Explaining Neo-Traditionalism Register here.Join us when Mark Sedgwick, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University, presents Neo-Traditionalism, a contemporary global Islamic movement, and proposes an explanation for its growth and emphases. The presentation is followed by a response from Dr Walaa Quisay (The University of Edinburgh) and chaired by Dr Richard McNeill-Willson (The University of Edinburgh). Explaining Neo-TraditionalismNeo-Traditionalism is a contemporary global Islamic movement that aims to return to “traditional” Islam as it was before the development of the alternative and now widespread understandings of liberal modernists, the Muslim Brothers, and the Salafis. It is promoted by influential shaykhs in the UK, the US, and the Arab world, of whom the best known are Hamza Yusuf and Ali Jifri, and also by Arab governments from Morocco to the UAE. It has political as well as spiritual significance. Mark Sedgwick will trace the movement and then propose an explanation of its growth and emphases, partly in terms of politics and factors such as phases of modernity, and especially in terms of the historical networks of Neo-Traditionalism’s major proponents: the Yemeni Ba ʿAlawiyya, the perennialist esoteric Traditionalism of René Guénon and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and the utopian Murabitun of the Scottish shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi.BiographiesMark Sedgwick is professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University. He is a historian of ideas and of modern Islam and has worked on Sufism and Traditionalism for many years. His most recent book is Traditionalism: The Radical Project to Restore Sacred Order (London: Pelican; New York: Oxford University Press, 2023), and his Cambridge Element on New Religious Movements in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) is to be published in 2026.Dr Walaa Quisay is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author of Neo-Traditionalism in Islam in the West: Orthodoxy, Spirituality, and Politics and co-author of When Only God can See: The Faith of Muslim Political Prisoners. She worked at numerous academic institutions, including the University of Manchester, the University of Birmingham, and Istanbul Sehir University. In 2019, she received her DPhil from the University of Oxford at the Faculty of Oriental Studies. Her research interests include the anthropology of religion, the study of Muslim political and religious subjectivities, carceral theology, theodicy, and traditionalism and modernism in contemporary Islamic thought.Please note that photography may take place at the event and that these photos may be used on our website and social media platforms or in printed publicity material to promote the Alwaleed Centre's activities. Please speak to the event organisers or photographers if you do not wish to be photographed. Please email thealwaleedcentre@ed.ac.uk if you have any questions or concerns about the event. Tags The Alwaleed Centre Jan 28 2026 17.30 - 19.00 Explaining Neo-Traditionalism Join us when Mark Sedgwick, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University, presents Neo-Traditionalism, a contemporary global Islamic movement, and proposes an explanation for its growth and emphases. Teaching Room 07, School of Law, Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh, EH8 9YL. Old College (Google Maps) Register here
Explaining Neo-Traditionalism Register here.Join us when Mark Sedgwick, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University, presents Neo-Traditionalism, a contemporary global Islamic movement, and proposes an explanation for its growth and emphases. The presentation is followed by a response from Dr Walaa Quisay (The University of Edinburgh) and chaired by Dr Richard McNeill-Willson (The University of Edinburgh). Explaining Neo-TraditionalismNeo-Traditionalism is a contemporary global Islamic movement that aims to return to “traditional” Islam as it was before the development of the alternative and now widespread understandings of liberal modernists, the Muslim Brothers, and the Salafis. It is promoted by influential shaykhs in the UK, the US, and the Arab world, of whom the best known are Hamza Yusuf and Ali Jifri, and also by Arab governments from Morocco to the UAE. It has political as well as spiritual significance. Mark Sedgwick will trace the movement and then propose an explanation of its growth and emphases, partly in terms of politics and factors such as phases of modernity, and especially in terms of the historical networks of Neo-Traditionalism’s major proponents: the Yemeni Ba ʿAlawiyya, the perennialist esoteric Traditionalism of René Guénon and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and the utopian Murabitun of the Scottish shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi.BiographiesMark Sedgwick is professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University. He is a historian of ideas and of modern Islam and has worked on Sufism and Traditionalism for many years. His most recent book is Traditionalism: The Radical Project to Restore Sacred Order (London: Pelican; New York: Oxford University Press, 2023), and his Cambridge Element on New Religious Movements in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) is to be published in 2026.Dr Walaa Quisay is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author of Neo-Traditionalism in Islam in the West: Orthodoxy, Spirituality, and Politics and co-author of When Only God can See: The Faith of Muslim Political Prisoners. She worked at numerous academic institutions, including the University of Manchester, the University of Birmingham, and Istanbul Sehir University. In 2019, she received her DPhil from the University of Oxford at the Faculty of Oriental Studies. Her research interests include the anthropology of religion, the study of Muslim political and religious subjectivities, carceral theology, theodicy, and traditionalism and modernism in contemporary Islamic thought.Please note that photography may take place at the event and that these photos may be used on our website and social media platforms or in printed publicity material to promote the Alwaleed Centre's activities. Please speak to the event organisers or photographers if you do not wish to be photographed. Please email thealwaleedcentre@ed.ac.uk if you have any questions or concerns about the event. Tags The Alwaleed Centre Jan 28 2026 17.30 - 19.00 Explaining Neo-Traditionalism Join us when Mark Sedgwick, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University, presents Neo-Traditionalism, a contemporary global Islamic movement, and proposes an explanation for its growth and emphases. Teaching Room 07, School of Law, Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh, EH8 9YL. Old College (Google Maps) Register here
Jan 28 2026 17.30 - 19.00 Explaining Neo-Traditionalism Join us when Mark Sedgwick, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University, presents Neo-Traditionalism, a contemporary global Islamic movement, and proposes an explanation for its growth and emphases.
