Listing of Events

Through February
Tafseer of the Holy Qur’an

Conducted by: Shaykh M S Bahmanpour

Venue: Islamic Centre of England, 140 Maida Vale, London W9 1QB

Time: Every Friday starting at 7.30 PM

 The Gap Between Us

This is the first UK solo exhibition by artist and film-maker Basma Alsharif, featuring three key works from different periods of the artist’s practice. This exhibition’s central work will be Ouroboros (2017), Alsharif’s first feature length film, screened here in a gallery context for the first time. A homage to the Gaza Strip, Ouroboros follows a man through five different landscapes, upending mass-mediated representation of trauma.

Venue: The Mosaic Rooms, Tower House, 226 Cromwell Road, London SW5 0SW

More info: http://mosaicrooms.org/events/category/exhibitions/list/

1February

Diverse Approaches to Mental Health

This seminar celebrates the first year of partnership between Muslim Networks in Public Health England, NHS Improvement and the Department of Health. We will also initiate our new 2020 plan with a focus on how government, businesses, civil society and professional associations need to work more collaboratively to improve all our mental health with the aim of building healthier, more resilient communities.

Time: 12:00 PM – 2.30 PM

Venue: Wellington House, 133-155 Waterloo Rd, Lambeth, SE1 8UG London

Entry: Free

More info: http://www.beehive.so/activity/activity_details/3703

Film Screening: ‘Taq Kasra’: Wonder of Architecture

Directed by Pejman Akbarzadeh, Taq Kasra: Wonder of Architecture is the first-ever documentary film on the world’s largest brickwork vault. The palace was the symbol of the Persian Empire in the Sassanian era (224-651 CE) when a major part of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) was part of Persia. Taq Kasra was in serious danger of ISIS attacks in 2015-2016 and this was the main motivation for documentary maker Pejman Akbarzadeh, based in Holland, to travel to Iraq twice and film the arch before it was potentially destroyed.

Venue: Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS, 10 Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, WC1H 0XG

Time: 7.00 PM – 9.00 PM

Entry: Free

More info: https://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei-cis/events/

1- 22 February

Course: Modern and Contemporary Art from the Arab World

Islamic Art Re-invented: Modern and Contemporary Art from the Arab World is the latest addition to the range of specialised and fascinating courses taught by our Islamic Art & Architecture expert Roberta Marin.

Venue: Arab British Centre, 1 Gough Square, London, EC4A 3DE

Time: 4 weeks

Fee: £130

More info: http://www.arabbritishcentre.org.uk/courses/modern-and-contemporary-art-from-the-arab-world/#collapse

2 February

Young Muslim change-makers

The Muslim charity sector is stronger than ever, attracting thousands of volunteers and millions of pounds every year.  What motivates these young Muslim volunteers? What shapes the socially-engaged behaviour of young Muslims? What are the place and the role of Islam in their involvement and commitment to their causes? What social impact do these organisations have in their local area? How do they understand religion, faith, participation and citizenship? What challenges do they face and how do they overcome these?  Join us as we discuss topics related to ethics, sustainable growth and the desire to create change.

Venue: Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, Marylebone, London W1H 4LP

Time: 6.45 PM – 8.30 PM

Details: Free entrance

Contact: umair@thecitycircle.com

4 February

I Am Beauty
This is the first of its kind event that opens up this sensitive topic to discuss the reality of the beauty industry and its repercussions for many people who have been made to feel unhappy with their bodies. We also look at ways of promoting a positive body image within Islamic and positive psychology perspectives.

Time: 10:30 AM – 12.15 PM

Venue: Seminar Suite, 4th Floor London Muslim Centre, Whitechapel, E1 1JX

Entry: £8

Booking: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/i-am-beauty-changing-perceptions-increasing-wellbeing-tickets-41711177254

More info: http://www.beehive.so/activity/activity_details/3693

5 February

IMES Research Seminar: Arianne Shahvisi

Problematising Migrant Domestic Work in the Middle East: A Philosopher’s Perspective. A free seminar by guest speaker, Dr Arianne Shahvisi (University of Sussex).

Venue: Room G2, 19 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LD

Time: 5.15 PM

7 February

Imaging the Politics of the Refugee Crisis

Featuring: Issam Kourbaj (Syrian Artist in Residence at Christ’s College) and Simon Bainbridge (Editor of the British Journal of Photography’s 2016 The Migration Issue).  The event will first draw on Bainbridge’s work to show how images have been tapped to address the refugee crisis in the United Kingdom. The Migration Issue released a series of editorial photographic works responding to asylum seekers’ experiences of the immigration system in the United Kingdom. Anyone who donated to the American Civil Liberties Union in the wake of Trump’s election was given a digital copy for free, making it a highly politically charged documentary photography compilation.

Venue: Seminar Room SG2, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DT

Time: 12.00 PM – 2.00 PM

Entry: Free

More info: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27578

8 February

Author Evening: ‘Great Muslims of the West – Makers of Western Islam’ with Muhammad Mojlum Khan

The GREAT MUSLIMS OF THE WEST is a unique, inspiring and authoritative study of the history, culture and heritage of the Western world from an Islamic perspective. Through the lives of more than 50 great Western Muslims, this book reveals a remarkably rich and diverse cultural history spanning more than 1400 years. Challenging Eurocentric or essentialist views on Western history, culture and civilisation, this book argues that Islam – like Christianity – has always been a Western religion and culture.

Venue: IHRC Bookshop, 202 Preston Road, Wembley HA9 8PA

Time: 6:00 PM

Entry: Free

More info: http://www.ihrc.org.uk/events/

10 February

Conference: The New Colonialism: The American Model of Human Rights

In a heightened era of American Exceptionalism under an overtly chauvinistic President and administration, IHRC is convening a conference to unmask the more systemic problems that undergird US Exceptionalism. In particular this conference will focus on the Americanisation of Human Rights, and the praxis of human rights, arguing that they have become a tool of US-led foreign policy rather than a transformative discourse that seeks to liberate individuals, groups and indeed large sections of society who are oppressed by unjust systems.

Venue: Sarah Fell Room, Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BJ

Time: From 9.30 AM – 4.30 PM

More info: http://www.ihrc.org.uk/events/12025-conference-the-new-colonialism-the-american-model-of-human-rights

12 – 14 February

After the Conquest: Converging Approaches to the Study of the Iberian Reconquista

The Woolf Institute will shortly hold an interdisciplinary workshop: ‘After the Conquest: convergent methodologies and divergent practices in the study of the Iberian Reconquista, 9th-14th centuries’.

Popularly known as the Reconquista, the Christian conquest of al-Andalus in the Iberian Peninsula has long been a popular area of research. Although there have been some major breakthroughs over the past thirty years, a historiographical impasse has hindered transnational collaboration between different scholars and schools of thought.

Venue: Woolf Institute, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0UB

Contact: Rodrigo Garcia-Velasco (rig25@cam.ac.uk)

More info: http://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/whats-on/events/after-the-conquest

18 February

I Was Worth Creating

How would life be different if you lived it with a sense of full confidence and worth?  This interactive workshop is aimed at women who would love to increase their self-esteem and confidence. Through the session, we will explore the difference between arrogance and self-worth; reliance on God and self-confidence. Through practical exercises, you will also have the opportunity to access three essential elements for boosting self-esteem and confidence.

Time: 10:30 AM – 12.15 PM

Venue: Seminar Suite, 4th Floor London Muslim Centre, Whitechapel, E1 1JX

Entry: £8

Booking: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/i-was-worth-creating-boost-your-self-esteem-confidence-tickets-41902331000

More info: http://www.beehive.so/activity/activity_details/3704

Visit My Mosque – Milton Keynes

#VisitMyMosque day is a national initiative facilitated by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and its affiliates.  On 18th February 2018, the KSI Muslim Community of Milton Keynes would like to invite you all to visit our Mosque. Please come and visit us for some tasty refreshments, a chance to meet some of our members and find out more about what happens in our community centre

Venue: KSI Milton Keynes, Peverel Drive, Bletchley, Milton Keynes, MK1 1NG

Time: 1.00 PM – 4.00 PM

More info: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/visitmymosque-milton-keynes-registration-41600628600?aff=es2

19 February

IMES Research Seminar: Ruba Saleh

Refugees, Embodied Memories, and Intimate Politics: Palestinian Tales. A free seminar by guest speaker, Dr Ruba Saleh (SOAS).

Venue: Room G2, 19 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LD

Time: 5.15 PM

19 & 20 February

SOAS Kamran Djam Annual Lecture Part 1: Scientific Tropes in Modern Iranian Politics: Jinns to Germs

In a two-part historical analysis, Professor Tavakoli explores the use of modern scientific tropes in Iranian political, cultural and historical discourses from the late nineteenth century to the present. The first lecture, “Jinns to Germs,” explains how a nineteenth-century public health crisis prompted the deployment of a wide-range of medical and microbiological concepts to recount Iran’s history and to offer prognoses and diagnoses of national, social and political ills. While this shift transformed the lived habitus of early twentieth-century Iran, the prominence of a Pasteurian conception of illness also provided a generative foundation for the governmentalisation and bio-politicisation of Islam. In this process, jinns had become germs.

Time: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Part 2:

Scientific Tropes in Modern Iranian Politics: ‘Engineering Governmentality’

In this part Prof. Tavakoli explores the concurrent political ascendency of Shi‘i clerics and the national prominence of engineers and engineering schools in the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution. In a conjoined historical and epistemological analysis, Professor Tavakoli explains how the Shi‘i clerical commitment to the building of a divinely inspired society converged with the professional pursuits of engineers and engineering companies.

Speaker: Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, University of Toronto

Venue: Khalili Lecture Theatre, 10 Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square: College Buildings, WC1H 0XG

Time: 5:30 PM-7:00 PM

More info: https://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei-cis/events/

21 February

Book Launch: Law and Revolution: Legitimacy and Constitutionalism in the Arab Spring

ook Launch for Law and Revolution: Legitimacy and Constitutionalism in the Arab Spring (Oxford University Press 2017) by Nimer Sultany.

Venue: Wolfson Theatre, First Floor, Paul Webley Wing (Senate House), North, Russell Square, WC1H 0XG

Time: 6.00 PM – 8.00 PM

More info: https://www.soas.ac.uk/law/events/

22 February

#Islamophobia20 (Runnymede Trust)

Black South West Network and the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol would like to invite you to the Bristol launch of the Runnymede Trust’s new report exploring the impact of Islamophobia on British Muslims.  The report sets out a framework that maps Islamophobia as a form of anti-Muslim racism and explores its impact on individuals and communities. It includes contributions from a wide range of academics and experts, including chapters on the labour market, hate crime, prevent, civil society, gender, health, integration and more.

Venue: Room 2D3, Banton Lecture Theatre, Social Sciences Complex, University of Bristol, Priory Road, BS8 1TU

Time: 5.00 PM – 7.00 PM

More info: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/islamophobia20-bristol-launch-event-tickets-41488639638?aff=es2

25 February

Real Ninjas Self Defence Workshop For Muslim Women

A self-defence programme for Muslim women aged 16+ organised by a couple running regular classes and workshops throughout the U.K. and South Africa. The programme will cover defences against arm drags, being attacked from behind and hijab/hair grab and pulls and how to get off from the floor amongst others.

Venue: Lote Tree Initiative, Uxbridge House, Evershed Way, Burton-On-Trent, DE14 3LH

Time: 4.00 PM – 7.00 PM

Fee: £25

More info: http://www.ukislamicevents.net/#event|real-ninjas-self-defence-workshop-for-muslim-women-burton-upon-trent|9522

26 February

Idols and Figural Images in Islam: A Brief Dive into a Perennial Debate

This lecture aims to explore some of the questions and debates concerning idolatry and figural representation from the beginning of Islam until today. It will focus in particular on the specific terminology used in the Qur’an and Hadith in order to distinguish the semantic and conceptual categories that were used by Muslim writers to classify various forms of art-making along with their associated practices.

Speaker: Christiane Gruber, University of Michigan

Venue: Khalili Lecture Theatre, 10 Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square: College Buildings, WC1H 0XG

Time: 6.00 PM – 9.00 PM

Entry: Free, registration required.

More info: https://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/

27 February

Palestinian Citizens of Israel: Power, Resistance and the Struggle for Space

Palestinian Citizens of Israel is an investigation into the Palestinian communities living inside the Jewish state, and their attempts to disrupt, resist and reshape the physical and symbolic borders that discipline their lives. Through extensive fieldwork and conducting over one hundred interviews, Sharri Plonski conducts a comparative analysis of three contemporary cases in which Palestinian citizens struggle for land and space in Israel.

Venue: Khalili Lecture Theatre, 10 Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square: College Buildings, WC1H 0XG

Time: 5.45 PM – 7.00 PM

More info: https://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/

https://issuu.com/islamtoday/docs/islam_today_issue_56_february_2018_a005a81edc330c/26