Covid-19 and Muslim Religiosity: an AVACGIS Webinar Series

June 16, 2020, 12:00 PM to December 2, 2020, 2:00 PM EDT
Zoom Virtual Event

The Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies (AVACGIS) at George Mason University is organizing a webinar series that will explore the impact of Covid-19 on various dimensions of Muslim religious life in global perspective. Each webinar will feature a leading scholar whose work is starting to explore the intersection of Islam and the global pandemic with a view to exploring Covid-19’s impact on Muslim thought, theology, law, observance, and religious authority.

Topics the series will explore include:

Theological and legal discussions about e.g. communal prayers and modes of worship;
Conversations about inequalities and how structural problems affect Muslim community experiences of the pandemic;
Explorations of the challenges faced by global religious networks—such as traveling da’wa movements and transnational tariqahs—and their responses to the health crisis;
The increased prevalence of online and virtual environments and their implications for religious life and religious observance;
Emerging politics and tensions between the state and religious actors in the context of Covid-19 plus the pandemic’s impact on sectarian dynamics

Each 1-hour session will feature a live presentation plus Q&A/discussion on Zoom. Video and audio recordings of each speaker’s remarks will also be made available later for asynchronous access.

Speakers

June 16, 2020 - 12:00 PM EDT
Adnan Zulfiqar (Rutgers Law School), “Mapping Legal Responses to Covid-19: The Case of Islamic Law”

June 30, 2020 - 2:00 PM EDT
Donna Auston (Rutgers University), “The Pandemic of White Supremacy: Making Black Muslim Lives Matter in a Covid-19 World”

July 14, 2020 - 1:00 PM EDT
Dietrich Reetz (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient & Free University, Berlin), “Covid-19 and the Missionary Work of the Tablighi Jamaat in South Asia and Beyond: Negotiating Grassroots Activism, Religious Authority and the State”

July 28, 2020 - 12:00 PM EDT
Seán McLoughlin (University of Leeds), "The Hajj & Covid-19: Saudi Arabia, the Transnational Pilgrimage Industry & Muslim Religiosities in Diaspora"

August 11, 2020 - 2:00 PM EDT
Shabana Mir (American Islamic College, Chicago), "Everything has changed but we can’t: Muslim religious responses to Covid-19"

August 25, 2020 - 2:00 PM EDT
Kameelah Mu'Min Rashad (West Chester University of Pennsylvania & Muslim Wellness Foundation), "Holding on to the Light of Faith: Black Muslims Coping with Covid-19, Social Unrest & Racial Violence"

September 8, 2020 - 2:00 PM EDT
Gary R. Bunt (University of Wales Trinity Saint David), "The 'Allah Algorithm': Interpreting Islamic Influencers' Online Responses to Covid-19"

September 22, 2020 - 1:00 PM EDT
Andrea Stanton (Denver University), "Lived Islam and Covid-19: Belief, Piety, Practice, and the Digital Turn”

October 7, 2020 - 2:00 PM EDT
Marcia Hermansen (Loyola University Chicago), "American Muslim Negotiations of Authority in the Time of Coronavirus”

October 21, 2020 - 12:00 PM EDT
Cortney Hughes Rinker (George Mason University), “‘Not only are we already here, you’re all Muslim. Salam Brother.’: The Islamic Nature of the New Normal in Covid-19 and Exposing the Conflation of Religion, Race, and Culture”

November 4, 2020 - 1:00 PM EDT
Anna Piela (Northwestern University) & Joanna Krotofil (Jagiellonian University), “I’ve discovered I love to pray alone”: Women’s approaches to practising Islam during the Covid-19 pandemic"