Dr Afifi Al-Akiti
Dr. Al-Akiti is the Kuwait Fellow in Islamic Studies at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, UK. He is also the Islamic Centre Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford and is a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. He is the first Malay to be appointed to such a position in the university. Dr. Al-Akiti is also the Assistant Editor of the Journal of Islamic Studies
Dr. Al-Akiti trained as a theologian and philologist in both the Islamic and Western traditions. Educated originally by scholars of the Muslim world, he subsequently received a First Class degree in Scholastic Philosophy and History of Science from the Queen’s University of Belfast, where he was awarded various scholarships to read for his Masters degree and then DPhil in Medieval Arabic Thought as a Clarendon Scholar in 2008.
His book Defending the Transgressed by Censuring the Reckless against the Killing of Civilians (2005) first appeared as an online response to the London bombings in 2005, and gained huge popularity.
Dr. Afifi al-Akiti has been listed in the 500 Most Influential Muslims, since 2010. In 2011, he was conferred the Darjah Paduka Mahkota Perak (PMP), the Malaysian equivalent to the British CBE. In 2012, he was the sole recipient of the Darjah Dato’ Paduka Cura Si-Manja Kini (DPCM) in the Sultan of Perak Birthday Honours List, gaining the Malaysian title of ‘Dato’.
