We are delighted to be welcoming the following academic publishers to the Second Annual Conference of BRAIS:

Ashgate Publishing Ltd

Bloomsbury

Brill

Edinburgh University Press

Equinox

Gerlach Press

The Islamic Texts Society

Oxford University Press

Routledge

Click on any of the publishers for more information.

BRAIS 2015

THE SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE
OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR ISLAMIC STUDIES

London, 13–15 April 2015 

Senate House, University of London

In Collaboration with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and Human Rights Consortium, School of Advanced Study, University of London

 

 

 Conference Programme

(A book of abstracts can be downloaded by clicking HERE).

 

Day 1: Monday, 13 April

 

9.00–9.30, Registration and refreshments

9.30–9.45, Welcome and opening remarks (Beveridge Hall)

 

9.45–11.00: SESSION 1. Qur’anic Studies (Plenary)

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Shuruq Naguib (University of Lancaster)

Muhammad Abdel Haleem (SOAS), The Qur’an in English in the age of BRAIS

Andrew Rippin (University of Victoria), The reception of scholarship on the Qur'an in the Muslim world: issues and prospects

 

11.00–11.30, Refreshments

 

11.30–13.00: SESSION 2. SIX PARALLEL PANELS

 

Panel 1: Text-Critical Approaches in Qur’anic Studies

Room: Bedford, Chair: Muhammad Abdel Haleem (SOAS)

Mariana Klar (SOAS), Beyond a Form-Critical Surat al-Kahf

Nicolai Sinai (University of Oxford), Editorial Expansion and Literary Growth in the Medinan Suras

Holger Zellentin (University of Nottingham), Secondary Synchronicity as Literary Device

 

Panel 2: Islamic Law and Human Rights

Room: Bloomsbury, Chair: Mohammad Mesbahi (The Islamic College)

Mohammad Mesbahi (The Islamic College), Muslim family law: The rights of the wife, in light of International human rights (co-authored by Islam Uddin, Middlesex University)

Nehad Khanfar (The Islamic College), A Comparative Analysis of the Concept of Citizenship under Al-Madinah Constitution

Mahboubeh Sadeghinia (The Islamic College), A Conceptual Analysis towards Comprehensive Human Security: An Islamic Approach

Haider Al Khateeb (Middlesex University), The abuse of Islamic Caliphate concept in causing humanitarian crises by violent extremism

 

Panel 3: Adab and Sufi Ethics in the Formative Period

Room: Gordon, Chair: Stephen Burge (Institute of Ismaili Studies)

Saeko Yazaki (University of Glasgow): Morality in early Sufi literature: the Treatise of al-Qushayri and the Revelation of the Hidden by Hujwīrī

Annabel Keeler (University of Cambridge): Adab versus ādāb in the discourse of Sarrāj and Sulamī

Harith Ramli (Cambridge Muslim College): Sufi Adab and the Sunna: Balancing Individual Virtue and Social order in the Qūt al-qulūb

 

Panel 4: ʿIlm wa-Taʿallum: Madrasas, Dialectics, and Mysticism in the 13th-16th Centuries

Sponsored by the ERC Project IMPAcT

Room: Woburn A, Chair: Judith Pfeiffer (University of Oxford)

Talal Al-Azem (University of Oxford), The Education of an Historian of Education: ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Nuʿaymī (d. 927/1521)

Walter Young (University of Oxford), Models for Argument Analysis: Scripting al-Samarqandī’s Risāla fī Ādāb al-Baḥth (read by Judith Pfeiffer)

Giovanni Martini (University of Oxford), ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla al-Simnānī’s ‘Hybrid-Structure’: Promoting the Preeminence of the Sufi Mode of Knowledge

 

Panel 5: Education, Violent Extremism and Criticality

Room: Woburn B, Chair: Mike Diboll (Institute of Education, UCL)

Mike Diboll (Institute of Education, UCL), ISISes of the Imagination: Multiple Ontologies for the ISIS Phenomenon, and the ISIS of False Consciousness

Reza Gholami (Middlesex University), Diasporic  Education and ‘Democratic Energy’: a Critical Exploration of ‘Muslim Schools’ and ‘Supplementary’ Education in the UK

Farid Panjwani (CREME), Extremism and ethics: an exploration of meta-ethical theory of Muslim extremism

Farah Ahmed (IOE) Autonomy, authority and pedagogy in British Islamic schools: An exploration of Halaqah (Circle Time), an oral pedagogy that uses reflexivity and dialogue to develop autonomy in the Muslim learner

 

Panel 6: Islamic Branding: global perspectives, local consumptionscapes

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Reina Lewis (London College of Fashion)

Nazli Alimen (London College of Fashion), Islamic Sub-Markets and Their Consumers: Faith-Inspired Communities in Turkey

Reina Lewis (London College of Fashion), The risks and opportunities of Islamic branding: commercial, spiritual, political

Jonathan Wilson (University of Greenwich), Being hip, happy, and halal – more than meat and money

 

13.00–14.30, Lunch

 

14.30–16.00: SESSION 3. SIX PARALLEL PANELS

 

Panel 1: Gender A

Room: Bedford, Chair: Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor (University of Derby)

Aljawharah Alassaf (AMIDEAST HQ- Washington DC), Religious Practice vs. Social Custom

Adal Almoammar (SOAS), The Cultural Concept of “Incompatibility in Lineage” and the Rights of Women in Saudi Arabia

Julia Lisiecka (SOAS), Re-reading Huda Shaarawi’s “Harem Years”– Bargaining with the patriarchy in the changing Egypt

 

Panel 2: Law and Ethics A

Room: Bloomsbury, Chair: Ali-Reza Bhojani (Al-Mahdi Institute)

Rana Alsoufi (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg), The use of Analogy as a Legal Method in Islamic Law

Sohail Hanif (University of Oxford), 6th/12th Century Ḥanafī Fatawa Literature and the Consolidation of School Identity

Mahadzirah Mohamad (Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin), Maqasid Syariah Approach of Measuring Quality of Life

Karen Taliaferro (Georgetown University – School of Foreign Service, Qatar), Mediating Reason and Revelation: Istihsān and the Necessity of Taqlid

 

Panel 3: Inter-Religious relations

Room: Gordon, Chair: Damian Howard SJ (Heythrop College, London)

Alex Mallet (University of Exeter), Two writings by al-Ṭurṭushī as Muslim reactions to the Frankish presence in the Levant at the beginning of the crusading period

Abdulla Galadari (Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education), Corruption of Scriptures: “Yuḥarrifūn” as a Contrast to the Term “Tuqīmū” in the Qur’an

David Beamish (SOAS), “And the Caliph was glad to command a people so proud of their liberties”: Albert Fua in Paris, 1900-1914

Esma Çakır (Dokuz Eylül University), Is God The Best Mediator Of All Times?

Kenan Cetinkaya (Bozok University), Turkish Response to the Christian Call for Dialogue

 

Panel 4: Classical Islamic Thought A

Room: Woburn A, Chair: Jon Hoover (University of Nottingham)

Elisabetta Loi (University of Aberdeen), Atheism in Islam? The case of al-Rāzī

Mansoureh Ebrahimi (University Technology of Malaysia), Maʿrifa and Muḥabba’s Relations in al-Ghazālī’s Kīmiyā-i-Saʿādat

Farid Suleiman (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg), Ibn Taymiyya’s rejection of the ḥaqīqa/majāz-dichotomy and its significance for the controversy over the interpretation of the divine attributes

Ahmad Achtar (Heythrop College, University of London), Ibn Khaldun’s defence of Ash’arism against the criticism of Ibn Taymiyya regarding Qur’anic anthropomorphism

 

Panel 5: Contemporary Issues A

Room: Woburn B, Chair: Carool Kersten (King's College London)

Mehdi Beyad (SOAS), The Role of Islam in the Political Thought of Muhammed ‘Abduh

Sevcan Ozturk (Social Sciences University of Ankara), Rereading the ‘Reconstruction’: Iqbal’s view of the problems of Islamic thought

Omar Anchassi (Queen Mary University; London), Fazlur Rahman’s ‘Qur’ānic Turn’, Islamic Law and Gender

 

Panel 6: Muslims in the West A

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Jørgen Nielsen (University of Copenhagen)

Muhammed  Altıntaş (Erciyes University), Muslim Schools in England, Holland and France- A Comparative Study

Yahya Birt (University of Leeds) Crisis, Reaction and Periodization, or what’s at stake in how academics frame British Muslims?

Amédée Turner (MA Oxon, QC) and Davide Tacchini (The Catholic University, Milan), Muslim Grassroots in the West Discuss Democracy

Masoumeh Velayati (Al-Maktoum College), Muslim women’s Activism in the UK: Commitment to Moral and Religious Principles

 

16.00–16.30, Refreshments

 

16:30–18:00: SESSION 4. SIX PARALLEL PANELS

 

Panel 1: Abdessalam Yassine’s Thought

Room: Bedford, Chair: Hammadi Nait-Charif (Bournemouth University),

Discussant: George Joffé (Cambridge University)

Abdelouahad Motaouakal (Imam Yassine Foundation), An Explanation of Yassine’s Alternative Approach to Reform in Morocco

Yahya Abdellaoui (European Institute of Human Science), Social Justice: Its Principles and Rules in the Thought of Imam Abdessalam Yassine

Monir Birouk (Mohammed University, Rabat), Spiritual Purification between Rule-bound Ethics and Political Activism: Insights from Taha Abdurrahmane and Abdess

 

Panel 2: Legal Reform in the Intellectual Contributions of Ibn ‘Āshūr: Maqāsid Discourse, ‘Urf and Hadith

Room: Bloomsbury, Chair: Anicée Van Engeland (SOAS)

Dawood Adesola Hamzah (SOAS), Maqasid al-Shari’ah: A Reflection on Ibn ‘Ashur Reform Methodology

Tariq al-Timimi (SOAS), Configuring the Hadith Setting: Acknowledging the Impact of ‘urf on Prophetic Traditions and its Implication on Islamic Jurisprudence

Abdullah Sliti (Durham University), Rethinking Tradition: Ibn ‘Ashur’s Potential Reform

 

Panel 3: Twelver Shia Communities in Britain: Transnational and Diasporic Perspectives

Room: Gordon, Chair: Oliver Scharbrodt (University of Chester)

Yafa Shanneik (University of Chester) and Sayyid Fadhil Bahrululoom, ‘Who Buried Husayn?’: Shia Mourning Poetry by Women Writers in the 20th Century

Oliver Scharbrodt (University of Chester), Mapping Transnational and Diasporic Shia Networks in London

Sufyan Abed (University of Chester), Being Shia before and after ‘Ashura’: Discourses on Living a Piety-led Life among South Asian Shia Muslims in London

Chris Heinhold (University of Chester), The Construction of a British Shia Identity in London

 

Panel 4: The Formation and Transformation of Physics and Metaphysics in Islamic Thought

Room: Woburn A, Chair: Nicolai Sinai (University of Oxford)

Andreas Lammer (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich) Science, Physics, and Metaphysics in the Works of Avicenna

Laura Hassan (SOAS), Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī on the World’s Contingency: A Question for Physics or Metaphysics?

Anna-Katharina Strohschneider (Julius-Maximilians-Universität, Würzburg), Averroes on Metaphysics, Physics, and the First Principle

 

Panel 5: Why Critical Muslim Studies?

Room: Woburn B, Chair: S. Sayyid (University of Leeds)

S. Sayyid (University of Leeds), Of Black and White Cats: Critical Muslim Studies and Decolonial Horizons

Abdool Karim Vakil (KCL), Genealogies of the Muslim Question

Nadia Fadil (KU Leuven), Islam in Europe: a colonizing trap or a process of emancipation?

 

Panel 6: Muslims in Britain: Everyday Experiences, Multi-Focal Perspectives (MBRN Panel)

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Sophie Gilliat-Ray (Cardiff)

Christopher Moses (University of Cambridge), Chasing a Muslim story: an ethnographic vignette of media suspicion

Seán McLoughlin (University of Leeds), Pilgrimage, Performativity, and British Muslims: Scripted and Unscripted Accounts of the Hajj and Umra

Riyaz Timol (Cardiff University), To Sufi or not Sufi? Exploring the Spiritual Praxis of the Tablighi Jama’at

Anna Piela (Leeds Trinity), The insider-outsider continuum matters: A Non Muslim woman's research with Muslim women who wear the niqab

 

18.00–18.15, Short break

 

18.15–19.45: SESSION 5. The Caliphate, in Theory (Plenary)

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Ayman Shihadeh (SOAS)

Hugh Kennedy (SOAS), Caliphate: An Idea Through the Ages

Carool Kersten (King’s College London), The Caliphate in the Modern Muslim World: Political Ideal or Qur’anic Metaphor?

 

Day 2: Tuesday, 14 April

 

9.00–10.00, BRAIS Annual General Meeting (Beveridge Hall)

 

10.00–11.30: SESSION 6. SIX PARALLEL SESSIONS

 

Panel 1: Qur’an and Hadith A

Room: Bedford, Chair: Karen Bauer (Institute of Ismaili Studies)

Johanne Louise Christiansen (Aarhus University, Denmark), Ascetic practices in the Qur’an – the vigil as a case

Ramon Harvey (Cambridge Muslim College), At the Branching of Qirāʾāt and Fiqh in Kufa: Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī and the Legacy of the ḥarf of ʿAbdullāh b. Masʿūd

Marie Nuar (Pontifical University of St. Thomas), An Islamic Scriptural Anthropology

Belal Abo-Alabbas (University of Oxford), Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī in Contemporary Arabophone Scholarship: A Review Essay TBC

 

Panel 2: Islamic Studies in Different University Contexts

Room: Bloomsbury, Chair: Hugh Goddard (University of Edinburgh)

Syed Imtiaz (Cambridge Muslim College), Characterising Orientalist Studies at the University of Cambridge 1929-1970

Robert Ivermee (SOAS), The campaign for a Muslim university in colonial India

Emilie Roy (Al Akhawayn University), Combining Traditional Islamic Knowledge and Islamic Studies in Academia: Case Study at Al Akhawayn University

 

Panel 3: Culture A

Room: Gordon, Chair: David Taylor (IAKU-ISMC)

Essam Ayyad (Suez Canal University), Early Terminology of Mosque Architecture: Derivation and Evolution

Fozia Bora (University of Leeds), Reflections on the fate of the Fatimid royal libraries: were they destroyed by Salah al-Din? (read by Yahya Birt)

Marije Coster (University of Groningen), Ties of blood versus ties of faith. The Muslim Muḥayyisa versus the non-Muslim Ḍirār b. al-Khaṭṭāb

Zsuzsanna Zsidai (Hungarian Academy of Sciences), What does Turk mean in the medieval Arabic sources? Remarks on an ethnonym

 

Panel 4: The Transmission, Preservation and Socio-political Use of Knowledge: Historical Figures and Cultural Practices in Diverse Spatial Settings

Room: Woburn A, Chair: Hugh Kennedy (SOAS)

Paula Manstetten (SOAS), The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus as Educational Institution in the Medieval Period

Rasmus Bech Olsen (Birkbeck College), The khaṭīb as Actor in 14th Mamluk Society

Daisy Livingston (SOAS) Archival and Documentary Practice in a Peripheral Milieu

Christopher David Bahl (SOAS), Cultural Exchange across the Western Indian Ocean, 1400-1600. Travelling Scholars and the Transmission of Texts

 

Panel 5: Contemporary Issues B

Room: Woburn B, Chair: Emmanuel Karaggianis (King's College London)

Lalel Gomari-Luksch (University of Tübingen), State of God or Godless state: the continuity of religion and state unity in Iran

Caglar Ezikoglu (Aberystwyth University), Justice and Development Party’s Transformation in Turkey: From Conservative Democracy to Islamic Authoritarianism

Vahram Petrosyan (Yerevan State University); The Rise and the Evolution of Political Islam in Iraqi Kurdistan TBC

 

Panel 6: Muslims in the West B (Pecha Kucha format)

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Sean McLoughlin (University of Leeds)

Laurens De Rooij (Durham University), The Interpretation of Islam in the News by a non-Muslim audience

Alyaa Ebbiary (SOAS), You Are What You Learn: Religiously Educating British Muslims

Alaya Forte (SOAS), Flags and hijabs: the problematic and contested nature of symbols in contemporary Britain

Sandra Maurer (University of Kent), Digital Islam: Adapting traditional Islamic Practice in contemporary Britain

Karim Mitha and Shelina Adatia (University of Edinburgh + ITREB Canada), Toques and tea, or chapals and chai: Muslims, media, masti, and meaning

Davide Pettinato (University of Exeter), British Muslim Youth Fighting Against Global Injustice: Introducing ‘MADE in Europe’

Farrah Sheikh (SOAS), A Tale of Three Cities: Spiritual Stories from British Muslims in London, Leicester and Norwich

 

11.30–12.00 Refreshments

 

12.00–13.30: SESSION 7. TWO PARALLEL PANELS

 

Panel 1:

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Saeko Yazaki (University of Glasgow)

Likayat Takim (McMaster University, Canada), Fiqh for minorities: Shi'i law in the diaspora

Douglas Pratt (University of Waikato and University of Bern), A tale of two dialogues: 21st-century Christian-Muslim initiatives

 

Panel 2: New Trajectories in the Study of Tafsir: Two Recent Volumes

Room: Woburn B, Discussant: Andrew Rippin (University of Victoria), Institute of Ismaili Studies book launch

Karen Bauer (Institute of Ismaili Studies), Aims and methods of the genre of tafsir

Andreas Görke (University of Edinburgh) and Johanna Pink (Freiburg University, Germany), Understanding tafsir in its broader intellectual context

 

13.30–14.30, Lunch

 

14.30–16.00: SESSION 8. SIX PARALLEL PANELS

 

Panel 1: The Qur’ān: The Text and its Reception

Room: Bedford, Chair: Omar Alí-de-Unzaga (Institute of Ismaili Studies)

Andrew Rippin (University of Victoria), The Names of the Chapters of the Qur’ān

Asma Helali (Institute of Ismaili Studies), Was the Ṣanʿā’ palimpsest a Work in Progress? A Reconsideration of Old Qur’ān Manuscript Studies

Nuha Alshaar (The American University of Sharjah), Ibn Rushd/ Averroës’ Rational Reading of the Qur’ān

Kazuyo Murata (King’s College London), Prophetic Beauty in Comparison: Adam, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Muhammad in Rūzbihān Baqlī’s Qur’an and Hadith Commentaries

 

Panel 2: Asia

Room: Bloomsbury, Chair: Farid Panjwani (Institute of Education, London)

Mansur Ali (Cardiff University) How do we know the Prophet said it? Hadith commentary as polemic in post-colonial India: a study of al-Uthmani’s I’la al-Sunan

Siti Nor Aisyah Ngadiran (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia), The Issues of Western Interpretation on the History of Islam in Malaysia-Indonesia from the Perspective of Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas

Max Regus (Tilburg University), Constructing Inclusive Citizenship in Quasi-Secular State: Some Reflection on the Case of Ahmadiyya Islam Minority in Contemporary Indonesia

 

Panel 3: Medieval Muslims Responding to Christian Challenges

Room: Gordon, Chair: Jon Hoover

Diego Sarrió Cucarella (Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies), Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi on fighting for God’s cause: virtue or vice?

Zeynep Yucedogru (University of Nottingham), Ibn Taymiyya’s Contextual Interpretation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Matthew 28:19

Younus Mirza (Allegheny College), The Disciples as Companions: Ibn Taymiyya’s Refutation of the Exegetical Argument that the Messengers (rusul) in Surat Ya Sin are the Disciples of Jesus

Mònica Colominas Aparicio (University of Amsterdam), Religious Polemics as Discursive Practices in Late Medieval Christian Iberia: The Literature of the Mudejars against the Christians and the Jews

 

Panel 4: Classical Islamic Thought B

Room: Worburn A, Chair: Ayman Shihadeh (SOAS)

Emrah Kaya (University of Nottingham), A Comparison of the Divine Names and Attributes in Ibn al-Arabi and Ibn Taymiyya

Rami Koujah (Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education), On the Purposiveness of God's Actions and its implications on legal theory: A look through the writings of Sayf Al-Din al-Amadi

Seyed Mousavian (University of Gothenburg and Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, IPM), On the Origination of Human Soul: From an Avicennian Point of View

Abdullah Sliti (Durham University), Freedom & Responsibility: Ibn al-Qayyim’s Compatibilism of Dual Agency

 

Panel 5: Contemporary Issues C

Room: Woburn B, Chair: Shuruq Naguib (University of Lancaster)

Emmanuel Karagiannis (King’s College London), The Rise of Electoral Salafism in North Africa: Ideological Modification or Political Necessity?

Zoltan Pall (National University of Singapore), The Construction of Salafi Religious Authority in Lebanon

Georgios Rigas (University of Edinburgh), Hamas Egypt relations during Morsi’s presidency (read by Bashir Saade)

 

Panel 6: Beyond ‘Negative Perceptions of Muslims’: Incorporating Elusive Manifestations of Islamophobia

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Daniel Nilsson DeHanas (King’s College London)

Afroze  Zaidi-Jivraj (University of Birmingham), Questioning ‘Identifiable Muslimness’: Ethnic Minority Muslims at the Intersection of Colour Racism and Islamophobia

Stephen H Jones (Coventry University), British Muslim Organisations, the Spectre of Political Islam and the Conceptualisation of Islamophobia

Daniel Nilsson DeHanas (King’s College London), ‘Rotten Borough’ and ‘Islamic Republic’?: The Politics of Media Portrayals of Tower Hamlets

AbdoolKarim Vakil (King’s College London), Islamophobia: Conceptual, Political and Research Questions

 

16.00–16.30, Refreshments

 

16.30-18.00: SESSION 9. SIX PARALLEL PANELS

 

Panel 1: Gender B

Room: Bedford, Chair: Zahia Salhi (University of Manchester)

Shuruq Naguib (Lancaster University), Tahara in the light of Tafsir

Cafer Sarikayer (Boğaziçi University), An Ottoman Woman Writer in the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition: Fatma Aliye Hanım TBC

Ahmed Balto (Trinity College Dublin), The Burqa and the right to freedom of expression: Analyzing the Place of the Islamic Veil in Europe

 

Panel 2: Law and Ethics B

Room: Bloomsbury, Chair: Hossein Godazgar (Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education)

Ali-Reza Bhojani (Al-Mahdi Institute), Moral rationalism, Shari’a and Human Rights

Sohaira Siddiqui (Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Qatar), Understanding the Ethical in Islamic Legal Reform

 

Panel 3: Aspects of Sufism

Room: Gordon, Chair: Saeko Yazaki (University of Glasgow)

Eyad Abuali (SOAS), Majd al-Dīn al-Baghdādī’s (d.1219) Tuḥfat al-Barara: The Development of Kubrawī Sufi Psychology

Naghmeh Dadvar (Ferdowsi University of Mashhad), The Introduction to the Karamat and its Inconsistencies through Mysticism works TBC

Omar Edaibat (McGill University), Muḥyiddin Ibn ‘Arabī’s Sharī‘a: A Theory of Legal Pluralism

Haruka Endo (SOAS), Al-Sha‘rānī’s (d. 1565) response to Controversies over Ibn ‘Arabī’s (d. 1240) Anthropomorphism

Abdulmamad Iloliev (Institute of Ismaili Studies), Moses and Jesus in the Poetry of Mubarak-i Wakhani: An Ismaili-Sufi Perspective

 

Panel 4: Classical Islamic Thought C

Room: Woburn A, Chair: Kazuyo Murata (King's College London)

Salimeh Maghsoudlou (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris), Reception of Avicenna’s Argument for the Unity of God in the Ṣūfī Milieu of Sixth Century: the Case of ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt al-Hamadānī

Janis Esots (The Institute of Ismaili Studies), Being and Knowledge according to Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī

Ali Fikri Yavuz (Istanbul University), Epistemology and Beatific Vision in Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī (d. 1303 AC)

 

Panel 5: Conversion

Room: Woburn B, Chair: Hugh Beattie (The Open University)

M.A. Kevin Brice (Newcastle University), White British Muslims – “They are all just converts, aren’t they?” Looking beyond the stereotype

Geoffrey Nash (University of Sunderland), Marmaduke Pickthall and Islamic Modernist Thought

Dorothea Ramahi (University of Cambridge), Situating Otherness: Perspectives on Female Converts to Islam in Britain

 

Panel 6: Muslims in the West C

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Dietrich Reetz (Zentrum Moderner Orient/Crossroads Asia)

Sejad Mekic (Cambridge Muslim College), Husein Đozo and Islamic modernism in Tito’s Yugoslavia

Cecilie Endresen (University of Oslo), Accommodationist and neo-fundamentalist approaches to the nation and religious others in Albania

Anna Zadrożna (UCL), , ‘A book for a Muslim woman’; everyday narratives on female sexuality TBC

Sanja Bilic (University of York), Muslim Women Organising:  Religion, Identity and Politics in Bosnia and the UK

 

18.00-18.15, Short Break

 

18.15–19.45: SESSION 10. Developing Islamic Studies in the UK: Future Horizons (Panel Discussion, Public Event)

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Hugh Goddard (University of Edinburgh)

Sophie Gilliat-Ray (Cardiff University)

Judith Pfeiffer (University of Oxford)

Zahia Salhi (University of Manchester)

Ataullah Siddiqui (Markfield Institute of Higher Education)

Maurits Berger (Leiden University)

 

Day 3: Wednesday, 15 April

 

9.00–10.30: SESSION 11. SIX PARALLEL PANELS

 

Panel 1: Gender C

Room: Bedford, Chair: Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor (University of Derby)

Fauzia Ahmad (University College London), The British Muslim Relationship Crisis

Ester Barrajon Fernandez (Sciences Po Bordeaux, France), Deconstructing gender identities: the place of the Islamic women in Western medias

Nasima Hassan (University of East London), Exploring Muslim Consciousness in the Narratives of British Muslim Women in East London TBC

Misha Zand (University of Copenhagen), The Culture of Breast Cancer in The Islamic Republic of Iran

 

Panel 2: Bioethics

Room: Bloomsbury, Chair: Hossein Godazgar (Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education)

Farrokh Sekaleshfar (Manchester University), An Islamic Theosophical Perspective to Organ Donation

Amel Algrahni (Liverpool University), Womb transplantation and Islam

Hossein Godazgar (Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education), Is physician-assisted suicide consistent with Islam?

Jan Ali (University of Western Sydney, Australian), A Sociological Analysis of Organ Transplantation in Islam (read by Hossein Godazgar)

 

Panel 3: Culture B

Room: Gordon, Chair: Talal Al-Azem (University of Oxford)

Benedikt Koehler (Earhart Foundation Grantee), The Origins of Capitalism in Early Islam

Phillip Bockholt (FU Berlin), Writing History in the Manuscript Age: Persian Historiography in Safavid Iran and Moghul India

Salim Ayduz (British Muslim Heritage Centre), Süleymaniye Medical Madrasa (Dār al-Tib) in the History of Ottoman Medicine

Halit Ahmet Ciftci (Suleyman Demirel University), The Problem of Environmental Pollution and the Analysis of the Perception of Environment in Islamic Texts

 

Panel 4: Theological Rationalism

Room: Woburn A, Chair: Ayman Shihadeh (SOAS)

Taneli Kukkonen (NYU Abu Dhabi), Al-Ghazālī on the Antiquity of Religious Ethics

Gregor Schwarb (Freie Universität Berlin), Necessity of existence’ (wujūb al-wujūd) and ‘necessary existent’ (wājib al-wujūd) in ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī’s (d. 415/1025) K. al-Manʿ wa-l-tamānuʿ

Ayman Shihadeh (SOAS), Al-Ghazālī and the Conundrum of Body-Soul Dualism

 

Panel 5: Africa

Room: Woburn B, Chair: Roy Jackson (University of Gloucestershire)

Omer Kocyigit (Leiden University), The Struggle for Legitimacy: Intellectual and Religious Debates about the Sudanese Mahdi

Yusuf Salahudeen (Federal College of Education, Kano-Nigeria), Harnessing Quranic Schooling with the Challenges of Early Childhood Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

Adrienne Vanvyve (Université libre de Bruxelles), Muslim claims in the name of secularism (Burkina Faso)

 

Panel 6: Financial Islamic Institutions in Arab Transitions: Possible Avenues for Financial Development

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chairs: Fatiha Talahite and Olivia Orozco de la Torre

Mehmet Asutay (Durham University), Searching for the Nexus between Islamic Finance and Economic Development: Can Islamic Finance Generate Economic Development for the Post-Arab Spring?

Samuel Beji (Tunis University), The Tunisian Financial System in the post-revolution period: what about Islamic Finance? (Co-authored by Adnen Oueslati, Center of International Economic Integration, LIEI)

Randi Deguilhem (CNRS / TELEMME-MMSH, Aix-en-Provence), Rethinking a Traditional Institution: Contemporary Use of Waqf as a Development Tool in Islamic Finance

Valentino Cattelan, Islamic finance and credit economy: a community-based approach for local development in Arab Transitions

Rodney Wilson (Durham University), Islamic Banking and Finance in North Africa (via Skype)

 

10.30–11.00, Refreshments

 

11.00–12.15: SESSION 12 (Plenary)

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Mustafa Baig (University of Exeter)

Robert Gleave (University of Exeter), Belief, Violence and the Reformulation of Islamic Thought

 

12.15–13.00, Lunch

 

13.00–14.30: SESSION 13. SIX PARALLEL PANELS

 

Panel 1: Quran and Hadith B

Room: Bedford, Chair: Nuha Alshaar (The American University of Sharjah)

Sara Mallawi (SOAS), Quran Translations, Muslim Communities & Interpretations of Islam

Mirina Paananen (As-Suffa Institute, Birmingham), Mastering the Art: Instruction in Qur’an Recitation within the UK Muslim Population (Case Study: Birmingham)

Somia Qudah-Refai (University of Leeds), Dogmatic Approaches of Qur’ān Translators: Linguistic and Theological Issues

Sohaib Saeed (SOAS), Translating Tafsir: Prospects and Problems

Fatma Betul Altintas (Erciyes University), The Academic Study of Hadith in North American Universities

 

Panel 2: Law and Ethics C

Room: Bloomsbury, Chair: Anicee Van Engerland (SOAS)

Nawaf Alyaseen (Oxford Brookes University), Trademark forms in Islamic Sharia

Nehad Khanfar and Ahmad Bawab (The Islamic College), A Critical Review of the Islamic Mortgages offered in the Banks in England

Fatumetul Zehra Guldas (University of Leicester), Human Dignity and Health Care: An Islamic Perspective

 

Panel 3: Contemporary Developments in Shi’ism

Room: Gordon, Chair: Oliver Scharbrodt (University of Chester)

Mersedeh Dad Mohammadi (University of Chester), Reading More than Persepolis: A Shia Response to Marjane Satrapi's Memoire

Daryoush Mohammad Poor (Institute of Ismaili Studies), Authority without Territory: doctrinal shifts in modern Ismailism

Babak Rahimi (UC San Diego), Digital Hawza: the New Media and Shia Islamic learning in Qum TBC

Mohammad Tajri (Lancaster University and Al-Mahdi Institute), Assessing Perceptions of Islamic Authority amongst British Shia Muslim Youth

 

Panel 4: Classical Islamic Thought D

Room: Woburn A, Chair: Farrokh Sekaleshfar (Manchester University)

Tobias S. Anderson (University of Edinburgh), Caliphal succession in the first Islamic chronicle: the Tārīkh of Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ

Bashir Saade (University of Edinburgh), Notions of Authority in Early Muslim texts

Elif Tokay (Istanbul University), Human knowledge as the way towards God in the Arabic translations of Gregory Nazianzen’s orations

 

Panel 5: Themes in Education

Room: Woburn B, Chair: Ramon Harvey (Cambridge Muslim College)

Syed Mehdi Ashraf (Islamic College of Advanced Studies), New Paradigm for the Educational Advancement of Muslims TBC

Yahia Baiza (The Institute of Ismaili Studies), The ‘Ulama, Education and Muslim Civilizations: A Historical Analysis

Kenan Tekin (Columbia University), Classifications of Knowledge in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire

Matthew Wilkinson (Institute of Education, University of London), A philosophy to 'underlabour' Islam in a multi-faith world: Islamic Critical Realism

 

Panel 6: Muslims in the West D (Pecha Kucha format)

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Sophie Gilliat-Ray (University of Cardiff)

Z. Ayca Arkilic (The University of Texas at Austin), Reaching Out to Turkish Muslims: Turkish Muslim Leaders’ Perceptions of the Contemporary Muslim Councils in France and Germany

Mahdi Barmani (UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies), Iraqi Shia-Muslims in the USA: a Conflict-Generated Diaspora

William Barylo (EHESS, Paris), Muslim Charities in Europe: redefining a positive image of Islam in the public sphere at a grassroots level. Case study of France and Poland

Erdem Dikici (University of Bristol), Muslims Integration in Europe: A Transnational Perspective

Ayse Elmali (University of Sheffield), What does the headscarf mean for Muslim university students? The case of University of Houston

Dzenita Karic (SOAS), Where is our (spiritual) home? The identity search of Bosnian Muslim intellectuals in the period of Austro-Hungarian rule

Maryyum Mehmood (King’s College London), From Socialist Jews of Weimar to British Muslim Student Activists: The Struggle for Acceptance of Europe’s Minorities

Fatima Rajina (SOAS), The Emergence of Islam in Argentina

 

14.30–14.45, Refreshments

 

14.45–16.00: SESSION 14 (Plenary)

Room: Beveridge Hall, Chair: Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor (Univeristy of Derby)

Shaheen Sardar Ali (University of Warwick), Writing women's human rights: weaving a counter-narrative of Muslim women's contribution to the CEDAW script

Concluding Remarks

 

 

 

                                            

 

 

BRAIS 2015

THE SECOND ANNUAL CONFERENCE
OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR ISLAMIC STUDIES

London, 13–15 April 2015 

Senate House, University of London

In Collaboration with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and Human Rights Consortium, School of Advanced Study, University of London

 

We have now produced a version of the 2015 BRAIS conference programme complete with abstracts.

The programme is divided into three parts: Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.

 

To download the programme with abstracts for Day 1, click HERE. 

To download the programme with abstracts for Day 2, click HERE. 

To download the programme with abstracts for Day 3, click HERE. 

 

To view the entire programme without abstracts, click HERE.

 

BRAIS 2015

The Second Annual Conference of the British Association for Islamic Studies

Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

13th-15th April

Information for delegates

The 2^nd annual British Association for Islamic Studies conference is taking place in Bloomsbury, London from the 13^th-15^th April. We are delighted to have delegates from across the UK, and indeed the globe, representing a broad range of backgrounds and sub-disciplines within Islamic Studies. The three day programme features a total of 48 stimulating panels on various themes and includes 5 plenaries and an event open to the public. Representing journals, bulletins and books related to the field of Islamic Studies, we will have 8 publisher stands throughout the conference.

Location

Senate House is the central administrative building of the University of London, and is an iconic 1930’s Art Deco building.  It is located between Goodge Street and Russell Square tube stations and is around a 20 minute walk from London King’s Cross train station.

 

 

Accommodation

All delegates must book their own accommodation. Here are a few local options to choose from:

1) www.imperialhotels.co.uk

2) www.travelstay.com/regions/Hotels_in_Bloomsbury.htm

3) www.central-london-apartments.com

Catering

Throughout the Conference, refreshments and lunch are included in the delegate rate and are taken in the Macmillan Hall, where a variety of options will be available. Please note that all meat is halal and the restaurant staff will be notified of dietary requirements.

Prayer Space

We have a small devoted prayer room next to the Woburn Suite B which delegates are welcome to use throughout the Conference days, room G21a. In addition, the Goodge Street Mosque is around a 10 minute walk from the Conference venue (http://www.mwllo.org.uk/prayer-times/)

Information about presentations

If you are presenting, please check the programme for your date, time and room number. In panels with three contributors, each presenter will have 20 minutes to deliver their paper; in panels with four contributors each presenter will have 15 minutes; and in panels with five contributors each presenter will have 12 minutes, in all cases leaving 30 minutes for questions and comments from the audience. If you are presenting in a PetchaKucha panel you will have just under 7 minutes to present (20 slides for 20 seconds each) with time for questions at the end of the panel. See http://www.pechakucha.org/faq for further information.

We strongly encourage you to utilise Powerpoint or other visual aids during your presentation and please bring these with you on a USB (and a backup copy too). There is no photocopier or printer available at Senate House for delegate use, so please make sure you have everything you need prior to your presentation.

Each room has a laptop, projector and Wi-Fi.  Each presenter must take responsibility for uploading their presentation to the computer prior to their presentation (we recommend before 9am each morning). BRAIS volunteers and Senate House staff will be on hand to help with any problems.

Contact

Senate House reception – (+44) 020 7862 8133