SEMINAR

TO COMMEMORATE THE MARTYRDOM OF

IMAM ALI (a.s.)

SUNDAY 1st MARCH 2026 – 2:00 PM

VENUE – REGENT’S UNIVERSITY LONDON
TUKE HALL
INNER CIRCLE, REGENT’S PARK, LONDON NW1 4NS

Tube station: Baker Street

Chair: Professor Robert Gleave

Robert Gleave is Professor of Arabic Studies in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, UK. He researches the history of Shīʿīsm, with a particular interest in Shiite Law. His most recent collaborative publications are (with Kumail Rajani) Shi’ite Legal Theory: Sources and Commentaries (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press / Gibb Memorial Trust, 2023) and (with Omar Anchassi), Islamic Law in Context: A Primary Source Reader (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). He has carried out research into the history of Shiism and the Shiite communities in Iran, Iraq and India. He is currently British Academy Wolfson Professor – and is completing a monograph on the history of Shiite law in the early 19th century CE.

Dr Reza Shah-Kazemi

Nothing but Beauty: Hazrat Zaynab and the Meaning of Bearing Witness

Dr Reza Shah-Kazemi is an author in the fields of Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion; Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies; and Managing Editor of Encyclopaedia Islamica. He studied International Relations and Politics at Sussex and Exeter Universities before obtaining his PhD in Comparative Religion from the University of Kent.

Shaykh Dr Gulamabbas Murtaza Lakha

Interfaith Reflections on the Psalms of Imām ʿAlī (as) and the Old Testament

Shaykh Dr Gulamabbas Murtaza Lakha is a researcher and tutor in Psychology of Religion at the University of Oxford. His first degree in Economics & Econometrics was followed by the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and entrepreneurship, serving as CEO of an investment firm he founded in 2004. Concurrently, he earned four postgraduate degrees in Psychology and Neuroscience (including neuroimaging of dhikr practice for an MSc dissertation), Theology, Islamic Studies, History and Arabic, with an MPhil thesis on commentaries of al-Ṣaḥīfa al-Sajjādiyya, together with papers on early biographical dictionaries (ṭabaqāt) on Imām Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (as) and Shaykh al-Kulaynī. He continued at Oxford University for a DPhil in Psychiatry, examining how Islamic concepts and practices can inform psychotherapeutic treatments. Following religious training over two decades, he has lectured widely on contemporary Islam and was accredited as a Shaykh in 2020 by the Hākim al-Sharʿ for Europe of Grand Ayatullah Sistani.

AN OPEN INVITATION
PLEASE BE SEATED BY 2:00 PM
ORGANISER & SPONSOR: THE AHMED FAMILY – C/O MUHAMMADI TRUST (020 8452 1739)

The Pious Labour of a Muslim Master Mason

25 June, 2025, 6pm UK time

SEMINAR

TO COMMEMORATE THE MARTYRDOM OF

IMAM ALI (a.s.)

SUNDAY 9th MARCH 2025 – 2:00 PM

VENUE – ROYAL ACAEMY OF MUSIC

DAVID JOSEFOWITZ RECITAL HALL

MARYLEBONE ROAD, LONDON NW1 5HT

PLEASE NOTE CHANGE IN VENUE THIS YEAR

Tube stations: Regent’s Park, Baker Street

Chair: Professor Justin Jones

Justin Jones is Associate Professor in the Study of Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, and specialises in South Asian Islam. His previous published research has focused upon Shi’i Islam in South Asia, including themes such as Shi’i clerical revivalism, religious writing and practice, martyrology, and Shi’i politics. He is the author of Shi’a Islam in Colonial India: Religion, Community and Sectarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2012), the editor of The Shi’a of South Asia: Religion, History and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2014), as well as having written various articles and other publications in this field.

Gulamabbas Lakha

Developing Islamic AI: Balancing Mental Health Benefits and Theological Risks

Gulamabbas Lakha takes a multi-disciplinary approach to research and teaching at Oxford. His doctorate in Psychiatry investigates mental health applications of Islamic concepts and practices, including empirical work on depression in the UK Muslim population. He serves as a tutor in Psychology of Religion and leads seminars on Neuroscience of Religious Experience, including supervising medical students and postgraduates. In addition, he also teaches Christian-Muslim relations and psychotherapy from Old Testament and Islamic psalms, having previously undertaken research on comparative neuroimaging of dhikr and secular mindfulness practices. His first degree in Economics & Econometrics was followed by the Chartered Financial Analyst programme and subsequently founded an investment firm at which he serves as CEO. He later completed four master’s degrees, spanning Psychology and Neuroscience, Theology, Islamic Studies, History and Arabic. Following religious training over two decades, he was accredited as a Shaykh and has lectured on contemporary Islam for fifteen years.

Dr George Warner

The Blunt Arrow and the Two-Pointed Sword: Encountering Imam Ali in Early Islamic Epic

Dr George Warner is a scholar of Islamic studies specialising in Sunni-Shi’a relations, hadith, ritual, and devotional literature in Arabic and Persian. Having completed his BA and MPhil at the University of Cambridge, he received his PhD from SOAS University of London in 2017. He has previously held academic positions at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, SOAS and the University of Exeter, and is currently a research fellow at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. He has published widely on diverse aspects of Shi’i Islam and its history, including his first book, The Words of the Imams: al-Shaykh al-Saduq and the Development of Twelver Shi’i Hadith Literature, which was published by I. B. Tauris in 2021.

AN OPEN INVITATION

PLEASE BE SEATED BY 2:00 PM

ORGANISER & SPONSOR: THE AHMED FAMILY – C/O MUHAMMADI TRUST (020 8452 1739)

7e Journée d’études sur le chiisme contemporain, EPHE-MSH Paris, 8 novembre 2024, 10h00 – 16h00
Organisateurs: Rainer Brunner (CNRS/LEM) et Constance Arminjon (EPHE/LEM);
Information et programme :
https://iismm.hypotheses.org/files/2024/10/Journe%CC%81eChiisme_EPHE-LEM_2024.pdf

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13530194.2024.2373066?src=exp-la