Raissa von Doetinchem de Rande

Faculty Assistant Professor of Religious Ethics and Islamic Studies; also in the College; Affiliated Faculty member at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the MacLean Center for Biomedical Ethics at the Pritzker School of Medicine

Professor de Rande’s research interests are located at the intersection of the study of Islam and Religious Ethics. She is particularly interested in (premodern) Islamic ethical and political thought, as well as methodological questions in (comparative) religious ethics and the study of Islam.

Professor de Rande received her PhD from Princeton University (Department of Religion) in 2021; in addition, she holds a BA from the University of Oxford (2012) and an MAR from Yale Divinity School (2014). Previously, Professor de Rande served as an Asst. Professor of Religious Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN.

Her first book, The Politics of Islamic Ethics: Human Nature and Hierarchy in the Philosophical Tradition was published by Cambridge University Press in 2025. The book focuses on the Qurʾanic concept of a divinely created human nature and its reception in early Islamic philosophy. Professor de Rande has also authored articles in Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, Body and Religion, Teaching Theology and Religion, Revista al-Qantara, The Journal of Religious Ethics, and The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

Professor de Rande is currently working on a new project focused on the religious, ethical, and political thought of al-Fārābī (d. 950). She also serves as President of the Society for the Study of Muslim Ethics (SSME).