2022 Annual Conference of the British Association for Islamic Studies
Monday 6th - Tuesday 7th June
The University of Edinburgh
Conference Programme
PLEASE NOTE: THIS PROGRAMME IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE
All panels and plenaries will take place in the University of Edinburgh's School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures at 50 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JU.
The Publisher Exhibition will be located in the same space as the main conference.
- Click here to register for the conference.
- Click here for further information about conference accommodation
Monday 6th June 2022
09.00 onward: Registration open
09.45 – 10.00: Words of Welcome
10.00 – 11:15: Plenary 1:
Professor Salman Sayyid (University of Leeds)
Critical Muslim Studies: Decolonizing the Islamicate?
11:15-11:30: BRAIS-de Gruyter Prize Ceremony
11.30 – 12.00: Coffee/Tea
12.00 – 13.30: Panel Session 1
Qur’anic Hermeneutics: Tools and Approaches
Room G01
Chair: Haroon Sidat (Cardiff University)
Amira Abou-Taleb (University of Helsinki) A Mandate for Beauty in the Qur’an: the iḥsān imperative
David Vishanoff (University of Oklahoma) Anthropological Reorientations in Qur’anic Hermeneutics: History, Structuralism, Ideology, Phenomenology, and Postmodernism
Hany Rashwan (UAE University/University of Birmingham) Bayān, faṣāḥah, and balāghah in the Qur’ān: Orality in early Islamic literary criticism
Sohaib Saeed (Ibn 'Ashur Centre) The Multiple Authorship of al-Rāzī's Great Exegesis: Old and New Evidence
Muslims in Britain: Responding to Challenges and Changing Dynamics
Room G02
Chair: Alyaa Ebbiary (University of Durham)
Fatou Sambe (Cardiff University) Black Muslim Convert Experiences in Britain
Davide Pettinato (University of Exeter) Environmental activism, the ‘everyday’, and ethical/pious self-cultivation: insights from a youth-led British Muslim charity
Sharaiz Chaudhry (University of Edinburgh) Islamic Liberation Theology in Practice: A Comparative Analysis of British Muslims’ Activism Against Class Inequality
Muzaffer Can Dilek (University of Huddersfield) Politics, education policy and teacher professional identity: Muslim teachers in England
Falsafa and Theology in the Medieval Period
Lecture Theatre G03
Chair: Fozia Bora (University of Leeds)
Raissa von Doetinchem de Rande (Rhodes College) A Possible Influence: Ibn Masarra’s (d. 931) Risālat al-iʿtibār and Ibn Ṭufayl’s (d. 1185) Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān
Torsten Hylen (Dalarna University) Three times Karbalāʾ: comparing early accounts of the death of al-Ḥusayn
Muhammad Sami (University of Oxford) Suprarational Knowledge According to the School of Ibn ‘Arabī
Belal Abu-Alabbas (University of Exeter) Lafẓī bi-l-Qurʾān makhlūq? Al-Bukhārī and his Adversaries on the Lafẓ Controversy
Muslims and the Environment: Contesting the Contemporary Religious and Cultural Discourses
Room G05
Chair: Kholoud Al-Ajarma (University of Edinburgh)
Siti Sarah Muwahidah (University of Edinburgh) and Fuad Faizi (State Islamic Institute of Syekh Nurjati Cirebon) The Localization of Global Climate Crisis Narratives in Indonesian Muslim Societies: Promises and Problems
Jawida Mansour (University of the People) and Kholoud Al-Ajarma (University of Edinburgh) Questioning Tobacco Production: health, environment, and economic struggle among Muslims in Palestine
Zainal Abidin Bagir (Universitas Gadjah Mada) and Haryani Saptaningtyas (Sebelas Maret University) Contrast and Convergence in Indonesian Religious Environmentalism: A Case Study of Religious and Secular Environmental Activism
Rana Abu-Mounes (Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, Oxford) Muslim and Christian Responses to the Water Crisis in Jordan
Contemporary Fiqh and Jurisprudence
Room G06
Chair: Usaama al-Azami (University of Oxford)
Fatima Barkatulla (SOAS) Between Protectionism and Surrender: Qaradawi’s Wasatiyya and Orthodox Pragmatism in Islamic Legal Theory
Rami Koujah (Princeton University) Maqasid al-shar’'a as virtue jurisprudence
Mansur Ali (Cardiff University) Tying the knot virtually: E-Nikah in Hanafi fiqh
Al Muatasim Al Maawali (Sultan Qaboos University) The Omani Experience of Islamic Banking– A Juristic Approach to the Question, How Islamic is Islamic Banking?
13.30 – 14.30: Lunch
14.30 – 16.00: Panel Session 2
The Qur’an: Classical and Modern Approaches to the Sacred Text
Room G01
Chair: Sohaib Saeed (Ibn 'Ashur Centre)
Josef Linnhoff (The Institute of Advanced Usuli Studies) Coherence and Context: Khaled Abou El Fadl’s Approach to Qur’anic Exegesis
Fadhli Lukman (Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta) The State, Islamic Caliphate, and the Official Qurʾān Translation: the politics of Al-Qur’an dan Terjemahnya of the Republic of Indonesia
Muhammad Faisal Khalil (University of Oxford) What Pigs and Other Animals Teach Us About the Vulnerability of Moral Development
Contemporary Turkey: Religion, Identity and Society
Room G02
Chair: Mahdi Mosawi (University of Edinburgh)
Müge Akpinar (Freie Universität Berlin) Taking Care of the Self, Taking Care of Nature: An Ethnographic Account of Fitrah and Lived Islam in Contemporary Turkey
Caroline Tee (University of Chester) Religious Charisma in the Shadow of the State: Alternative Pathways to ‘’Routinisation’' in Turkey
Iffet Piraye Yuce (Université Paris 8 / Center for Sociological and Political Research in Paris) Intersectional Approaches to Multiple Identities: Muslim Women Entrepreneurs in Turkey
Why Race Matters in Islamic Studies: Theoretical and Ethnographic Contributions from Muslim Africa and its Diaspora
Lecture Theatre G03
Chair: Ezgi Guner (University of Edinburgh)
Marta Scaglioni (University of Milano-Bicocca) Race and racism in Southern Tunisia
Valerio Colosio (Ankara Social Science University) Race, ethnicity and otherisation in a post-slavery context: The case of Guéra province in central Chad
Ezgi Guner (University of Edinburgh) Racing the Ummah: Humanitarianization of Muslim Internationalism and the Reconstruction of Turkish Whiteness in Africa
Ibn Taymiyya: Ontology, Epistemology and Scripture
Room G05
Chair: Jaan Islam (University of Edinburgh)
Danial Lav (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Ibn Taymiyya on Ontological Dependence and Its Ground
Jon Hoover (University of Nottingham) Ibn Taymiyya on the Gospel’s Relation to the Torah
Safaruk Chowdhury (Cambridge Muslim College) Ibn Taymiyya’s Fiṭralism and Alvin Plantinga’s Religious Epistemology: A Study in Comparative Theories of Belief
British Islam: Challenges, Responses, Relationships
Room G06
Chair: Jorgen Nielson (University of Birmingham)
Laura Jones-Ahmed (Cardiff University) The Plurality of Time in Ramadan: Moon Sighting and the Search for Laylatul Qadr
Hugh Goddard (University of Edinburgh) Edinburgh and the World of Islam
Riyaz Timol (Cardiff University) Understanding British Imams: Presentation of Project Findings
Haroon Sidat (Cardiff University) Virtue and Action as Habitus: From Taalib to Khaadim
16.00 – 16.30: Refreshments
16:30 – 18:00: Panel Session 3
Muslim Use of Media: From Empire to the Covid-19 Pandemic
Room G01
Chair: Michael Munnik (Cardiff University)
Ibrahim Suberu (University of Port Harcourt) Digital Religiosity and the Effects of Virtual Da’awah among Nigerian Muslims Youths
Wael Hegazy (University of California Santa Barbara) Online Islamic Rituals in the Western Context
Hayat Douhan (Free University of Berlin) 2.0 Mosques in Times of The Pandemic: The Digital Media Uses among Moroccan Mosques in Germany
Counter radicalisation policies and their effects on Belgian Muslims
Room G02
Chair: Arthemis Snijders (KU Leuven)
Mieke Groenink (KU Leuven) Islamic religious actors providing theological counternarratives for deradicalisation in Belgium
Arthemis Snijders (KU Leuven/Ugent) 'Worse than a criminal record': The effects of counter radicalisation policies and discourse on Belgian Muslims
Lore Janssens (KU Leuven) The body as compass: the ways frontline workers’ embodiment reproduces Muslims as suspect category
Islamic Law: Peace, Resistance, and Rebellion
Lecture Theatre G03
Chair: Usaama al-Azami (University of Oxford)
Kaleem Hussain (University of Birmingham) Peace & Reconciliation Based on International and Islamic Law
Walaa Quisay (University of Manchester) Carceral Fiqh: Debates on the Permissibility of Hunger Strikes
Jaan Islam (University of Edinburgh) The Law of Rebellion in Jihadi-Salafism: A Study of Sayyid Imām al-Sharīf and Abū Baṣīr al-Ṭarṭūsī
Islam and Gender: Challenging Patriarchy and Authority
Room G05
Chair: Tazeen Ali (Washington University in St. Louis)
Masoumeh Velayati (University of Warwick) Liberation Theology: Re-visiting the Polygamy Verses from a Gender Perspective
Laiqah Osman (Cardiff University) Muslim Women and the Dilemma of Gendered Spiritual Abuse
Shadaab Rahemtulla (University of Edinburgh) Towards an Egalitarian Islamic Masculinity: Prophet Muhammad, Khadijah, and the Politics of (Patriarchal) Memory
Tuesday 7th June 2022
09.30 – 11.00: Panel Session 4
Muslim Representation and Authority in the Media
Room G01
Chair: Sharaiz Chaudhry (University of Edinburgh)
Michael Munnik (Cardiff University) When Journalists Apply the Label ‘Muslim’
Tazeen Ali (Washington University in St. Louis) Beyond TV Terrorists: Politics, Sex, and American Islam in Hulu’s Ramy
Siti Sarah Muwahidah (University of Edinburgh) Shi'i Women's Digital Da'wa in Indonesia: Nurturing New Female Authorities And Bridging Sectarian Divides
Muslim-Jewish Encounter: Diversity and Distance in Urban Europe
Room G02
Chair: Yulia Egorova (University of Durham)
The panel will be a round-table discussion involving scholars working on the Muslim-Jewish Encounter study funded by the Open Research Area (ORA) for the Social Sciences. This joint research project explores intercultural, interethnic and interreligious encounters as exemplified by Jews and Muslims in urban Europe; focusing on France, Germany and the UK, countries which on the face of it have followed different models of framing majority-minority relations, creating ideal conditions for a comparative study of the possibilities of living together in European cities. Although previous academic studies indicate that negative attitudes to Jews and to Muslims correlate with each other in wider society, current public discourse has instead emphasised growing antagonism between them, relating to events in the Middle East and to the rise of Islamist terror and its counteraction. However, there is ethnographic evidence that relations in urban neighbourhoods are often more complex: everyday commercial exchange, cultural traffic within music and arts scenes, spontaneous and institutionalised interfaith initiatives, nostalgic attempts to retrieve periods of conviviality, and banal contact in the street are among the many forms these relations can take. The proposed panel will bring together researchers working on the project who will present and put in a comparative perspective initial findings from their ethnographic studies in different cities in France, Germany and the UK.
Religious Discourses in Saudi Arabia and the UAE
Lecture Theatre G03
Chair: David Warren (Washington University in St. Louis)
Usaama al-Azami (University of Oxford) Islamic Autocracy as Political Theology: Abdullah Bin Bayyah's Theory of Autocracy
David Warren (Washington University in St. Louis) “Tolerance is Lived and Practiced Here”: The Politics of Interfaith Dialogue in the United Arab Emirates
Arif Rabbani (SOAS University of London) Criticisms of child marriage in Islam and contemporary legal reforms: The case of Saudi Arabia and Malaysia
Mapping Sufi Trajectories: From the Late Ottoman Empire to Republican Turkey
Room G05
Chair: Ezgi Guner (University of Edinburgh)
Eda Güçlü (Ludwig-Maximilians University) Mapping the Memoirs of Aşçı İbrahim Dede: A Spatial Reading
Feyza Burak-Adli (Northwestern University) “We belong neither to that nor this/Yet we belong both to that and this:” Sufi Sheikh Kenan Rifai, Modernity and Class in Turkey
Çiçek İlengiz (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity) Sensing Sufi Love: Inheriting Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi
Diachronic Studies in Islamic Law, Ethics, and Legal Theory
Room G06
Chair: Jaan Islam (University of Edinburgh)
Samira Musleh (University of Minnesota - Twin Cities) Materialist Feminism, Premodern Marital Economy, and Islamic Ethics of Labor
Ataul Khabir (Cambridge University) A reconstruction of al-Ghazālī’s attempt to extend of the Divine Law
Adam Ramadhan (University of Oxford/Al-Mahdi Institute) Qāʿidat al-injibār: Rehabilitating Weak Traditions in Imāmī uṣūl al-fiqh
11:00 – 11.30: Refreshments
11.30 – 13:00: Panel Session 5
Muslims in Minority Contexts: Integration, Securitisation and Belonging
Room G01
Chair: Alyaa Ebbiary (University of Durham)
Adam Possamai (Western Sydney University) Hyper-securitisation and Belonging: Understanding the Plight of Young Muslims in Australia
Emine Turkoglu (Helsinki University) Integration Aspirations and Realities of the Gulen Movement Members in Finland
Mahmud Bin Sayeed (University of Warwick) Exploring the Teaching of Arabic in Three Independent Muslim Secondary Schools in the UK: An Empirical Enquiry
Islamicate Perspectives on Nation, Identity and the Other
Room G02
Chair: Hugh Goddard (University of Edinburgh)
Doga Ozturk (Independent Scholar) Resisting Orientalism by “Domesticating” the Orient: Fatma Aliye’s Namdaran-ı Zenan-ı İslamiyan
Sarah Copsey Alsader (University of Kent) Discourses of Islam in British Romantic Poetry
Dogukan Atmaca (UCL) Reshaping Ottoman Constantinople with Confessionalization
Nasser AlFalasi (University of Edinburgh) ‘Abd Allāh ibn al-Muqaffa‘ and his administrative legacy
(De)colonial Perspectives Across Time
Lecture Theatre G03
Chair: Ali Kassem (University of Edinburgh)
Ibrahim Khan (University of Chicago) Rethinking Indian Muslim Nationalism: Husain Ahmad Madani’s Composite Nationalism as Anti-Colonialism
Gehad Hasanin (University of Oxford) The Orient’s Colonial Wounds: Engaging Decolonial Theory Through Maḥmūd Moḥammad Shākir’s Critique of Orientalism
Nagat Emara (Humboldt University) The Transformation of the concept of umma in the Age of Nationalism: A study of al-Marsafi's 1881 Risalat al-Kalim al-Thaman
The Dynamics of Sunni-Shi‘a relations in Europe
Room G05
Chair: Elvire Corboz (University of Edinburgh)
Olav Elgvin (University of Bergen) For the Greater Good: Common Goals and Institutional Sunni-Shi‘a Cooperation in Norway
Teemu Pauha (University of Helsinki) Mut‘a marriage, online boundary-work, and the social psychology of Sunni-Shi‘a relations
Elvire Corboz (University of Edinburgh) From the margins to the centre: Shi‘a-led grassroots organisations and the shaping of an inclusive Muslim identity in Britain (Co-authored with Emanuelle Degli-Esposti, University of Cambridge)
Heroes and Villains on the Move: How Stories of the Revered and Reviled Cross Cultural and Linguistic Boundaries
Room G06
Chair: Lucy Deacon (University of Edinburgh)
Sarah Slingluff (University of Edinburgh) The ‘Hero Takes a Fall’? Questioning Dominant Narratives of Mūsā ibn Nuṣayr’s Corruption in Andalusi History
Kieran Hagan (University of Edinburgh) The Medieval Armenian Popular Image of Muhammad
Jaakko Hameen-Anttila (University of Edinburgh) Old heroes meet new ones: Encounters of Rustam and Ali and the Islamic identity of Iran
Lucy Deacon (University of Edinburgh) Karbala on Stage: Retelling the Martyrdom of Imam Husain in the Iranian Taʿziyeh
13.00 – 14.00: Lunch
14.00 – 15.30: Panel Session 6
Maps, Manuscripts and Material Culture
Room G01
Chair: Fozia Bora (University of Leeds)
Noha Hussein (Nottingham Trent University) Encountering Modernity: Quranic Epigraphy in Contemporary Mosque Architecture in the West
Sainulabdeen Mohammed Thameem (University of Birmingham) Medieval Sri Lanka in the Eyes of Andalusian Geographer Al-Bakrī (1014-1094)
Saeko Yazaki (University of Glasgow) The Islamic Manuscript Collection of A.S. Yahuda in Princeton University Library: A History of Acquisition
Asli Altinisik (Free University of Berlin) Lebaneseness and Private Capital at the National Museum of Beirut
Islamic Law in Historical Contexts
Room G02
Chair: Noorhaidi Hasan (Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia)
Grant Kynaston (University of Cambridge) Conceptions of Islamic Law in the Colonial Court Practice of the Netherlands-Indies, 1848-1867
Ismail Noyan (Simon Fraser University) Mecelle as the Product of Global Islamic Networks
Muhammad Almarakeby (International Islamic University of Indonesia) Neither Quiescent nor Rebellious: Legal Obligation in the Time of Necessity
Shiism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Lecture Theatre G03
Chair: Elvire Corboz (University of Edinburgh)
Oliver Scharbrodt (Lund University) Contesting Ritual Practices in Twelver Shiism: Modernism, Sectarianism and the Politics of Self-Flagellation (taṭbīr)
Faezeh Izadi (University of Calgary) Religion in the face of the modern world: A case study of Radical Life Extension and Shia Islam
Muhammad Tajri (Al-Mahdi Institute) Evolution of Shīʿī Taqlīd on UK University Campuses
Murtaza Shakir (Aljamea-tus-Saifiyah) The Beseeched Burial: Reflections on the Historical Events Associated with the Shrine of Al-Sayyida Nafīsa in Cairo
Revisiting Hadith Literature: Attribution, Authority and Editorship
Room G05
Chair: Haroon Sidat (Cardiff University)
Shahin Machinchery (Universität Erfurt) Application of Takhrij as a tool: On the origin and the reliability of Isra’iliyyat of Wahab b Munabbih.
Ahmed Ragab AbuZayd (The University of Wales TSD) The Impact of Editors on Moral Hadith Classification in both Print and Digital Forms of Al-Adab Al-Mufrad
Mostafa Movahedifar (University of Birmingham) An Isnād-analytical Method: A Reconsideration of the Origin of Ismuhū Ismī Ḥadīth
Muslim Societies in (Post)Colonial Contexts
Chair: Usaama al-Azami
Room G06
Ali Kassem (University of Edinburgh) Anti-Muslim Hate on the Eastern Shores of the Mediterranean: Coloniality, Racialisation, and the post-colonial nation-state
Bakir S. Mohammad (University of Glasgow) From a Muḥaddith to a National Religious Figure: Badr al-Dīn al-Ḥasanī’s role in Syria’s Grand Revolt
15.30 – 16.00: Coffee/Tea
16.30 – 18.00: Closing Keynote
Fatima Manji
Hidden Heritage: Rediscovering Britain's Lost Love of the Orient
UPDATE: Unfortunately Fatima is not well and unable to travel to Edinburgh. Our closing keynote has therefore been cancelled.
We will instead be hosting an extended refreshment and networking session from 15.30 - 17.00.
19.00 - 21.00: Evening Event (registration required)
Sema: Movements of the Soul and Sound
Univrsity of Eidnburgh Chaplaincy, 1 Bristo Pl, Edinburgh EH8 9AL
Delegates staying in Edinburgh on the Tuesday evening are warmly invite to a special performance bringing together Turkish and North African Sufi music and practice and organised by the Alwaleed Centre.
Refreshments served from 19.00 event begins at 19.30.
Further information and registration: https://souldandsound.eventbrite.co.uk