Raissa von Doetinchem de Rande joined the Department of Religious Studies as assistant professor in January 2021. Dr. von Doetinchem de Rande’s research interests lie at the intersection of the study of Islam and ethics. Her current book project, The Politics of Islamic Ethics: An Untold Story of Human Nature (under contract with Cambridge University Press), focuses on the Qur’anic concept of a divinely created human nature and its reception in early Islamic philosophy. At Rhodes, she teaches classes on Islam, the Qur’an, (comparative) ethics, and methods and theories in the study of Islam and religion more broadly.
Selected Publications
Books
The Politics of Islamic Ethics: An Untold Story of Human Nature
(under contract, Cambridge University Press).
Articles
“A Possible Influence: Ibn Masarra’s (d. 931) Epistle of Contemplation (Risālat al-iʿtibār) and Ibn Ṭufayl’s (d. 1185) Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (Risāla Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān)” (forthcoming, Revista al-Qantara).
“In the Shadow of Hourani: Thinking Islamic Ethics in the 21st Century,” in the Journal of Religious Ethics (forthcoming, Journal of Religious Ethics).
“Is the Fiṭra Mutable? A Reformist Conception of Human Perfection in Shāh Walī Allāh´s Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bāligha,” in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Nov. 2021), pp. 1-23.
“An Exceptional Sage and the Need for the Messenger: The Politics of Fiṭra in a 12th-Century Tale,” in Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 29: 2 (Sept. 2019), pp. 207-226.
Book Reviews
Law and the Rule of God, by Joshua Ralston, Center for Barth Studies (in press).
Restating Orientalism, by W. Hallaq, in Die Welt des Islam, 60:4 (2020), pp. 484-486.
What is Islam, by S. Ahmed, in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 113:1 (2018), pp. 65-69.
Ibn Taymiyya´s Theological Ethics, by S. Vasalou, in Der Islam, 94:2 (2017), pp. 601-606.
Education
M.A.R., Yale University, 2014
B.A., University of Oxford, 2012
