AbdulGafar Olawale Fahm

Biography

Dr AbdulGafar Olawale Fahm is a Reader in Islamic Studies at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, and an International Fellow at the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, University of Bayreuth, Germany (Oct. 2024 - Mar. 2025). He holds a PhD in Islamic Spiritual Culture and Contemporary Society from the International Islamic University Malaysia, where he also obtained his MA in Islamic Spiritual Culture and Contemporary Society. His undergraduate studies were completed at the University of Ilorin, where he graduated with a Second Class Honours (Upper Division) in Islamic Studies. 

Dr Fahm’s academic work explores the intersections of Islamic intellectual traditions and contemporary societal challenges, particularly in Africa. His research interests include Islamic ethics, digital technologies and Muslim societies, religious epistemology, Islamic historiography, and the dynamics of knowledge transmission in the digital age. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes, and he regularly contributes to interdisciplinary discourse on decoloniality, ethics, and the future of Islamic learning. 

As part of the LUCAS-LAHRI Virtual Visiting Research Fellowship, Dr Fahm’s current project examines how African Muslim communities, particularly in Nigeria, engage with digital technologies to produce, circulate, and authenticate Islamic knowledge. The project investigates the ethical and epistemological implications of this digital shift, focusing on how local Islamic actors navigate algorithmic bias, platform dependency, and the dominance of Western knowledge infrastructures. Through case studies of platforms, the research traces the entanglements between indigenous religious authority and global digital architectures. It critically engages with debates on decoloniality, Islamic ethics, and digital sovereignty, proposing pathways for fostering epistemic justice and ethical design in the global knowledge economy. By mapping these intersections, Dr Fahm’s work contributes to broader conversations on the future of Islamic intellectual culture in a post-Western world. 

Project Information

Project Title: Digital Islamicate Knowledge and Ethical Futures: Mapping Africa’s Islamic Intellectual Entanglements in the Global Knowledge Economy 

During the LUCAS-LAHRI Virtual Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Leeds, Dr AbdulGafar Olawale Fahm will pursue a research project titled Digital Islamicate Knowledge and Ethical Futures: Mapping Africa’s Islamic Intellectual Entanglements in the Global Knowledge Economy. This study explores how Islamic knowledge is being reshaped by digital technologies in Africa, with a focus on Nigeria as a key site of innovation and contestation. It investigates the growing influence of platforms and how they reflect new forms of knowledge production, circulation, and authority within the Islamicate digital sphere. 

Dr Fahm’s project critically examines the ethical challenges that arise in this context, particularly around issues of authenticity, representation, and epistemic control. The study is framed by the Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah (objectives of Islamic law) and draws on decolonial theory to assess how African Muslim communities negotiate digital infrastructures often governed by Western platforms and epistemologies. The project contributes to urgent conversations about digital sovereignty, Islamic ethics, and post-Western knowledge futures. 

Dr Fahm will be mentored by Professor S. Sayyid (Chair in Decolonial Thought and Rhetoric, School of Sociology and Social Policy) and Professor Mustapha Sheikh (Director, Iqbal Centre for the Study of Contemporary Islam), whose combined expertise in decolonial thought and Islamic intellectual traditions will support the theoretical and practical development of the project. The Fellowship will also support preparations for a British Academy International Visiting Fellowship application and a co-authored scholarly publication.