This conference is part of a multi-year decolonial initiative that aims to center scholarship and institutions in the global South. Our decision to host this conference at the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar arises out of our commitment to ensuring the presence of key stakeholders from the African continent, in addition to promoting intellectual engagement outside of hegemonic Western academic spaces.

Muslim communities around the world have been facing unprecedented levels of war and destruction. Apart from the immense human toll of conflicts spanning regions ranging from sub–Saharan Africa, to the Middle East, or Central and South Asia, sites of Islamic cultural patrimony have suffered a near constant stream of destruction. The systematic looting of treasured artifacts and archives and the physical destruction of civilizational sites of learning and commemoration have accelerated the immeasurable loss of historical memory. The Abu Sulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies annual conference, "Reclaiming History: Islam and Cultural Patrimony" brings together scholars addressing the phenomenon of cultural destruction and its impact on historical memory in places such as, but not limited to, west Africa, the Balkans, Egypt, Yemen and Iraq, as well as South and Southeast Asia.  Join us on Thursday April 24 and Friday April 25, 2025.