Anchoring Islam in the Western cultural experience: the role of scholars of convert background

Join us as we welcome Shaykh Arek Miernik as we discuss “Convert Shuyukh and the Indigenisation of Islam”.

The talk will be about how the strong association of most Muslim communities with a particular culture from ‘back home’ alienates whole groups of people – converts, people of mixed backgrounds and anyone who doesn’t feel any real connection to their ancestral culture. What does this mean for the growth, anchoring and relevance of Islam in western countries? The disengagement of many people from their local communities etc.; How a particular network of convert Shaykhs proposes a more culturally indigenous Islam – the likes of Hamza Yusuf, Abdalhakim Murad etc in the Sunni context, and then I’ll move on to asking whether we have anything similar happening in the Shia context – based on my conversations and interactions with several convert Shia scholars in countries like Italy, Spain, Poland and Russia.

This programme will be face to face and streamed online.

We will be streaming the programme live on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/sicmtv

If you would like to recite Qur’an during the programme, please do let us know: email us: info@sicm.org.uk