British Association for Islamic Studies
Annual Report: November 2024 — November 2025
Overview
The past year has been another active and productive period for the British Association for Islamic Studies. The Association delivered a highly successful Annual Conference at the University of Cambridge, which brought together scholars from across the United Kingdom and around the world for two days of stimulating academic exchange. The conference once again demonstrated the vitality and breadth of contemporary scholarship in Islamic Studies and reaffirmed BRAIS’s central role in fostering intellectual collaboration within, and across, the field.
During the year, BRAIS also awarded its annual Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World. The 2025 Prize recognised two outstanding doctoral dissertations that make significant contributions to the study of premodern Islamic intellectual and political history. The strength and diversity of submissions to the Prize continue to reflect the flourishing state of scholarship in Islamic Studies nationally and internationally.
The Association welcomed two new members to its Board of Trustees: Dr Hadiza Kere Abdulrahman (University of Lincoln) and Dr Tom Woerner-Powell (University of Manchester) and their appointments further strengthen the breadth of expertise and institutional representation within the Association’s leadership.
BRAIS remains committed to supporting its members and advancing the academic study of Islam and Muslim societies. We look forward with enthusiasm to continuing to expand our programmes and initiatives in the coming year.
BRAIS 2025 at the University of Cambridge
The 2025 Annual Conference of the British Association for Islamic Studies took place on Monday 30 June and Tuesday 1 July 2025 at the Old Divinity School, St John’s College, University of Cambridge. The conference brought together scholars from across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, North America, and beyond. The programme featured a wide range of panels reflecting the methodological and thematic diversity of the field.
The conference opened with a keynote panel entitled “The Khaldunian Dialectic: Between Power and Morality,” featuring Professor Syed Farid Alatas (National University of Singapore) and Professor Recep Şentürk (Hamad Bin Khalifa University), chaired by Professor Amira
Bennison (University of Cambridge). The panel offered a wide-ranging reflection on Ibn Khaldūn’s enduring intellectual legacy and its relevance for contemporary social theory. Our two-day programme finished with a fascinating keynote panel detailing the research findings of the ‘Digital British Islam’ project, led by the University of Wales Trinity St David’s, Coventry University, and the University of Edinburgh.
Across the two days, the conference featured numerous panels exploring topics ranging from Islamic intellectual history, Qurʾanic studies, and law to political thought, gender, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The breadth of themes and approaches showcased the continued growth and dynamism of Islamic Studies as an interdisciplinary field.
2025 also marked the tenth anniversary of BRAIS’s Annual Conference, with the first taking place at the University of Edinburgh back in 2014. We were therefore delighted to host a special conference dinner in the stunning surroundings of Sidney Sussex College’s Great Hall to celebrate this milestone in BRAIS’s development.
BRAIS would like to express its sincere gratitude to all participants, panel organisers, panel chairs, and keynote speakers who contributed to the great success of the conference. Particular thanks are due to our colleagues at the Centre of Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge who contributed time, resources, and expertise to the conference as well as a generous contribution to our Student Bursary fund. Sincere thanks, also, to the team at St John’s College, Cambridge, for hosting our conference in such an historic and beautiful venue.
The full conference programme can be viewed here:
https://www.brais.ac.uk/conferences/brais-2026/brais-2026-programme
2025 BRAIS Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World
The 2025 BRAIS Prize in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World attracted an exceptionally strong and diverse body of submissions from early career scholars around the world. As in previous years, all manuscripts were assessed anonymously by expert reviewers before the Prize Committee reached its final decision.
The 2025 Prize was awarded jointly to Dr Razieh S. Mousavi (PhD awarded by the Humboldt University of Berlin) for her dissertation “Al-Farghānī’s Elements of Astronomy (c. 860 CE): An Interplay of Meaning and Form at the Intersection of Astronomical and Medical Tradition”, and Dr Leone Pecorini Goodall (PhD awarded by the University of Edinburgh) for his dissertation “Sons and Daughters of the Caliphate: Succession Politics in the Marwanid and Early Abbasid Family (64–216/684–831).”
Both submissions were praised in the highest terms by the Prize Committee and reviewers for their originality, methodological rigour, and significant contribution to the field. The Prize Committee noted in particular the depth of archival and textual engagement demonstrated by both works, as well as their capacity to open new avenues of inquiry within the study of premodern Islamic intellectual and political history.
BRAIS extends its warmest congratulations to both winners and expresses its gratitude to the many reviewers and committee members who generously contributed their time and
expertise to the Prize process. Special thanks are also due to Dr Saeko Yazaki, Chair of the Prize Committee, and to Adam Ramadhan, Prize Coordinator, for their tireless work in overseeing the process. Having taken up a PhD at the University of Leiden, Adam has now stepped back from his role as Prize Coordinator which he has held for the last three years. We are deeply grateful to Adam for his commitment and professionalism in administering the Prize and we wish him all the very best for his doctoral studies.
Further information about our two winning submissions can be found here: http://brais.ac.uk/prize/brais-prize-winner-2025
Trustees and Governance
During the reporting period, BRAIS was pleased to welcome two new Trustees to the Association’s Board:
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Dr Hadiza Kere Abdulrahman (University of Lincoln)
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Dr Tom Woerner-Powell (University of Manchester)
Their appointments bring valuable experience and perspectives to the Board, and we are delighted to welcome them to the BRAIS leadership. BRAIS now has eight Trustees in post but remains open to increasing its capacity by welcoming up to two additional Trustees. If any members would be interested, BRAIS would be delighted to hear from you: brais@ed.ac.uk.
Dr Abdulrahman and Dr Woener-Powell have joined as co-opted members of the Board of Trustees. Their nominations will be ratified at the AGM through a vote by members.
BRAIS Membership
BRAIS membership remains strong and continues to reflect the Association’s broad international reach.
Total membership as of November 2025 stood at:
| Full Members | 91 |
|---|---|
| Associate Members | 76 |
| Student Members | 93 |
| Total | 260 |
BRAIS continues to attract new members from a wide range of disciplines, institutions, and geographies. The Association remains committed to supporting early-career researchers and postgraduate students, who constitute an important and growing part of the BRAIS community.
Finance
The Association remains in a very healthy financial position and is able to report a modest increase in reserves. Income for the year derived primarily from membership subscriptions and conference registration fees. Expenditure was largely associated with the organisation of the Annual Conference and the administration of the BRAIS Prize.
Financial Summary:
Receipts: £21,990 Payments: £18,027
Cash reserves as of 16 November 2024: £22,929 Cash reserves as of 15 November 20205: £26,892
A full Statement of Accounts for the 2024/25 financial year will be circulated alongside this report and will be published on the Charity Commission’s Register of Charities in due course.
Activities Since Year End
This report covers BRAIS activities from November 2024 – November 2025. However, we would like to highlight a significant activity which took place subsequent to our financial year end, namely our winter symposium ‘Islamic Studies Across Divides in an Era of Crisis and Global Injustice’ hosted by our colleagues at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. This timely symposium reflected BRAIS’s desire to expand knowledge exchange with scholars in the Global Majority world and diversify the academic fabric of Anglosphere academia. It also offered an important opportunity to reflect on the role of Islamic Studies scholarship in the face of the continued genocide in Gaza and the increasing inequality and structural silencing of academics and their research.
The symposium ran over two days in January 2026, attracting over 120 scholars and students to Boğaziçi University’s South Campus. This was a landmark symposium which we hope will lead to further initiatives which bridge Islamic Studies scholarship across both geographical and epistemological divides.
Profound thanks to Boğaziçi University for hosting our symposium and for the significant intellectual and financial investment they made in its success. BRAIS Trustees would also like to thank our fellow Trustee, Dr Jaan Islam, who conceived the symposium and coordinated its programming and delivery. This symposium would have been impossible without Jaan’s vision and commitment.
The full symposium programme can be viewed here: https://www.brais.ac.uk/symposium/symposium-2026-programme
A New Member of the Team
Given BRAIS’s healthy financial position, a decision was taken to recruit a Projects Coordinator to help Trustees with the increasing workload BRAIS is generating. We are delighted to report that Uzair Ibrahim has accepted the role and will begin in March 2026. Uzair is currently completing his PhD at the University of Exeter and will take the lead on the BRAIS Annual Conference, the BRAIS Prize, and the administration of new and existing BRAIS memberships. Report compiled by Thomas Lea, Secretary of the British Association for Islamic Studies. March 2026
| British Association | for Islamic Studies | 1196378 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receipts andpayments accounts | CC16a | ||||
| For the period from |
16/11/2024 Period start date |
To | 15/11/2025 Period end date |
| Section A Receipts and payments | Section A Receipts and payments | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 Receipts | Unrestricted funds to the nearest £ 4,970 11,490 1,730 1,500 2,300 21,990 - - 21,990 21,990 8,439 4,092 300 281 1,100 124 709 - - 65 714 500 1,253 200 250 18,027 - - 18,027 18,027 3,963 - 22,929 26,892 |
Restricted funds to the nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Endowment funds to the nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Total funds to the nearest £ 4,970 11,490 1,730 1,500 2,300 21,990 - - 21,990 21,990 8,439 2,592 300 281 1,100 124 709 - - 65 714 500 1,253 200 250 16,527 - - 16,527 16,527 3,963 - 22,929 26,892 |
Last year to the nearest £ |
| Membershipsubscriptions | 4,970 | 4,855 | |||
| Annual Conference delegate fees | 11,490 | 11,300 | |||
| Annual Conference Dinner Registrations | 1,730 | ||||
| CIS Cambridge Conference Donation | 1,500 | - | |||
| 2025 Confernece Publisher Exhibition income | 2,300 | 2,250 | |||
| Sub total(Gross income for AR) | 21,990 | 18,405 | |||
| A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table). |
|||||
| - | |||||
| - | - | ||||
| Sub total | 21,990 | 18,405 | |||
| Total receipts A3 Payments |
|||||
| 18,405 | |||||
| Confernece Venue + Catering | 8,439 | 15,500 | |||
| Confernece Dinner | 4,092 | ||||
| Conference Keynote costs | 300 | 2,553 | |||
| Confernece Materials/Equipment | 281 | 186 | |||
| Conference Bursaries | 1,100 | 1,100 | |||
| Conference advertising | 124 | ||||
| Trustee Expenses | 709 | 1,044 | |||
| Council Dinner | - | 420 | |||
| Projects Coordinator fee | - | 3,309 | |||
| Bank charges | 65 | 57 | |||
| BRAIS Prize Honoraria | 714 | 217 | |||
| BRAIS Prize Coordinator | 500 | 500 | |||
| BRAIS Winner Payments | 1,253 | 2,006 | |||
| Membershiprefunds | 200 | ||||
| TRS-UK Subscription | 250 | 250 | |||
| **Sub total ** | 18,027 | 27,142 | |||
| A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table) |
|||||
| - | |||||
| - | |||||
| **Sub total ** | 18,027 | 27,142 | |||
| Total payments Net of receipts/(payments) A5 Transfers between funds A6 Cash funds last year end Cash funds this year end |
|||||
| 27,142 | |||||
| 3,963 | - | - | 3,963 | 8,737 | |
| - | **- ** | - | - | - | |
| 22,929 | - | - | 22,929 | 31,666 | |
| 26,892 | - | - | 26,892 | 22,929 |
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
25/03/2026
1
| Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the | Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the | Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the | end of the period | end of the period | end of the period | end of the period | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Categories Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees B5 Liabilities B3 Investment assets B2 Other monetary assets B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use B1 Cash funds |
Details Details Total cash funds (agree balances with receipts and payments account(s)) Details |
Unrestricted funds to nearest £ - - 26,892 OK Unrestricted funds to nearest £ - - - - - - Fund to which asset belongs |
Restricted funds to nearest £ - - - - OK Restricted funds to nearest £ - - - - - - Cost (optional) |
Endowment funds to nearest £ |
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| - | |||||||
| - | |||||||
| - | |||||||
| OK | |||||||
| Endowment funds to nearest £ |
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| - | |||||||
| - | |||||||
| - | |||||||
| - | |||||||
| - | |||||||
| - | |||||||
| Current value (optional) |
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| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| Details | Fund to which asset belongs |
Cost (optional) | Current value (optional) |
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| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| - | - | ||||||
| Details | Fund to which liability relates |
Amount due (optional) |
When due (optional) |
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| - | |||||||
| - | |||||||
| - | |||||||
| - | |||||||
| Signature | Print Name Haroon Sidat Thomas Lea |
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| Date of approval |
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| Haroon Sidat | 25/03/2026 | ||||||
| Thomas Lea | 25/03/2026 |
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
25/03/2026
2