Salafiyya and its impact on plural societies will be organized at University Of Nottingham (KLTC) Chulan Tower, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 15th October 2016 (Saturday).

* For more information, please visit this website https://www.facebook.com/events/153320321792674/

This discussion proposes to move away from the image of the Mad Mullah and the hate preacher who radicalises the uneducated, naïve, but largely benign Muslim masses to understanding Salafiyya from a sociological perspective. To pursue this, one must distinguish between Salafiyya as a manhaj/methodology that early Muslims adopted (for example Ibn Hanbal and Ibn Taymiyya) and the contemporary Salafiyya as a modern political and religious identity. The experts will try to explain the attraction of this new identity to young Muslims in the Middle East and beyond. An important dimension of the spread of Salafiyya is related to state sponsored initiatives and institutions that allow the transnationalism of this religious identity.

Speakers:

Key speaker: Prof. Madawi Al-Rasheed, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Madawi Al-Rasheed is Visiting Professor at the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, London. She is currently spending one year at the Middle East Institute, NUS, Singapore. Previously she was Professor of Social Anthropology at King’s College, London. Her research focuses on history, society, religion and politics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, Middle Eastern Christian minorities, Arab migration, Islamist movements, and state and gender relations. Her latest book is Muted Modernists: the Struggle over Divine Politicls in Saudi Arabia (2015).

Other publications include Politics in an Arabian Oasis (I.B. Tauris 1991), A History of Saudi Arabia (second edition CUP 2010), Counter Narratives: History, Contemporary Society and Politics in Saudi Arabia and Yemen (Palgrave 2004),Transnational Connections and the Arab Gulf (Routledge 2005), Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New Generation (CUP 2007), Kingdom without Borders: Saudi Political, Religious and Media Frontiers (Hurst 2008), Dying for Faith: Religiously Motivated Violence in the Contemporary World (I.B. Tauris 2009), mazaq al-islah fi al-saoudiyya (Saqi 2005), Demystifying the Caliphate (Hurst 2012) and A Masculine State, Gender, Politics and Religion in Saudi Arabia (CUP 2013).

Discussant: Dr. Farid Alatas, National University of Singapore (NUS)

RSVP online at 
http://asiawe.org/events/salafiyya-and-its-impact-on-plural-societies/

PROGRAM:

Registration
11.00-11.15 – Opening remarks
11.15-12.00 – Key speaker: Prof. Madawi Al-Rasheed, LSE
12.00-12.30 – Discussant: Prof. Syed Farid Alatas, NUS
12.30-13.00 – Q&A
13.00 – Closing remarks, lunch