Alwaleed Centre Annual Report 2020/21

Over the course of the last year, the Alwaleed Centre has welcomed a number of dynamic new colleagues, all of whom bring highly valuable expertise in the study of contemporary Islam and the globalised Muslim world. It is exciting to see the Alwaleed Centre's team continue to grow, and you can learn more about the whole team here.

New Members of the Team in 2021

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Dr Kholoud Al-Ajarma: Alwaleed Lecturer in the Globalised Muslim World

Kholoud joined the Alwaleed Centre in February 2021 from the University of Groningen. In addition to her academic experience in anthropology and religion, Kholoud has worked in the fields of refugee studies, gender, youth development, migration, human rights, and environmental justice in several countries including Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco. She was a Chevening visiting fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) and peace fellow of the MENA cohort fellowship programme of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC). Her current research focuses on water resource management and contemporary environmental concerns in the Muslim World.

View Kholoud's full profile here.

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Dr Siti Sarah Muwahidah:  Alwaleed Early Career Fellow on Contemporary Muslim Societies in Southeast Asia

Sarah joined the Alwaleed Centre in May 2021 following a period teaching at Emory University Atlanta, where she also received her PhD in Religion (2020).  Her academic interests include interfaith dialogue, religious conflict and peacebuilding, political theology, and identity politics. She has conducted research in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Sarah was the recipient of a Fulbright Presidential Fellowship, an Asian Public Intellectual Fellowship from The Nippon Foundation, a graduate research fellowship from the Asian Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and an ELMO Fellowship from The Carter Center and Emory’s Institute of Developing Nations.

View Sarah's full profile here.

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Dr Sayed Mahdi Mosawi: Alwaleed-Cara Research Fellow

Mahdi joined the Alwaleed Centre in October 2021 following a two-year Research Fellowship at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institute, Essen (KWI). Mahdi is an anthropologist with expertise in forced migration and refugees studies, gender and masculinities, Muslim diasporic communities and integration and identity. His move to Edinburgh was made possible through a new partnership between the Alwaleed Centre, Edinburgh Global and the Council for At Risk Academics (Cara). Over the course of his two-year fellowship in Edinburgh, Mahdi will be working on a project entitled 'Immigrant Masculinities in the UK: A Study of Gendered Experiences of Afghan Refugees'. 

View Mahdi's full profile here.

Dr Nadeen Dakkak: IASH-Alwaleed Postdoctoral Fellow

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Nadeen gained her PhD from the University of Warwick and with her thesis examining how migration to the Arab Gulf States is represented in Arabic fiction. Her research interests extend beyond Arabic fiction and cover literature from/about the Gulf in English or in translation as well as literature and popular culture on migration and diaspora more generally. From October 2020 to July 2021 she was an Early Career Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study at Warwick. Nadeen joined the Alwaleed Centre through the Centre's partnership with the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. During her time as an IASH-Alwaleed Fellow she will be working on the project 'Arab Diasporas in the Gulf: Hospitality and Gratitude in Digital Articulations of Cultural and Islamic Affinity.'

View Nadeen's full profile here.

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Dr Teije Hidde Donker: Alwaleed Associate Fellow

Teije holds a Bye Fellowship at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, and has joined the Alwaleed Centre as an Associate Fellow for the 2021/22 academic year.

In his research, Teije investigates the construction of Islamism as a distinct practice in contentious episodes, focusing specifically on the post-2011 Syrian conflict and Tunisian transition. He is currently drafting a monograph titled Political Islam in the Syrian Conflict and Tunisian Transition: Constructing the Contentious Practices of Islamist Movements to be published at EUP.

View Teije's full profile here.

Over the years, the Alwaleed Centre has developed a reputation for its high-impact outreach activities promoting a better understanding of Islam and Muslim society locally, nationally and internationally.

Although the pandemic meant that our outreach programme looked quite different over the course of the last year, the Centre was still able to make major contributions to the world beyond the university through a number of its flagship projects.

The Syrian Futures Project: www.alwaleed.ed.ac.uk/syrianfutures

The Alwaleed Centre's hugely successful Syrian Futures Project continued to support Syrian refugees in the UK and beyond through a series of creative online programmes and projects led by Alwaleed Centre Outreach and Projects Coordinator, Nadin Akta.

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IELTS Master

Through a creative partnership with the Syrian Association for Education Development, the Alwaleed Centre aimed to build a better future for disadvantaged Syrians in Syria, Lebanon and Turkey by enabling them to take the Academic IELTS test offered by the British Council.

The project included a special course focused on building the skills required to pass the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) exam. Students were provided with continuous assessment and the opportunity to practice speaking English with English-speaking students at the University of Edinburgh.

The 15 successful students showed great progress in both their academic English skills and analytical/critical thinking skills. Students gained a deeper understanding of the IELTS system as well as strategies and techniques for successful passing their IELTS exam.

Click here for further information about the programme

Student Action for Refugess (STAR)

During the pandemic, the University of Edinburgh- STAR society delivered several online fundraising events and activities raising over £1000 in total. In collaboration with Syrian Futures, this enabled £30 grocery gift vouchers to be distributed to 30 families across Edinburgh to mark the end of Ramadan and celebrate the beginning of Eid.

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Right to Vote for Refugees

2021 saw the Scottish Government give all foreign nationals with leave to remain, including all those granted refugee status, the right to vote.

In partnership with ReAct, Media Education Scotland and The Edinburgh Electoral Registration Office, Syrian Futures created an essential online video in Arabic for Syrian refugees, guiding them through the process of registering to vote.

Click here to watch the video.

Schools Outreach

Engagement with High Schools remains a priority for the Alwaleed Centre, and we were delighted to connect with pupils from across Scotland and the wider UK through a number of projects delivered by the University of Edinburgh's Widening Participation team. 

In July 2021, the Alwaleed Centre organised five sessions as part of the University of Edinburgh's Sutton Trust Summer School programme. The programme offers students from parts of the UK with low numbers of university admissions the opportunity to experience university life over the course of a week. Students select a number of subject areas and attend lectures and project days delivered by University of Edinburgh staff, with the hope that this inspires students to apply to university once they leave school.

Click here for further information about the Sutton Trust Summer School. 

The Alwaleed Centre also delivered a number of online sessions on Islam and Arabic as part of the Widening Participation Primary and Early Secondary Years Initiative. This project is specifically for Edinburgh city primary school pupils who feed into secondary schools with the lowest progression rate to higher education. The project normalises and contextualises higher education via school and campus-based classes.

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Online Education for All

2021 saw the third run of our hugely successful Massive Open Online Course 'The Sharia and Islamic Law: An Introduction'. Thousands of students from over 130 countries registered for this free five-week course which explores some of the diverse roles that the Sharia and Islamic law have played in Muslim life, both historically and today.

To date, the course has attracted over 13,000 students from over 150 countries, making it one of the most far-reaching projects the Alwaleed Centre has ever delivered.

For further information about the course click here.

To find out more about the Alwaleed Centre's range of outreach initiatives click here.

Although the global pandemic meant that in-person events were not possible this year, the Centre fully embraced the online pivot and delivered a rich programme of events, conferences and workshops which attracted large audiences from across the globe.

Even as restrictions ease and in-person events become possible again, the Centre intends to maintain its momentum in the online space, building on its global following and continuing to offer research driven events which are open and accessible to all.

Conferences and Workshops

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Authority in the Globalised Muslim World (September - December 2020)

As part of the 10th anniversary celebration of the Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World, this unique online series offered a platform to discuss current research on a topic that has long been and remains a central matter of interest for the study of contemporary Muslim societies.

A special lecture by Professor Masooda Bano and three thematic panels captured some of the many ways by which authority is established, represented, negotiated, contested, and often reshaped within and across the worldwide geography of contemporary Muslim communities.

The series was originally planned to take place as a two-day conference on 17th and 18th March 2020, on the 10th anniversary of the Alwaleed Centre's formal opening. Following the cancellation of the conference, we made the decision to reshape it into four sessions delivered online via Zoom across the autumn semester 2020. The series proved an exceptional success, attracting large audiences and generating some fascinating conversations.

For the full programme click here.

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Islam and Inter-Religious Relations in Southeast Asia (March 2021)

This half-day online workshop explored the history of Islam in Southeast Asia and showcased some of the dynamic and creative Islamic thought in the region on the themes of the Study of Religion, Gender, and the Environment.

The workshop featured contributions from Professor Michael Feener (Kyoto University, Japan),  Dr. Zainal Abidin Bagir (Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia), Dr. Amporn Marddent (Walailak University, Thailand) and Professor Anna Gade (University of Wisconsin – Madison).

Further information here.

The Study of Islam and Muslims in the shadow of the “War on Terror”: Complexity, Reflexivity and Decolonising Methodologies (June 2021)

In this timely two-day online conference, we explored how the 'Decolonising the Curriculum Movement' (DCM) at British Universities could enable research and teaching staff to tackle and transcend certain challenges associated with the study of Islam and Muslims. We invited participants to critically explore the politics of engaging in research and teaching on Islam/Muslims at British universities through an exercise of self-reflection on research and teaching practises. We also reflected more broadly on the political implications/limitations of producing knowledge about Islam/Muslims in the current socio-political context that differentially in(ex)cludes Muslim voices.

The conference was delivered in partnership with Moray House School of Education and Sport, Centre for Education for Racial Equality Scotland & RACE.Ed.

View the full programme and recordings here.

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Rethinking Social and Political Dynamics in the Contemporary Mediterranean Region (June 2021)

Delivered in partnership with the Journal of Mediterranean Politics, the Institute for Advanced Studies of Aix-Marseille University (IMéRA) and the Mediterranean Politics and Society Research Network this half-day workshop featuring two roundtables explored the present and future of social and political research in the contemporary Mediterranean region. Contributors analysed salient dilemmas and introduced emerging research themes to illuminate the complex dynamics that shape interactions all around the Mediterranean Sea today.

View the full programme here.

Sunni-Shia Relations in Europe (June 2021)

A virtual workshop co-organised by Alwaleed Deputy Director, Dr Elvire Corboz, and Emanuelle Degli-Esposti (Research and Outreach Associate at the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge).

British Association for Islamic Studies 2021 Online Conference (March - July 2021)

The Alwaleed Centre is the Management Hub for British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS) and oversees the organisation of the BRAIS Annual Conference. The 2020 conference was sadly cancelled due to the pandemic, but the Centre worked closely with BRAIS Officers to deliver 15 exceptional online panels drawn from the cancelled conference programme. The BRAIS 2021 Online Series took place from March - July 2021 and attracted over 700 attendees, making it by far the biggest conference BRAIS has ever hosted. The online space meant we attracted delegates from all over the world, leading to some rich discussion and myriad academic connection across geographical boundaries.

View the full series programme here.

Online Special Events Organised by the Alwaleed Centre

From Religious Hegemony to Political Failure: The Egyptian Salafis (November 2020)

A seminar with Stéphane Lacroix, Researcher at Sciences Po, Paris. Organised in collaboration with the Politics and International Rrelations Contemporary Middle East Series. Moderated by Ewan Stein with a response by Frederic Volpi.

Hijab in the Modern World (February 2021)

Organised in partnership with AMINA Muslim Women's Resource Centre and marking Hijab Awareness Day, this Facebook Live panel discussion explored the representation of Hijab and Muslim women in the 21st Century. Featuring Amina Khan (University of Glasgow), Nurenisa Reichling (University of Graz) and Laura Mora (Keele University).

Rivals in the Gulf (May 2021)

The Alwaleed Centre was delighted to host one of its former Research Fellows, Dr David H. Warren, to discuss his new book "Rivals in the Gulf: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Abdullah Bin Bayyah, and the Qatar-UAE Contest Over the Arab Spring and the Gulf Crisis". David discussed his book with Dr Ewan Stein, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Edinburgh. The event was chaired by Dr Kholoud Al-Ajarma, Alwaleed Lecturer in the Globalised Muslim World.

View a recording of the event here.

Salafism and the State: Islamic Activism and National Identity in Contemporary Indonesia (September 2021)

Dr Chris Chaplin (LSE) discussed his new book with Professor Noorhaidi Hasan (Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia) and Dr Siti Sarah Muwahidah (Alwaleed Centre, University of Edinburgh).

View a recording of the event here.

Climate Change Ethics in Islamic Perspective (October 2021)

The Alwaleed Centre is proud to be offering a major webinar series in October and November 2021 exploring 'Environmentalism and the Muslim World' as a response to the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference taking place in Glasgow. In the first webinar of the series, we welcomed Professor Anna M. Gade (University of Wisconsin-Madison) who delivered a memorable keynote lecture exploring the climate change through the prism of Islam belief and practive.

For further information about the series click here.

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Alwaleed Centre Contributions to External Events

Roles and Challenges for Muslim Women in Public Spaces in the USA (November 2020)

Special panel convened as part of the Muhammadiyah America Convention, chaired by Alwaleed Teaching and Research Fellow Dr Sarah Muwahidah.

World Water Day E-Conference on Valuing Water in the Mediterranean Region (March 2021)

Organised by the Center for Mediterranean Integration (CMI) and featuring contributions from Alwaleed Lecturer in the Globalised Muslim World, Kholoud Al-Ajarma.

The Political Economy of Conflict and Violence Against Women (March 2021)

A special panel hosted as part of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. This panel was organised by Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) and featured Alwaleed Lecturer in the Globalised Muslim World, Kholoud Al-Ajarma.

Christian-Muslim Relations: Past, Present, and Future (April 2021)

A public lecture delivered by Alwaleed Professorial Fellow, Professor Hugh Goddard, for Seton Hall University, New Jersey.

Confronting Climate Crisis in the MENA region (April 2021)

Public lecture deivered by Alwaleed Lecturer in the Globalised Muslim World, Kholoud Al-Ajarma, hosted by the Middle East Institute (MEI) during 'Climate Week'.

Practitioners Meet Scholars: Future Directions of Islamic Studies (June 2021)

Part of the American Institute for Indonesian Studies & Michigan State University's conference "Indonesian Studies - Paradigms and New Frontiers". Featuring Alwaleed Teaching and Research Fellow Dr Sarah Muwahidah.

Culture and Art in Valuing Water (June 2021)

A special panel organised by UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme and UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme. Delivered as part of  World Water Week at the Stockholm International Water Institute and featuring Alwaleed Lecturer in the Globalised Muslim World, Kholoud Al-Ajarma.

Children of Immigration, War, Trauma, and Resilience (June 2021)

Public talk delivered by Alwaleed Lecturer in the Globalised Muslim World, Kholoud Al-Ajarma, and hosted by William James College, USA.

The past year saw the Alwaleed Centre develop its international profile, deepening existing partnerships and building new connections to increase its capacity and broaden its global reach.

Building Connections Across the Muslim World

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Over the past year, the Alwaleed Centre's globalised Muslim world research and teaching agenda has seen it engage with key regions of the Muslim world beyond the historic heartlands of the Middle East. The arrival of Alwaleed Teaching and Research Fellow, Dr Sarah Muwahidah, has led to a series of events and collaborations with major institutions in Indonesia, including:

• the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies in Yogyakarta
• The Indonsian International Islamic University in Jakarta.

Plans are now in place to recruit additional colleagues with research interests in contemporary Muslim societies in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as China, offering exciting new possibilities as we look ahead.

Sustainable Partnerships

The past year saw the Alwaleed Centre agreed sustainable funding partnerships with a number of oganisations both within and beyond the University of Edinburgh. 

• Over the next five years, the Centre will match-fund a series of Research Fellows and Postdoctoral Fellows with the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. These IASH-Alwaleed Fellowships allow established and early career scholars the opportunity to spend between 3-10 months at IASH to focus on their research and benefit from the unique multidisciplinary environment IASH provides. We welcomed Dr Hanane Benadi as our first IASH-Alwaleed Postdoctoral Fellow from October 2020 - June 2021. Hanane is an anthropologist of the Middle East, broadly working at the intersection of ethics, politics, and religion. View Hanane's full profile here.
• The Centre also committed to match-fund, on a rolling basis, a 2-year Research Fellowship with Edinburgh Global, arranged via the Council for At Risk Academics. We were delighted to welcome our first Cara Fellow, Dr Sayed Mahdi Mosawi, in October 2021. Learn more about Mahdi here.
• Looking to continental Europe, the Centre entered into a three year agreement with the Institute for Advanced Study (IMeRA) at Aix-Marseille University to fund an IMERA-Alwaleed Fellows to work on new Islamism dynamics across the contemporary Mediterranean region, and beyond. Our first IMeRA-Alwaleed Fellow, Thomas Serres, joined the team in January 2021 for a period of 5 months.

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A Dynamic Online Platform for a Unique International Network 

The Alwaleed Centre is proud to be part of a network of six academic centres endowed by Alwaleed Philanthropies and based at leading universities in the USA (Harvard and Georgetown), the UK (Cambridge and Edinburgh) and the Middle East (Beirut and Cairo). In October 2020, representatives of all six centres met to think creatively about ways they could work more closely together in order to maximise the network's collective impact.

This initiative led to a number of cross-centre dialogues and collaborations, as well as an ambitious plan to create an interactive online platform bringing together the research, expertise and resources of all centres in one dynamic space. The Edinburgh Alwaleed Centre will be taking a leading role in delivering this project, working closely with digital design agency Parkhouse.

The Alwaleed Centre's academic team remained extremely productive over the past year, despite the limitations imposed on their research by the pandemic. A full list of publications and conference papers is provided below:

Articles and Chapters

Al-Ajarma, Kholoud. & Buitelaar, M. 'Social Media Representations of the Pilgrimage to Mecca', Journal of Muslims in Europe, 2021.

Al-Ajarma, Kholoud. & Maharmeh, I. 'Forced Displacement in Area C and the (Palestinian) Jordan Valley under Israeli Settler Colonialism', Siyasat Arabiya (Arab Politics), March 2021.

Al-Ajarma, Kholoud. 'After Hajj: Muslim Pilgrims Refashioning Themselves', Religions, 2021.

Al-Ajarma, Kholoud. 'Personality and Perception: Aspects of the Researcher’s Identity and their Impact on Field Research within Diverse Locations', in Suad Joseph (ed),  Politics of Engaged Transformative Gender Research (in press).

Akinci, Idil. 'Talking to Young People about Being a National: Fieldwork Reflections from Dubai' in Lorraine Charles, Ilan Pappé and Monica Ronchi (eds), Researching the Middle East: Cultural, Conceptual, Theoretical and Practical Issues, Edinburgh University Press, 2020.

Akinci, Idil. 'Different Type of Refugee: Onward Journeys of Gulf-Born Migrants from Politically Volatile Countries', E-International Relations, 2021.

Blouet, Alexis. 'Norms Matter: a Legal Perspective on Political Islam and State’s Power in North Africa', Strife/King’s College IMES Department joint edition, 2021.

Blouet, Alexis. 'Understanding the Lebanese Political System through a Look at its Constitutional Court', Revue française de droit constitutionnel, 2021.

Blouet, Alexis. 'Playing by the Rules when the Law is Uncertain: The Moral Search for Legal Grounds in Homosexuality Affairs – Senegal, Egypt, Lebanon, Indonesia', in Baudouin Dupret, Max Travers & Julie Colemans (eds), Legal Rules in Practice: In the Midst of Law’s Life, Routletdge, 2020.

Dakkak, Nadeen. 'Contesting Narratives of Victimization in Migration to the Arab Gulf States: A Reading of Mia Alvar’s In the Country', Journal of Arabian Studies, forthcoming 2021.

Goddard, Hugh. 'William Montgomery Watt and Islam', The Scottish Episcopal Institute Journal, 2021.

Muwahida, Sarah. 'National (In)security and Identity Boundaries: The Rise of Muslim Conservative Propaganda in Indonesia', Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies, 2020.

Keukeleire, Stephan. Lecocq, Sharon. & Volpi, Frederic. 'Decentring Norms in EU Relations with the Southern Neighbourhood', Journal of Common Market Studies, 2020.

Volpi, Frederic. 'Islamically Framed Mobilization in Tunisia: Ansar al-Sharia in the Aftermath of the Arab Uprisings', in Melani Cammett & Pauline Jones (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Politics in Muslim Societies, Oxford, 2020.

Conference Papers and Panels

Al-Ajarma, Kholoud. 'Pilgrimage and the Politics of Presence and Absence: Anthropological Horizons on Sacralizing Locality, Visibility and Invisibility in the Contemporary World', Organised by PILNET (Pilgrimage Studies Network) of EASA, September 2021.

Al-Ajarma, Kholoud. 'The Hajj and Women’s Experiences in the Age of Technology and Social Media’, The International Student Conference, held by Faculty of Ushuluddin and Islamic Thought, UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta University, Indonesia, August 2021.

Al-Ajarma, Kholoud. 'Fighting for Justice: Families, Communities and Solidarity Networks against State Harms and Violence’, School of Law and Social Sciences, London South Bank University, July 2021.

Al-Ajarma, Kholoud. 'Shifting Grounds: Between Subjectivity and Sovereignty in Pilgrimage', Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) biennial meeting – Spring Virtual Conference, May 2021.

Al-Ajarma, Kholoud. 'Knowing in the Field: Ethnography in Overbearing Conditions', International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) congress, February 2021.

Blouet, Alexis. 'Constitutional Politics in Authoritarian Contexts’, Presentation for the Law and Social Sciences Seminar Series at Sciences-Po Bordeaux, May 2021.

Blouet, Alexis. 'Legal Analysis of Disagreements around the Reference to Islam in the PostRevolutionary Constitution', Study day Egypt Ten Years Later: Confrontation and Hybridization of Models organised by the ERC Tarica, February 2021.

Blouet, Alexis. 'Another Normative Look at Constitution-Making: The Pre-Constituent Power', Global Summit in Constitutionalism, January 2021.

Blouet, Alexis. 'Understanding the Lebanese Political System through its Constitutional Court', Virtual Congress of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), November 2020.

Blouet, Alexis. 'Islamic Policies? Ennahdha and the Moroccan Justice and Development Party', Online Conference Navigating North Africa in 2020: Dominating Narratives and New Perspectives of King’s College Middle Eastern Studies Department, October 2020.

Goddard, Hugh. 'Religious Studies and Inter-faith Relations: a Case Study of the Edinburgh Interfaith Association (EIFA)', at the Annual Conference of the British Association for Religious Studies (BASR), September 2021.

Muwahidah, Sarah. 'The ‘Alids Came to Nusantara: Shiʿi Imams and the Creation of Indo-Malay Sacred Geography', America Academy of Religion Annual conference, December 2020.

A Bold New Master's Programme

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September 2021 saw the launch of the Alwaleed Centre's new Master's programme in the Globalised Muslim World. This exciting taught MSc programme explores the inherent diversity of the world's Muslim societies whilst encouraging students to critically analyse some of the major global, international and transnational trends and movements that cut across borders and connect Muslims across the world.

The University of Edinburgh is home to a critical mass of expertise on Islam and the Muslim world with leading experts working across a number of disciplines and Subject Areas. The Globalised Muslim World programme capitalises on Edinburgh's world-class teaching and research by offering students courses in a variety of Subject Areas, including:

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• Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
• Theology and Religious Studies
• Politics and International Relations
• Sociology and Anthropology
• History

We are looking forward to developing the programme over the coming years with the aim of attracting increasing numbers of students over time. 2020/21 was a challenging year to launch the programme but the number of applications we received shows that there is huge potential for this to become a leading programme for anyone interested in the dynamics of contemporary Muslim societies.

For further information about the programme click here. 

Teaching Across Disciplines

In addition to the launch of the new MSc, the Alwaleed Centre's core team offered a variety of courses to undergraduate and postgraduate students from across the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Courses included:

• Muslims in Europe
• Law and Power in the Muslim World
• Globalised Muslim Politics
• Regional Perspectives in a Globalised Muslim World
• Muslim Societies in Southeast Asia

As the world begins to look beyond the challenges of COVID and return to something near normal, the Alwaleed Centre will aim to capitalise on the progress it has made over the course of the last year in driving its research, teaching and outreach agenda forward. Over the coming year(s) we aim to:

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  Develop our new MSc The Globalised Muslim World programme, attracting increasing number of students year-on-year. 

• Add capacity to the Centre by welcoming academic colleagues with expertise in regions of the Muslim world currently not covered by the Centre's team, including Subsaharan Africa and East Asia.
• Build on the expertise of Alwaleed Lecturer in the Globalised Muslim World, Dr Kholoud Al-Ajarma, to develop a new research cluster exploring environmentalism across the Muslim world.
• Play a key role in developing a major online platform bringing together the critical mass of expertise and resources represented by the six centres of the Alwaleed Academic Network. 
• Engage once again with pupils in schools across Scotland, restarting our established programme of school visits and encouraging pupils to engage with the contemporary Muslim world in all its global diversity.
• Build our network of international partnership, offering new and dynamic avenues for collaborative research and secure external funding to drive projects forward.
• Continue to offer a rich programme of online events which engage audiences from across the world and bring scholars, activists and practitioners together.