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While Muslim communities in Britain are arguably under greater scrutiny than ever, there remains a dearth of understanding regarding issues of minority representation and diversity among Muslims from different branches of Islam. In the face of reported rising intra-communal antagonism, and against the backdrop of ongoing sectarian tension in the Middle East, there is a pressing need for more nuanced understandings of the Muslim community in the UK.

Shiite Patterns of Post-Migration in Europe

This brief reflection treats the reactive relation between the dispersions of (post-)migration and the integralism of religion in selected cases of European Shiism. It reconsiders reports on Twelver Shiism and Shiite Muslims in Europe in order to discern the main institutional and demographic tendencies in Shiites’ European settlement history in Britain, France and Germany, and to explore such settlement in light of mega-theorizations of European Islam that juxtapose ‘integration’ and ‘separation’.

Extended Call for Papers: “The Regulation of Purity (Ṭahāra) and Impurity (Najāsāt) in Islam: Practical, Socio-Ethical and Theological Implications” – Al-Mahdi Institute

In light of the current circumstances surrounding COVID-19, the Al-Mahdi Institute (AMI) has decided to virtually host its 8th Annual Contemporary Fiqhī Issues Workshop. As such, AMI has elected to extend the deadline, for the submission of abstracts, to Monday …

Shi’i clerical networks and the transnational contest over …: Ingenta Connect

This article explores the transnational contest over sacred authority in contemporary Shi’i Islam as it plays out between contemporary maraji’ (sources of emulation) and the Iranian Supreme Leader, and in practice between their respective networks.

Bahrain: Death Sentences Despite Torture Claims

(Beirut) – Bahrain’s authorities should overturn the death sentences following unfair trials against two men who say they were tortured, Human Rights Watch and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) said today. The Court of Cassation, Bahrain’s court of last resort, will issue the final verdict in the coming weeks.

See also ADHRB Weekly 338 here.

Dispelling Divides – Shi’a and Sunni Belief

The University of Edinburgh – Dispelling Divides A look at the differences and similarities of Shia and Sunni Belief with SABS Director General Imam Razawi and Shaykh Hassan Rabbani. With an increase in sectarian tensions across campuses in the United Kingdom, an event at the University of Edinburgh was held to bring harmony and dispel misinformation.

A Pioneering Workshop on Legal Maxims

By Kumail Rajani Al-qawāʿid al-fiqhiyya – Islamic legal maxims – have received limited attention in the plethora of works on Islamic law and legal theory published in the last two to three decades. With the aim of further advancing the study of Islamic legal maxims, the Exeter-based LAWALISI (LAW, Authority and Learning in Imami Shiʿite Islam)…

For more information on the LAWALISI project, see here.

What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?

“We agree to give these companies ownership of our lives and they are cashing in,” says Edward Armstrong, a freelance copywriter and consultant originally from Newcastle, UK, but now based in London. He has abandoned using the services of internet giants like Google and Facebook and is using smaller rivals, which promise greater privacy.

Bahrain: Worsening Rights Record

(Beirut) – Bahrain’s human rights record worsened in 2019, as the government carried out executions, convicted critics for peaceful expression, and threatened social media activists, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2020 . The government executed three people in July, including two prisoners convicted in a mass trial marred by serious due process violations and allegations of torture.

Huddersfield University Urged to Sever Ties with Bahraini Regime Linked to Disgraced Duke of York

05 December 2019 – Last week, on 29 November, the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) sent letters to both the Vice-Chancellor and President of the Student Union (SU) at the University of Huddersfield urging the institution to abolish a Master’s programme, an MSc in Security Science, reserved for students from Bahrain’s Royal Academy…

For BIRD Weekly 255, click here.