Centre for Religion and Public Life

• Mikel Burley, Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy
• Caroline Fielder, Lecturer in Chinese Studies
• Alistair McFadyen, Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology
• Seán McLoughlin, Professor of the Anthropology of Islam (Muslim Diasporas)
• Tasia Scrutton, Associate Professor in Philosophy and Religion
• Mustapha Sheikh, Lecturer in Islamic Studies; Co-Director of the Iqbal Centre for the Study of Contemporary Islam
• Jasjit Singh,  Associate Professor of Religion
• Stefan Skrimshire, Associate Professor in Theology and Religious Studies
• Caroline Starkey,  Associate Professor of Religion and Society
• Johanna Stiebert, Professor of Hebrew Bible
• Aled Thomas, Teaching Fellow
• Emma Tomalin, Professor of Religion and Public Life
• Adriaan van Klinken, Professor of Religion and African Studies
• Robert Vanderbeck, Professor of Human Geography and Head of School

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.

 

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.

11.00-13.00.

More details to follow.

10.00-16.30, Baines Wing 2.10.

More details to follow