Centre for Religion and Public Life

The Centre for Religion and Public Life

A hub of research, impact and public engagement activities at the intersections of religion and public life in local, national and global contexts.

Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash

The Centre for Religion and Public Life (CRPL) studies the complex and critical role of religious belief and practice in contemporary society, locally, nationally and globally. It brings together academic staff and research students in the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, as well as from other Schools at the University of Leeds.

Members of the Centre employ various methodological perspectives – such as sociology and anthropology of religion, theology, biblical, religious and cultural studies – as the Centre foregrounds interdisciplinarity as critical to the study of religion and public life.

The Director of the Centre is Professor Johanna Stiebert.

Our research

Research in the Centre is concerned with contemporary religion in relation to a wide range of current issues, such as gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, diaspora and globalisation, media, and development. The geographical contexts range from the city of Leeds, the UK and Europe, Africa and Asia. We have expertise in diverse religious traditions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, and new religious movements.

Visit our Religion and Public Life blog and read our newsletters to find out more about our events and activities, and work in and around the Centre.

Our people

View our members

 

Research clusters

Work in the Centre is clustered in the following research areas

Work in this area is multidisciplinary, making use of anthropological, sociological, philosophical and theological approaches and concerns a wide range of global contexts

More on Religion, Activism and Social Justice

This ethnographic research focuses on both local, national and international levels, and is mostly concerned with South Asian Muslim and Sikh communities and traditions.

More on Religion, Ethnicity and Diaspora

Research covers philosophical, theological, ethnographic approaches, and the relation between beliefs in an afterlife and ethical or political engagement; religion, animal ethics and environmentalism.

More on Religion, Ethics and Practice

Research in this area makes use of anthropological, sociological, geographical, theological and textual approaches, building on feminist, queer, and postcolonial perspectives.

More on Religion, Gender and Sexuality

Work is empirical, examining the role of religious communities in public health, and also theological and philosophical, how religion contributes to human flourishing and spiritual well-being.

More on Religion, Health and Wellbeing

The work explores South Asian traditions and communities in Britain and makes use of ethnographic, sociological and media-studies approaches.

More on Religion, Media and Material Culture

This work is multiscalar, ranging from neighbourhoods, local and national governments, state institutions such as the police, and international bodies.

More on Religion, Politics and the State

Seminar series

The Centre for Religion and Public Life (CRPL) is thrilled to announce its seminar series for 2024-25!

Seminars are in-person only and most take place at 11.30-13.00 in Botany House 1.03, on alternative Thursdays during teaching weeks.

Upcoming speakers and days for Semester 2 will be:

1 May 2025 – Dr. Atif Imtiaz (University of Bradford).

Atif Imtiaz is Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Bradford. He has a PhD in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics and was formerly the academic director at Cambridge Muslim College. His book Wandering Lonely in a Crowd is a reflection on being Muslim in Britain covering the years 2000-2008.

Portrait photo of Atif imtiaz

 

Dr Atif Imtiaz is presenting on Thursday 1 May in the Botany House seminar room (1.03). The seminar will take place in person from 11.30-13.00.

Title: "Criminology, Islamic Theology and Sufism: Some Preliminary Thoughts"

Abstract: In this presentation, I will be examining the relationship between criminology, Islam and Muslims within an English context. It is well documented that numbers of prisoners by Muslim faith have risen in the past two decades in ways that suggest over-representation within the criminal justice system. This may or may not have a symbiotic relationship with Islamophobia or the negative representation and evaluation of Islam and Muslims in the public sphere.

The question I initially seek to address is "how have Muslim communities responded to this?" We can contrast this approach with Muslim approaches to education through which Muslims have initially set up privately-funded schools, which have first become government funded and then been co-opted into the system, with practitioners par excellence, such as Sir Hamid Patel and Mouhssin Ismail, as totemic examples. The "Trojan horse saga" represents a blip – an intriguing and damaging blip – to this narrative.

However, though there have been numerous interventions into education because of low levels of educational achievement, there have been few interventions in the area of crime prevention. We are only just seeing the green shoots of this with some community organisations and mosques attempting to initiate rehabilitation programmes.

Secondly, about Islamic theology: A book on Christian theology and criminology (Criminology and Public Theology) has recently been published and it asks the question, "What can Christian theologians bring to the table?" I will provide a brief reflection on this book and then consider how we can understand the contribution of Islamic theology. Here we come to a problem of cross-cultural translation: Is theology the right name or subject? I would suggest that in this circumstance it is not. 

The right response would be Sufism. Why is this? My answer is that there is a history of repentance literature within Sufism – turning back from a life of ills best exemplified in the life of Fudayl ibn Iyad. What is repentance literature? It is not just about the change of some behaviours – but rather about alchemy: the change of the inner being or soul or psychology. Religion is relevant here because it argues that all human beings have the opportunity to not only be saved but turned around just like poorly achieving schools.

 Additional CRPL Events for Semester 2 will be: 

A record of past seminars hosted by the Centre for Religion and Public Life is available here.

For further information, please contact Johanna Stiebert (Director of CRPL): j.stiebert@leeds.ac.uk