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On May 25th – 26th 2010, The Higher Education Academy organised a conference entitled ‘Perspectives on Islamic Studies in Higher Education’ held in Aston Business School, Birmingham. The conference aimed to deliberate on the teaching and formulation of Islamic studies syllabuses in universities in the UK. The conference began with a welcome dinner and speech by Baroness Haleh Afshar who highlighted the need to include the ideas and views of women within academia and in particular, in the interpretation of the Qur’an.

The following day, Professor Robert Gleave from the University of Exeter, delivered the opening speech in which he boldly and aptly underscored the need to reform the way in which Islamic studies is currently taught at universities, particularly at an undergraduate level. He pointed to several areas of concern from stereotyping of modules and lack of Islamic knowledge of teachers to vague objectives of syllabuses and generalisation of contemporary issues. Most of the delegates acknowledge the need for this reform but it begged the question as to what could practically be done about it. CISS researcher, Imranali Panjwani, raised the point that there needs to be a cross-fertilisation between seminary and university teaching with an appreciation of Islamic classical sources and appropriate grounding in Islamic sciences.

The rest of the conference consisted of subject-based workshops ranging from law and politics to history and literature. Each workshop was designed to discuss perceived areas of concern and improvement within Islamic studies. The final keynote speech of the day was delivered by Professor Ron Geaves of Liverpool Hope University. He deliberated on the impact of political events on the teaching of Islamic studies and the need to acknowledge the importance of Muslim communities and their views within the scope of teaching.

Overall the conference was extremely important in highlighting what British universities lack in teaching Islamic studies as well as the good scope that exists for diversity and reform – a point highlighted by Ataullah Siddiqui of Markfield Institute in The Siddiqui Report – Islam at Universities in England (10th April 2007): http://www.mihe.org.uk/mihe/detail.php?page=179&s=15

CISS Team

June 2nd 2010