Dr Milad Milani is a Senior Lecturer in religious studies at Western Sydney University. He specialises in the study of Sufism and Islam through a comparative religious studies lens. Dr Milani’s research draws on Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology and more broadly on other thinkers such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche for analysis, paying special attention to how the history of religion is understood in present-day thinking about religion. A central part of his research concerns the phenomenon of "Persian Sufism" and "Sufi poiesis," with special reference to Attar of Nishapur. He is broadly interested in the ontology of Islam. Dr Milani is an internationally published academic and has authored three books on Sufism: The Nature of Sufism (Routledge 2021), Sufi Political Thought (Routledge 2018), and Sufism in the Secret History of Persia (Routledge 2014). He has one co-edited book: Islam, Civility and Political Culture (Palgrave Mcmillan 2020).