William Franke, Professor of Comparative Literature at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, is the author of On The Universality of What is Not: The Apophatic Turn in Critical Thinking (2020), and Dante’sParadisoand the Theological Origins of Modern Thought: Toward a Speculative Philosophy of Self-Reflection (2021).
In my work on apophatic mysticism and philosophies of the unsayable, I have often encountered outstanding figures of genius who have made unmistakable the eminent role that Muslims have played in developing knowledge.