On Wednesday, 7 February 2018, a group of IRIC experts participated in the international conference of “Islam in Europe: Perspectives and Challenges” which was hosted by al-Mustafa University, in Qom.

The conference was attended by a group of scholars in the area of Islamic studies from Europe including Britain, Italy, Czech Republic and the Netherlands. In the morning session, Ayatollah Haadavi from al-Mustafa University delivered his presentation on extremism and Islamophobia in Europe. The session was followed by the lecture of Professor Robert Gleave from the University of Exeter, entitled “Islamic Extremism and Counter-Terrorism: Some recent cases in English Law”. In his lecture, Professor Gleave brought up the terrorism Act 2000 and three court cases to demonstrate the current problem in the way the British law is dealing with the issue of terrorism. Professor Andrew Newman from the University of Edinburgh was the other keynote speaker who delivered his lecture under the title of “Scottish Shi’i Voices: A Minority in a Minority in a Minority”. Giving some statistics and introducing recent publications on Muslims in UK and Scotland, Professor Newman mentioned that there is no statistical data available on Shia Muslims except for some institutional information on Shi’i mosques.

The specialized panels were held in the afternoon session under two titles; Unity and Islamophobia during which the researchers shared the outcome of their research projects with the audiences. Some example of the papers presented in the afternoon session are as follows:

– Catholic church and Islamic traditions in Europe, By Dr.Franc Jaroslav from Palacký University Olomouc in Czech Republic
– Islam and Muslims in books, By Dr. Veronica Sobotkova from Bohemia University in Czech Republic
– Islamophobia in Czech Republic, By Dr. Joseph Kraus from Masaryk University in Prague

IRIC experts had an active presence in discussions and also in the panels. They had the opportunities to have some private dialogue with the lecturers.