“Muslim Women’s Religious Leadership and Authority in Europe and North America”

Call for Papers

Date: September 13-14, 2018

Venue: University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, UK

Submission Deadline: April 3, 2018

Organizers: Khadijah Elshayyal (Alwaleed Centre, University of Edinburgh), Giulia Liberatore (Sociology & Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies/Alwaleed Centre) and Tazeen Ali (Religious Studies, Boston University)

The rise of female Islamic scholarship and leadership in the non-Muslim world is a relatively recent phenomenon that is garnering increasing public attention. Growing opportunities for women to train as scholars, both abroad and across Europe and the US, have facilitated this process and given rise to a number of institutions – for example, the Women’s Mosque in California, the Muslim Women’s Council in Bradford, England, and the Maryam Mosque in Copenhagen – which actively promote and disseminate female scholarship.

Despite public attention devoted to this topic, academic research has been limited. Furthermore, and reflecting a broader trend in the literature on Islam in the West, there is little comparative work on female Islamic scholarship across the two continents.

This interdisciplinary workshop aims to facilitate a dialogue and scholarly exchange on the topic of Islamic female scholarship and leadership. We invite scholars and practitioners from a range of fields and disciplines to submit abstracts (of no more than 200 words) that explore these topics and shed light on female Islamic leadership in Europe and North America.

The program will include keynote lectures, panel presentations and a roundtable discussion featuring both academics and practitioners.

Full Program

• Panel 1: Historical and Transnational Perspectives

– ‘I am here to teach them how to be a Turkish Muslim woman in Austria’: female preaching in Vienna Diyanet’s mosques.
– Memories of Protest: Bermudian Muslim Women’s Educational Leadership – community, memory and transnational alliances, 1977-1990.
– Female Leadership in Polish Tatar communities: a decline?
– Elder African-American women as role models.

• Panel 2: Muslim women’s religious leadership in the UK

– Mapping Muslim female scholarship and leadership in the UK.
– ‘You can teach the sisters’: Muslim women, education and religious authority in Britain.
– Female Islamic scholarship and guidance in Britain.
– Female interpretive authority and expert evidence in family law cases in England and Wales.

• Panel 3: Activism as leadership

– ‘Muslim feminist revolution’: spirituality and resistance.
– Spiritual activism: leadership as service.
– Gender segregation and women’s leadership in US mosques.
– Gender and sexuality in community: praying as a progressive.

• Public Keynote lecture – Amina Wadud

• Panel 4: Language(s) and terminologies

– How do you define a ‘female imam’? Uses, developments and adaptations of the term ‘imam’ in the European context.
– The linguistic frame of Islamic feminism.
– Literacy, legitimacy and leadership: Arabic as the missing link.
– Mussurut Zia The lived realities of Muslim women in the UK: qiwamah and wilayah

• Public Keynote Lecture – Shuruq Naguib (Lancaster University)

• Roundtable Discussion:Opportunities and constraints for female scholars in Europe and North America.

Source: University of Edinburgh