Islam Expo - London (ritual, reject, Ramadan, contradiction, evolution)

[Cordoba]

Greetings to All:

Islam Expo will be held in London during the period 6 to 9 July.

This is the web site of this major event, which includes talks, seminars, exhibitions, cultural shows, a film festival, and much more.

http://islamexpo.info/

It's an ideal occasion to learn more about Islam today from a number of different aspects not mentioned in the media.

Peace and all the best.

[Cordoba]

Conference on Islamic Finance and Investment in Britain

The IFIB Conference is an initiative promoting Britain as a major centre for investment from the Islamic World. The conference will explore this new industry and its impact on the UK market. It will bring together the most relevant and influential people from across the world of finance and investment.

The conference will invite over 250 high-ranking delegates from leading investment and financial institutes, including senior governmental figures as well as members of influential think tanks. The speakers are all authorities in their field. The conference will identify the implications of the growth of Islamic Finance in the Western world.

Senior representatives of the government and the Greater London Authority will look at positioning Britain as a place for inward investment from the Muslim world. We will look at the potential for investors from the Muslim World investing in Britain.

The conference will be held in Cabot Hall, Canary Wharf, London on 6th July 2006, at the heart of the financial capital. The conference will start at 9:45am and finish at 4pm.

http://islamexpo.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=97&Itemi d=150

[Cordoba]

Speakers' Profile at Islam Expo

Ken Livingstone- Mayor of London since the creation of the post in 2000. Author of two books If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It (1987) and Livingstone's Labour (1989).




Merve Kavakci- Turkish politician elected as a Virtue Party deputy for Istanbul in 1999, but prevented from making her parliamentary oath because of her hijab, being eventually stripped of her Turkish citizenship. Has a degree in computer science from the University of Texas at Dallas, and is a hafiz of the Quran. Currently professor at George Washington University



Prof John Esposito -
University Professor of Religion& International Affairs and of Islamic Studies and Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. Editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World, The Oxford History of Islam, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, and Oxford’s The Islamic World: Past and Present as well as author of more than 35 books.

http://islamexpo.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=105&Item id=155

[Cordoba]

Tariq Ramadan: Muslims need to stop behaving like victims

This is an appeal to Western Muslims, but also to our non-Muslim fellow citizens. One year after the London bombings we have good reason to be concerned. The scars left by this atrocity and other terrorist attacks, and the ongoing "war against terror", have combined to portray Islam as a threat to Western societies.

Fear, and the emotions that accompany it, has become a part of the public mindset.


In this climate, arguments that were previously the sole province of the extreme right have found space within mainstream political discourse. The past is reinterpreted so as to deny Islam any place in the creation of Western identity which is now frequently redefined as purely Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian.

Meanwhile many politicians have opted for the dangerous rhetoric of defending "Western values" and seek to impose strict limitations on "foreigners", while at the same time putting in place a whole apparatus of new security laws to fight terrorism. Hardly a Western society has been spared its own debate on questions of "identity" or "integration", but the implicit terms of the debate are often reduced to a distinction between two entities: "We, Westerners" and "They, the Muslims".

Muslims have clear-cut alternatives faced with the new reality: they can adopt the attitude of the aggrieved victim or they can confront their difficulties. Nothing will change until they accept full responsibility for themselves, become constructively critical, and self-critical; until they respond to the creeping "evolution of fear" with a firmly grounded "revolution of trust".

It is clear that governments, here in Britain and elsewhere in the West, have a role to play in bridging divisions , and in tackling extremism. To call upon Muslim scholars and leaders to be involved in this process, as Tony Blair did after the 7 July attacks, was a positive initiative. But it is important not only to listen to the recommendations but also to be committed to implementing them.

Muslims will reject being dictated to, but the Government nevertheless has a crucial role in supporting and facilitating dialogue at the local level. The responsibility is a shared one however. Muslims must express confidence in themselves, in their ability to engage as full members of the societies in which they reside. The revolution I hope for requires self-confidence, especially among young Muslims. Their task is to reappropriate their heritage, and to develop toward it a positive yet critical intellectual attitude. They should affirm that the teachings of Islam summon Muslims to spiritual life and to self-reform, but that Muslims are also expected to respect the laws of the countries in which they reside.


Western Muslims must develop a critical discourse that rejects victimhood, and that criticises radical or literal readings of religious teachings. It is also important not to conflate or confuse religion with separate debates: social problems are not religious problems and have nothing to do with Islam as such.

Those who exploit divisions and fears seek to create precisely what they claim to combat: by perpetually accusing Muslims of not being integrated and of shutting themselves up in a religious identity, they try to isolate them. Thus, instead of withdrawing into isolation, Muslims in Britain and other European countries must make themselves heard, step out of their religious and social ghettos .

We must commit to a far deeper degree of integration or "social mixing" in education and in our cities. We ought for example to ask ourselves if faith-oriented schools, are a solution in achieving better understanding or whether they will be counterproductive.

Muslims have a responsibility to be fully engaged in helping to reconcile the societies in which they live with the proclaimed ideals of those societies. It is vital to constantly measure ideals and values against human rights and equality as they operate in practice, and Muslims must not be afraid to measure words against deeds.

But all of us, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, have a duty to address the flawed discourse that perpetuates the notion of "us" and "them". Our societies are awaiting the emergence of a new "we". A "we" that would bring together men and women of all religions and those without religion, who would undertake to resolve the contradictions of their societies. This coming together of citizens who seek to struggle together for their future, is also the best hope for isolating the extremists.

www.tariqramadan.org
The writer is professor of Islamic Studies at Oxford University. He will speak at Islam Expo which runs until Sunday at Alexandra Palace, London
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article1162811.ece

[Cordoba]

Islam Expo: A great success
Islam Expo concluded on Sunday 9 July 2006 with great success. Since it opened on Thursday 6 July, the four-day unprecedented Islamic culture and arts festival at Alexandra Palace in North London was visited by tens of thousands of people.

Scores of exhibitors from the UK and abroad participated including banking corporations, media companies, charities, museums, art galleries and Islamic cultural foundations. No less than eighty UK and international guest speakers made presentations at a series of well attended seminars that ran in parallel throughout the duration of the Expo.

http://islamexpo.info/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1