Al-Mahdi Institute

Was there such a thing as modern Islamic art, and have we been looking at it all wrong? 🎨

Professor William Gallois of the University of Exeter recently delivered a seminar at AMI challenging one of art history's longest-standing assumptions: that colonialism brought Islamic visual culture to an end. Drawing on cases from Senegal, Algeria, and Tunisia, he argued the opposite — that Muslim communities under empire produced some of the most sophisticated and spiritually layered art in Islamic history, often hidden in plain sight from colonial authorities.

From the Murīdiyya Sufi order's image-saturated resistance to French rule, to a concealed dome in a Tunisian watercolour later appropriated by Paul Klee, this seminar opens a remarkable and largely untold chapter of Islamic art history.

🔗 Watch, read, or listen to the full seminar: ami.is/seminar-wg

What makes Avicenna's proof of God's existence superior to all others? 🤔

Join us on Wednesday, 1st July at 3:00pm (BST), as our Visiting Research Fellow, Davlat Dadikhuda delivers a seminar exploring Avicenna's celebrated proof of God's existence — the demonstration of the truthful (burhān al-ṣiddīqīn) — and what sets it apart from every other argument in the Islamic philosophical tradition.

The seminar also asks whether this centuries-old proof still has something to say to contemporary philosophy — and whether the very fact that anything exists at all points us toward something that must necessarily exist.

🗓 Wednesday, 1st July 2026 at 3:00–4:30pm (BST)

📍 Join us in person at Al-Mahdi Institute or Online

🔗 Find out more or register now: ami.is/seminar-davlat

(No registration required for in-house attendance)

AMI's Wahid Amin recently presented at the Philosophy of Language in the Islamicate World conference at the University of Cambridge, supported by The British Academy.

His paper asked a deceptively simple question: when someone speaks, how do we know what they actually mean? And when are we justified in taking their words at face value?

To answer it, Dr Amin drew on a rich tradition of Islamic legal scholarship, arguing that Muslim thinkers had already developed sophisticated and nuanced responses to these questions — responses that stand alongside the most celebrated voices in Western philosophy of language.

🔗 Read more: ami.is/wahid-uoc

📣 AMI is delighted to open registration for its upcoming Hadith & History Conference: "Esoteric Currents and Intellectual Tensions: The Ghulāt in Formative Shiism", taking place on 9–10th July 2026 at Al-Mahdi Institute.

The conference, convened by Dr Haidar Hoballah, brings together scholars to examine the ghulāt movements of early Shiism — their theological significance, their relationship to the Imāmī tradition, and their wider influence on the development of Islamic thought. Despite their historical importance, these movements remain one of the least studied areas of early Islamic intellectual history, and this conference aims to address that gap.

📍 9–10th July 2026 at Al-Mahdi Institute

📖 View Conference Programme: ami.is/hh-pdf

🔗 Find out more or register now at: ami.is/hh-conf

📣 We're delighted to welcome Davlat Dadikhuda to AMI as a Visiting Fellow!

A philosopher specialising in Avicenna and the post-Avicennian tradition, Davlat's research spans epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and religion — with a particular focus on Illuminationist and mystical epistemologies from a Peripatetic perspective.

During his fellowship, Davlat participated in our IMS conference on "Ways of Knowing in Sufism" and will deliver a short course and seminar on his latest research. Keep your eyes peeled for more details coming soon! 👀

🔗 Read more about his work here: ami.is/davlat

AMI's Dr Muhammed Reza Tajri recently presented his research at the annual British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS) conference, held at the Aga Khan University's Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London.

Dr Tajri contributed to a panel on British Muslim experiences of inclusion, exclusion, and solidarity, presenting findings from his ongoing sociological research on Twelver Shīʿa Muslim care providers navigating questions of mental health, pastoral care, and LGB identities within Muslim community settings.

🔗 Read more about his presentation here: ami.is/tajri-brais

Join Shaykh Arif Abdulhussain for this year's Muḥarram lectures, running from 16th to 26th June 2026. Over ten nights, the series will trace the full Qurʾānic journey of the soul — from the origins of creation to death and the afterlife — culminating in a portrait of God not as the judge to be feared, but as Walī (Guardian and Protector) and Al-Wadūd (the Most Loving).

Each evening will also feature original poetry by Sister Fatemeh Mohimi, "The Lucky Mom," and parallel children's workshops for children in Reception to Year 6.

🗓 16th – 26th June 2026
📍 Join us in person at Al-Mahdi Institute or stream the lectures live

🔗 Find out more: ami.is/muharram26

👶 Register your children for workshops: ami.is/muharram-workshops

💛 Donate towards the programmes: ami.is/muharram-donate

On 29th April, AMI hosted its inaugural Islamic Philosophy and Theology Reading Workshop — five sessions of close reading through original Arabic and Persian texts by Ibn Sīnā, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Mullā Ṣadrā, and Ākhūnd Khurāsānī.

The workshop attracted over 100 participants in both in-person and online formats, and featured presentations by Professor Mohammad Saleh Zarepour, Dr Shoaib Ahmed Malik, Dr Wahid Amin, Dr Zoheir Esmail, and Professor Seyed Mohammad Fatemi.

Supported by the British Society for the History of Philosophy, this is the first of what we envision as an annual gathering: a rigorous, collegial space for scholars of the Islamic intellectual tradition to connect, read, and think together. 💡

🔗 Read the full report at: ami.is/reading-workshop

⏰ Tomorrow! Don't miss our research seminar with Professor Hashem Morvarid (Trinity University) on "The Problem of Ghayba in Twelver Shīʿism: A Case Study in Islamic Analytic Theology."

How can an Imam fulfil the religious and political functions of the Imamate while remaining in occultation (ghayba)? Professor Morvarid draws on the Qurʾān's treatment of moral evil in Q 2:30–33 to advance an understudied account in which the imam serves as God's moral reason for preserving humankind in existence — a role that can be fulfilled even by a hidden imam.

🗓 Wednesday, 3rd June 2026 from 3:00–4:30pm (BST)
📍 In person at AMI or Online
🔗 Find out more or register now: ami.is/seminar-hm