Dr Maria De Cillis

Area of Focus

Dr De Cillis’s research interests include but are not limited to: Falsafa, Kalam and Shiʿi history; the Islamic tradition in the formative period, particularly Islamic theology, the study of the Qurʾan, Islamic philosophy and Islamic mysticism.

In addition she focuses on Shi‘i Islam and Ismaili philosophy.

Current Research and Forthcoming Projects:

Dr De Cillis is currently working at a number of books such as:

• The Proof of God. An English Translation with an Introduction from the French of Amir-Moezzi’s La Preuve de Dieu (with O. Mir-Kasimov)
• Shiʿi Encounters with Muʿtazili Thought. A colloquium on the relationship between Muʿtazilism and Shiʿi Islam (with Dr D. De Smet and G. Miskinzoda).

This project aims at identifying/routing the continual process of interaction and the historical and intellectual exchange between Shiʿi and Muʿtazili thought.

In particular, by looking at key features in the domain of theology, law, philosophy and the understanding of history, it examines how Muʿtazili trends and approaches to rational

• Monograph: Ismaili Thought in the Mediterranean: Intellectual Trends in Renaissance Italy.

An ongoing study on the intellectual flourishing of Ismaili thought in Italy.

Discerning between historical data and cultural interactions, journeying from the conquest of Sicily till the Italian Renaissance, this study aims at highlighting how major philosophical, mystical, and alchemical sapienzae, voiced by major Italian intellectuals such as Ficino, Della Porta and others, found their roots in earlier Islamic – and to a certain extent – Ismaili notions delineated in the works of prominent thinkers such as Abū Yaʿqub al-Sijistānī and Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī.