MENA-related Events Calendar

Join the BISA Ethics and World Politics Working Group for this online workshop.

Politics/IR in higher education today. How do we prepare students to engage ethically with complex global issues such as climate justice, migration, war, inequality, and technological disruption? What pedagogical strategies can help cultivate critical thinking, empathy, and moral imagination across cultural and disciplinary boundaries. 

Free and open to all. 

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.

Organisers: School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University, Religions for Peace UK and The University of Edinburgh (Social Anthropology & The Alwaleed Centre)

Interreligious Encounters & Creative Practice is an interdisciplinary event that focuses on the role of creative practice in our understandings of Religious Encounters of different faiths and acts of coexistence. Open to both academic audiences and wider communities contributors will reflect on the potentialities of creative mediums, the ways in which they might interrogate mainstream models and imaginaries of religious difference, and offer new, alternative insights on the lived realities of religious interaction in sacred and contested spaces.

Organiser: AKU-ISMC

Speaker: Ana Barfield (Aga Khan Foundation)

Tracing its roots to a project in Mozambique in 2014, the Aga Khan Foundation’s Learning Hub, an award-winning digital learning platform, is transforming how some of the world’s poorest and most remote communities with little or no access to the internet or digital technology – as well as people development practitioners, civil society organisations (CSOs), educators, government officials and others working to improve their quality of life – access and share knowledge across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. This lecture will share the story of how a Human-Centred Design process conducted in Mozambique, which aimed to solve a local problem led, several years later, to the development of a digital learning platform sharing hundreds of high-quality highly localised learning materials in 25+ languages.

Join the BISA Postgraduate Network (PGN) for the first event of 2026, focusing on careers outside academia after completing a PhD. Our speakers will discuss their professional journeys, from graduation to securing roles beyond academia, and share insights into what to expect in non-academic work environments. This event offers a valuable opportunity to explore alternative career paths and gain practical advice. 

Organiser: The Alwaleed Centre, University of Edinburgh

Mark Sedgwick, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University, will present Neo-Traditionalism, a contemporary global Islamic movement, and proposes an explanation for its growth and emphases. The presentation is followed by a response from Dr Walaa Quisay (The University of Edinburgh) and chaired by Dr Richard McNeill-Willson (The University of Edinburgh).

Organiser: The Alwaleed Centre, University of Edinburgh

At this event Dr Julie M. Norman (UCL) will discuss her new book, ‘Gaza: The Dream and the Nightmare’,  co-authored with Maia Carter Hallward. It tells the story of Gaza from its early foundations, across decades of occupation, to the devastation of the ongoing war. 

We invite you to attend a two-day workshop critically examining decentralised, autonomist, and federalist modes of political organising in West Asia and North Africa. The workshop aims to be a space of interdisciplinary exploration of historical lineages, contemporary manifestations, and future possibilities of decentralised governance in (post)uprising and (post)revolutionary contexts.

The workshop is structured around three core themes:  

• Historiography and Genealogy: excavating and reassessing historical precedents of autonomist organising in the WANA region, challenging statist historiographies.  
• Political Theory and Philosophy: articulating the distinct political thought emerging from these movements, exploring concepts of democracy, ecology, gender, and pluralism.  
• Contemporary Praxis and Future Possibilities: critically evaluating the successes, limitations, and future prospects of existing and emergent autonomist projects.

The workshop will take place at the University of Glasgow on 22 and 23 July 2026 from 10:00 am to 6 pm. To allow the broadest possible participation, the workshop will be held in person and online via Zoom. If you would like to attend the workshop, please register by following this Eventbrite link. There is no conference fee.