Annual Conference of the British Association for Islamic Studies

Call for Papers
Date: June 30-July 01, 2025 
Venue: Old Divinity School, St John’s College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Abstract Submission Deadline: January 05, 2024

The British Association for Islamic Studies is delighted to announce that it will be hosting its 2025 Annual Conference at the University of Cambridge, in the historic surroundings of the Old Divinity School at St John’s College. We extend our sincere thanks to our colleagues at the Centre of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge, for making this possible.

2025 will mark the tenth anniversary of BRAIS’s Annual Conference, with the first taking place at the University of Edinburgh back in 2014.

We now invite scholars from across the many sub-disciplines of Islamic Studies to join us in Cambridge to celebrate this milestone and share their latest research. We invite proposals for individual papers, as well as whole panels, from senior and early-career scholars from Professor to PhD level, as well as colleagues from beyond the academic world who have specialist expertise or unique insights to share. This includes colleagues based in centers of further education, museums and traditional centers of religious learning, among others.

​​Islamic Studies is broadly understood to include all topics and disciplinary approaches relating to the study of Islam and Muslim societies, across all time periods from the formative to the classical, and pre-modern to the contemporary. You will find a list of suggested themes at the bottom of this page.

An Inclusive Conference

BRAIS is committed to the principles of equality and inclusivity, and welcomes papers from scholars of all backgrounds and identities. We will work hard to ensure that BRAIS 2025 is a welcoming environment where everyone feels valued and supported. We are mindful that many colleagues will have dependents, and your dependents are most welcome to attend along with you, free of charge.

Submitting Your Abstract

For individual papers, a 200-word abstract of the paper should be submitted along with your details using the form available via the link below:

SUBMIT YOUR PAPER PROPOSAL

Submitting Your Panel Proposal

BRAIS particularly welcomes proposals for whole panels curated around certain themes or methodologies. Panels will ideally include four individual papers, but panels of three individual papers will also be considered.

For panels, a 200-word outline of the theme of the panel, together with 200-word abstracts of each individual paper and the biography of each presenter should be submitted using the form available via the link below:

SUBMIT YOUR PANEL PROPOSAL

Submission Deadline

The deadline for paper and panel submissions is Sunday 5 January 2025 at 11:59pm GMT.

Any Questions?

If you have any questions, please contact the Conference Committee on: brais.conference@ed.ac.uk

BRAIS 2025 Suggested Themes

• Archives and Archival Studies
• Art, Architecture, Numismatics, Epigraphy and Material Culture
• Black Islam(s) and African Diaspora Studies
• Decolonizing the Curriculum, including New Periodization and (Inter)Disciplinary Approaches
• Digital Humanities in Islamic Studies
  Economy, Marketing and Finance
• Education and Pedagogy
• Environmental Humanities and Ecology
• Gender Studies
• Genocide Studies
• Hadith Studies
• History and Historiography
• Intellectual History and the History of Science
• Interreligious Relations and Comparative Studies
• Islam and Muslims in the Media: Print, Online and on Screen
• Islamic liberation theology and theologies of resistance
• Law
• Libraries and Book Cultures
• Literature and Cultural Studies including Postcolonial Studies
• Manuscript Studies and Codicology
• Music
• Muslims in Asia
• Muslims in Britain/Europe/North America and other minority contexts
• Philosophy, Theology and Ethics
• Qur’anic and Tafsir Studies
• Scholasticide and Epistemicide
• Sociology, Anthropology and Political Science
• Sufism and Mysticism

We rely on our members and conference participants to help us expand the scope and nuance of our Annual Conference. In light of this, please do feel free to submit panel or paper proposals that are not represented in the above-mentioned themes.

Data Protection

All BRAIS 2025 paper and panel submissions will be managed by the Alwaleed Centre at the University of Edinburgh (BRAIS’s management hub). Your submission will be shared with two anonymous reviewers who will review your submission and return their verdicts. Your submission will be retained until the BRAIS 2025 conference has been delivered. At this point, all submissions will be permanently deleted from our records.

Source: The British Association for Islamic Studies