AMI is delighted to welcome Dr. Syed Ali Hur M. Kamoonpuri as a Visiting Research Fellow for the Hadith & History research area.
Dr. Syed Ali Hur Kamoonpuri is an academic, researcher, and lecturer specialising in Qurʾānic studies, Islamic intellectual history, Arabic language and literature, and Shīʿī studies. Born in Swaziland, and educated in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, he later moved to India to pursue higher education at Aligarh Muslim University, where he obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Arabic and Islamic Studies, graduating with distinction and receiving university medals for securing first position in his department and faculty.
He was awarded his PhD in 2019 for a four-volume dissertation examining major contributions to the exegesis of Nahj al-Balāgha during the late ʿAbbāsid period. His research interests include Qurʾānic exegesis, Islamic theology, intellectual history, Arabic literature, and the literary heritage of the Ahl al-Bayt (as).
Dr. Kamoonpuri has published more than twenty-five research articles in peer-reviewed national and international journals and has presented lectures and conducted workshops for academic, religious, and community audiences across the world. His scholarly and lecturing engagements have taken him throughout the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, the Middle East, and Africa, where he has sought to promote a deeper understanding of the Qurʾān and the Islamic intellectual tradition.
He has served as Lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at Aligarh Muslim University, where he has taught courses in Arabic linguistics, Qurʾānic Arabic, translation studies, and classical, medieval, and modern Arabic prose and poetry, while also contributing to programmes aimed at developing advanced proficiency in Quranic and classical Arabic. He also lectures extensively at the Al-Islaah Platform and has been doing so for the last six years.
During his fellowship, Dr. Kamoonpuri will present at AMI’s Hadith & History Conference, Esoteric Currents and Intellectual Tensions: The Ghulāt in Formative Shiism, deliver a research seminar on classical vs. later Imāmī creed and its impact on ʿilm al-rijāl, and contribute to episodes of the Thinking Islam podcast.
