Dr Saira Malik

Overview

I work on Islamic History and Culture.  My main focus is on the history and philosophy of science and ideas. I am interested in the Islamic reception of the Greek, Syriac and Persian intellectual legacy, as well as the Western Latin reception of Islamic cultural heritage.  I deal with a wide range of sources including textual (mainly manuscript), material, instruments, art & architecture.  I work principally with Arabic, but also with Persian, Urdu, Ottoman, Greek, and Latin.

I am also interested in how the Islamic historical and cultural heritage shapes contemporary Muslim lives, particularly for contemporary British Muslims in terms of migration, identity, citizenship, and integration.

I am a historian by training, but I use a multi-disciplinary approach to both my research and teaching, drawing from a range of disciplines, including heritage studies, material science, philosophy, theology, politics, law, anthropology.

I was able to bring these varied interests together in the public-facing multi-disciplinary project, '1001 Inventions: Discover the Muslim Heritage in Our World'.  This project has resulted in museum exhibitions in the UK, US, and the Middle-East, a National Geographic publication, and a dedicated website.

I teach and supervise on Islamic History & Culture broadly, including on the history, migration and settlement of Muslims in Britain.  My recent teaching has focused on Islam and Muslims in Wales and uses a range of sources including oral testimony, AV material, art & architecture, maps, heritage sites, Welsh literature, along with research produced by the SHARE Islam-UK Centre.

I welcome enquiries about doctoral research in any of these areas of study.

Select Publications

Islamic Science in the 11th CE / 5th AH Century: Ibn Sīnā on Sight, Light, and Light-Phenomena. Leiden: Brill, 2025/26.

"Ancient Authority in Arabic-Islamic Scientific Writing and Practice." In Tools, Techniques, and Technologies, edited by Laurence Totelin and Emma Perkins. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025.

"Countering the sharī‛a: How material culture constructs a narrative of an 'Islamic' identity that counters the sharī‛a." Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies 2, 2 (2017): 76-99.

"Observation Versus Experiment: An Adequate Framework for Analysing Scientific Experimentation?" Journal for General Philosophy of Science 48 (2017): 71-95.