Biography
My formation crosses the laboratory and the madrasa. What I found is that the classical Islamic tradition does not need Western psychology to be complete — it needs to be remembered.
Core Philosophy
Bridging Tradition & Science
Biography
I began my academic life in the neuroscience laboratory. My MSc and PhD at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität Munich were in neuro-cognitive psychology and systemic neuroscience — I published in peer-reviewed journals, presented at international conferences, and developed technical expertise in TMS, EEG, and the computational modelling of perception. I know Western science from the inside.
What I also know, from the inside, is that Western science has no adequate account of the soul. Its models of the human being can be brilliant at what they describe but remain silent about everything that matters most: the heart, the spirit, the nafs, the deep structure of human interiority that the classical Islamic tradition spent twelve centuries mapping with extraordinary precision.
My path to Islamic scholarship ran parallel to my scientific formation. A Diploma in Islamic Theology and Philosophy from Cambridge Islamic College, a Diploma in Islamic Psychology from Cambridge Muslim College, years of study of the classical corpus — al-Balkhī, al-Ghazālī, Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Muḥāsibī — not as historical figures but as living clinical authorities. I read them as a scientist reads a methodology: carefully, rigorously, and with the question of how this applies now. While studying academically, I also cultivated by own nafs journey through travels to Muslim majority countries and through direct supervision of shuyukh and ‘ulema.
My work proceeds from a single conviction: the tradition of ʿIlm al-Nafs is not an interesting historical curiosity. It is a complete, clinically operative discipline that diagnoses the conditions of contemporary human suffering more accurately than the DSM, because it identifies them at their roots rather than managing their symptoms. The wrong diagnostic category produces the wrong cure. My work is to restore the right one.
My current work revolves around the same topic, in many ways: research, teaching, counselling, and the long-term project of building institutional structures — drawing on the Bīmāristān tradition — worthy of a tradition that has never been surpassed.
Istituto Islamico di Studi Avanzati, Italy
International Association for Islamic Psychology (IAIP)
Shams — Psicologia Islamica, Italy
Blogging Theology Academy, UK
Italian (Mother Tongue)
English (Advanced)
German (Advanced)
Arabic (Intermediate)
French (Intermediate)
Bosnian (Intermediate)
Persian (Beginner)
Latin (Intermediate)
Appointments Held
2016–2025
Averroè Institute of Islamic Studies, Piacenza, Italy
2019–2022
Società Umanitaria University, Milan
2021–2022
International Open University (IOU), The Gambia
2019–2021
Fondazione Leonardo, Civiltà delle Macchine, Rome
2019–2020
Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan
2019–2020
Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan
2017–2021
Italian Institute of Islamic Studies, Milan
2011–2015
Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Munich
Academic Journey
2023
2018
2015
2015
2011
2009
These works represent an ongoing effort to restore the classical Islamic intellectual tradition to its rightful place in contemporary discourse — not as historical artifact but as living framework for understanding the human condition.
For inquiries about translations, speaking engagements, or collaboration opportunities,
please get in touch.
