Anna Ayşe Akasoy

Anna Ayşe Akasoy is Professor of Islamic Intellectual History at theGraduate Center of the City University of New York. Her scholarship spans arange of subjects, including Islamic intellectual history, cultural encounters,ethics, philosophy, travel literature, and the history of science and medicine.Through her work, she has contributed significantly to contemporaryunderstanding of the diverse intellectual, cultural, and social traditions thatshaped the premodern Islamic world.

Professor Akasoy's research is distinguished by its interdisciplinaryscope and its attention to the movement of ideas across religious, linguistic,and geographical boundaries. One of her major research projects explores thehistory of falconry in the Middle East from its earliest manifestations to theOttoman period. Drawing upon Arabic falconry manuals, veterinary medicine,social and political history, Islamic law and ethics, poetry, archaeology, andart history, this work illuminates the complex relationship between knowledge,nature, and elite culture in the Islamic world.

A second area of her scholarship focuses on Muslim encounters withBuddhism and Indian religious traditions. Her work examines how Muslims understoodand represented Buddhism across centuries of intellectual exchange and culturalcontact. Through studies of figures such as Rashīd al-Dīn and broaderinvestigations into representations of idols and idolatry, she has shed newlight on the ways Muslim scholars engaged with religious traditions beyond theIslamic world.

Professor Akasoy’s third major area of research brings togetherphilosophy and literature through the study of decision-making in Islamicintellectual traditions. Examining the intersections of epistemology, ethics,psychology, political philosophy, and narrative expression, this work exploreshow Muslim thinkers understood human agency, judgment, and moral deliberation.By combining philosophical analysis with literary and historical sources, herscholarship demonstrates the richness of Islamic approaches to questions thatremain deeply relevant today.

In addition to her research, Professor Akasoy teaches widely on topicsincluding tolerance, happiness, cultural encounters, and travel literature. Herwork consistently emphasizes the importance of placing Islamic intellectualtraditions within broader global and comparative contexts while alsohighlighting their distinctive contributions to human thought and culture.

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