AMI Research contributes to University of Exeter’s conference “Responsibility, Autonomy and Truth in the Public Sphere: Christian and Islamic Approaches”

AMI Faculty and students participate in University of Exeter conference “Responsibility, Autonomy and Truth in the Public Sphere: Christian and Islamic Approaches”.

The conference, held on the 16^th-17 December 2013 at Exeter University’s Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies, was the culmination of a three-year British Academy International Partnership project considering comparative themes regarding religion in Public Life.

Four faculty members from AMI, along with senior students and graduates of the Institute, engaged with an international group of other Christian and Muslim colleagues in discussion and debate over two days. Themes included religious responsibility as scriptural and non-scriptural, the social and divine implications of religious music, Methodism and Teetolism, Autonomy and submission, prenatal testing, Universal truth? Prospects for multi-faith communicative action and the provision of religious and spiritual care in hospitals. The breadth and depth of both theoretical and applied papers offered much scope for identifying commonalities, differences and the need for collaborative approaches on both practical and theoretical issues of common concearn.

Amongst the contributions from AMI, there was a key note lecture presented by Professor Seyed Fatimi titled “Faith, Autonomy and Submission: From a Normatively Humane Islam to an Islamic divinely human centrism” and a paper by Dr Ali-reza Bhojani titled “The concept and purpose of taklif in Classical Imami theology and its implications for the role of religion in a plural public sphere”.