Annual conference of BRAIS to be held in London

The British Association for Islamic Studies announced its annual conference on various Islamic issues. According to BRAIS, this two-day scheduled conference this year, would return to the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (Aga Khan University) and the Institute for Ismaili Studies in London.

Registration for the conference is managed by the BRAIS Management Hub at the Alwaleed Centre, University of Edinburgh, via the University of Edinburgh's ePay system. 

Further information about delegate fees can be found here.

The association provided a detailed provisional plan along with the themes that would be covered, which you can refer to ‘’here''. Please be aware that the programme is likely to change in the months leading up to our conference.
 

Day 1: Monday 18th May 2026

1. Opening and Keynotes:
   • Welcome by Fozia Bora and Jonas Otterbeck.
   • Keynote address by Professor Ovamir Anjum (University of Toledo).
2. Panel Sessions:
   • Akhbārī Knowledge and Shiʿi Scholarship in Late Safavid Iran:
     • Focus on Safavid-era Akhbārī ḥadīth commentary, scholarly memory, and the intersection of medicine and hadith.
     • Chair: Majid Montazer Mahdi (Institute of Ismaili Studies)
       Robert Gleave (University of Exeter) Safavid Akhbārī ḥadīth commentary: Muḥammad Taqī al-Majlisī’s Lawāmiʿ Ṣāhibqirānī 
       Majid Montazer Mahdi (Institute of Ismaili Studies) Writing the Self into Tradition: al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī and the Politics of Scholarly Memory 
       Ali Ameri Rad (Independent Scholar) Medicine versus Hadith: The Case of Musakkin al-shujūn fī ḥukm al-firār min al-ṭāʿūn by al-Sayyid Niʿmatullāh al-Jazāʾirī 
       Zahra Jafari (University of Exeter) Late Safavid Akhbārī Reorientation: Shaykh Yūsuf al-Baḥrānī’s Legal Legacy
   • Lived Islam in Britain:
     • Topics on Muslim chaplaincy in British universities, welfare systems, and young Muslim adults' spiritual experiences in the UK.
     • Chair: Haroon Sidat (Cardif University)
       Hanan Basher (Cardiff University) Qur'anic Approaches to Spiritual Care by Muslim Chaplaincy in British Higher Education 
       Muhammad Nabil (SOAS) Britain's First Muslim Burial Fund: Archival Narratives of Migration, Civil Society and Welfare 
       Muthanna Saari (University of Sussex) Zakat and the moral economy: Ethic of care, social solidarity and the aspiration for a good life 
       Ruqaiah Al-Kabab (University of Salford) Young Arab Muslim Adults' Lived Spiritual Experience with Allah while studying in the UK: An integrated research methodology 
   • Gender, Power, and Interpretation in Islamic History:
     • Exploring women’s roles in history, from chess to Mughal architecture and modern Islamic law.
     • Majideh Qazizadeh (University of Exeter) Women, Myth, and the Gendering of Chess in Islamicate Literature 
       Laila Halani (The Institute of Ismaili Studies) Female empowerment: 'Khoja' and Momin engagement with their Aga Khan III's vision as reflected in the community's Rules (1905-1950s) 
       Qudsia Mirza (University of East London) Beyond Text and Tradition: Women's Interpretive Interventions in Modern Islamic Law 
   • Transmission of Knowledge Across Islamicate Cultures:
     • Classification of sciences, intellectual traditions, and knowledge transmission across the Islamic world.
     • Chair: Petra Schnidl (FAU Erlangen-Nuernberg) 
       Godefroid de Callatay (UCLouvain) The Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’s classification of the sciences: an overview of its diffusion and reception over the ages and cultures 
       Laura Tribuzio (UC Louvain) Marks of Power, Traces of Knowledge: Ottoman Manuscripts of the Mujmal al-Ḥikma and the Brethren of Purity 
       Ahmed Tahir Nur (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) From Alexandria to Baghdad to Istanbul: Tracing an Influential Framing of Knowledge 
       Razieh Mousavi (FAU Erlangen-Nuernberg) Unity in Diversity: Numbers and the Synthesis of Knowledge in a Safavid Classification of Sciences 
   • Alternative Sources for Early Islamic History:
     • Exploring genealogical, maternal kinship, and manuscript sources as new perspectives on Islamic history.
     • Chair: Adam Ramadhan (Leiden University)
       Leone Pecorini Goodall (Leiden University) Identifying and investigating maternal kinship ties in Umayyad and Alid panegyric 
       Aliya Abdulkadir Ali (University of Cambridge) Imagining and Erasing: Women’s Political Roles in Early Islamic Genealogical and Narrative Traditions 
       Aslisho Qurboniev (Institute of Ismaili Studies) Using Fatimid ‘propaganda’ as a historical source 
       Clement Salah (University of Oxford) Manuscripts and Mālikī Scholarship: The Kairouan Collection as an Alternative Source for Early Islamic History 
        
   • East African Muslim Sojourners in Colonial Britain:
     • The Somali Village in Colonial Bradford project investigates the largely buried and significantly overlooked history of the 1904 Great Exhibition in the West Yorkshire city of Bradford, within which a key attraction was a ‘Somali Village’. Around 57 Somali men.
     • Chair: Fozia Bora (University of Leeds) 
        

Day 2: Tuesday 19th May 2026

1. Panel Sessions:
   • Law, Authority, and Reform in the Late Ottoman Empire:
     • Topics on Ottoman legal reforms, state intervention in waqfs, and late Ottoman thought.
     • Chair: Tom Woener-Powell (University of MAnchester)
       Hamdi Çilingir (Sakarya University) and Şerife Eroğlu Memiş (Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University) Between State Interest and Waqf Interest: The Council of State (Şûrâ-yı Devlet) and Ottoman Interventions in Waqfs, 1868–1908 
       Ismail Noyan (Simon Fraser University) Towards a More Connected History of the Mecelle: Islamic Law, Codification, and Transimperial Networks Beyond Istanbul 
       Bilal Taşkın (Istanbul Medeniyet University) Layers of Reality in Late Ottoman Thought: Ismā‘īl al-Galanbawī’s Theory of Nefs al-Amr 
        
   • From Creed to Currency: Islamic Legal and Ethical Reasoning:
     • Exploring Shari’ah compliance, sustainability, and the evolving role of technology in Islamic law.
     • Camelia Garchi (Ez-zitouna University) Shari'ah Compliance or Islamic Moral Economy? Operationalising Ibn Ashur's Maqasid via sustainability 
       Kadir Gombeyaz (Kocaeli University) The First (?) Commentary on al-Fiqh al-Akbar Written in Mamluk Egypt: Ahmad b. Sayf al-Din b. Fakhr al-Din al-Nasafi and His Sharh al-Fiqh al-Akbar 
       Syed Muhammad Bilal Zaidi (LUMS) When "Principal" Loses Meaning: Ribā, Fiat Money, and the Ethics of Obligation 
        
   • Between Tradition and Nation in East and Southeast Asian Islam 
     • Examining the role of Islam in Europe, focusing on migration, faith, and governance.
     • Adele Cozzani (University of Naples) Islamic education in China during the Ming-Qing era: an introduction to Jingtang Jiaoyu, the Chinese Islamic educational system 
       Trang Nguyen Quynh (VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities) The Philosophy of “Purification” in Shiʿa Theology and Its Localization through the Roja Ritual of the Cham Bani Community in Vietnam 
       Irfan Sarhindi (University of Oxford) Between Pancasila and Caliphate: Muslim Students Making Sense of Political Standpoints in Indonesia's Post-Digital Education 
       Tingting Zhong (University of St Andrews) A Mainland Hui Muslim on the Periphery: Naming "Self" and "Other" in Ma Jianfu's Zaichang de Xinyang 
   • Islam in Contemporary Europe:
     • Examining the role of Islam in Europe, focusing on migration, faith, and governance.
     • Chair: Alyaa Ebbiary (Lancaster University)
       Martin Eidrup (University of Gothenburg) and Goran Larsson (University of Gothenburg) Regulating Islam Through Democracy Criteria: A Comparison of Swedish and Belgian Legislation 2015-2025 
       Egdunas Racius (Vytautas Magnus University) and Katarzyna Gorak-Sosnowska (Warsaw School of Economics) Migration of Central and Eastern European convert Muslims to the MENA region: between religious obligation (of hijra) and utility 
       Daniel Vékony (Corvinus University of Budapest) Rejecting “bad Muslims”: The selective nature of Central European migration policies and image construction of Muslims in the context regular and irregular migration 
        
   • Islam, Authority, and Society in the Gulf:
     • Discussions on family law, national identity, and intra-Wahhabi contestation in the Gulf.
     • Chair: Tom Lea (University of Edinburgh)
       Fatima Elhag (University of Oxford) Family Law in the Gulf: Gender Dynamics, Litigants' Strategies, and Socio-Legal Analysis of Qatar's Judicial Rulings 
       Danny Tan (United Arab Emirates University) I am what I wear (or not): The complexities of meanings of Emirati national dress 
       Philippe Thalmann (University of Cambridge) Prophetic Landscapes: Salafi lives in post-oil Saudi Arabia 
       Daniel Miller (University of Oxford) "Occupying the Holy Lands of Islam": Intra-Wahhabi Contestation over Non-Muslim Intervention in the Gulf War 
        
        
   • Muslim Women at the intersection of Theology and State:
     • Exploring progressive Muslim women’s leadership, political advocacy, and theological debates.
     • Whitney Buchanan (University of Edinburgh) Progressive Muslimah Leaders' Engagement with Political Muslim Advocacy in the United States and Germany 
       Anika Kabani (University of Oxford) Islam as Explanation, Secularity as Requirement: The predicament of Muslim women asylum seekers in the U.S. 
       Fatimah Aidara (Independent Researcher) Rābiʿah Reimagined: Divine Love and Poetic Longing in Contemporary Expressions of Tasawwuf 
       Thulfekar Ali (University of Glasgow) Which Eve, Which Women? Creation Narratives and the Making of Women’s Status in Islamic Thought