MENA-related Events Calendar

Organiser: LSE Middle East Centre

Speakers: Miriyam Aouragh (University of Westminster); Mohamed Daadaoui (Oklahoma City University); Michael J. Willis (University of Oxford)
Chair: Richard Barltrop (LSE Middle East Centre)

In September, a wave of protests emerged in Morocco led by the country's youth, known as GenZ 212. Since September, 3 people have been killed and 400 arrested according to Amnesty International. Triggered by the deaths of women in an Agadir hospital, the protest movement’s demands come against the background of widespread unemployment and a lack of funding in health and education sectors.

With King Mohammed VI's latest speech announcing budgetary increases and promises of reform, will this be enough to meet the movement’s demands, and does the movement have enough momentum to continue? This panel of experts will take a look at the current protests, how they have been organised and their capacity to gather widespread support. Panellists will also provide broader political and historical analysis on the country, analysing how capacity for reform can be understood in light of the Kingdom's governance systems and political institutions.

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: MESA Global Academy, the Georgetown University Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, and the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies

Speaker: Dr. Ahmad Qabaha (An-Najah National University)

This online talk with Dr. Ahmad Qabaha of An-Najah National University will address Mahmoud Darwish’s representation of the Israeli settler-colonial genocide, ecocide, and scholasticide in his poetry, especially in his poem, “The Red Indian’s Penultimate Speech to the White Man," which makes connections between the indigenous struggle of Palestinian people and that of Native Americans.

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

Speaker: Edith Szanto (Associate Professor in Religious Studies, University of Alabama)

Dr Szanto’s recent book, Twelver Shi‘i Self-flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria: Mourning Sayyida Zaynab, examines contested Muharram practices, as well as the institutions and authorities that promoted or condemned them until 2011, when most Shi‘is fled Syria. For 40 years, the Syrian shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab was a place of miracles, where violence engendered healing.To experience miraculous healing, Shi‘is attended mourning gatherings, studied at seminaries, self-flagellated, and frequented spiritual healers. Supported by the political establishment, Shi‘i institutions arose to serve Iraqi refugees and Iranian pilgrims. Seminaries promoted various practices, some highly controversial. Wounded, traumatized, impoverished, and oppressed, asylum seekers from Iraq who performed flagellations sought salvation - a worldly restoration requiring saintly beneficence. In Syria, where Shi‘is were often asylum seekers from Iraq, daily concerns centred on the here and now, on survival, and on the bitterness they felt. They prayed for justice and retribution, as much as for physical and psychological healing.

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: 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.