Talks take place on Thursday afternoons, starting at 2pm, and usually take place in the Lecture Hall, Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA. These are free for Oxford u3a members but you are welcome to attend as a guest for a donation of £5 (£2 for members of all other U3As).
Most talks are recorded on Zoom for the benefit of those Oxford u3a members who are unable to attend Rewley House.
In the event of adverse weather conditions, please telephone Rewley House (01865 270360), to enquire whether the talk has been cancelled.
Professor Raihan Ismail – Religious Authority in Islam
4th February 2027 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Professor Raihan Ismail is the His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies. She was elected as a Corresponding Fellow to the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2024. Raihan’s research interests include Political Islam, intra-Muslim relations, and the intertwining nature of religion and politics in the Middle East. She convenes the Contemporary Islamic Studies program at the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College. She is the author of Saudi Clerics and Shia Islam (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Rethinking Salafism: The Transnational Networks of Salafi ‘Ulama in Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (Oxford University Press, 2021). Rethinking Salafism is the 2024 winner of the UK’s Muslim World Book Award.
This talk examines the nature of religious authority in Islam. It traces the evolution of religious authority and its proliferation across Muslim societies. It explores the production of religious authority in order to understand the complex dynamics of both religious institutions and informal clerical networks, and the ways in which Muslims negotiate changing local and global contexts.