Winter Gathering 2025: ‘By Any Means Necessary’: Muslims, Politics and Power in the 21st Century

View this email in your browser SEPTEMBER 2025 Muslim Institute Annual Winter Gathering Friday 28 - Sunday 30 November 2025 Sarum College, Salisbury Dear fellows and friends of the Muslim Institute Every year, over three days and two nights, the Muslim Institute retreats to the auspicious surroundings of Sarum College situated in the grounds of Salisbury Cathedral, joined by a distinguished diverse panel of speakers for a programme of events. Fellows gather to debate and discuss the essential and pressing issues of our times, focusing on an annual theme, in a relaxed and convivial atmosphere. Each year we pick a different theme to discuss through a series of lectures and panel sessions. The theme of this year's Winter Gathering is: 'By Any Means Necessary': Muslims, Politics and Power in the 21st Century   On the 6oth anniversary of the death of Malcolm X, WG25 will ask how best to build and organise our communities?  How to uphold justice and safeguard spaces for dissent? How to challenge anti-Muslim bigotry in society, politics and media?  How to hold our own leaders to account?  How to ally with others facing bigotry and fighting for justice? How to engage with those in power?  How to generate our own power?  WG25 brings together leading change makers and thinkers to explore how to transform the British Muslim landscape 'by any means necessary'. The sessions and speakers are chosen to allow the greatest level of learning, debate and discussion as possible. Confirmed speakers include:   Fozia Bora, Associate Professor of Islamic History, University of Leeds. Dr Miriam François, journalist, filmmaker, podcaster and writer. Kehinde Andrews, Professor of Black Studies, Birmingham City University and author of Nobody Can Give You Freedom - The Real Mission of Malcolm X. Dr Wajid Akhtar, Secretary-General of the MCB (video message).  Tharik Hussain, author of new book Muslim Europe: a Journey in Search of a Fourteen Hundred Year History and the award-winning Minarets in the Mountains: A Journey Into Muslim Europe. We will also be hearing from Humera Khan of the An-Nisa Society from whom the Muslim Institute has commissioned a new report: 'Mapping Muslim Futures in Birmingham: A Study of Belonging, Identity, and Imagination across Diverse Muslim Communities'.  Author/activist Yahya Birt will be the rapporteur for the Winter Gathering. Every fellow in attendance will get a free signed copy of Nobody Can Give You Freedom and Muslim Europe: a Journey. The Winter Gathering, including accommodation and all meals, is subsidised and free for Fellows, who are warmly encouraged to attend the weekend and help to continue the classical tradition of Muslim learned societies. Registration for the Winter Gathering will open on Monday 8th September 2025 and priority booking will be open exclusively to paid-up fellows of the Muslim Institute in the first instance. As in previous years registration, including on-site accommodation, is on a first-come, first served basis. If you are not a fellow of the Muslim Institute and would like to attend the Winter Gathering, we strongly urge you to take out institute membership. For 2025, fellowship is being held at just £10 per month. For this you will have free access to all our events including the Winter Gathering (cost per person £250), copies of our renowned quarterly journal Critical Muslim (worth £60 per year) and receive regular bulletins of our activities & news from our sister organisations. A Registration Form for the Winter Gathering 2024 will be emailed to all current fellows on Monday 8th September. Fellows, please do not send in emails registering until you have received the form to be filled in. Thank you. Hassan Mahamdallie Director, Muslim Institute info@musliminstitute.org www.musliminstitute.org     ******************************************* Click here to watch the 10th Annual Ibn Rushd Lecture: 'On the Margins: The Life and Contribution of Muhamad Asad' by Dr Josef Linnhoff, 30 July 2025 ALSO: Watch: Video summary of the Muslim Institute Community Empowerment Fund 2025: 'The Wholesome Retreat'. Watch the Second Ibn Sina Lecture: Modern Medicine and the Legacy of Ibn Sina held in Bradford City Hall on 31 May 2025 and view the photos here. Watch the 9th Annual Ibn Rushd Lecture: The History of Muslim Women in Britain held in July 2024, the Inaugural Annual Ibn Sina Lecture held in April 2024 at Leeds Civic Hall, and the book launch held in March 2024 of the new ground-breaking The Qur'an: A Verse Translation. CM 54: LIBERALISM IN THIS ISSUE: Robin Yassin-Kassab is unsure about his liberal identity, Andrew Brown performs an autopsy on liberalism, Azeem Ibrahim defends liberal polity, Richard Wood examines the roots of American 'liberal democracy', Zora Hesová and Tereza Hendl ask whatever happened to the liberal legacy of Vaclav Havel, Abdullah Erikat desires to be himself, Boyd Tonkin observes the liberalism of Amartya Sen, Maryam al-Mahammad looks at Syria through the liberal lens, James Brooks takes down the professional managerial class, Ghazal Tipu builds a female-only mosque, John Lietchy takes a poetic walk through a remarkably illiberal period, Bruce Lawrence dissects the difference between 'Islam-after' and 'Islam-in' liberalism, and our list of ten undesirable consequences of liberalism. Also in this issue: Zain Sardar  contemplates extinction and ignorance, Mansur Ali explores the 'Islamic Secular, Maria Jastrzębska reads two collections of poetry, Wendy Tan's birds of paradise, short stories by Fatema K. and Ali Afshar, poems by Basman Derawi and Michal Rubin, and Ebrahim Moosa's Last Word on Palestine.   Free to Muslim Institute fellows. About Critical Muslim: A quarterly publication of ideas and issues showcasing groundbreaking thinking on Islam and what it means to be a Muslim in a rapidly changing, interconnected world. Each edition centers on a discrete theme, and contributions include reportage, academic analysis, cultural commentary, photography, poetry, and book reviews. Critical Muslim is edited by Ziauddin Sardar. To order this issue and subscriptions click here info@musliminstitute.org  |  www.musliminstitute.org Muslim Institute, 82 Tanner Street, London, SE1 3GN Copyright © 2025 Muslim Institute, All rights reserved. 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