Waseem El-Rayes
- Associate Professor
- Faculty
- Case Hall Room S306
- 842 Chestnut Rd
- East Lansing, MI 48825
- elrayes@msu.edu
BIOGRAPHY
Waseem El-Rayes is Associate Professor of Political Theory at James Madison College, Michigan State University. He specializes in political philosophy with a focus on ancient Greek and medieval Islamic political thought, including the work of Plato, Aristotle, al-Fārābī, al-Ghāzālī, Ibn Rushd, and Ibn Khaldūn. His research examines the contrast between ancient-medieval and modern thought with respect to the problem of political legitimacy as well as the relationship between piety and politics. Along with a St. Augustine’s Press co-edited book, he has articles that appeared in Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph, Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, Religious Studies and Theology, and The Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. He is now completing a book entitled Against the Politics of Forever: Ibn Khaldun and the Science of Culture. The work is an interpretive analysis of Ibn Khaldun’s science of culture as it is articulated in his Kitab al-‘Ibar in general and its Muqaddima in particular.