Annual Conferences

The annual Islamic Philosophy Conference was initiated at Harvard University (April, 2019) with participants coming from around the globe to present papers and engage in discussion over two days. The conferences are open to all interested scholars working on Islamic Philosophy and Theology. In addition to a general call for papers, conferences will include specialized panels organized by theme over the next three years (2020–22)

Journal of Islamic Philosophy

This unique journal is created specifically for the academic study of Islamic philosophy. The journal provides a peer-reviewed forum for scholars interested in the philosophical study of diverse topics in Islamic philosophy. Classical Islamic philosophy of past masters will be re-examined with a new focus. The underlying issues regarding the many ethical, metaphysical, existential, and epistemological challenges posed by western philosophy will be explored in comparison to Islamic philosophy. We hope to serve as an impetus toward the renewal of the rich and dynamic spirit of Islamic philosophical discourse in the current era.

In addition to The Journal of Islamic Philosophy’s print and digital journal, ASIPT’s Online Journal publishes scholarly and peer-reviewed studies whose appeal may extend beyond the academy. We welcome article-length submissions that actively address theological and philosophical problems via the Islamic intellectual tradition.

Website: https://asipt.org/

The British Board of Scholars & Imams (BBSI), Australian National Imams Council (ANIC), European Council of Imams, Canadian Council of Imams (CCI), North American Imams Federation (NAIF), United Ulama Council of South Africa, and Ulama Council of New Zealand have come together to collaborate on mutually beneficial work.

The Global Imams and Scholars Network aims to share knowledge and promote traditional and orthodox principles and the message of Islam and preserve the Islamic identity for Muslims living in the west.

The Global and Imams & Scholars’ Charter are general principles the network seeks to inculcate within their work and encourage other imams and scholars to adopt.

Source: www.muslimmatters.org

Beyond Foundationalism: New Horizons in Muslim Analytic Theology is a new research project led by Dr Ramon Harvey, Aziz Foundation Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Cambridge Muslim College.

The project aims to gauge the adequacy of the dominant Muslim theological approach to epistemology, as well as to assist the development of contemporary philosophical theology.

The project examines meta-epistemology, the justification of knowledge, in the kalām tradition, including foundationalism and its alternatives, and will put it into conversation with contemporary analytic philosophy and theology.

We explore the following questions: how do historical and contemporary Sunnī kalām epistemologies approach the question of foundations? To what extent is recent theistic philosophical theology a useful model for Muslim theologians? And which contemporary philosophical approaches to meta-epistemology are most fruitful in advancing a philosophical theology responsive to the particularities of the Muslim tradition?

The aim is to gauge the adequacy of the dominant Muslim theological approach to epistemology as well as to assist the development of contemporary philosophical theology, or kalām jadīd, on this important question.

Team

PROJECT LEADER Ramon is the Aziz Foundation Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Ebrahim College in London and lectures on the BA in Islamic Studies at Cambridge Muslim College. He received his MA and PhD in Islamic Studies from SOAS, University of London.

PROJECT RESEARCHER Safaruk studied Philosophy at Kings College London completing it with the accompanying Associate of Kings College (AKC) award.

PROJECT OFFICER Shahanaz is currently studying for a PhD in Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, with a focus on Islamic legal theory. Prior to this, Shahanaz completed her MA in Islamic Studies, at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

The project will organize three main events: two workshops and one international symposium.

1. The first workshop will bring together historians working on the kalām tradition and related subjects, such as Islamic philosophy, as well as traditionally trained Muslim theologians, to discuss premodern approaches to epistemology.

2. The second workshop will also engage scholars of the Christian and Jewish theological traditions on the question.

3. The international symposium will continue the deliberations of the two workshops and broaden the conversation into the field of contemporary analytic philosophy.

Publications

• During the project, Dr Harvey will produce a monograph that significantly touches on the project’s theme, as well as a relevant journal article.

• Dr Chowdhury will produce a monograph focused on the project’s theme, as well as two relevant journal articles.

• Additionally, Dr Harvey and Dr Chowdhury will edit a collected volume with chapters drawn from the project’s events.

Source: Cambridge Muslim College

The issue of anti-Muslim racism, however, exists all over Europe. Depending on the country, its manifestations are connected to the specific political, historical, and social relations in the society. However, similarities in patterns can be pinpointed in the ways how Muslims and people who are perceived as such face multiple forms of intolerance, hatred, and discrimination in all European countries. Academic research and reports from civil society organizations show that Muslims do not only experience violence and verbal harassment, but also structural forms of discrimination in terms of equal access to education, the labor market, and the housing market.

To support its member cities to tackle anti-Muslim racism, European Coalition of Cities Against Racism (ECCAR) established a permanent working group led by the City of Heidelberg in December 2020 that has received funding from the European Commission for the year 2021. In June 2021, ECCAR hired Ms. Linda Hyökki as the coordinator of the working group. Ms. Hyökki is writing her Ph.D. thesis on anti-Muslim racism in Finland with the Ibn Haldun University and has previously worked as an expert with academic and public institutions. Together with ECCAR’s member cities, researchers, and civil society actors, Ms. Hyökki will work to analyze how local governments can act against anti-Muslim racism in their capacities as democratic institutions, employers, service providers, and public contractors.

The project reflects the EU Anti-Racism Action Plan 2020-2025, which points out the important role played by cities and local governments in fighting racism and discrimination.

Source: European Coalition of Cities Against Racism (ECCAR)

The Symposium: “What Happened to Virtue, the Common Good, and Pluralism Teachings from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” on May 19, 202 at the University of Chicago, and the scholarship that emerges from it, formed the cornerstone of a multi-year effort to re-introduce the virtues to American culture.

This symposium was part of this broader project that aims to revive the understanding of virtues central to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—virtues upon which important visions of peaceful pluralism and ideas of the common good have often been founded.

Source: Religious Freedom Institute (RFI)

Discovering Muslims in Britain is a program of nine lessons based on cutting-edge sociological research, giving Key Stage 3 students insights on what practicing Muslims experience in their day-to-day lives.

Incorporating first-hand accounts from a range of sources, the resource is based on the Islam-UK Centre’s successful Muslims in Britain Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Academics are also supporting RE teachers by designing an accompanying CPD course, which will be delivered in January 2021.

Project lead Dr Matthew Vince, of the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK, based at the University’s School of History, Archaeology and Religion, said: “In the past, the teaching of Religious Education has been criticized for focusing too much on theology and beliefs at the expense of how it is actually experienced by people in modern society. Islam has been particularly vulnerable to misrepresentations and stereotypical views. Our teaching resources aim to remedy that by providing insights on the lived experience of individuals and communities.” The resources draw on views of practicing Muslims in the UK.

Source: Cardiff University

Euro-Islam is a network of scholars who conduct comparative research on Islam and Muslims in Europe and North America, and disseminate key information to policy-makers, media, and the public. The site is recognized in academic, political and media circles as the most reliable online reference for Islam in Europe.

In the past two decades, the topic of Islam in the West has become central to practitioners, scholars, and decision-makers working across foreign and domestic policy domains. Policy solutions to complex issues – such as immigration, integration and anti-terrorism – require multi-disciplinary approaches that will only develop from a process of exchange and cooperation across both states and sectors. Committed partnerships between experts, thorough research, and innovative problem solving are required to tackle international and domestic challenges and to realize the opportunities for deeper understanding and respect across political, religious, and cultural boundaries.

Euro-Islam supports the networking, research, and purposeful dialogue that meet such demands. With up-to-date news stories, in-depth country profiles and analysis of contemporary issues related to Islam and Muslims in Western Europe and North America, including a database of recent publications, this project facilitates productive discussion on key issues and provides a networking platform for some of the fields’ top researchers.

Jocelyne Cesari is Professor of Religion and Politics at Birmingham, Director of Research for the Cadbury Centre, and a Senior Fellow at the Berkley Centre for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University (US). Her research explores the interactions between religion and politics across different traditions and cultures, with a particular focus on democracy, secularization and toleration.

Source: University of Birmingham

The EZIRE was established on 1 January 2009 with the funding of the Fund for Innovation of the Bavarian Ministry for Sciences and is one of the main institutions within the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. It strengthens the university’s diverse and traditional research on Islam and the Middle East.

The EZIRE examines fundamental issues on Islam and Muslims in Europe. Researchers from different disciplines, such as Law, Political Science and Islamic Studies work together on various research projects. Part of the research is carried out in the form of scientific theses (PhD, Habilitation).

Current projects

– Islamic Affairs Consultancy in Bavaria. Bridge builders between Muslim environments and municipalities
– The Struggles over Identity, Morality, and Public Space in Middle Eastern Cities
– Islamic Mission on the European Continent: Ahmadiyya in the Footsteps of Globalization (1920-1990)

Completed projects

– Islam in Bavaria
– Coordination of the module Data Situation in the Project ‘Salafism in Germany’
– Parallel Justice
– Islamic Community Life in Berlin
– PROMETEE: Understanding Property in Moslem Transitional Environments
– WIN-World Religions for Integration
– RELIGARE

The topics of the research projects at the EZIRE are:

• Legal status of Islam in Germany and Europe
• Legal Pluralism in Europe
• Islamic normativity and religious practice of Muslims in Europe
• Muslim presence and Muslim self-definition in Europe
• Development of Islamic law in the present
• Connections and interactions between European jurisdictions and legal systems of countries with a Muslim majority
• Turkish Law
• Attitudes and practices of Muslims in Europe
• Islamic missionary work in Europe, conversion to and from Islam

Contacts

• Address: Erlangen Centre for Islam and Law in Europe, Bohlenplatz 6, 91054 Erlangen, Germany
• Tel: +49 9131 85-26398
• Fax: +49 9131 85-26399
• Email: joern.thielmann@fau.de
• Website: https://www.ezire.fau.eu/

The book – titled God’s Revelation in the Words of Mankind: The Qur’an in the Light of Mercy – advocates for a what it presents as a dialogical, open approach to Islam’s holiest book. Monological understandings, according to Khorchide, conceive of the Quran as a legal manual, unidirectionally informing believers how to organize the particulars of their daily lives.

Khorchide’s ambition is instead to showcase the Quran’s larger ethical dimension: with the Quran being an ongoing dialogue between God and humanity, Khorchide stresses the openness of the text to different interpretations.

The blueprint for this research agenda is derived from the ‘historical-critical method’ of Bible studies, as developed in 18th– and 19th-century Germany. This locates the Quranic commentary squarely in a quintessentially German scientific landscape, as it engages above all with German and German-language authors from (non-Islamic) theologies.

In the past, Khorshide’s methodological orientation – broadly shared by his Centre for Islamic Theology at large – has caused major controversy among Muslim commentators in Germany. The country’s largest Islamic associations have criticized Khorshide’s interpretations as too free-wheeling, lacking in theological substance, and – perhaps above all – as politically opportunistic. Their attempts to have Khorshide removed from his university chair have failed, however. The accusations directed at Khorchide have at times been hysterical and unfair. However, even some of those who, like Khorchide, find the theological offerings of Germany’s large Islamic associations unsatisfactory, have come to see the Münster theologian’s work with a sceptical eye…

Source: Euro-Islam.info

The project addressed the following question:

– What are the contours of religious diversity in Canada and how can we best respond to the opportunities and challenges presented by religious diversity in ways that promote a just and peaceful society?

Specifically, the project investigated the following questions:

– How are religious identities socially constructed?
– How is religious expression defined and delimited in law and public policy?
– How and why do gender and sexuality act as flashpoints in debates on religious freedom?
– What are alternative strategies for managing religious diversity?

The project’s main contribution was to identify in detail the contours of religious diversity in Canada and the potential benefits of approaches to diversity that promote substantive or deep equality and move beyond tolerance and accommodation.

Our comparative research placed Canada in the context of other Western democracies and identifies global patterns in responses to religious diversity. Our research provides new data and theoretical articulations concerning religious diversity. This research program presented diversity not primarily as a problem, but as a resource and to propose strategies for equality that will advance knowledge and enhance public policy decision-making.

In order to achieve its goals, the project brought together 37 team members from over 20 universities across the globe and also included over 100 student team members and postdoctoral fellows. It boasted a number of important partners and stakeholders and has established links with research associates.

Contacts

• Address: University of Ottawa, Department of Classics and Religious Studies, 55 Laurier Ave. East, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada
• Phone: +1 613 562 5800 ext. 2662
• Website: www.religionanddiversity.ca