Recognising Islam in Europe and North America

Date: February 5, 2020

Venue: Atrium Conference Room, Aga Khan Centre, 10 Handyside Street, London N1C 4DN, UK

Lecturer: Dr Abdul-Azim Ahmed

Organizer: Jonas Otterbeck, Professor of Islamic Studies, Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations

The fifth in a series of eight lectures entitled Recognising Islam in Europe and North America. The series presents exciting research on Muslim contexts in Europe and North America. The series will focus on issues relating to Muslim agency, creativity and strivings. What engages people and drives them to find new directions? The series will challenge conventional narratives about Islam in Europe and North America by providing stimulating, new perspectives based on recent and ongoing research.

There are currently somewhere in the region of 2000 mosques in Britain, with many more being established every year, and those that are established, growing and expanding in size. The importance of the mosque to British Muslims, and the role of the congregation in establishing and maintaining them, is an unexplored aspect of contemporary Islamic studies.

In this lecture, Abdul-Azim Ahmed explores the role of the Muslim congregation in Britain, and more widely, within Anglophone Islam, as a means of doing and producing religion together.

Dr Abdul-Azim Ahmed is Research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK. His doctoral study was an ethnography of a British mosque, exploring the everyday, rhythm, and sacred space. He is continuing his research, but focusing on the prominence of the congregation amongst Muslims in diaspora, and its relationship to an emerging category, that of Anglophone Islam. He has also previously worked in the third-sector in Wales, managing a youth work project and undertaking policy research.

Source: The Aga Khan University