The Virtual-Online 'Muzlamic' Series
Event Information
About this Event
IslamicCourses presents: The Virtual/Online 'Muzlamic' Series:
1. [ It's our Time ] - A discussion series exploring a variety of Islamicate topics related to the specific historical, theological, philosophical, scientific or cultural development of the ummah through the ages.
2. [ This is Their Life ] - A programme that explores the thoughts, works, and practices of past and contemporary Muslim scholars, academics and leaders from all sectors of society.
3. [ The Garam Masala Discussion Forum ] - In this programme we hope to explore and address contemporary heated debates/events/topics in the 'ummahtic', in a way which is rooted in the spirit of faith and ethics with an eye towards practical utility.
All programmes are FREE - REGISTRATION IS COMPULSORY - ALL WELCOME - Please adjust the timings for your timezone. All times are stated as British Time:
-- UPCOMING SESSIONs --
1. BOOK REVIEW DISCUSSION: THE EMPEROR WHO NEVER WAS - DARA SHUKOH IN MUGHAL INDIA
With author Dr Supriya Gandhi [Yale University, USA]
and hosted by Professor Jonathan A. C. Brown [Georgetown University, USA]
The definitive biography of the eldest son of Emperor Shah Jahan, whose death at the hands of his younger brother Aurangzeb changed the course of South Asian history. Dara Shukoh was the eldest son of Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, best known for commissioning the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal. Although the Mughals did not practice primogeniture, Dara, a Sufi who studied Hindu thought, was the presumed heir to the throne and prepared himself to be India’s next ruler. In this exquisite narrative biography, the most comprehensive ever written, Supriya Gandhi draws on archival sources to tell the story of the four brothers―Dara, Shuja, Murad, and Aurangzeb―who with their older sister Jahanara Begum clashed during a war of succession. Emerging victorious, Aurangzeb executed his brothers, jailed his father, and became the sixth and last great Mughal. After Aurangzeb’s reign, the Mughal Empire began to disintegrate. Endless battles with rival rulers depleted the royal coffers, until by the end of the seventeenth century Europeans would start gaining a foothold along the edges of the subcontinent. Historians have long wondered whether the Mughal Empire would have crumbled when it did, allowing European traders to seize control of India, if Dara Shukoh had ascended the throne. To many in South Asia, Aurangzeb is the scholastic bigot who imposed a strict form of Islam and alienated his non-Muslim subjects. Dara, by contrast, is mythologized as a poet and mystic. Gandhi’s nuanced biography gives us a more complex and revealing portrait of this Mughal prince than we have ever had.
Date and time: Friday 5th March 2021 @4pm UK/London
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2. CRITICAL REVIEW -'FORMATION OF A NEW ISLAMIC EDUCATION STUDIES PROGRAMME: CONNECTING INTERDISCIPLINARY INQUIRY WITH TRANSFORMATIVE PEDAGOGY, 10 YEARS ON'
With Dr Abdullah Sahin [ Reader in Islamic Education, Department for Education Studies, University of Warwick, UK]
And contributions from:
Dr Imran H K Suddahazai [Head of Islamic Education, MIHE, UK]
Shaykh Muhammad Ismail [Ebrahim College, UK]
The educational challenge facing contemporary global Muslim societies is multifaceted and has a complex history to untangle. Whilst most of the focus on Islamic Studies has been on various aspects of Islamicate, too often and neglected and perhaps the most important is "Islamic Education" as a subject in it own right. Looking at how Muslims can teach 'Islam' and benefit from its own pedagogy and philosophy and professionalise the quality of teachers and students and transform their lives into meaningful human beings still remains the challenge in post modernity.
The postcolonial space has been dominated by the unsuccessful attempts to copy the Eurocentric secular education or replicate the traditions of education embodied within classical Islamic civilization. The forces of this binary educational reality continue to be active within both Muslim majority and minority societies. Education, in its secular and Islamic articulations, does not appear to help the communities to self-transform. The need for an effective Islamic Education provision to facilitate a reflective study of Islam, its intellectual legacy and contribute to the faith-formation of Muslim children/young people as well as public understanding of Islam/Muslims has often been voiced. What is rare, however, is empirically-based models of transformative Islamic Education that are grounded in Islam and capable of a critical dialogue with modern educational and pedagogies sciences.
A decade ago, Dr Abdullah Sahin, a Muslim theologian and educator, conducted a study exploring the religious life-world of British Muslim youth. The empirical findings of the inquiry pointed towards a set of complex questions around the need to ‘rethink the meaning of being Islamically educated in the 21st century world’. During the past ten years Dr Sahin has engaged with this crucial question. A journey that has helped him develop a transformative model of Islamic Education and advocate for recognition of Islamic Education Studies as an interdisciplinary field of scholarly study, empirical inquiry, and professional practice. During this interactive session Dr Sahin will share his reflections on the transformative model of Islamic Education and its future development.
During this interactive session Dr Sahin will share his reflections on the transformative model of Islamic Education, its future development and why it needs to be distinguished from the conventional Islamic Studies programmes often located within Area Studies in the modern Western universities.
There will also contributions from the guest panelists using the knowledge and experiences of the programme in madrassahs(weekend or week evening set ups), Islamic Schools and Dar Ulooms(seminaries) teachers and students.
Date and time: Saturday 6th March 2021 @2pm UK/London
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3. BOOK REVIEW DISCUSSION: HOW THE WEST STOLE DEMOCRACY FROM THE ARABS: THE SYRIAN ARAB CONGRESS OF 1920 AND THE DESTRUCTION OF ITS LIBERAL-ISLAMIC ALLIANCE
With author Professor Elizabeth F. Thompson [American University Washington, DC, USA]
and hosted by Nasim Ahmed [ Middle East Monitor [MEMO], UK]
When Europe’s Great War engulfed the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalists rose in revolt against their Turkish rulers and allied with the British on the promise of an independent Arab state. In October 1918, the Arabs’ military leader, Prince Faisal, victoriously entered Damascus and proclaimed a constitutional government in an independent Greater Syria.
Faisal won American support for self-determination at the Paris Peace Conference, but other Entente powers plotted to protect their colonial interests. Under threat of European occupation, the Syrian-Arab Congress declared independence on March 8, 1920 and crowned Faisal king of a “civil representative monarchy.” Sheikh Rashid Rida, the most prominent Islamic thinker of the day, became Congress president and supervised the drafting of a constitution that established the world’s first Arab democracy and guaranteed equal rights for all citizens, including non-Muslims.
But France and Britain refused to recognize the Damascus government and instead imposed a system of mandates on the pretext that Arabs were not yet ready for self-government. In July 1920, the French invaded and crushed the Syrian state. The fragile coalition of secular modernizers and Islamic reformers that had established democracy was destroyed, with profound consequences that reverberate still.
Using previously untapped primary sources, including contemporary newspaper accounts, reports of the Syrian-Arab Congress, and letters and diaries from participants, How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs is a groundbreaking account of an extraordinary, brief moment of unity and hope—and of its destruction.
Date and time: Saturday 6th March 2021 @5pm UK/London
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4. BOOK REVIEW DISCUSSION: MUSLIM COSMOPOLITANISM: SOUTHEAST ASIAN ISLAM IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
With author Dr Khairudin Aljunied [ The Center for Research on Southeast Asia - www.cenrsea.com ] - Associate Professor of Intellectual and Social History of the Malay World at National University of Singapore (NUS)
Cosmopolitan ideals and pluralist tendencies have been employed creatively and adapted carefully by Muslim individuals, societies and institutions in modern Southeast Asia to produce the necessary contexts for mutual tolerance and shared respect between and within different groups in society. Organised around six key themes that interweave the connected histories of three countries in Southeast Asia – Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia – this book shows the ways in which historical actors have promoted better understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims in the region. Case studies from across these countries of the Malay world take in the rise of the network society in the region in the 1970s up until the early 21st century, providing a panoramic view of Muslim cosmopolitan practices, outlook and visions in the region. Key Features • Organised around 3 key sections: places (covering trade, blogging, sacred spaces); people (covering intellectuals, women); and politics (covering states) • Unique in focusing on Muslim cosmopolitanisms in Southeast Asia • Shows how local, regional and global factors interact to give rise to cosmopolitan forms of thinking • Provides a counterpoint to a perception of Islam as a divisive force in society
Date and time: Sunday 7th March 2021 @12.30pm UK/London
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5. INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY - PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE - REFLECTIONS AND THOUGHTS
An Interview with Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak [Rector of the International Islamic University Malaysia]
Hosted by Dr Abdullah Sahin [ Reader in Islamic Education, Department for Education Studies, University of Warwick, UK]
Since the late 20th century, the term 'Islamization of knowledge' has been used in contemporary Islamic philosophy to reconcile Islam and modernity. Following the landmark international conference on Muslim education that was held in Makkah in 1977, Muslim scholars, Ulama, and intellectuals took up the task of reconstructing the order of knowledge on terms that were fundamentally Islamic, more culturally authentic, and directly relevant to the needs of contemporary Muslims the world over. This freed them from the epistemology, philosophy, and the sciences of Eurocentric and Orientalist biases. It is still a highly-debated contemporary issue, especially in academia. However, the debate has also become interwoven with factors that have marginalized Muslim identity—both for participants and observers. The existence of educational dualism (secular-religious) in the Muslim world has resulted in economic backwardness, political regression and intellectual retardation. This has re-emphasised the need for Islamizing the disciplines, producing text books along such lines and having strong academic institutions which support the vision of Islam.
Two academic Institutions spearhead the process: the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC) and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). One of the better known outcomes of the process was the International Islamic University Malaysia [IIUM], established in 1983.
In this session we hope to discuss successes of the IIUM with the Rector, criticisms and rooms for improvement, whether the Islamization of knowledge project has really worked or is relevant now, and what the future holds.
Date and time: Saturday 13th March 2021 @1pm UK/London
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6. BOOK REVIEW DISCUSSION: INDIA IN THE PERSIANATE AGE 1000-1765
With author Professor Richard M. Eaton [University of Arizona]
And hosted by Professor Marcia Hermansen [Loyola University Chicago]
The major theme is the rise of 'Persianate' culture - a many-faceted transregional world informed by a canon of texts that circulated through ever-widening networks across much of Asia. Introduced to India in the eleventh century by dynasties based in eastern Afghanistan, this culture would become thoroughly indigenized by the time of the great Mughals in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. This long-term process of cultural interaction and assimilation is reflected in India's language, literature, cuisine, attire, religion, styles of rulership and warfare, science, art, music, architecture, and more.
The book brilliantly elaborates the complex encounter between India's Sanskrit culture - which continued to flourish and grow throughout this period - and Persian culture, which helped shape the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire and a host of regional states, and made India what it is today.
Date and time: Sunday 14th March 2021 @4pm UK/London
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7. THE SECOND FORMATION OF ISLAMIC LAW: THE HANAFI SCHOOL IN THE EARLY MODERN OTTOMAN EMPIRE
With author Dr Guy Burak [New York University, USA]
and hosted by Dr Yakoob Ahmed [Young Ottomans Foundation - theyoungottomans.com]
The Second Formation of Islamic Law is the first book to deal with the rise of an official school of law in the post-Mongol period. The author explores how the Ottoman dynasty shaped the structure and doctrine of a particular branch within the Hanafi school of law. In addition, the book examines the opposition of various jurists, mostly from the empire's Arab provinces, to this development. By looking at the emergence of the concept of an official school of law, the book seeks to call into question the grand narratives of Islamic legal history that tend to see the nineteenth century as the major rupture. Instead, an argument is formed that some of the supposedly nineteenth-century developments, such as the codification of Islamic law, are rooted in much earlier centuries. In so doing, the book offers a new periodization of Islamic legal history in the eastern Islamic lands.
Date and time: Thursday 18th March 2021 @4pm UK/London
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8. BOOK REVIEW DISCUSSION: RIVALS IN THE GULF - YUSUF AL-QARADAWI, ABDULLAH BIN BAYYAH, AND THE QATAR-UAE CONTEST OVER THE ARAB SPRING AND THE GULF CRISIS
With author Dr David Warren [Washington University, USA]
and hosted by Yahya Birt [Ayaan Institute, UK; www.ayaaninstitute.com ]
Rivals in the Gulf: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Abdullah Bin Bayyah, and the Qatar-UAE Contest Over the Arab Spring and the Gulf Crisis details the relationships between the Egyptian Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the Al Thani royal family in Qatar, and between the Mauritanian Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah and the Al Nahyans, the rulers of Abu Dhabi and senior royal family in the United Arab Emirates. These relationships stretch back decades, to the early 1960s and 1970s respectively.
Using this history as a foundation, the book examines the connections between Qaradawi’s and Bin Bayyah’s rival projects and the development of Qatar’s and the UAE’s competing state-brands and foreign policies. It raises questions about how to theorize the relationships between the Muslim scholarly-elite (the ulama) and the nation-state. Over the course of the Arab Spring and the Gulf Crisis, Qaradawi and Bin Bayyah shaped the Al Thani’s and Al Nahyan’s competing ideologies in important ways.
Offering new ways for academics to think about Doha and Abu Dhabi as hegemonic centers of Islamic scholarly authority alongside historical centers of learning such as Cairo, Medina, or Qom, this book will appeal to those with an interest in modern Islamic authority, the ulama, Gulf politics, as well as the Arab Spring and its aftermath.
Date and time: Friday 19th March 2021 @4pm UK/London
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9. BOOK LAUNCH REVIEW DISCUSSION: ISLAMIC THEOLOGY IN THE TURKISH REPUBLIC
With author Dr Phil Dorroll [Wofford College, USA]
and hosted by Dr Yakoob Ahmed [Young Ottomans Foundation - theyoungottomans.com]
Dr Philip Dorroll argues that Turkish Islamic theology is in fact a distinct tradition of Islamic theological thought, shaped by the unique social conditions of the Turkish Republic. Tracking the emergence and development of this tradition over time, Dorroll examines the key themes of theology in the Turkish Republic. In doing so, he provides an important historical and conceptual map to the vast territory of modern Turkish theology.
It extensively analyses numerous late-Ottoman and modern Turkish Muslim theologians, such as İsmail Hakkı İzmirli, Bekir Topaloğlu, Hüseyin Atay, Hayrettin Karaman, Sönmez Kutlu, Hidayet Şefkatli Tuksal, Hülya Alper and Emine Öğük. And explores how modern Turkish theologians have grappled with issues such as nationalism and democracy; conceptions of God and humanity; the definition of religion itself and theological arguments for secularism; and theologies of human rights, gender and sexuality using a range of Turkish language theological sources not available in English and never before analysed in English.
Date and time: Thursday 25th March 2021 @4pm UK/London
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10. LAW, EMPIRE, AND THE SULTAN: OTTOMAN IMPERIAL AUTHORITY AND LATE ḤANAFĪ JURISPRUDENCE
With author Dr Samy Ayoub [The University of Texas, USA]
and hosted by Dr Yakoob Ahmed [Young Ottomans Foundation - theyoungottomans.com]
This book is the first study of late Hanafism in the early modern Ottoman Empire. It examines Ottoman imperial authority in authoritative Hanafi legal works from the Ottoman world of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries CE, casting new light on the understudied late Hanafi jurists (al-muta'akhkhirun). By taking the madhhab and its juristic discourse as the central focus and introducing "late Hanafism" as a framework of analysis, this study demonstrates that late Hanafi jurists assigned probative value and authority to the orders and edicts of the Ottoman sultan. This authority is reflected in the sultan's ability to settle juristic disputes, to order specific opinions to be adopted in legal opinions (fatawa), and to establish his orders as authoritative and final reference points. The incorporation of sultanic orders into authoritative Hanafi legal commentaries, treatises, and fatwa collections was made possible by a shift in Hanafi legal commitments that embraced sultanic authority as an indispensable element of the lawmaking process.
Date and time: Friday 26th March 2021 @4pm UK/London
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11. BOOK LAUNCH REVIEW DISCUSSION: ISLAMIC THEOLOGY AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
With author Dr Safaruk Chowdhury [ The Centre for Islamic Analytic Theology Research - www.islamicanalytictheology.org ] and researcher at Cambridge Muslim College [CMC]
and hosted by Dr Tallal M. Zeni [Translator of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya on Divine Wisdom and the Problem of Evil (Islamic Texts Society)]
Like their Jewish and Christian co-religionists, Muslims have grappled with how God, who is perfectly good, compassionate, merciful, powerful, and wise permits intense and profuse evil and suffering in the world. At its core, Islamic Theology and the Problem of Evil explores four different problems of evil: human disability, animal suffering, evolutionary natural selection, and Hell.
Each study argues in favor of a particular kind of explanation or justification (theodicy) for the respective evil. Safaruk Chowdhury unpacks the notion of evil and its conceptualization within the mainstream Sunni theological tradition, and the various ways in which theologians and philosophers within that tradition have advanced different types of theodicies. He not only builds on previous works on the topic, but also looks at kinds of theodicies previously unexplored within Islamic theology, such as an evolutionary theodicy.
Distinguished by its application of an analytic-theology approach to the subject and drawing on insights from works of both medieval Muslim theologians and philosophers and contemporary philosophers of religion, this novel and highly systematic study will appeal to students and scholars, not only of theology but of philosophy as well.
Date and time: Saturday 3rd April 2021 @4pm UK/London
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