2015 public lectures
Listings and videos of our seminar series in 2015.
Zia Salik
British Muslims and Charitable Giving
10 February 2015
Zia Salik manages community fundraising at Islamic Relief UK, an organisation he has been working for since 2010.
He has led several fundraising campaigns to help alleviate the suffering of the victims of disasters including the floods of Pakistan in 2010, East Africa famine in 2011, West Africa crisis in 2012 and the on-going crisis in Syria, Palestine and Iraq more recently. He is engaged with the Muslim community throughout the UK on a daily basis in an effort to portray the Islamic Relief message within communities.
Professor Humayun Ansari
Loyal Enemies or Critical Friends’? The Challenges for British Muslims in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
17 February 2015
Video of Professor Humayun Ansari's lecture
Professor Humayun Ansari OBE, is Professor of the History of Islam and Cultural Diversity and Director of the Centre for Minority Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. His research focuses on the history of Muslims in the West, radical Islamic thought, ethnic diversity, identity and migration.
Dr Sariya Contractor
Demystifying the Muslimah: Faithful Feminists?
24 February 2015
Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor is Research Fellow in Faith and Education at the University of Derby. She specialises in the Sociology of Religion with particular emphasis on democratic research methodologies that seek to work with and for research participants. She has written and edited a number of books on the topic.
Dr Chris Allen
Approaching Islamophobia from a Human Rights Perspective
3 March 2015
Chris Allen is a Lecturer in the Institute of Applied Social Studies at the University of Birmingham. For the past decade and a half, he has been undertaking research into the phenomenon of Islamophobia. This has included researching the experience of Muslim women who are victims of Islamophobic hate crimes, opposition to the building of mosques, and the role of the far-right in promoting anti- Muslim hate. As well as publishing widely and appearing in the media regularly, he was until recently an independent member of the Government’s Anti-Muslim Hate Working Group.
This lecture is organised in partnership with the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Wales.
Haroon Sidat & Saleem Seedat with Prof Ron Geaves
The Darul Ulum and Mainstream Higher Education: A Way Forward?
10 March 2015
Having completed Darsi Nizami studies, Haroon Sidat completed a degree in Economics and Social Studies at Manchester University before taking up employment at Ernst and Young LLP whilst studying to become a Chartered Accountant. He holds a PGCE in Mathematics and also lectures at Jamiatul ilm Wal-Huda (Blackburn) on their BA Islamic Studies programme in association with Middlesex University. He is a member of the Al-Qalam Shari’ah Scholars panel.
After studying traditional Islamic sciences for seven years, Saleem Seedat was awarded a scholarship to study a Diploma in Contextual Islamic Studies and Leadership at Cambridge Muslim College. Along with his academic background, Saleem has experience of working in the Corporate Division of the NHS for more than five years and has been involved in many voluntary community initiatives in Blackburn. He is a College Chaplain and lecturer of Islamic Studies at the seminary Jamiat-ul-Ilm Wal Huda.
Professor Ron Geaves is Honorary Visiting Professor at the Islam-UK Centre in Cardiff. He held a Chair in Religious Studies at the University of Chester (20012007) and a Chair in the Comparative Study of Religion at Liverpool Hope University (2007-2013). He joined the Community Religions Project at the University of Leeds in 1988 where he worked on the transmigration of South Asian religions to Britain, especially Islam. His PhD thesis ‘Sectarian Influences within Islam in Britain’ was published as a Community Religions Monograph. He has researched Islam in Britain, publishing several books that explore British manifestations of Sufism.
Imran Mogra
Challenges and Opportunities: British Muslim Women and Maktab Education
17 March 2015
Imran Mogra is a senior lecturer in Professional Studies and Religious Education in the School of Education, Faculty of Health, Education and Social Sciences at Birmingham City University. He has authored numerous journal articles about British Muslim supplementary education, in well-respected journals. Imran has designed a training course that he has been delivering for several years to teachers in the Muslim supplementary school sector. He is also a mentor on the Mosaic programme which provides support to young people to close the gap between their aspirations and attainment.
