Colloquium December 2025
Nurturing Aesthetic Sensibilities: Poetry and Selfhood in Islamic Philosophy of Education
8–10 December 2025 | Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge
In partnership with Cambridge Muslim College and CITE
❖ About the Colloquium
“God is beautiful and He loves beauty.” — Sahih Muslim
This three-day closed colloquium brings together leading scholars, poets, educationalists, and school leaders to explore the intertwined heritage of poetry, aesthetics, and selfhood in Islamic educational philosophy and practice. Rooted in the Qur’anic tradition and the Islamic intellectual heritage, the event seeks to imagine new pedagogies that restore the aesthetic as central to education.
What to expect:
Deep dialogue across disciplines and educational settings.
Structured sessions where scholars present work-in-progress, followed by layered, reflective responses.
Engagements with poetry in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and English.
Opportunities to co-develop recommendations for curriculum and pedagogy in Islamic K-12 schools.
A small, focused group to allow for sustained, meaningful exchange.
❖ Confirmed Keynote & Speakers
Keynote: Professor Timothy Winter (Shaikh Abdul Hakim Murad), Cambridge Muslim College
Confirmed Scholars:
– Professor Cyrus Ali Zargar (University of Central Florida)
– Dr Muhammad U. Faruque (University of Cincinnati)
– Dr Oludamini Ogunnaike (University of Virginia)
– Dr Samir Mahmoud (Cambridge Muslim College)
– Professor Claire Gallien (Cambridge Muslim College)
❖ Calls for Participation
We are currently inviting expressions of interest for two participant cohorts:
➤ For Academics and Researchers
If your work engages with Islamic philosophy of education, poetics, selfhood, or aesthetics, we invite you to join an intimate gathering of scholars to reflect, present, and co-create future directions for this growing field.
📎 Read the Academics CfP
➤ For School Leaders and Educators
If you are a headteacher, educator, or curriculum leader invested in renewing K-12 education through Islamic traditions of poetry, orality, and aesthetic learning, we welcome your voice in this collective dialogue.
📎 Read the Schools CfP
❖ Submission Deadline
27 July 2025 – To apply, submit a short expression of interest (max 1000 words) and a CV to Dr Dunya Habash (dh599@cam.ac.uk).
Notifications of acceptance by 8 August 2025.
❖ Contact & Further Information
For general inquiries, please contact:
Dr Dunya Habash – dh599@cam.ac.uk
Dr Farah Ahmed – fa287@cam.ac.uk
Colloquium December 2023
The project held its first in person colloquium from 11-15 December 2023 at the University of Cambridge.
Stakeholder Workshop 11-12 December 2023
The first two days involved a stakeholder meeting with educators, academics, and theologians coming together to discuss the renewal of Islamic educational models. This resulted in a White Paper titled ‘Roadmap to Renewal: Islamic educational theory into practice’, which was officially launched in an online webinar on 18 Feb 2025.
Academic Colloquium 13-15 December 2023
Following the stakeholder meeting, project members Dr Farah Ahmed; Dr Nadeem Memon and his colleague Dylan Chown; Dr Claire Alkouatli; Dr Amaarah DeCuir and her colleague Rehenuma Azmi; Dr Fella Lahmar, and Dr Safaruk Chowdhury presented their previous work on the field of K-12 Islamic Education Studies as well as their priorities for future research and scholarship. Members also critiqued and further developed the three Cambridge Dialogues Position Papers.
Cambridge Dialogues sees itself as a project building on the work of those who proceeded us; in particular that of scholars who held the World Conferences on Muslim Education in the late 20th century and the work of Syed Ali Ashraf at Islamic Academy, Cambridge, which housed the Muslim Education Quarterly journal. We were honoured to be addressed by Shaikh Abdul Mabud, a student of Syed Ali Ashraf and his successor at the Islamic Academy, Cambridge. Shaykh Abdul Mabud succeeded has written about Syed Ali Ashraf and about the World Conferences on Muslim Education.