Sophie Gilliat-Ray | |
---|---|
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of Wales, Lampeter |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Religious studies;Islamic studies |
Institutions | University of Cardiff |
Sophie Gilliat-Ray,OBE FLSW is professor of Religious and Theological Studies and Director for the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK at Cardiff University. [1]
Gilliat-Ray studied Religious studies and interfaith studies at the University of Wales,Lampeter,where she completed her PhD 'Perspectives on the Religious Identity of Muslims in Britain' in 1994. [2] From 1994 until 1997 she was a research fellow in the department of sociology at the University of Warwick,and in 1998 at the University of Exeter. [3] Since 1998 she has worked at Cardiff University,where she was promoted to professor in 2013. [3] She is the director of the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK.
She was the principal investigator on the AHRC-funded project 'Leadership and Capacity Building in the British Muslim Community:the case of 'Muslim Chaplains' (2008–12), [4] [5] [6] She has also been the co-investigator on numerous other projects,including 'Understanding Religion and Law:Muslims,Fatwas and Muftis in the UK’(with Robert Gleave and Mustafa Baig,2016–17), [7] 'Religion in multi-ethnic contexts:a multidisciplinary case study of global seafaring' (with Helen Anne Sampson,2017–20) [8]
A fatwā is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified Faqih in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a mufti, and the act of issuing fatwas is called iftāʾ. Fatwas have played an important role throughout Islamic history, taking on new forms in the modern era.
Sharia is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the Hadith. In Arabic, the term sharīʿah refers to God's immutable divine law and is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its human scholarly interpretations. Over time, legal schools have emerged, reflecting the preferences of particular societies and governments, through their work on the theoretical (usul) and practical application (füru/fetva) of laws and regulations. However, sharia has never been the sole valid legal system in Islam, and has always been used alongside urf from the beginning. The manner of its application in modern times has been a subject of dispute between Muslim fundamentalists and modernists.
Ibn Taymiyya, birth name Taqī ad-Dīn ʾAḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn ʿAbd al-Salām al-Numayrī al-Ḥarrānī was a Sunni Muslim ʿālim, muhaddith, judge, proto-Salafist theologian, ascetic, and iconoclastic theologian. He is known for his diplomatic involvement with the Ilkhanid ruler Ghazan Khan and for his involvement at the Battle of Marj al-Saffar which ended the Mongol invasions of the Levant. A legal jurist of the Hanbali school, Ibn Taymiyya's condemnation of numerous folk practices associated with saint veneration and visitation of tombs made him a contentious figure with rulers and scholars of the time, and he was imprisoned several times as a result.
Ron Geaves is a British scholar of religious studies who was professor of the comparative study of religion at Liverpool Hope University in England, retiring in December 2013. He was formerly Programme Leader and Chair in religious studies at the University of Chester in England (2001-2007) and Head of Department at the University of Chichester (1999-2001). He was chair of the Muslims in Britain Research Network (2007-2010) and instrumental in the creation of BRAIS, remaining on their advisory board.
Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, government, and service. It also caters to students from other Harvard schools that are interested in the former field. HDS is among a small group of university-based, non-denominational divinity schools in the United States.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities.
Syed Nazeer Husain Dehlawi was a scholar of the reformist Ahl-i Hadith movement. Earning the appellation shaykh al-kull for his authority among early Ahl-i Hadith scholars, he is regarded, alongside Siddiq Hasan Khan (1832–1890), as the founder of the movement and has been described as "perhaps the single most influential figure in the spread of the Ahl-i-Ḥadīth".
The Hartford International University for Religion and Peace is a private theological university in Hartford, Connecticut.
David Frank Ford is an Anglican public theologian. He was the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, beginning in 1991. He is now an Emeritus Regius Professor of Divinity. His research interests include political theology, ecumenical theology, Christian theologians and theologies, theology and poetry, the shaping of universities and of the field of theology and religious studies within universities, hermeneutics, and interfaith theology and relations. He is the founding director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme and a co-founder of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning.
Mona Siddiqui is a British academic. She is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh, a member of the Commission on Scottish Devolution and a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. She is also a regular contributor to Thought for the Day, Sunday and The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4, and to The Times, The Scotsman, The Guardian, Sunday Herald.
The al-Manar Centre is a Salafi mosque in the Cathays district of Cardiff, Wales. Founded in 1992, it describes itself as being "one of [the] Ahlus-Sunnah organisations". A widely circulated claim holds that a mosque was registered at this address in 1860, which would make the Al-Manar Centre the oldest mosque in the United Kingdom. This has, however, been shown to result from a transcription error in the Register of Religious Sites, making the Liverpool Muslim Institute, established in 1891, the first.
The Woolf Institute is an academic institute in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1998 by Dr Edward Kessler MBE and the Revd Professor Martin Forward, and now located in central Cambridge on the Westminster College Site, it is dedicated to the study of interfaith relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims. Using research and education to explore the relationship between religion and society, it aims to foster greater understanding and tolerance.
Linda Jane Pauline Woodhead is a British academic specialising in the religious studies and sociology of religion at King's College London Faculty of Arts and Humanities. She is best known for her work on religious change since the 1980s, and for initiating public debates about faith. She has been described by Matthew Taylor, head of the Royal Society of Arts, as "one of the world's leading experts on religion".
The Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims is a body within the Roman Curia tasked with maintaining positive theological ties with Muslims. It is distinct unit within the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and the President of the council is also President of the commission.
Carool Kersten is a Dutch scholar of Islam and the author and editor of eleven books. Trained as an Arabist, Southeast Asianist and scholar of Religions, he currently is Professor of Islamic Studies at the Catholic University Leuven in Belgium and Emeritus Reader in the Study of Islam & the Muslim World at King's College London. His research interests focus on the modern and contemporary Muslim world, in particular intellectual and political developments in both regional and global contexts.
James Arthur Beckford was a British sociologist of religion. He was professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Warwick and a Fellow of the British Academy. In 1988/1989, he served as president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, and from 1999 to 2003, as the president of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion.
Camilla Adang is a Dutch associate professor of Islamic studies at Tel Aviv University in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Ataullah Siddiqui was a Muslim scholar and academic who did much to promote interfaith relations.
Mathew Guest is a British sociologist and professor of sociology of religion at Durham University. Guest is the author or editor of numerous academic books, reports, journal articles and essays. His publications cover various topics in the sociology of religion, particularly evangelical Christianity in the UK, value transmission within clergy families, and the status of Christianity and Islam within university contexts.