In this special public seminar, Yasmin Ismail (Leiden University) will discuss her current research exploring the linguistic and ideological entanglements that emerge from the spread of a South-African origin English-language Islamic curriculum
Yasmin will focus on the development of this English-language curriculum within the particular context of a post-Apartheid South Africa. Changes to Islamic education during this time were informed by the changes this new political landscape brought about and the curriculum emerged here as a curriculum for a South African Muslim identity. The development of an English-language Islamic curriculum for this new identity is addressed from the standpoint of a ‘pragmatic piety’ that allows for embracing more of the possibilities of English including its various linguistic, historical, philosophical, political, and religious resources.
About the Speaker:
Yasmin Ismail holds an MA in Islamic Studies (University of Exeter 2011) and an Mres in Middle East Studies (Leiden University, 2018). She is currently in the final stages of her PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies (BGSMCS) and FU-Berlin. Her research addresses translocal linguistic and ideological entanglements arising from the use of English-language Islamic curricula within Quranic schools in the minority settings of the UK, Zambia and South Africa.
With a response from Dr Jeremy Dell
Dr Jeremy Dell is Lecturer in African History at the University of Edinburgh.
He is a scholar of African global history, with a specialisation in the history of Islam in the Western Sahel. His research and teaching are anchored in the continent's own intellectual traditions, and he strives to make these traditions come alive in all of his work. His current book project 'Saving Tradition: Archiving Islam in the Western Sahel', explores the history of collecting and preserving Arabic manuscripts amidst social and political upheaval in the West African countries of Senegal and Mali. He holds a doctorate in History from the University of Pennsylvania and has had significant research and language-training stints in Senegal, Mali, and Egypt.
