HDR Research

Zolt Salontai is a PhD candidate and Adjunct Fellow at Western Sydney University, where he also teaches as a sessional academic; he has additionally taught as a casual academic at the University of New South Wales. His research interests span civilisational history, comparative religion, and European Continental philosophy. His doctoral thesis examines how Martin Heidegger’s ontology of art opens new hermeneutical possibilities for reconceiving Jesus as an art-event (Kunst-Ereignis).

He holds a Bachelor of Arts (majoring in History and Political Thought) from Western Sydney University (2018) and a Master of Liberal Arts from the University of Notre Dame (2021). His publications include "An Examination of the Significance of the Trinitarian Theology of St. Augustine," Aristos 5/1(2020): 1-17. He is co-author, with Milad Milani, of Heidegger, Hermeneutics, and the Interpretation of Islam: Reading the Islamic Past and Present Through Pivotal Muslim Thinkers (Bloomsbury 2026. In Press), “Mystical Knowledge and the Limits of Reason: A Comparative Study of al-Ghazālī and Gregory Palamas” (Sophia), and “The ‘Protestant Reformer’ of Islam? A Comparative Analysis of Ibn Taymiyya and Martin Luther” (Comparative Islamic Studies; forthcoming).

He serves as an administrative assistant for the Religion Research Initiative with the School of Arts, Western Sydney University, and producer for the initiative’s affiliated podcast, Religion in Conversation. Salontai is a past committee member of the university’s Teaching and Learning Committee (TLC).

Marley Krok is undertaking a PhD focused on the development of new religious movements and their treatment under Australian Law. She completed her Master of Research in 2022, “Searching for Origins: Joseph Smith and the Church of Christ” at Western Sydney University. She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws/Bachelor of Theology from the University of Notre Dame Sydney in 2018. While pursuing her undergraduate studies, Marley completed a double major in Laws and Biblical studies, minoring in Philosophy; and was awarded the Sir Zelman Cowen Universities Fund Student Exchange Fellowship Scholarship to study for a semester at the Rothberg Institute at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She has presented papers at the 2020, 2023, and 2024  Australian Association for the Study ofReligion  conferences; and the 2025  XXIII International Association for the History of Religions World  Congress in Krakow Poland. Marley was a co-author on a chapter “The Paradox of Gendered Holiness in Islamic Mysticism,” in Islam, Civility and Political Culture, edited by Milad Milani and Vassilios Adrahtas, 157-180, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, and appeared on the ABC podcast The Religion and Ethics Report, 9 April 2025.

Ali Hammoud is a PhD candidate at Western Sydney University. He is broadly interested in Shīʿīsm, Islamicate intellectual history, and Persian poetry. His doctoral project examines intra-Shīʿī debates on Sufism in the late Safavid period, with a particular focus on polemical treatises composed during the reign of Shah Suleyman. He has published “Interpretations of Qurʾānic Violence in Shīʿī Islam,” in Violence and Peace in Sacred Texts: An Interreligious Perspective, edited by Maria Power and Helen Paynter, 165-186, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023 and “That I May Unfold The Pain Of Yearning.”   Sydney Review of Books,  2023. Ali has also developed a reputation as a skilled translator of Persian poetry, and was a key member of the translation team for the first complete English translation of Attar’s Mosībatnāmeh.

Beyond academia, Ali has published extensively in media outlets, such as the Guardian, the Conversation, and Mondoweiss.

Kulsoom Hussain is a PhD candidate at Western Sydney University, specialising in the shift from ambiguity to the creation of a systemised framework for the believing woman in Islam. Kulsoom completed a Master of Research in 2024, in which she wrote a thesis titled: “Where are the Women? The Gap Between Dogmatic and Feminist Discourse in Muslim Women”. Her research reflected a deep interest in the confluence of women, religion, history, and culture, critiquing the emergence of both feminist and dogmatic narratives within Islam. Extending from her thesis, Kulsoom’s PhD will critically explore how traditional thinkers, with a particular focus on Abul Ala Maududi, redefined and institutionalised gender roles within Islamic thought to advance a specific ideology, rather than preserve the spiritual essence of the faith. By engaging with Maududi’s writings and his influence, Kulsoom aims to highlight the ideological undercurrents that have shaped modern perceptions of women’s religious and social roles within Islam. Through her work, Kulsoom seeks not only to interrogate the systems that have confined the believing woman, but also uncovering the spiritual and intellectual liberation that lies beyond societal and traditional frameworks.

Layla Kassira is a PhD candidate at Western Sydney University and HDR Scholarship recipient. Her main research interests are Islam in the modern world and Islam's intellectual tradition. Layla completed a Master of Research in 2024, in which she wrote a thesis titled: "Authenticity, Faith and Politics: The Problem of Modern Muslim Experience". Extending from her thesis, which was focused on the role of political thought in the worldview and experience of modern Muslims— Layla's PhD is interested in patterns of modernist Islamic thought and the wider historical development of Islam's intellectual tradition. Employing and investigating the works of Algerian-French scholar Mohammed Arkoun, Layla is interested in how Islam's historical struggle with power and authority, both politically and intellectually, has manifested in the modern context. It is ultimately a project with a preoccupation in Muslim existentialism that is reflected in an interdisciplinary approach that is foremostly historical and textual analysis, but which engages in theories of philosophy, anthropology and sociology.

Boris Handal is a PhD candidate in the field of Comparative Religions at Western Sydney University. He has published several books and articles on 19th Century Persian culture, Islam, Babism and the Bahá’í Faith. He has a background in tertiary and school teaching having taught in Latin America, South East Asia and Australia. Boris has completed postgraduate studies at Sydney and Edith Cowanuniversities. His current work involves the Story of Jose in the Five Abrahamic Religions. Boris is a member of the NSW Association for Studies of Religion.

Julian Davidge is a Master of Research candidate at Western Sydney University. As an undergraduate, he majored in History and Political Thought, with submajors in Ancient History, Arabic, and Islamic Studies. His research focuses on Northwestern European history, religion and culture, exploring primarily the philosophical and spiritual evolution of the Norse throughout the course of the Viking Age.

Rhys Harford has recently enrolled in the Master of Research program. During his undergraduate studies, he majored in Islamic Studies and Philosophy. His research explores the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and its affinities with the Persian mystical tradition, particularly in relation to suffering and spiritual transformation.