Shii News – Imam Ali Seminar (London, 9.4.23)

SEMINAR

TO COMMEMORATE THE MARTYRDOM OF

IMAM ALI (a.s.)

SUNDAY 9th APRIL 2023 – 2:00 PM

RUDOLF STEINER HOUSE
35 PARK ROAD, LONDON NW1 6XT
Opposite Mumtaz Restaurant
Tube station: Baker Street

Chair: Aliya Jafri Azam, MBE

Mrs Azam’s current and past positions have been Secondary Head of Science in Al Sadiq School and Al Zahra School for thirty years. Her responsibilities also include representing the Al Khoei Foundation at the Religious Education Council of England and Wales (REC) as well as organising inter-faith projects and community cohesion. Mrs Azam has been a Board Member and Trustee of the Religious Education Council of England and Wales from 2012 to 2021; Trustee of Al Ayn Social Care Foundation UK since 2006; Muslim representative of the ‘Faith and Football’ programme organised by the Football Association; and Trustee of the Christian Muslim Forum (CMF) from March 2020. She was honoured with an MBE for community cohesion with the Al Khoei Foundation in 2015. Mrs Azam is a graduate from UCL, BSc (Hons) in Psychology, postgraduate from SOAS, MA in Islamic Societies and Cultures, PGCE in science from the Institute of Education. Graduate in traditional Islamic Seminary Studies, BA in Islamic Studies and currently studying Advanced Hawza Islamic Seminary Studies.

Dr Reza Shah-Kazemi

Slain by Love: Imam Ali and the Embracing of Death
Dr Reza Shah-Kazemi is a writer and lecturer in the fields of Comparative Religion and Islamic Studies; and the Managing Editor of Encyclopaedia Islamica. Among his works are Justice and Remembrance: Introducing the Spirituality of Imam Ali (London, 2006) and Common Ground between Islam and Buddhism (with a Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama; Louisville, 2010). He studied International Relations and Politics at Sussex and Exeter Universities before obtaining his PhD in Comparative Religion from the University of Kent in 1994.

Gulamabbas Lakha

Imam Ali (A.S.): Managing Addictions
Shaykh Gulamabbas Lakha takes a multi-disciplinary approach to research and teaching at Oxford. His doctorate in Psychiatry investigates mental health applications of key Islamic concepts and practices, including empirical work on depression in the UK Muslim population. He is a tutor in Psychology of Religion and also leads seminars on Neuroscience of Religious Experience, including supervising medical students with special interests in this field. In addition, he lectures on Christian-Muslim relations and co-founded the Oxford Interfaith Forum, bringing together over 1,500 scholars, policy-makers and faith community leaders globally. His original training was in financial economics and founded an investment firm in 2004. He subsequently completed four master’s degrees, spanning Psychology and Neuroscience, Theology, Islamic Studies, History and Arabic. Following training over a number of years, he was accredited as a Shaykh and has been lecturing on contemporary Islam across the UK and on Muslim TV channels.

AN OPEN INVITATION

ORGANISER & SPONSOR: THE AHMED FAMILY

Posted in: Field-specific (academic)