MENA-related Events Calendar

Organiser: The Alwaleed Centre at the University of Edinburgh 

Speaker: Dr Hanaa Almoaibed (Research Fellow, LSE Middle East Centre)

Dr Hanaa Almoaibed will present her paper, which explores how Saudi women use Instagram to navigate faith, gender, and modernity in a rapidly changing society. Within the context of Vision 2030 reforms, social media has become a vital space for self-expression, spiritual reflection, and community building. Through modest fashion, wellness, and digital storytelling, Saudi women redefine empowerment by blending religious devotion with personal agency. Their online presence challenges stereotypes and illustrates how faith and modernity can coexist, revealing new forms of feminine visibility and influence in contemporary Saudi Arabia. 

The presentation will be followed by a response from Adam Ferron (University of Edinburgh) and chaired by Dr Mira Al Hussein (University of Edinburgh). 

Organiser: LSE Middle East Centre

Speaker: Sareta Ashraph (Barrister)

Chair: Sana Murrani (LSE Middle East Centre)

In 2019 and 2023, the LSE Middle East Centre published papers by Sareta Ashraph and Valeria Cetorelli on A demographic documentation of ISIS’s attack on the Yazidi village of Kocho and The Yazidi genocide: a demographic documentation of ISIL’s attack on Tel Qasab and Tel Banat. These papers were part of the Documenting Yazidi Victims of ISIS project run by the LSE Middle East Centre and supported by the Gerald Gray, Institute for Redress & Recovery, Santa Clara University School of Law. This project employed rigorous demographic methods and individual-level data in order to identify every Yazidi victim.

One of the integral uses of this database was that it would play a significant role in achieving justice for ISIL’s crimes against the Yazidi community of Sinjar in northern Iraq. This event will provide an update on how this data has been used in recent European trials of ISIL members.

Organiser: Banipail Publishing

Five past winners of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize come together to discuss the issues that they face translating contemporary Arabic literature into English, in a panel moderated by fellow literary translator and Banipal trustee Samira Kawar. The winner panellists are: Sarah Enany (2021), Kay Heikkinen (2020), William Hutchins (2013), Luke Leafgren (2018, 2023), Jonathan Wright (2013).

Organiser: Centre for the Study of Islam, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter

Speaker: Dr Safa Mahmoudian (University of Vienna)

In this talk, Safa Mahmoudian presents her latest book, which investigates palace gardens constructed during the Abbasid period in their Lower Mesopotamian heartland—an area that has received remarkably little scholarly attention. Drawing on a wide range of previously un- or underutilized Arabic and Persian sources alongside material evidence, the book offers the first comprehensive study of these gardens within their broader architectural and socio-geographical contexts. It challenges essentialist notions of an “Islamic garden” typology that presuppose continuity across time and place, and instead develops a more nuanced understanding of their diverse forms and functions. By showing how these gardens served both as settings for and expressions of courtly life, the study positions them as central to understanding the architecture and daily life of the Abbasid court.

Organiser: Royal Society for Asian Affairs (RSAA) 

Speaker: Charles Lister (Middle East Institute)
Chair: Dr Rim Turkmani (LSE)

Twelve months ago, following thirteen years of civil war, the then rebel faction, Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) launched a lightening offensive which saw the group take control of huge swathes of Syrian territory, ultimately leading to the capture of the capital city, Damascus, and the fleeing of long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad, ending fifty-four years of Assad family rule. Shortly after the fall of Assad, HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa became the de facto leader of Syria and in January 2025 was appointed President of the Syrian Transitional Government.

Organiser: Centre for the Study of Islam, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter

Speaker: Gabriel Said Reynolds (Crowley Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology, University of Notre Dame)

The Qur’an’s engagement with Christian stories, including the story of young men and their miraculous “sleep” in a cave, and the story of a clay bird brought to life by the breath of Jesus, points to its emergence in a late antique Christian world. In this talk I will argue that the Qur’an competes with Christian claims by reshaping these stories for its own theological program, thereby undermining their Christian apologetic uses. The clay-bird miracle, for example, was popular among Christians for its presentation of Christ’s divine nature (even as a child). In the Qur’an it becomes simply one of the signs that God works through prophets. These case studies reveal a scripture at once deeply conversant with and strategically resistant to its Christian world.