CIMS Panel: The Human Face of Islam in Response to Contemporary Anti-Islamic Sentiments

On Saturday 30th of June, The Centre for Intra Muslim Studies (CIMS) hosted a panel discussion titled ‘ The Human Face of Islam in Response to Anti-Islamic Sentiments’ at Al Mahdi Institute, Birmingham.

The discussion was chaired by Shaykh Jaffer Ladak, who started off the discussion by a very apt introduction which was then followed by contributions from Dr Iqbal Asaria, a leading thinker amongst Muslims in the UK, who spoke about the baggage needed to be acknowledged before tackling such issues. Br Idrees Sharif then spoke on behalf of Abdullah Rahman from TellMama (an organisation that supports victims of Anti Muslim Hate) about the empirical data regarding hate crime directed to Muslims.

Theological view points were also provided by Dr Muhammad Khalid (Director of CIMS) who talked about loving the one who hates you, and by Shaykh Arif Abdulhussain (Director and founder of Al Mahdi Institute) who spoke about the need for us as Muslims to acknowledge our shortcomings and misunderstandings in theology.

Following from the panel discussions, contributions from the public were welcomed, with West Midlands police inspector Nicola Lloyd and Inspector Mustafa Mohammad giving their input regarding hate crime and what to do. This was followed by a Q&A discussion, with very pertinent points being raised to on how to further the discussion.

To view more images from the discussion, please click here.