This article is about a new publicly visible generation of female Islamic authorities in the UK and the ways in which they make sense of what it means to be a female authority within largely male-dominated structures of knowledge production. These au...
The Tablighi Jama’at (TJ) is widely regarded as the largest grassroots Islamic revival movement in the world, but it remains significantly under-researched. This paper, based on sustained ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2013 and 2015,...
British foreign policy in the Middle East has been well researched. However, there are still aspects of Britain’s approach towards the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) that have yet to be researched. One such aspect is Britain’s encoun...
While Shi’a Muslims remain in the minority in Europe, including within universities, the past decade has witnessed the growing profile of Shi’ism on university campuses, especially in Britain. In particular, there has been an emphasis on...
According to some sociologists, one of the hallmarks of modernity is the end of ‘pre-determined’ identities and its replacement with bricolage projects in which people literally create ‘do-it-yourself’ identities. This has als...
This article presents a case study of the Fultoli tradition, an expression of Islam dominant amongst Bangladeshi migrants to the UK, but which in general terms has failed to communicate itself to British-born Muslims. It is also a denominational iden...
Based on detailed ethnographic fieldwork, this article provides an insider account of life inside a British Dar al-Uloom, or a traditional Islamic religious seminary, for the first time. Given that Dar al-Ulooms play an important role in the British...
The outburst of The Iranian Revolution in 1978 generated fear and hope at the same time for several political forces across the West and the East. The emergence of Islam as a political force came as a surprise across all political spectrums in Europe...
The mainstream literature on the religiosity of Muslims in Europe often homogenises this diverse minority. This article diverges by focusing on a less visible ethno-religious minority within the Muslim population, specifically examining how Hazara Sh...
Since its launch in 2005, the Islam-UK Centre at Cardiff University has initiated a range of projects concerned with issues of leadership, pastoral care, and the training of religious professionals working in British Muslim communities (Gilliat-Ray 2...
‘God is the Light of the heavens and the earth…’ (Quran, 24:35.) This article sheds light on the modalities of authority that exist in a traditional religious seminary or Dar al-Uloom (hereon abbreviated to DU) in modern Britain. B...
Scholars have identified Muslims’ religiosity and faith practices, often believed to be more intense than those of other religious groups, as a point of friction in liberal democracies. We use computer-assisted methods of lexical sentiment anal...
All children need permanent and secure homes in which they can explore their identities and evolve as human beings, citizens, and family members, and within which can they have a sense of security, continuity, stability, and belonging. There are appr...
The architecture of Jerusalem has for centuries been defined by its being a space sacred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The end of World War I marked the beginning of British Mandatory rule, which lasted until 1948. During this period, Jerusale...
This article examines the emergence of new forms of Islam in Britain between the 1990s and the present, and in particular the role played by the New Labour government (1997–2010) in encouraging new expressions of Islam. It charts the development of t...
The controversial events of 2001 (9/11) and 2005 (7/7) have led Britain’s media and policy makers to view the proliferation of orthodox Islamic seminaries, Dar-ul-Ulooms (DUs), and their graduates (Ulamaa) with suspicion, further exacerbating t...
As the number and types of Islamic schools in a Western context have increased, so too have the questions on their purpose and impact in pluralistic Western societies. Amid this increasingly complex environment, questions are raised, both internally...
Media representations of Muslims in Britain have often disappointed both faith practitioners and scholars. Imputed failings include distorting beliefs or practices, essentialising the faith, and amplifying voices that are not representative of Islam....
This contribution describes the origin and activities of three organizations in the United Kingdom: the British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS), the Muslims in Britain Research Network (MBRN) and Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND), disc...
The Universities and Muslim Seminaries Project (UMSEP) addresses three key issues in the narrative of Muslim communal identity and religious leadership in Britain today: firstly, the need for the accreditation of Darul Ulooms (Muslim seminaries) and...
Soon after the Conservative-led Coalition government came to power in 2010, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi announced that Islamophobia had passed the ‘dinner-table test’ in contemporary Britain. Resultantly, the need to address Islamophobia was identified as...
Since its inception in 1997, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has evolved to become one of the most enduring British Muslim organisations. It is a representative body for over 500 member bodies (‘affiliates’) including mosques, schools and chariti...
Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, is typically a time associated with individual worship and communal gatherings as Muslims meet, eat and pray together. In 2020 especially, COVID-19 had a significant impact on the observation of the holy month....
Although Muslim leadership in Britain has long been the focus of scholarly attention, discussion has tended to prioritise “official” Muslim leaders (Birt 2006; Geaves 2008; Ahmad and Evergeti 2010). However, what constitutes a “Musl...
The training of Imams and Muslim religious leaders has received much interest in the post-9/11 era, resulting in a vast amount of research and publications on the topic. The present work explores this literature with the aim of analysing key debates...