This talk engages the question of unity as envisioned by devout Syrian Christians in the time leading up to the upheavals of 2011. Based on ethnographic fieldwork over a period of five years in Syria, the talk focuses on the life of a Damascus woman, Myrna Nazzour, who serves as an aspirational figure in her community. Myrna is regarded by her followers as an exemplary figure, a living saint, and the messages, apparitions, stigmata, and oil that have marked Myrna since 1982 have corroborated her status as chosen by God. In this talk I use this specific case to probe the power of examples, the modelling of sainthood around Myrna’s figure, and the broader context for Syrian Christians in the changing landscape of the Middle East. CIS Public Talks – Sarah Tobin on ‘ Self-Making in Exile: Moral Emplacement by Syrian Refugee Women in Jordan‘

In addition to his retrospective, Sanders will share, for the first time, photographs of lost and forgotten Islamic heritage sights, including Syeda Khadijah’s house, Syeda Aminah’s grave, and photography from Jabal al-Nur. Khaled Fahmy Professor Khaled Fahmy is the Director of the Centre of Islamic Studies, His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Sa’id Professor of Modern Arabic Studies, and a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. This talk will consider the printed and painted cottons – often known as kalamkari – made in the Deccan, and coastal southeast India, in the past and in the present. The first speaker, Sarah Fee, will present a recent exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum, “The Cloth that Changed the World: India’s Painted and Printed Cottons”, that featured numerous examples of these uniquely coloured and intricately patterned cloths made in coastal Andhra Pradesh, including a formerly unknown set of monumental 17th-century hangings likely made for a Nayaka ruler and palace. The second speaker, Rajarshi Sengupta, will consider the modern artistry in the making of this storied cloth. This often leads to students constructing a (false) dualism between being Muslim and their academic work, with the relation between the two frequently superficial or distorted. Additionally, for socially conscious students, the dynamics of socio-political engagement in the West require them to make increasingly difficult choices that can often be at odds with their faith. As graduate students struggling with these challenges ourselves, we see an urgent need for a space for Muslim university students to reflect on such questions, and to try to collectively imagine a more holistic experience for Muslims in secular Western universities, and indeed other secular spaces.Explanations for the weakness and failure of the uprisings in the Arab world of 2011 range from the hard-power and structure-centred accounts of conventional political science to interactionist studies emphasizing micro-dynamics and relational mechanisms. Drawing on Gramscian perspectives, and fieldwork in Egypt, this paper aims to open up an occluded line of investigation into the subaltern cultural politics of the uprising in Egypt as a way to make sense of revolutionary weaknesses and limits. This paper argues that the study of popular good sense against the regime and common sense supporting the army can help explain revolutionary weakness in Egypt during 2011-13. In this book, Ahmed Paul Keeler examines the worldview, until comparatively recently unquestioned, of ever continuing human progress. The author directly connects the present ‘Age of Crises’ to an adherence to the myth of progress and the loss of balance in modern life; “the balance between the material and the spiritual, and between ourselves and the environment in which we live”. In this thought-provoking book, we are invited to examine the troubles we are experiencing and the tangled relationship between Islam and the West through a distinctive lens. This remarkable book takes you on a photographic journey along the path taken by all the prophets and cultures, from southern Arabia to the grand Silk Road. Expanding on previous work in mapping the journey, it delves into groundbreaking discoveries by Professor Alkadi, including the Milestones of Arabia and the Hijrah route of the Prophet. These discoveries are currently showcased in an immersive exhibition at the Ithra Museum in Saudi Arabia. Sadly we had technical difficulties with the integrated microphone so we don’t have a video – just (most of) the audio – hopefully this captures the gist of the conversation. ISLAM AND THE WEST have been neighbours for 1400 years. The West grew up under the shadow of Islam, and then after the Renaissance, in a dramatic reversal of roles, the West became world conquerors and subdued all other cultures and civilisations, including Islam. This transformation ushered in the modern world, a world unlike any that had existed before.

Changing our perspective from one rooted in the principle of progress to one informed by the criterion of Mizan – a concept that encompasses balance, scale, justice, and harmony – can bring about a deeper understanding of the multiple crises that humanity faces.CIS Outreach – Yomna Helmy on ‘Maqāṣid Discourse from Islamic Modernism to Theorising Authoritarianism‘