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The AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University mourns the passing of Yaqub Mirza and Abdulaziz Sachedina.

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.  

On December 2, 2024, the Department of Religious Studies will celebrate undergraduate excellence in Islamic Studies. Students are invited to submit written work (https://forms.gle/3ooZXFqDGNVXHw3L8). We will award several cash prizes for the most excellent work. We'll gather on December 2 at 5:00 in Horizon 3225 to celebrate our students. Dinner provided. All are welcome!

Recent decades have witnessed the increasing presence and prominence of Muslim women in a variety of civic and professional contexts, as well as in charitable, educational, and cultural organizations. At the same time, explicitly religious roles for Muslim women as religious scholars, mosque leaders, chaplains, and legal authorities also continue to expand in number, scope, and influence. This year, the AbuSulayman Center’s annual conference will bring together both scholars and practitioners for an extended discussion of the many ways in which Muslim women are leading, shaping, and supporting their communities.

This year, the AbuSulayman Center’s annual conference will bring together both scholars and practitioners for an extended discussion of the many ways in which Muslim women are leading, shaping, and supporting their communities. It will examine the challenges they face in these leadership roles in a world where Muslim women continue to struggle against both patriarchal and Islamophobic assumptions about their agency and influence.