• Type: Seminar Series
• Timing: Wednesdays at 17:00, unless otherwise stated
• Web Address: http://www.oxcis.ac.uk/
• Organising department: Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies

Thursday 25 January 2018

• 17:00 - Special Lecture: Religious dress
  The Right Hon the Baroness Hale of Richmond DBE (President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom)

Thursday 15 February 2018

• 17:00 - Special Lecture: Palestine/Israel: history is undecided...
  Ambassador Afif Safieh

Tuesday 27 February 2018

• 12:00 - Special Lecture: Dialogue in action: the witness of St Francis of Assisi
  Cardinal Vincent Nichols (Archbishop of Westminster)

Wednesday 25 April 2018

• 17:00 - ‘Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall: Qur’an translator and novelist’
  Dr Peter Clark (SOAS)

Thursday 26 April 2018

• 17:00 - 'The right to freedom of religion: cases and controversies’
  The Lord Pannick QC (Distinguished Fellow)

Wednesday 2 May 2018

• 17:00 - ‘Recognising the true Lord: a Confucian approach to Islamic theology in the writings of the Chinese Muslim scholar Liu Zhi’
  Dr James Frankel (Hong Kong)

Wednesday 9 May 2018

• 17:00 - ‘Al-Azhar and the Ulama’
  Professor Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen (Copenhagen)

Wednesday 16 May 2018

• 17:00 - ‘Speculative men: thinking analogically about Islam and Christian sectarianism in seventeenth and eighteenth century England’
  Professor Ros Ballaster

Wednesday 23 May 2018

• 17:00 - ‘1918: The fall of the Ottomans and the beginning of a century of conflict’
  Professor Eugene Rogan

Tuesday 29 May 2018

• 17:00 - 'The moral economy: why good incentives are no substitutes for good citizens’
  Professor Samuel Bowles (Sante Fe Institute)

Wednesday 30 May 2018

• 17:00 - ‘The formation of a Turco-Islamic world region in and around the Oipchaq Steppe in the early modern age’
  Dr Joo-Yup Lee (Toronto )

Wednesday 6 June 2018

• 17:00 - ‘Humanitarianism, gender and religion in forced migration’
  Dr Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh

Wednesday 10 October 2018

• 17:00 - 'Islamic charities since the 1970s: a record of growth and suppression’
  Mr Jonathan Benthall (UCL)

Wednesday 17 October 2018

• 17:00 - ‘”Becoming Muslim”: The archaeology and trade in Eastern Ethiopia’
  Professor Timothy Insoll (Exeter)

Wednesday 24 October 2018

• 17:00 - ‘The world in the year 1000: new connections within and beyond the Islamic world’
  Professor Valerie Hansen (Yale)

Wednesday 31 October 2018

• 17:00 - ‘Jeddah 100 years ago…through the French lense’
  Dr Louis Blin (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Wednesday 7 November 2018

• 17:00 - ‘The Russian conquest of Central Asia in Persianate historiography’
  Dr Alexander Morrison

Wednesday 14 November 2018

• 17:00 - ‘The political legacy of Islamic conquest’
  Dr Faisal Z. Ahmed (Princeton )

Wednesday 21 November 2018

• 17:00 - ‘The politics of Islamic law: colonialism, mobility, translation’
  Dr Iza Hussin (Cambridge)

Wednesday 28 November 2018

• 17:00 - ‘Siyasa Shari-iyya: some insights from nineteenth-century Egypt’
  Professor Khaled Fahmy (American University of Cairo )

Wednesday 16 January 2019

• 17:00 - "Becoming Muslim”: The archaeology of Islamisation and trade in Eastern Ethiopia
  Professor Timothy Insoll (Exeter)

Wednesday 23 January 2019

• 17:00 - The ontological (in)security of similarity: Islamism in Saudi foreign policy
  Dr May Darwich (Durham)

Wednesday 30 January 2019

• 17:00 - Title TBC
  Professor Hugh Kennedy (SOAS)

Wednesday 6 February 2019

• 17:00 - History in tables: Muʿīn al-Dīn Naṭanzī's “synoptic account” of the Timurid history and its complete manuscript
  Dr İlker Evrim Binbaş (Bonn)

Wednesday 13 February 2019

• 17:00 - The Mongol empire and Islamisation
  Professor Andrew Peacock (St Andrews)

Wednesday 20 February 2019

• 17:00 - British-Islamic identity: third-generation Bangladeshis from East London
  Dr Aminul Hoque (Goldsmiths)

Wednesday 27 February 2019

• 17:00 - The making of Ottoman kingship at the dawn of empire
  Dr Christopher Markiewicz (University of Birmingham)

Wednesday 6 March 2019

• 17:00 - The Qur’an in English: challenges and choices for Surat an-Nisa
  Professor Bruce Lawrence (Duke University), Professor Miriam Cooke (Duke)

Thursday 2 May 2019

• 16:30 - Islamization and the formation of a vernacular tradition: Muslim funerary monuments in 15th-century northern Sumatra
  R. Michael Feener (Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies)

Wednesday 15 May 2019

• 17:00 - 'What a "Textual Forensics" Might Tell us about How Arabic Writers Conserved the Past (ca. 900-1200)'
  Sarah Savant

Wednesday 22 May 2019

• 17:00 - 'Escaping the Nafs in Socialist Egypt: Abd al-Halim Mahmud’s Search for a Sufi Master'
  Hatsuki Aishima

Wednesday 29 May 2019

• 17:00 - '"A most thrilling drama hastening to a tragic end": The Spectacle of Ottoman Decline in Early Twentieth-Century India'
  Faridah Zaman

Wednesday 12 June 2019

• 17:00 - 'Another Genealogy of Critique: On Islam and Reason'
  Irfan Ahmad

Wednesday 14 October 2020

• 17:00 - AI: simulation and dissimulation
  Dr Yaqub Chaudhary (Cambridge Muslim College)

Thursday 15 October 2020

• 17:00 - Special Seminar: Saudi Arabia and the rise and fall of Political Islam
  Special Seminars are held on Thursdays at 17:00
  Professor Bernard Haykel (Princeton)

Wednesday 21 October 2020

• 17:00 - Islamist transformations after the Arab Uprisings: Tunisia’s Ennahda Movement
  Dr Rory McCarthy (Durham)

Wednesday 28 October 2020

• 17:00 - Archives and archival sensibilities in medieval Arabic Historiography
  Dr Fozia Bora (Leeds)

Wednesday 4 November 2020

• 17:00 - Money, markets and monarchies: The Gulf Cooperation Council and political economy of the Middle East
  Dr Adam Hanieh (SOAS)

Wednesday 11 November 2020

• 17:00 - Islam, liberalism and national identity: Lessons from British Islamic institutions
  Dr Stephen H. Jones (Birmingham)

Wednesday 18 November 2020

• 17:00 - Counting Shaykhs in hadith collections
  Professor Christopher Melchert

Thursday 19 November 2020

• 17:00 - Special Seminar: Using field experiments to learn about religious behavior
  Special Seminars are held on Thursdays at 17:00
  Professor Adam Osman (Illinois (Urbana-Champaign))

Wednesday 25 November 2020

• 17:00 - Nana Asma’u (d. 1864): The erudite poet and mystic of the Sokoto Caliphate
  Dr Minlib Dallh

Wednesday 2 December 2020

• 17:00 - Special Seminar: Book talk: Islam, authoritarianism, and underdevelopment
  Special Seminars are held on Thursdays at 17:00
  Professor Ahmet Kuru (San Diego State)
• 17:00 - Alchemical interpretations of the Qur’an in the Shudhūr al-dhahab (Shards of Gold) and its commentaries
  Dr Richard Todd (Birmingham)

Wednesday 24 November 2021

• 17:00 - History on the Margins: The Problem of Persian Historiography in the Deccan Sultanates
  Dr Roy Fischel (Department of History, SOAS)

Wednesday 9 February 2022

• 17:00 - Abrahamic Interpretations of the Sacrifice of Abraham’s Son
  Dr Edward Kessler MBE (Founder-President of the Woolf Institute, University of Cambridge)

Wednesday 23 February 2022

• 17:00 - Reflections on the Arab Spring Ten Years On
  Sir Geoffrey Adams KCMG (British Ambassador to Egypt (2018-2021))

Wednesday 2 March 2022

• 17:00 - Smallpox, Polio, and Muslim "Resistance": reconsidering trust in global health
  Professor Sanjoy Bhattacharya (York)

Wednesday 9 March 2022

• 17:00 - Daulat, Saltanat and the Sultan in the Mughal and Ottoman Worlds
  Dr Gagan Sood (Department of International History, LSE)

Friday 11 March 2022

• 17:00 - How to Overcome Global Crises: Climate Change and Pandemics
  Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (Nelson Mandela Fellow)

Wednesday 27 April 2022

• 17:00 - Islam and the Strategic Global Rivalry over Energy: Illustrations from Afghanistan
  Dr Mohammad Talib (OCIS)

Wednesday 11 May 2022

• 17:00 - Islam and Child Rights: The Role of Religion in the Development of the Law
  Justice Imman Ali (Supreme Court of Bangladesh, Appellate Division)

Wednesday 18 May 2022

• 17:00 - Truth, Knowledge, and Power in Islam Before the Nineteenth Century: A Heuristic Perspective on the Separation of Powers and the Rule of Law
  Professor Wael Hallaq (Columbia University)

Wednesday 25 May 2022

• 17:00 - Caliph, Sultan and Scholar: The Political Career of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1210)
  Dr Ayman Shihadeh (SOAS)

Wednesday 1 June 2022

• 17:00 - Title TBC
  Mr Simon Collis (Former British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (2015-20))

Wednesday 8 June 2022

• 17:00 - The Quest for Reforms of Islamic Systems of Education in Nigeria
  Professor Kabiru Chafe (Ahmadu Bello University)

Wednesday 15 June 2022

• 17:00 - The Reconstruction of the Awliya Domes in Hadramut, Yemen (2019-2021)
  Professor Salma Damluji (American University of Beirut)

Wednesday 12 October 2022

• 17:00 - Continuity and Change in US Strategy toward the Middle East and the Islamic World
  Professor Vali Nasr (Johns Hopkins University)

Wednesday 19 October 2022

• 17:00 - Ben Ali’s Tunisia: Power and Contention in an Authoritarian Regime
  Dr Anne Wolf (University of Oxford)

Wednesday 26 October 2022

• 17:00 - Righteous Demagogues: The Moral Economy of Populism
  Dr Adnan Naseemullah (Kings College London)

Wednesday 2 November 2022

• 17:00 - Turkey’s Economic Development and Political Economy since 1980
  Professor Şevket Pamuk (Bogazici University)

Wednesday 9 November 2022

• 17:00 - Actualizing Ideal Islam: Principles of Islamic Revival at the Dawn of Modernity
  Dr Fitzroy Morrisey (All Souls, Oxford)

Wednesday 16 November 2022

• 17:00 - Why the Palestinians Still Don’t Have a State, and Why Their Need is More Urgent Than Ever
  Lord McDonald of Salford (Christ's College, Cambridge)
• 17:00 - Why the Palestinians still don't have a State, and why their need is more urgent than ever
  Lord McDonald of Salford (Christ's College, Cambridge)

Wednesday 23 November 2022

• 17:00 - Islamic Prohibition, National Regulations and International Norms
  Dr Elife Biçer-Deveci (Universität Bern)

Wednesday 30 November 2022

• 17:00 - Islamic Socialism: Radical Individuality and Equality?
  Dr Humeira Iqtidar (King's College London)

Wednesday 18 January 2023

• 17:00 - Syria: The glory and the agony
  Ghayth Armanazi (Former Ambassador of the Arab League)

Wednesday 25 January 2023

• 17:00 - States of subsistence: the politics of bread in contemporary Jordan
  Jose Ciro Martinez (University of York)

Wednesday 1 February 2023

• 17:00 - Inventing the Middle East: Britain and the Persian Gulf in the age of global imperialism
  Dr Guillemette Crouzet (Warwick)

Wednesday 8 February 2023

• 17:00 - Social cohesion and integration of minorities in post-conflict Muslim societies
  Salma Mousa (Yale University)

Wednesday 15 February 2023

• 17:00 - Russian colonialism and the Ismailis: The exploration and annexation of the Pamirs, 1879 - 1905
  Alexander Morrison (New College, Oxford)

Wednesday 22 February 2023

• 17:00 - Religious rights and freedom of speech
  Rt Hon the Baroness Hale of Richmond DBE (Former President of the Supreme Court)

Wednesday 1 March 2023

• 17:00 - Climate policy in Muslim societies
  Adil Najam (Boston University)

Wednesday 8 March 2023

• 17:00 - Varieties of Islamic constitutionalism
  Clark B. Lombardi (National University of Singapore)

Wednesday 26 April 2023

• 17:00 - The Social World of Traders: Commerce and Social Differentiation in Pre-conflict Aleppo
  Dr Paul S. Anderson (University of Cambridge)

Wednesday 3 May 2023

• 17:00 - Tunisia’s Democratic Transition: Autonomous Activism and Accountability
  Dr Rory P. McCarthy (Durham University)

Wednesday 10 May 2023

• 17:00 - Islam and the East: The New Geopolitics of Religion and Identity
  Prof Peter Mandaville (George Mason University)

Wednesday 17 May 2023

• 17:00 - Writing the History of Saladin
  Prof Jonathan Phillips (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Wednesday 24 May 2023

• 17:00 - Islam and Empire in India: The Padshah's Sacred Authority and Religious Pluralism in Mughal Times
  Prof Corinne Lefevre (Centre for South Asian Studies (CNRS-EHESS))

Wednesday 31 May 2023

• 17:00 - Institutions, Guilds, and Economic Prosperity
  Prof Sheilagh Ogilvie (All Souls College, Oxford)

Wednesday 11 October 2023

• 17:00 - Arabic's Easternmost Frontier: Arabic Manuscripts, Sufism and Courtly Culture in Southeast Asia, 17th-18th Centuries
  Prof Andrew Peacock (University of St Andrews)

Wednesday 18 October 2023

• 17:00 - Beyond Self Interest: Why the Market Rewards Those Who Reject It
  Prof Krzysztof Pelc (University of Oxford)

Wednesday 25 October 2023

• 17:00 - Fulfulde as a Language of Religious Expression in the Islamic Religious Culture of West Africa
  Prof Louis Brenner (SOAS)

Wednesday 1 November 2023

• 17:00 - The Significance of the Dome in Islamic Architecture
  Prof Robert Hillenbrand (University of Edinburgh)

Wednesday 8 November 2023

• 17:00 - Power, Knowledge, and the Illusion of Control: Western Counterinsurgency in the Muslim World 1954-2014
  Dr Christian Tripodi (King's College London)

Wednesday 15 November 2023

• 17:00 - Green Industrialization: Evidence from and for Muslim Societies
  Dr Amir Lebdioui (University of Oxford)

Wednesday 22 November 2023

• 17:00 - Can international law make a difference in time of war?
  Status: This talk has been cancelled
  Sir Christopher Greenwood (University of Cambridge)

Thursday 30 November 2023

• 17:00 - Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders
  This seminar will be held on Thursday, 30 November
  Prof Ayse Zarakol (University of Cambridge)

Wednesday 17 January 2024

• 17:00 - Civilian Casualties in War
  Professor Neta Crawford (University of Oxford)

Wednesday 24 January 2024

• 17:00 - Khilafat and the Pan-Islamic Imagination
  Professor Faisal Devji (University of Oxford)

Wednesday 31 January 2024

• 17:00 - Medieval Syria and the Onset of the Crusades: The Political World of Bilad al-Sham 1050-1128
  Dr James WIlson (University of Konstanz)

Wednesday 14 February 2024

• 17:00 - Muslim Justice Under Christian Rule: The Banū Rajā’ Qādīs of Norman Sicily
  Professor Jeremy Johns (University of Oxford)

Wednesday 21 February 2024

• 17:00 - From the Higher Objectives of Islamic Law to the Higher Objectives of Islamic Theology
  Dr Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour (SOAS, University of London)

Wednesday 28 February 2024

• 17:00 - The First Friday Sermons of Islam as a Nexus of Piety, Ethics, and Politics
  Professor Tahera Qutbuddin (University of Oxford)

Wednesday 6 March 2024

• 17:00 - Written in the Margins – Articulating Islam in Early Modern China
  Dr Dror Weil (University of Cambridge)

Wednesday 24 April 2024

• 17:00 - Crisis in the Sahel: Causes and Consequences for Africa, Europe and the Muslim World
  Dr Jonathan Guiffard (Institute Montaigne)

Wednesday 1 May 2024

• 17:00 - Sufism in Al-Sanusi’s Theological Works
  Dr Tobias Andersson (Uppsala University)

Wednesday 8 May 2024

• 17:00 - Chinggis Khan’s Empire Restored? The Conquests of Tamerlane in a Mongol Perspective
  Professor Peter Jackson (Keele University)

Wednesday 15 May 2024

• 17:00 - Qaum, Mulk, Sultanat: Citizenship and National Belonging in Pakistan
  Ali Usman Qasmi (LUMS)

Wednesday 22 May 2024

• 17:00 - Post-Globalism and the Ulama: Contestation of Authority
  Professor Raihan Ismail (St Antony's College)

Wednesday 29 May 2024

• 17:00 - Smugglers and States: Negotiating the Maghreb at its Margins
  Dr Max Gallien (University of Sussex)

Wednesday 5 June 2024

• 17:00 - The Fall of Kabul: Why It Happened and Why It Matters?
  Sir Laurie Bristow (Hughes Hall, Cambridge)

Wednesday 12 June 2024

• 17:00 - Iran’s Revolutionary Guards: A History
  Professor Maryam Alemzadeh (University of Oxford)

Wednesday 16 October 2024

• 17:00 - Moral Atmospheres: Islam and Media in a Marketplace
  Timothy Cooper (King's College, Cambridge)

Wednesday 23 October 2024

• 17:00 - On Genocide: Then and Now
  Professor Phillipe Sands (University College London)

Wednesday 30 October 2024

• 17:00 - Iran’s Crisis of Governance
  Status: This talk has been cancelled
  Professor Anoush Ehteshami (Durham University)

Wednesday 6 November 2024

• 17:00 - History and the Modern Middle East: Do Policy Makers Need a Sense of the Past?
  Sir John Jenkins (Former UK Ambassador to Saudi Arabia)

Wednesday 13 November 2024

• 17:00 - English Judges in Muslim Countries: Synergies and Sensitivities in Promoting the Rule of Law
  Sir Peter Gross (Former Lord Justice of Appeal)

Wednesday 20 November 2024

• 17:00 - Threats to the Rule of Law
  The Rt. Hon. Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury (Former President, UK Supreme Court)

Wednesday 27 November 2024

• 17:00 - Left Behind: A New Economics for Neglected Places
  Professor Sir Paul Collier (Blavatnik School of Government)

Wednesday 4 December 2024

• 17:00 - Engaging with the Contemporary World: A Multi-Religious Perspective
  Professor Tomáš Halik (Charles University, Prague)

Wednesday 22 January 2025

• 17:00 - Monarchy and Mass Politics in the Middle East
  Professor Scott Williamson (University of Oxford)

Wednesday 29 January 2025

• 17:00 - The Sun Sets in the West: The Battle for Soft Power in a Multipolar World
  Mr Simon Anholt (Anholt & Co.)

Wednesday 5 February 2025

• 17:00 - Mirror of the Universe: The Evolution of the Astrolabe
  Dr Taha Arslan (Istanbul Medeniyet University)

Wednesday 12 February 2025

• 17:00 - Social, Cultural and Political Determinants of Riots
  Professor Kamaldeep Bhui (University of Oxford)

Wednesday 19 February 2025

• 17:00 - Economic Diversification, State Fragility, and Development in Muslim Societies
  Professor Adnan Khan (FCDO)

Wednesday 26 February 2025

• 12:00 - Mecca in Morocco: Studying the Socio-Cultural Embeddedness of Pilgrimage in Muslim Everyday Life
  Dr Kholoud al-Ajarma (University of Edinburgh)
• 17:00 - Coinage of Mughal South Asia and the Muslim Chain of Being
  Professor Azfar Moin (University of Texas, Austin)

Wednesday 5 March 2025

• 17:00 - How to Study Arabic and Islamic Philosophy? Once Again about al-Ghazali and Descartes
  Professor Frank Griffel (University of Oxford)

Wednesday 12 March 2025

• 17:00 - Reflections on the War in Sudan
  Dame Rosalind Marsden (RIIA)

Wednesday 30 April 2025

• 17:00 - The Economy of the Ottoman Empire in Comparative Perspective, 1500-1800
  Professor Sevket Pamuk (Bogazici University)

Wednesday 7 May 2025

• 17:00 - Beyond Castes and Regions: The Socio-Economic Decline of Muslims in Contemporary India
  Professor Christophe Jaffrelot (Kings College, London)

Wednesday 14 May 2025

• 17:00 - The State of the World and the UK’s Place in It
  Mr Jon Wilks (Former British Ambassador to Qatar, Yemen, Oman & Iraq)
• 17:00 - Rich World, Poor World: The Struggle to Escape Poverty in Muslim Societies
  Status: This talk has been cancelled
  Mr Ali Allawi (Former Minister of Finance, Defense, and Trade of Iraq)

Wednesday 21 May 2025

• 17:00 - Building State Capacity in Fragile States
  Dr Michael Callen (London School of Economics)

Wednesday 28 May 2025

• 17:00 - The Origins of Perso-Islamic Courts and Empires in India
  Professor Blain Auer (University of Lausanne)

Wednesday 4 June 2025

• 17:00 - Iran’s Crisis of Governance
  Professor Anoush Ehteshami (Durham University)

Wednesday 11 June 2025

• 17:00 - Al-Ghazālī and the Ideal of Godlikeness
  Status: This talk has been cancelled
  Dr Sophia Vasalou (University of Birmingham)

Wednesday 18 June 2025

• 17:00 - A Bridge to the Sky: From ibn Firnas (d. 887) and the Cordoban Court to Imagining Baghdad in Assassin’s Creed Mirage
  Status: This talk has been cancelled
  Dr Glaire Anderson (University of Edinburgh)

Wednesday 15 October 2025

• 17:30 - Rediscovering Mughal archives: documents from temples in northern India
  Nandini Chatterjee (Oxford)

Wednesday 22 October 2025

• 17:00 - Reviving Arab governance through structural policy reform
  Mr Raed Charafeddine (Former First Vice Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon)

Wednesday 29 October 2025

• 17:00 - What makes Qumm special in the architecture of 14th-century Iran?
  Professor Robert Hillenbrand (Edinburgh)

Wednesday 5 November 2025

• 17:00 - Early-modern orientalism and the recreation of the Islamic canon: from collections to catalogues
  Professor Claire Gallien (Tubingen)

Wednesday 12 November 2025

• 17:00 - Revolts as rituals of political communication in ‘Abbāsid Baghdad (908-991)
  Fanny Bessard (Trinity)

Wednesday 26 November 2025

• 16:30 - Book Launch: Waning crescent: The rise and fall of global Islam
  Professor Faisal Devji (University of Oxford)

Wednesday 3 December 2025

• 17:00 - The role of media in a changing world
  Mr Nic Robertson (CNN International)