Rethinking Islam & the West: A New Narrative for the Age of Crises

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Global Jihad tells the story of four distinct jihadi waves, each with its own program for achieving a global end: whether a Jihadi International to liberate Muslim lands from foreign occupation; al-Qa’ida’s call to drive the United States out of the Muslim world; ISIS using “jihadi cool” to recruit followers; or leaderless efforts of stochastic terror to “keep the dream alive.” Robinson connects the rise of global jihad to other “movements of rage” such as the Nazi Brownshirts, White supremacists, Khmer Rouge, and Boko Haram. Ultimately, he shows that while global jihad has posed a low strategic threat, it has instigated an outsized reaction from the United States and other Western nations. Take part in a captivating event delving into the Golden Age of Islam, as we bring together distinguished experts Ambassador Akbar Ahmed and Dr Shamim Miah. Renowned anthropologist and Islamic scholar, Ambassador Ahmed, will discuss his new book, The Flying Man: The Golden Age of Islam and its Contribution to Science and Philosophy, illuminating the lives and legacies of key Muslim personalities and their profound influence on the West.

Speakers were Dr Mohammedabbas Khaki of global social justice network Who is Hussain?, and Dr Rebecca Masterton, author of Shi’i Spirituality for the Twenty-first Century. In this talk Pushkar Sohoni examines the critical relationship between architectural production, courtly practice and royal authority in a period when the aspirations and politics of the kingdom were articulated through architectural expression. As well as offering a vivid depiction of sixteenth-century South Asia, this book revises understanding of the cultural importance of the Nizam Shahs and their place in the Indian Ocean world.Cambridge Festival 2021 – Emanuelle Degli Esposti on ‘ Charity and activism in Shiism: How grassroots are changing the face of British Shiism ‘ About a millennium ago, in Cairo, someone completed a large and richly illustrated book. In the course of thirty-five chapters, our unknown author guided the reader on a journey from the outermost cosmos and planets to Earth and its lands, islands, features and inhabitants. This treatise, known as The Book of Curiosities, was unknown to modern scholars until a remarkable manuscript copy surfaced in 2000. Hussam R. Ahmed is a historian of the modern Middle East. He completed his Ph.D. at McGill University in 2018 focusing on the social and cultural history of modern Egypt. He then took up postdoctoral fellowships at KU Leuven and the University of Cambridge before joining the Department of History at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth as Assistant Professor. Offering a better understanding of Ottoman history and the lessons that can be learned from the empire’s rise and fall, our special guests include Eugene Rogan, author of The Fall of the Ottomans, Caroline Finkel, author of Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire, and Marc David Baer, author of The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs. The capital of the Hoysala dynasty (ca. 1000-1346 CE), in present-day Halebidu, Karnataka, is best known for its elaborately sculptural Hoysaleshvara temple, dedicated to Shiva. Yet the Hoysala-period city (then called Dorasamudra) was home to numerous temples serving multiple religious communities. Dorasamudra’s Jain temples were among the most prominent in the city, attracting elite patronage, artistic innovation, and royal attention.In this talk, Dr. Kasdorf will look to the Parshvanatha temple, its inscriptions, and other Jain material from Dorasamudra—including two more monumental Jinas—to explore the role of Jain temples in the Hoysala capital and the prestigious networks in which they participated.

This remarkable book takes you on a photographic journey along the path taken by all the prophets and cultures, from southern Arabia to the grand Silk Road. Expanding on previous work in mapping the journey, it delves into groundbreaking discoveries by Professor Alkadi, including the Milestones of Arabia and the Hijrah route of the Prophet. These discoveries are currently showcased in an immersive exhibition at the Ithra Museum in Saudi Arabia. From Konkan to Coromandel – Mr Arthur Millner on “ A Cosmopolitan yet Local Tradition: Glazed Tiles in the Deccani Sultanates‘‘ Anver M. Emon is Canada Research Chair in Islamic law and history at the University of Toronto, where he is appointed in both the Faculty of Law and Department of History, and is Director of the University of Toronto’s Institute of Islamic Studies.From Konkan to Coromandel – Richard David Williams on “ Performance, Poetry, and Painting: Towards a History of Music in the Deccan Sultanates’‘ Many Muslims studying in secular, Western universities experience intimate tension, alienating confusion, and daily cognitive dissonance: their lectures, tutorials, cultural activities and political engagements are all conducted within a ‘secular’ space. Here, selves are moulded, values and meanings are negotiated, knowledge is produced, and reality is constructed without an ostensible submission to God or grounding in any faith tradition, let alone Islam. Education, in this context, is underpinned by certain assumptions that are often incongruent to the first principles provided by our ‘ulama. Alka Patel – Associate Professor in the Department of Art History and in the PhD Program for Visual Studies at the University of California, Irvine.

A multi-media dramatic presentation that will challenge your perceptions and transform your understanding of Islam and the West. Sylvia Houghteling is an assistant professor in the Department of History of Art at Bryn Mawr College. Her first book, The Art of Cloth in Mughal India (recipient of a CAA Millard Meiss Publication Fund Grant) was published by Princeton University Press in the spring of 2022. SherAli Tareen (Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin & Marshall College) joined us on 27 April to discuss his new work on the idea of the Hindu-Muslim encounter in colonial India. SherAli’s first book is “Defending Muhammad in Modernity” (2019, University of Notre Dame Press) which reanimates the contours of the infamous Barelvi-Deobandi polemic as a contest between competing political theologies. In 2020, the book was awarded the American Institute of Pakistan Studies book prize. Another interesting change of perspective is that of the ‘Islamic Golden Age’ that so many apologists refer to and have internalised. By this phrase, we paint a picture of the apex of Islamic Civilisation where the sciences progressed beyond any contemporaries and ancient knowledge was passed on to Christian Europe, sparking their own rebirth from their Dark Ages. However, this narrative has its own issues. It implies that the only ultimate use of Islam in hindsight was to provide sleeping Europe with the tools for them to wake up and lead the world. This again is due to the fact that our view of a positive society is based on the notion of scientific progress, but as Keeler has already taught us, If we shift our perspective to one where the Balance of things is maintained and not so much the scientific progress, then we start to see things with a lot more context. This also explains why so many today feel like the world is getting more dangerous and generally unstable despite the fact that we are at our technological peak. He has spent his working life since the Festival in establishing and engaging with projects that explore and present Islamic culture as a holistic environmental manifestation. Residing in Cambridge for the last 22 years he has had a profound impact on a number of students passing through the University. At a time of growing instability he is now lecturing and participating in seminars encouraging us to judge the success of human culture through the criteria of Mizan, which is at the heart of the Islamic unfolding.Graduating from the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, Tiziana Lorenzetti obtained her PhD. in ‘History of the Art of India and Oriental Asia’ from the ‘University of Genoa (Italy)’. She was Postdoctoral Fellow at ‘National Museum Institute of the History of Art’, New Delhi, and Lecturer in Indian Art and Culture at the Sapienza of Rome. A Life’s Journey is the companion volume to Rethinking Islam and the West, and tells the intriguing story behind Keeler’s challenging thesis.

Join our panellists for a fascinating exploration of the reasons behind the rapid expansion of the Ottoman Empire, including its military conquests, political organisation and relative religious tolerance, and the challenges and weaknesses that led to its eventual decline. Replacing the Byzantine Empire as the major power in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Ottoman Empire reached its height under Suleiman the Magnificent in the mid-16th century, when it expanded to cover the Balkans and Hungary, and as far west as the gates of Vienna. I see this book as a successor of Sir Iqbal’s magnum Opus: The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, and Gae Eaton’s Islam and the destiny of man. Researcher at TRT World Research Centre and a PhD candidate in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge.

CIS Public Talks – Mercedes Volait on ‘ Art at the Bayt al-Sadat: on local engagement with photography and interior refurbishment in Khedival Cairo‘ Professor Yasir Suleiman was the founding Director of the Centre of Islamic Studies, His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Sa’id Professor of Modern Arabic Studies, and a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. His research covers the cultural politics of the Middle East with special focus on identity, conflict, diaspora studies and modernisation in so far as these issues relate to language, modern Arabic literature, translation and memory. He also conducts research in Arabic grammatical theory and the Arabic intellectual tradition in the pre-modern period. Professor Suleiman is Chair of the Panel of Judges, British-Kuwaiti Friendship Society Book Prize in Middle Eastern Studies. In 2013 Professor Suleiman was elected as Chairman of the International Prize of Arabic Fiction (IPAF) popularly known in the Arabic-speaking world as the ‘Arabic Booker’. He serves as Trustee on the Boards of the following organisations: Arab-British Chamber Charitable Foundation, Banipal Trust for Arab Literature and is Trustee of the Gulf Research Centre-Cambridge. He is also Board Member of the Islamic Manuscript Association, Chair of the Centre for the Study of the International Relations of the Middle East and North Africa (CIRMENA), Cambridge and Member of the Advisory Board of Our Shared Future, a joint project of the British Council, USA and Carnegie Foundation. He is a member of the editorial boards of a number of journals and book series. In October 2013 Professor Suleiman was made Ambassador of the University of Sarajevo for his outstanding contribution to promoting the University internationally. A chance meeting with a master musician from India introduced him to a new cultural realm. In response, he formulated and organized The World of Islam Festival that took place in London in 1976, was opened by Her Majesty the Queen, and was the most comprehensive exposition of Islamic culture ever to have taken place in the West. Six months before the festival opened, he embraced Islam. Opening Session: Student Experiences on Being Muslim in the Modern University Speaker: Taskeen Adam, PhD candidate at the Centre of Development Studies, University of Cambridge. She is pursuing research on the role of Massive Open Online Courses in supporting the marginalised in South Africa. Ahmed Keeler is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge, and was a Distinguished Fellow at The Faculty of Leadership and Management, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia in 2016. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Bolton in 2016.