About Gary Carl (Muhammad) Legenhausen

Gary Carl (Muhammad) Legenhausen was born in 1953 in New York. He is an American professor of philosophy whose research interests lie primarily in western philosophy, philosophy of religion, and Islamic philosophy. To date he has taught various courses at many Iranian academic centres such as the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute, Qum University, Tarbiat Modarres University, etc. Moreover, he is currently teaching at Paderborn University, Germany. He holds a PhD in philosophy from Rice University (1983). In 1983, after he was acquainted with Shi’a Islam, he decided to convert his Catholic faith to Islam. As an advocate of what he calls “non-reductive religious pluralism”, he has written a book entitled Islam and Religious Pluralism. He has been a sympathizer of inter-faith/inter-religious dialogue, and has performed duties on the advisory board of the Society for Religious Studies in Qom. He is also a member of the founding board of the Shi`ite Studies Center in Qom, and serves on the scientific board of the Human Rights Center of Mofid University, Qom. In 2010, he was officially recognised as a perpetual figure (Chehriyi Māndigār) in Islamic studies.

About the MA

Philosophy study programmes are often designed in an agnostic way – as if God didn’t exist - and do not consider the documented growing interest in religion, both globally and among philosophy students in particular.

In those rare cases where religion is indeed considered, only the relationship between philosophy and Christianity is delved into, as if other religions, especially Judaism and Islam, did not exist and played little to no role in the history of philosophy.

The PhilTeR Master's fills these gaps with an international, interreligious and high quality online study programme in Philosophy, Theology and Religions.

Get to know more about the curriculum programme and have your questions answerd by Professors and our Tutors.

Register and get the Zoom link for the Open Day here.