These books are not strictly academic in nature, and they may contain some disputed and debatable points. But, overall these are pretty good books which offer different helpful perspectives on Islam. IMO these books are free from traditionalist/conservative influence and sectarian bias.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLObRadoYSqbrrVXOqqqKBg3KvRbwVau-8&si=cl7k6\_BrjngmPzah
In this short lecture series, Dr. Javad T. Hashmi makes a good case against "Hadith dogmatism".
Dr. Javad is not a Qur'anist, & he and not building a case for Quranism.
Passage is from Rumi’s Fīhi Mā Fīhi.
(Credit: https://x.com/potentia\_9)
Please check this video clip:
https://youtu.be/pTXvQ7mqdsE?is=mVF7GGVg7wtD05Py
Hamza Yusuf admits that Al-Ghazali warned against going too deeply into mathematics, suggesting it could lead to spiritual harm or other negative consequences. Then, Hamza Yusuf discusses the "dark side" of modern technologies. He suggests that many Western scientists were either Nazis or they were involved in black magic and occultism, viewing modern technology as an extension of those practices.
Can you imagine an intelligent person like Hamza Yusuf saying such ridiculous things? Why does he do it? Because he feels obligated to defend the "Ghazalian orthodoxy".
Al-Ghazali may not have personally "killed" science, but the "Ghazalian orthodoxy" that followed him certainly shifted the intellectual priorities of Muslim civilization. The orthodox Ulema discouraged advancements in Science and Tech, thereby contributing (as one of the factors) to delay in industrialization and modernizaiton in the "Muslim lands".
I am not saying we should hate Imam al-Ghazali and throw away all his works. But we should not brush under the carpet the harmful effects of the system he built and the forces he unleashed.
Here are some good books for studies on Sufi metaphysics and Sufi philosophy:
The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn Al-Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination - by William C. Chittick
Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi - by Henry Corbin
An Ocean Without Shore Ibn Arabi, the Book, and the Law - by Michel Chodkiewicz
Mystical dimensions of Islam - by Annemarie Schimmel
The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn Al-'Arabī's Cosmology - by William C. Chittick
Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts - by Toshihiko Izutsu
The Triumphal Sun (Persian Studies Series): A Study of the Works of Jalaloddin Rumi - by Annemarie Schimmel
8. Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition - by Omid Safi
Some good translations and compilations of the original works of classical Sufi scholars, mystics and poets:
The Bezels of Wisdom (Fuşuş al-hikam): a seminal Sufi text by the 12th-century mystic Ibn Arabi. Translated into English by R.W.J. Austin
Masnavi - Rumi's most famous work in six books- translated by Jawid Mojaddedi (Oxford World's Classics)
Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz - by Dick Davis (It brings together three distinct 14th-century voices from Shiraz: Hafez, Jahan Malek Khatun, Obayd-e Zakani)
The Conference of the Birds (Mantiq al-tayr) of Farid ud-Din Attar - Translation by Dick Davis
Al-Ghazali's Path to Sufism: His Deliverance from Error (al-Munqidh min al-Dalal) - Translated into English by R.J. McCarthy
Kashful-Mahjub (The Unveiling of the Veiled) - the oldest surviving Persian treatise on Sufism written by Sheikh Ali Hujwiri - Translated into English by Reynold A. Nicholson