Beauty in Sufism: The Teachings of Ruzbihan Baqli
Thursday 22 February 2018 – 6:00 pm
Monthly Lecture Series: Building the “Silk Road” From Below: Arab Traders Between East and West Asia
Thursday 22 February 2018 – 6:00 pm
Building the “Silk Road” From Below: Arab Traders Between East and West Asia Read more…
Theatre Night
Theatre Night
The Islamic College is proud to announce and present their first ever theatrical performance “Tales of Wisdom from Muslim Heritage” by the Khayaal Theatre Company
You will be transported in the world of Muslim wisdom through the voice of Eleanor Martin, a professional actress and stage director with 15 years’ experience. She is a founding Associate Director at Khayaal Theatre Company.
The acts performed are:
Quest for Knowledge
A young man applies to become an adept of a sage in pursuit of sacred knowledge only to find himself summarily charged with a seemingly simple task. The task becomes a toilsome trial of initiation that profoundly alters his perception of what it means to learn and know. A tale on the theme of orientation, charity and service by Khwaja Sammasi of Uzbekistan.
Worth of a Pearl
King Mahmud devises a test of loyalty and devotion for select high-ranking officials of his royal court involving a lustrous pearl. A tale by Rumi.
The Thornseller
Down and out on the margins of society, our thorn seller and his wife live in abject poverty until the appearance of a heavenly bird sets off a chain of events that sends their fortunes soaring and plummeting in equal measure. The alchemy of character and intention lie at the heart of this tumultuous story from Iran.
The Indian Tree
An emissary is dispatched to India to seek out the tree of eternal life only to have his efforts frustrated and his assumptions challenged by initial failure before being rightly directed to his goal at the 11th hour.
Join us, for what is going to be memorable night filled with wisdom.
| Date: | Friday 16th December 2022 |
| Time: | 6pm – 9pm |
| Location: | Allameh Tabataba’i Hall (old building), The Islamic College, 133 High Road, Willesden, London NW10 2SW |
| Ticket Price: | £5 (includes free complimentary light refreshments) |
Terms & Conditions:
- Tickets can be purchased via PayPal: https://paypal.me/ahmadbawab1?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GB (reference: Theatre Night). Alternatively, you can purchase your ticket via cash, credit card or bank transfer. For further enquiries contact Fatema Muraj.
- Tickets cannot be exchanged, or money refunded unless the performance for which the ticket is purchased is cancelled.
- Attendees must have a valid ticket to gain entry to the hall.
- Only 1 admission per ticket.
- Additional Guest (aged 16+) are welcome, subject to purchase of a valid ticket.
- The doors of the hall will open at 6:45pm and the performance will start at 7:15pm(sharp).
- Refreshments will be served before the performance from 6pm onwards.
- Food and Drink will not be allowed inside the Allameh Tabataba’i Hall.
ICAS PRESS LATEST PUBLICATION – Methods, Methodologies, and Perspectives in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Description
Ali Paya is Professor of Philosophy at The Islamic College (affiliated with Middlesex University, London) and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy of Science at the National Research Institute for Science Policy (Tehran). His most recent publications include Islam, Modernity and a New Millennium: Themes from a Critical Rationalist Reading of Islam (2019); Science, Society and Development: Essays on the Public Understanding of Science (2021); Religious Science, Indigenous Science, and Islamic Science: Thinking the Impossible or Thinking Ahead of Time (2021); The Quran vs. the Theory of Evolution: A Critical Assessment of the Contrasting Views of Two Prominent Shi‘a Scholars of the 20th Century: Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Hossein Tabatabaee & Dr Yadollah Sahabi (forthcoming 2023).
Author: Ali Paya
Cover: Paperback
You can order your copy here
MA Distance Education Virtual Open Day
Are you considering the possibility of taking a university degree in Islamic Studies? Read more…
ICAS PRESS LATEST PUBLICATION – Religious Diversity in Contemporary Shi‘i Thought
Description
Religious Diversity in Contemporary Shi‘i Thought: The Views of Ayatollah ‘Abdollah Javadi-Amoli and Professor Mahmoud Ayoub
The question of religious diversity and the related issues of validity, truth, and salvation can immensely impact our lives in the modern closely-knit global society: they may help improve or ruin the relationships between faith communities. In the context of Christianity, these issues have led to the emergence of three types of theology: exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. This book analyses the views of two contemporary Shi‘i thinkers, Ayatollah ‘Abdullah Javadi-Amoli and Professor Mahmoud Mustafa Ayoub, who have tried to deal with the challenges posed by the above three types of theology from an Islamic perspective.
The book discusses, among other things, the impact of the social and educational backgrounds of these two thinkers on their research methodologies, particularly their ways of interpreting the Qur’an. Since both thinkers are interested in the question of dialogue between people of different faiths, this inquiry also highlights the views of Ayoub and Javadi-Amoli on the question of dialogue, its common ground, goals, conditions, and presuppositions.
Price: £20
Order your copy here [link it to: https://islamic-college.ac.uk/shop/religious-diversity-in-contemporary-shii-thought-the-views-of-ayatollah-abdollah-javadi-amoli-and-professor-mahmoud-ayoub/]
Author: Saeid Sobhani
Cover: Paperback
You can order your copy here
Meet the Author: Dr Muhammad Kamal
Meet the Author
Dr Muhammad Kamal
A Universe in Constant Change
(Mulla Sadra and Transubstantial Change)
Friday 8th of July 2022
on Zoom
Zoom ID: 818 8858 9685
Passcode 642831
Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88205129425?pwd=VDVWUnJtMDJQTC84WTVhcHZTOUxDUT09
11:30 am – 1:00 pm (UK Time)
Meet the Author Programme
Organised by
The Islamic College
A Universe in Constant Change:
Mulla Sadra and Transubstantial Change
Friday 8th of July the online session (at 11:30 am UK Time)
Author: Dr Muhammad Kamal
Dr Zoheir Esmail will serve as the discussant
The Quran and the Spiritual Roots of the Environmental Crisis
The Quran and the Spiritual Roots of the Environmental Crisis
A Lecture by
Dr Reza Shah-Kazemi
Senior Research Associate, Institute of Ismaili Studies, London
Friday 27th of May 2022
6:30 pm – 8:00 pm (UK Time)
The Holy Quran helps to disclose the roots of the environmental crisis, while revealing ways
in which each individual can contribute to the resolution of the crisis, on the plane of moral and spiritual action.
Refreshments will be served.
This event is not a hybrid one and the lecture will not be streamed online.
Dr Shah-Kazemi’s lecture will begin at 6:30 pm and the Q&A will begin at 7:30 pm.
Founding editor of the Islamic World Report, Reza Shah-Kazemi studied International Relations and Politics at Sussex and Exeter Universities before obtaining his PhD in Comparative Religion from the University of Kent in 1994. He has authored and translated several works, including, Paths to Transcendence: According to Shankara, Ibn Arabi and Meister Eckhart (World Wisdom, 2006); Justice and Remembrance: Introducing the Spirituality of Imam ‘Ali (I. B. Tauris, in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies); Seeing God Everywhere: Quranic Perspectives on the Sanctity of Virgin Nature (Cambridge Central Mosque, 2019).
Formerly a Consultant to the Institute for Policy Research in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, Dr Shah-Kazemi is at present a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, where he is editing the English translation and edition of the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia (from Persian).
FEE: None.
OPEN TO: All are welcome!
VENUE: 133 High Road, Willesden, London NW10 2SW (please walk down St. Andrews Road to the building past the carpark)
MORE INFORMATION: Contact 02084519993 or info@islamic-college.ac.uk
Meet the Author
Meet the Author
Prof. Mashal Saif
The ‘Ulama in Contemporary Pakistan: Contesting and Cultivating an Islamic Republic
Friday 4th of March 2022
on Zoom
Zoom ID: 882 0512 9425
Passcode 386449
Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88205129425?pwd=VDVWUnJtMDJQTC84WTVhcHZTOUxDUT09
7 pm – 8:30 pm (UK Time)
In this book, Mashal Saif explores how contemporary ‘ulama, the guardians of religious knowledge and law, engage with the world’s most populated Islamic nation-state: Pakistan. In mapping these engagements, she weds rigorous textual analysis with fieldwork and offers insight into some of the most significant and politically charged issues in recent Pakistani history. These include debates over the rights of women; the country’s notorious blasphemy laws; the legitimacy of religiously mandated insurrection against the state; sectarian violence; and the place of Shi’as within the Sunni majority nation. These diverse case studies are knit together by the project’s most significant contribution: a theoretical framework that understands the ‘ulama’s complex engagements with their state as a process of both contestation and cultivation of the Islamic Republic by citizen-subjects. This framework provides a new way of assessing state – ‘ulama relations not only in contemporary Pakistan but also across the Muslim world.
3rd Online Webinar: Vistas to the East
Mulla Sadra’s Philosophy: Continuity and Novelty
Professor Mohammad Fanaei Eshkevari studied both at the Qom seminary in Iran as well as McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where he received his PhD in philosophy. For the past two decades, he has been lecturing on comparative philosophy, mysticism and theology in Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom. He has published more than fifty books and articles in Persian on different areas of Islamic thought.
Publications in English:
Mohammad Fanaei Eshkevari, An Introduction to Contemporary Islamic Philosophy, translated by Mostafa Hoda’i, London: MIU Press, 2012.
- “Mysticism and Religion: A Shi’i View, ” in On Spirituality, ed. M. D. Bryant S. K. Harrison and A. J. Reimer, (Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora Press, 2010), pp. 87-97.
- “Self-Knowledge and Soul,” in Soul: A Comparative Approach. Eds. Christian Kanzian & Muhammad Lagenhausen, Germany: Ontos Verlag, 2010, pp. 17-24.
- “Reflection on Prayer: A Muslim Perspective,” reprinted in Spiritual Message of Islam, Ed. M.A. Shomali (London: Islamic Centre of England, 2009), pp. 103-112.
- “God in Islamic Mysticism,” in Proofs for the Existence of God, eds. Christian Kanzian & Muhammad Legenhausen (Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press, 2008), pp. 91-98.
- “Mulla Sadra’s Theory of Substantial Motion,” in Substance and Attribute: Western and Islamic Traditions in Dialogue, eds. Christian Kanzian & Muhammad Legenhausen (Germany: Ontos Verlag, 2007), pp. 25-43.
- “Sohravardi and the Question of Knowledge,” in Plato and Sohravardi (Athens: Hellenic Society for Philosophical Studies, 2007), pp. 48-62.
- “Faith and Morality in Islam and Christianity,” in A Catholic-Shi’a Engagement: Faith and Reason in Theory and Practice, eds. Anthony O’Mahony and others, (London: Melisende, 2006), pp. 170-180.
- “Prayer and Contemplation in Islamic Spirituality,” in Catholics and Shi’a in Dialogue: Studies in Theology and Spirituality, eds. Anthony O’Mahony and others, (London: Melisende, 2004), pp. 256-262.
- “Mysticism and Dialogue among Cultures,” in Peace Office Newsletter, Vol. 36, No. 1, January-March 2006.
- “God’s Inclusive Mercy,” in Peace and Justice: Essays from the Fourth Shi’I Muslim Mennonite Christian Dialogue, Winnipeg: 2011, pp. 120-124.
- “Islamic Philosophy in Contemporary Iran,” in Al-Mustafa Journal of Islamic Studies, Vol. 1, Nu. 1, (Winter 2012), pp. 89-123.H
Professor David Bakewell Burrell is an American educator, theologian, writer and translator. He is the Theodore Hesburgh Professor emeritus in Philosophy and Theology at University of Notre Dame, USA. He has written and published extensively on Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions.
Here is a selected list of Prof. Burrell’s publications:
Books
Burrell, David (1973). Analogy and Philosophical Language. Yale University Press..
—— (1974). Exercises in Religious Understanding. University of Notre Dame Press.
—— (1979). Aquinas: God and Action. University of Notre Dame Press..
—— (1986). Knowing the Unknowable God: Ibn-Sina, Maimonides, Aquinas. University of Notre Dame Press.
—— (1993). Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions. University of Notre Dame Press.
——; Elena Malits (1997). Original Peace: Restoring God’s Creations. Paulist.
—— (2000). Friendship and Ways to Truth. University of Notre Dame Press.
—— (2004). Faith and Freedom: An Interfaith Perspective. Blackwell.
—— (2008). Deconstructing Theodicy: A Philosophical Commentary on Job. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos..
—— (2009). When Faith and Reason Meet: The Legacy of John Zahm CSC. Notre Dame, IN: Corby Publishing.
—— (2010). Learning to Trust in Freedom: Signs from Jewish, Christian and Muslim Traditions. University of Scranton Press.
—— (2011). Towards a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology. Wiley-Blackwell.
Translations
Al-Ghazali on the Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God (translation from Arabic with Nazih Daher) (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1992; Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1998)
Al-Ghazali on Faith in Divine Unity and Trust in Divine Providence (translation of Bk. 35 of Ihya’ Ulum ad-Din) (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2000)
Roger Arnaldez’s Three Messengers for one God (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998) – with Mary Louise Gude, C.S.C. and Gerald Schlabach.
Avital Wohlman’s Al-Ghazali, Averroes and the Interpretation of the Qur’an: Common Sense and Philosophy in Islam (London: Routledge, 2009) – translated from Contrepoint entre le sens commun et la philosophy en Islam: Ghazali et Averroès (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 2008)