodiment, and sensory theory. His work offers a link between intellectual histories and the social and material realities of the Islamic world. His interdisciplinary focus analyses historical questions of emotions, visual practice, spatial practice, and the body.

Research interests and PhD supervision

• Medieval Sufi thought, practice, and institutionalisation
• History of dreaming, visual practice, visual culture, practices of display, and visual theory
• Sensory history, musical practice, material culture
• History of emotions, embodiment, and mysticism
• Non-human agency, history of environment

Teaching

Dr Abuali teaches in the areas of Islamic philosophy, Sufism, and the socio-cultural history of Islam. His teaching introduces students to anthropological and historical methods in the study of Islamic thought, society, and culture.

Selected publications

“The Taʾwīlāt Najmiyya (7th/13th Century) on the Body, the Soul, and the Senses.” In Islamic Sensory History 600-1500. Edited by Christian Lange and Adam Bursi. Leiden: Brill, 2024.

“I Tasted Sweetness and I Tasted Affliction”: Pleasure, Pain, and Body in Medieval Sufi Food
Practices. Senses and Society 17, (2022): 52-67.

“Visualising the Soul: Diagrams and the Subtle Body (Jism laṭif) in Shams al-Dīn al-Daylamī’s
The Mirror of Souls (Mirʾāt al-arwāḥ).” Critical Research on Religion 9, (2021): 157-174.

“Dreams and Visions as Diagnosis in Medieval Sufism: The Emergence of Kubrawī Oneirology.”
Journal of Sufi Studies 8, (2020): 1-29.

“Words Clothed in Light: Dhikr (Recollection), Colour and Synaesthesia in Early Kubrawī Sufism.”
Iran 8, (2019):279-292.