Political Science Department to hold Religion and Politics Webinars

By Zacky Fouz

The Policy and Area Studies Research Unit (PASRU) of the Department of Political Science will organize a webinar series on Religion and Politics in the Muslim World: Emerging Directions and Future Prospects from October to December 2023.

The series of webinars are organized in conjunction with the Islamic political thought module (PSCI 4010).

The main objective of the webinar series is to contribute to the department’s ongoing efforts in expanding its academic collaborations with the global scholarly community and institutions. The webinar series attempts to explore the changing dynamics of the debate on Islam and politics in different contexts of the Muslim world.

Exploring the role of Islam in managing the public sphere and modern political systems is one of the important questions in the Muslim world. Ever since modernity entered the Muslim world, the idea of religion and its place in political life has become a serious concern for Islamic political thinkers and scholars. 

However, along with the recent socio-political shifts and significant events that have been taking place in the Muslim world such as The Arab Spring and its aftermath, it is possible to observe the emergence of new directions as well as theoretical and strategic frameworks in addressing the question regarding Islam and its relevance to politics. In this context, the webinar series tries to capture these shifting trends and prospects. Moreover, it also engages with the theme both from the theoretical and contextual perspectives. In terms of theoretical aspect, the webinar contains two lectures that discuss the historical evolution, and the recent philosophical and conceptual developments in rethinking Islam’s incompatibility with democratic ideals and ideological transformations of Islamic socio-political movements in the Muslim world. Additionally, the webinar series also contains three other lectures focusing on the recent development of the broader idea of Islamic politics in Malaysia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The full schedule of the webinar series is as follows: 

Speaker	Topic	Time and Date
Prof. Dr. Husnul Amin, National Defense University Pakistan	Religion and Politics in Pakistan: Contemporary Issues and Debates	8.00 P.M. to 9.00 P.M., 27th, October 2023
Dr. Mohammad Affan, Al-Sharq Forum	Islamism, Arab Spring and The Ideological Transformation	8.00 P.M. to 9.00 P.M., 15th November 2023
Dr. Tauseef Ahamed, High Education Institute, Jammu and Kashmir	Islam and Democracy: Key Themes and Recent Debates	8.00 P.M. to 9.00 P.M., 29th November 2023
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Md. Saidul Islam, Nanyang Technological University	Islamism, Democracy and Secularism in Bangladesh: Contemporary Debates and Future Dynamics	8.00 P.M to 9.00 P.M, 15th December 2023
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Danial Mohd. Yusof, International Islamic University Malaysia	Islamic Political Thought in the Malay World	8.00 P.M to 9.00 P.M., 29th December 2023

PASRU believes the webinar would initiate a critical discussion in reimagining a new vision for Islamic political thought in contemporary times. As the coordinator of the webinar series, I would like to invite all students and the scholarly community from all parts of the world, who are interested in the subject, to join the webinars and share their critical views. I would also like to thank the respected colleagues of the department who have helped and are still continuously helping to organize this webinar series.   ***

(Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zacky Fouz is an academic in the Department of Political Science, AbdulHamid AbuSulayman Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences.)