Philosophy Club Hosts Dr. Uy

The JMU philosophy club held their third meeting of the spring 2026 semester on March 10th. As usual there was pizza and rational discussion, but this meeting was a little different as the religion professor Dr. Uy gave a guest talk on the work of Saʿd al-Dīn Ḥamūya. Ḥamūya was a 13th century sufi who is notoriously hard to understand. At the meeting students received insight into the work of Ḥamūya that would be hard to find elsewhere.

For many western onlookers, Ḥamūya was an obscure Sufi thinker whose work wasn’t important to understand. The few who took Ḥamūya seriously found themselves sifting through seemingly impenetrable documents, searching for a meaning they couldn’t locate. Students who attended the last philosophy club meeting did not have this experience. Instead, Dr. Uy related Ḥamūya’s work to students in an understandable manner. He compared Ḥamūya’s work to that of free jazz, constantly expanding and reinventing itself. Experience and deconstruction sit at the center of Ḥamūya’s work, forcing readers not just to rethink their practices and beliefs, but to actually practice and believe in a different manner altogether, which pushes them closer to a true understanding of reality.  All in all, Dr. Uy successfully related a meaning of this historically dense material to JMU students.

The JMU philosophy club continues to be a place where difficult ideas become accessible through conversation, curiosity, and some pizza. The next meeting takes place in Cleveland hall at 5:30pm on Tuesday March 31st.  All students are welcome to attend.