 Dnodd ydych chi fod yn ymwneud, wedi bod i'n ffrwsfyrdd o'r fflauwn tyniacol i ysgrifedd ddylwyddon a'u ddefnyddio'r awdfod diolch. Yn ymwneud, rydychried i yn ymwneud, rydych yn mynd i, mae nhw'n iawn Iliad Iddiari. Mae'r dyfynodol fawr o'r ysgrifedd dydiad a'u werth o'r rheinsiad y bydd ymwneud a'u ddylwyddon ymwneud. The project was undertaken in 2019 with funding from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the project was aimed at building bridges between universities and Muslim seminaries, in particular trying to understand around a few main research trajectories. So one of those was understanding the career trajectories and career choices of young alims and alimers. Alims and alimers, if you're not familiar, are Islamic scholars, they're students of the Islamic tradition who've been trained in seminaries or other Islamic colleges and institutions. And in the UK, we have over at least 26 Islamic seminaries, most of which are not accredited by mainstream universities. And what this means is that a lot of the young Islamic scholars who are graduating from these institutions don't necessarily have qualifications that align to the expectations of mainstream university sector and the job market. So although they are very proficient and fluent in a vast, rigorous and erudite Islamic canon, there are often troubles connecting the two sectors of Islamic seminaries and universities. So one of the things we looked at was a nationwide and currently the biggest survey about the career trajectories of Islamic young Islamic scholars. We did in depth research into some of the issues around Muslim female scholars and their advancement in the field of Islamic teaching and Muslim community leadership. And we also organised various roundtables and connections between key partner institutions. And finally, we also created a toolkit for universities and Islamic seminaries, which we will hopefully share with attendees. So, just to give you an idea what's happening in the next hour or so, I will be introducing a little bit about the project as I have. We will then go on to listen to Alison Scott Baumann. Professor Alison Scott Baumann was the principal investigator of the project that was undertaken at Suras in 2019. It will be followed by Zahra Mohamed, who will speak a little bit about creating leadership in the Muslim community. This will then be followed by Sheikh Shamsaduha, who will then be followed by Sheikh Abdelhaqi Murad, and then Ustada Shanaaz Begum, Mahmood Chandia and then we'll have some time for question answers. So the report itself is currently in the final stages and we're hoping to be able to share it with everybody who's attending today after the event. So the report is not long in itself, but we have actually been able to publish an academic paper as well as the report detailing the work that we did with universities and Muslim seminaries. And as an appendix of the report, we also have a toolkit for universities and Muslim seminaries about how to connect and how to pursue accreditation. So without further ado, I would like to move on to our first speaker, Professor Alison Scott Baumann. Just a little introduction about Alison, Professor Alison is Professor of Society, Society and Belief at Suras, University of London. She is the principal investigator on the UMSEP Muslim universities and universities and Muslim seminaries project at Suras, and she's currently leading the influencing corridors of power project also at Suras. Her work has two interrelated research strands about social justice and philosophy, and she's best known for her ongoing work on Islam in Britain that dates back to 1997. Her most recent project was the AHRC funded representing Islam on campus, which now has been published as an edited volume. So I'll hand over to you now, Professor Alison. Thank you so much, Dr Ali. It's lovely to be here. Thank you very much for joining us. It's a very special occasion for us because we've been working on this for some time. The idea of creating a permeable membrane, if you like, between mainstream universities and Muslim seminaries. I think this is so important to the future of Britain and indeed the world because we must surely speak to each other and communicate with each other better than we are currently allowed to do. There are some precedents for this, as you will know, and some of you are present here today. There are some good affiliations already between Muslim colleges and universities, but there's plenty more to do. And I just got five points to make, which will, I hope, contextualise this really important work for you. A couple of things to say before my five mini points, and that is to thank my team who are brilliant. Shamson I have worked together on and off for years, and this has been a really, really brilliant group to work with. We are joined here today by two representatives from the government. Katie Campbell from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and Colin Bloom, who is the Independent Faith Advisor to the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. And he is conducting currently a review for the government of the government's relationship with and commitment to all faith communities. So Colin has kindly agreed to say a few words at the end, just before Shams rounds everything off. As well as saying thanks to the wonderful team. To contextualise this, I produced a report for new labour actually in 2010. And having read that in 2019, almost 10 years later, a civil servant called Hillary Patel, who worked with us very closely, came to me and asked me to set up this project, which we are launching here today with your help. She understood very clearly the necessity of acknowledging the five, six, seven years of labour, intellectual labour undertaken by many young British Muslims, who then wish to segue into more publicly understood forms of higher education in order to enhance their professional development, and to be able to play a full role in British life. So Shams and I really liked Hillary Patel's vision, and we built a team of key researchers and a team of key national experts. We met all our targets that were agreed with the government, including the fact that several universities and several seminaries stepped up to the plate and agreed in 2020 that they would be interested in working with us to further this project. Now, as we all know tragically and irrefutably awfully COVID intervened in that so everything went into suspended animation, or we had to put it on ice whichever metaphor you want to use. We will meet with government in a few weeks time after this launch and revisit all this work that we've done to see how we can revive the project. There is much still to be done. Alia has mentioned the toolkit that would be a really important instrument for university admissions offices to use to see how they can map the achievements of Darwin and graduates onto national baseline. And also, I just want to highlight the fact the importance of young British Muslim women's work in this because we very much are aware of the fact that most of the seminaries are for young men, and the minority is for young women. That doesn't reflect the distribution in the population, and you will be hearing more about this really important work later. So thank you very much for joining us lovely to be here today with you. Thank you, Alia. Professor Allison. Thank you very much for the overview and history of the project. I'd now like to move on to Zara Muhammad. A little bit about Zara. Zara Muhammad has a master's degree in human rights law and has a background in training and development consulting. In 2016, she was elected the first female president of FOSIS, which is the Federation of Student Islamic Societies. And in 2020, she was elected the Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, the first woman and the youngest person to hold the position. She is passionate about empowering young people and supporting women in her community. Thank you very much, Zara, if you could take the stage. Assalamu alaikum and good afternoon everyone. My many thanks to the organizers and Sheikh Shams for the invitation to speak to you on such an important and significant breakthrough in this area. As a young leader myself, actually I was asked to speak about how do we develop leadership in our communities, especially young leadership. And I think part of that is really about the culture, the environment and the empowerment. And I think for anything to be the grower, flourish, there has to be the right kind of oxygen and atmosphere to do that. And I think that tradition of knowledge that takes place in seminaries and the young people who take a very admirable step to dedicate so many years to studying the Islamic Sciences also deserve the best opportunities to share the knowledge, to share in the learning and to share in their experiences so they can continue to benefit, you know, all communities and beyond. So I think this report and this project and initiative by you all is so important, you know, reflecting now on British Muslim communities where we are today and what is the challenge for us in the future. I think really we're looking at what kind of future we want. Especially as young people in a younger generation, where do we want to be in that future. And I think certainly with this project we're looking at how do we continue to inspire a culture of growth and leadership and young people, especially those young people who haven't quite been given the same opportunities in the system, yet have attained a level of discipline and leadership, so that probably is really impressive way beyond my own anyway. And so I think, you know what we're really doing is creating pathways, and what I've learned so far in my leadership journey here at the MCB, and that with all of these challenges, there are also lots of opportunities, and the success of this project, the success of this partnership is really critical that we all invest and contribute and provide that necessary support and encouragement that people see that actually whatever road they're taking, there's lots of opportunities and goals for them. I actually have family members who have taken the route of the seminary studies. And what I found really interesting actually was that the support really highlights is about the general balance that lots of young females are also really keen to take the step to dedicate several years to study and to be part of a kind of a generation and a culture of scholarship and change. So with the family members that I know that have taken place and I know they get to a point in the journey where they're thinking, okay, well, what will I do with all of this learning? You know, how do I take it forward and how do I contribute? What do I do with it? And I know it's quite intensive study as well so it's not easy. I think what this is really about is creating opportunities and waves for them to take their learning to the next level, to be able to contribute to society that actually is hungry for changemakers, trailblazers, and certainly lots of young leaders. So I think it's really commendable to you all to have dedicated so much time to this. I personally am a fan and supporter in any way the MCB can help to support you and advocate will certainly do that. But I think certainly for British Muslim communities for the future and the change that we want to see in our institutions, we are very much also welcoming the young leaders that have been developed in the seminaries and of course that will be the future of our institutions and our organisation. So, thank you so much for having me on here and I know my time is short, so I don't know how long I've got left, but certainly at the MCB, you know, we're all for empowerment, gender inclusion, and making sure that those maybe that haven't gotten the best of opportunities equalising, shall we say, and providing some equitable opportunity for everybody and I think as a young leader, I'm absolutely passionate about that cause and very excited for the change that you'll make on behalf of this report and these initiatives and I guess making a little bit of a dent in the education space to see what comes through. So thank you so much and just a very short reflection and I look forward to the rest of the programme, the launch of the report and of course the actual change on the ground. Thank you. Thank you so much Sarah, for your support and for your reflections, it's really very appreciated. One of the reasons that we would want your reflections and have this diverse panel on the event today is because we believe very strongly that the research that we've been doing shouldn't just stay in the ivory tower, it's the kind of information data that we want to apply in the wider community and actually help make a change on the ground. So, thank you for echoing that. Right, so the next speaker now will be Sheikh Shamsadoha. Sheikh Shamsadoha is the co-founder and former director of Ibrahim College in London and an executive board member of the British Board of Scholars in Imams, as well as the founder of Moirid Lifestyle.com. Sheikh Shamsadoha grew up in East London and he memorised the Holy Quran and studied the Islamic sciences at traditional Islamic seminaries in Dewsbury and Nottingham in the UK and also in Bangladesh. He also has a master's in Islamic studies from the University of London, Birkbeck. He has worked as a London based Imam teacher school governor and has worked on several educational projects, including this project that we're celebrating today, the university's and Muslim seminaries project. OK, thanks. Sheikh Shamsadoha, over to you. Salaam aleykum. Thank you, sister Aliyah. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillah wa sallat wa sallam a la rasulillah wa la alihi wa ashabihi wa manwala amma baid. First of all, as co-leader, I want to welcome everyone, welcome and thank our panellists. And like Alison, I'd like to echo her thanks as well of the team and thank Alison for her leadership who has actually helped make this journey a lot easier for me. I've had to benefit a lot from Alison's experience as someone in higher education and with a long career in higher education as well. I'm, of course, someone who's from an Islamic seminary, so this isn't, although I have a master's and I have spent some time in academia, I am very much a seminary person and therefore it was unfamiliar territory. So thank you, Alison, and the team, you've all been wonderful. So dwi'n dda'r cwrnwch eran. Thank you very much. So moving on to this, what I wanted to talk about, the challenges of curriculum development in Islamic seminaries. This obviously cannot be spoken of in five minutes, but there's a few things for those of us here from the seminary world, from the Darul Hulun world or the Islamic University world or whatever seminary tradition, Islamic seminary tradition you hail from. By the way, yes, there can be any number. There's different traditions in different places, as well as it has to be acknowledged, many people who study the Islamic sciences privately. And seminaries are a form of organized Islamic education, but if you think of Islamic education in its origin it was a very private kind of teacher to student affair. And I think that needs to be acknowledged and that also is going through something of a revival at the moment. So this, the reason why I was interested in this project was mainly because it was interested. This project was about me and it was about people like me and about our opportunities afterwards. And while it is true that career opportunities and postgraduate opportunities are limited for seminary graduates because what they study for all of those years, a decade, you can say eight to 10 years on average if I might put it that way depending on, on the exact configuration of your studies. It is a lot of study after which to come out with no recognized qualification and then be disadvantaged, not so much in the wider workspace, but in your own sort of within the community, within even the employment opportunities that we have within the community. There is still a disadvantage if you do not have a recognized qualification of some sort or other so for example if two imams are applying for the same job. And one has put in those extra years so on top of their their seminary studies, so they may have spent seven, eight years, 10 years in seminary, but then took that extra initiative and and and maybe even when as far back as starting again from a levels and then doing an undergraduate degree and then a postgraduate degree, even if it's in Islamic studies. I have a friend who did that, not quite Islamic studies, but you know, but he studied economics. Then, you know, naturally, you have an advantage and would be preferred for the post over the person who hasn't when kind of both are a bit unnecessary. This person having to go back and spend all of those extra years in higher education again is something of an unnecessary is something that is unnecessary. And then for the other person to kind of be looked over as a result of what is a structural disadvantage. It's not that they haven't studied. It isn't that they don't have skills it isn't that they don't have the necessary competencies competencies, they just don't have the recognition. So this is an important thing that has to be addressed at the root of it is if if we are to move towards solving this problem, then at the root of it is is curriculum development right the need to to develop seminary syllabi and curricula to a level, or at least in terms of its format to develop it in a way that it can attain accreditation or recognition and by recognition I mean for it would be possible for say a seminary graduate to go straight into an MA program. And we acknowledge efforts where people institutions like Markfield have offered like third year second or third year kind of undergraduate progression for seminary graduates. But what we would with a kind of recognition we would like to see, which kind of informally exists is for seminary graduates to be able to get into postgraduate studies. If they feel if they have the confidence that they can, they can study at that level. And that's that's kind of the journey I went through and many others went through but informally it wasn't formally recognized so we had to kind of talk our way into it given that as mature students it is technically possible. And the second, and I suppose the preferred position would be for there to be some form of accreditation. And that is a curriculum development challenge and here really all I want to say to the seminary world is some words of reassurance that we're not talking about structural changes to the objectives of the traditional Islamic seminary curriculum, but rather a kind of reorganization of it based upon the structures of UK higher education so that higher education can can understand it and its teaching strategies and it structurally fits into the kind of teaching structures and assessment strategies of higher education. So that the same content that is taught in Islamic seminaries at the same standard perhaps even better because the nature of curriculum development work is that it tends to raise the bar it tends to raise the standards the moment an institution goes through that journey standards actually rise and improve. And then, and then two minutes, that's okay. And then, then to achieve accreditation, which in higher education works. It's called validation and in higher education basically a university provides the accreditation, as opposed to say in secondary and tertiary education where it is an examination board that provides accreditation of a course. Like an A level or GCSE. Here is a university so it would be a kind of an MOU or understanding with the university who would agree to work with the seminary to go through the journey of validation. And the challenge here is really about how we present what we study in seminary rather than making significant compromises, which are not necessary and there is a fear and an anxiety about this that are we going to are we going to lose some of the key some of the key strengths of the seminary curriculum life for example the person development, the terbia the spiritual development aspects of the seminary curriculum which is part and parcel of it. This is an aspect, perhaps that a higher education accreditation wouldn't touch. And there are, there are structural challenges that are to do with to do with resources that I think just as a community. We have we may well have to address I mean how many seminaries have the resources, for example, to have a team working on curriculum development. And this is where perhaps this once of effort this this project may open perhaps will open the doorway to external help for for seminaries when it comes to curriculum development comes to just kind of helping helping them navigate some of the issues surrounding this objective. And for that, you know, us as a team, you know, we're always there to support you support the seminary community. And we also hope, inshallah, that there will be a next phase to this project. And we're hoping that that phase may if if we can knock on the right doors and if the right people support us, then it may well also involve some sort of capacity. Capacity within our team to be able to help and support the capacity building and the development of Islamic Seminaries. That is what we hope for. And that would be very much a kind of grassroots community focused effort where we develop seminary programs and curricula on their own terms. I really want to stress this, and it's extremely important when I speak about this. I've spoken about this in Pakistan in Bangladesh across the world where the kind of dozen is army types curricula are operated and people expect me to talk to them about incorporating science and technology and an IT and things like that into seminaries. And when I speak to them about developing the seminary curriculum on its own terms they kind of they're taken by surprise that that's not what they expect they think that's what that's what everybody wants. And that's not the purpose. The purpose is to produce. And I was just yesterday listening to a talk by Muhti Takarifani on this who in the dozen is army world as you know is a very, very prominent person. And he was talking about how the whole conversation around curriculum really is about producing better leaders, better imams, better scholars. That's what it boils down to. It isn't about changing seminaries and turning them into something else, but rather about producing better, better leaders who do the same job, but better. They, you know, they're contextually embedded. They understand the times that they live in the inside the context they live in, and they're able to serve their communities better. And I think that's definitely at the core of the omseb effort. So I hope we can take this forward. We, we, you know, inshallah, we pray for photography from Allah, as well as, you know, support from the community from funders and so on, and we hope that the road is easy, and that we will get support and encouragement from government from the communities as well. And that all of these doors can be unlocked and opened up and ultimately it. This is about collaboration and different, different academic cultures if you like, and conventions coming together, and surely that can only be a good thing. Thank you very much everyone. Thank you so much for your exploration check comes. It actually resonates a lot with my own research and if I may just say in between the next speaker. I was formerly director of your college and also she can be more ad who is direct Dean of the Cambridge Muslim College were both quite instrumental in supporting me with my own doctoral research about models of Islamic higher education in the UK. And what you're saying about curriculum development on on the on the terms of Muslim institutions and Muslim communities really quite pivotal to this endeavor. So, thank you very, very much for that. I'd like to now move on to Sheikh Abdelhaqim rod, also known as Timothy winter, just a very quick introduction for those who aren't familiar. Sheikh Abdelhaqim is an Islamic scholar researcher writer and academic. He is the Dean of the Cambridge Muslim College. He is Aziz Foundation Professor of Islamic Studies at both Cambridge Muslim College and formerly Abraham College. Also director of studies at Wilson College and the Shakespeare lecture in Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge. So over to you, Sheikh Abdelhaqim. First of all congratulations to everybody for what I think is a kind of landmark report really it's going to be a kind of point of reference for us at our little institution Cambridge for for some years to come I think and somebody who's been at the cold face of this interaction between mainstream higher education and seminary sector I do recognise it as a good and balance statement of the situation and ways forward so well done. I mean institution Cambridge Muslim College might seem to be a little bit tangential in terms of the relevance of its lessons to the what you are basically trying to do. We're not a dollar alone, trying to figure out how to tweak and adapt our curriculum and infrastructure in order to be eligible for outside academic world to validate us because we're kind of a new build as it were. And we created our procedures and our curriculum in consultation with with a validating body but still I think we've probably learned some things about what what can be done in terms of laboratory, I guess. Our main output has been so far our unaccredited diploma in contextual Islamic Studies and leadership, which I go to the Donald Orlawns Brail V and Bill Vandy on a yearly basis and headhumped as it were the leaders of those institutions allow me to speak to their graduands and I talk about what it would mean to come to Cambridge for a very intensive year of kind of reconfiguration. And we do get some extremely able young people. I have to say, this may offend some that I have found the attitude in Whitehall sometimes towards Donald Orlawn students to be that they're in some obscure sense sort of disabled in need of special help. That's not been my experience at all. Put them in the right context and they go up like rockets. To take one example, our current chair of trustees, Sohera Siddiwch, began as a graduate of our first cohort of students in 2009, and then worked her way up to mainstream academia. She got a PhD from University of Southern California and she's now a tenured professor of Islamic law at Georgetown University. And we've had other examples as well. So don't underestimate the native capacities of that demography with Asian work ethic and the Donald Orlawn hard work ethic to excel. We're just talking about remedial work here. We're talking about drawing on an underestimated pool of talent that can really be of benefit to the higher education section and to our national life and we've seen this again and again. Now the validation of the diploma was always a problem because it's such a strange animal and institutions looked at it and couldn't figure out what it is. So morning, for instance, Rowan Williams might be telling me about C.S. Lewis, and then in the afternoon they go after the hospital for their chaplaincy placement. And then we take them to the Vatican and then they learn about 20th century Islamic thought and it seems to be so disparate that institutions aren't quite sure what to do with it. So we've staggered on for nine years without it being accredited. And what really matters is something which could be contested because after a while a good institution and academic product will proceed on its own reputation. So we now have a deal with so as whereby our good graduates from the diploma, even if they don't have a BA will be accepted into the MA at so as simply because they've had such a good experience of our students and maybe nine of our Donald Orlawn students have got into the mainstream system through that. And in most cases, I think they come from families where there is no previous experience of higher education. Our main product at the moment, however, is our BA in Islamic studies, which is accredited and we work with the Open University. So questions for you people are, how can I find a partner that has an experience of validating external perhaps unusual programs. Should I go for a very good institution that will hold up a lot more hoops for me to jump through or should I go for somebody an institution that's quite low in the sort of league tables and academic food chain where it might be a little bit easier. Generally, I would say aim high because it's better for the students. But it is a complex process, I would say that it took us one year of hard labour for three full time professional administrators to create all of the paperwork for the two stages of the validation with the Open University. It's a very useful discipline because we now have really good internal procedures complaints procedures. We have mechanisms for making sure that fire extinguishers are regularly checked and things like that. There's a lot, a lot to look at, but it is onerous and you should budget about 100,000 pounds a year just to keep up with the accredited process is expensive. Part of the problem we all have, as you all know, is that government as yet has not been able to provide what should be a very simple sharia compliant student loan system. So we have lost a lot of students and we have struggled financially because more some community is essentially subject to a kind of official bar or disability. As a result of that. So fundraising becomes an issue expansion becomes an issue. That's out of our hands. But yes, it's accredited by the Open University and we've completed the first full cohort so we have graduates now. Interestingly, we find that because the emphasis, I think if you're looking for validation has to be on the model side of things, rather than the model in otherwise traditional theology philosophy logic, those traditional seminary subjects because they're more easily recognisable as academic by validating body than say memorising 1000 hadith. So because of the map called stress we find that of our first cohort of students to were accepted to do philosophy at UCL at master's level one is doing philosophy at a Turkish University to becoming our re teachers and three haven't decided. Both of them are going into mosques. And that's one reason why I said that we're a little bit marginal because we're small and we're dealing with the creation of a Muslim intelligence here really and the exploration of a British Muslim intellectual space rather than creating personnel for mainstream religious institutions, but validation. Yeah, very useful, a good discipline, the institutional validation is separate from the course validation. And validation means that they look to see, are your lecture rooms adequate. Are you accommodating your students in an appropriate way. What are your complaints procedures, things inclusivity issues such as gender issues. That is useful discipline, but I suspect some Dara Olawn's may struggle in terms of the simple infrastructure there's a ratio between bathrooms lecture space numbers of students and so forth which, which might be an issue without rebuilding from some of the context that I have seen the course validation is to see whether in the eyes of Western academia broadly understood the course product itself looks like an academic program. There are a number of issues to do with how Muslims traditionally do scholarship that have to be addressed, but we've shown I think that it can be done and our students do regard our degrees being an authentic training in Islamic studies but it is work in progress. Finally, we were trying to create an MA in counseling and psychotherapy. We didn't get validated because the open university and others said, we have no experience whatsoever of Islamic counseling and psychotherapy we don't understand your paradigm you can see your people are qualified with the right kinds of PhDs. But we were not qualified to assess it, which I guess is honest but it is appointment we're running the program but it will be an unaccredited diploma. That may well be in the longer term, another obstacle that what we're doing, trying to marry traditional Islamic curricular and concerns with the modern, quite utilitarian and outcome oriented world of modern British higher education which moving away from the humanities generally and towards stem subject. And increasingly, shall I say, barbarous philosophy that prevails in higher education now, but what we're trying to do may well be harder for them to understand. Final point in the longer term, of course, the so-called work beliefs may well in future years become a larger and larger concern for validating institutions. This hasn't been an issue so far, but it may be that as the cultural wars evolve that it will become harder for religious institutions generally, despite the fact that religion is still a legally protected category to get over the bar and to be regarded as acceptable for validation. It's a kind of pessimistic speculation that I'd like to end with, but the main takeaway is that these kids are extraordinarily gifted boys as well as the girls, they're an underestimated national resource. All wrongs by and large deliver a good product, but it needs to be eased into a context where the kids can spread their wings and really get into protest Islamic studies and the most but into careers in the wider society as well. So basically, I'm bringing you good news, although I know we've got a long way to go. Thank you very much. As usual, your intervention is quite expansive and in depth. I really hope that you can still be on board as this work progresses. I'm moving on to my colleague, Oostada Shahnaz Begum, who is also part of the team for the university's and Muslim seminaries project. A little bit about Shahnaz, Oostada Shahnaz Begum is currently studying for a PhD in Arabic Islamic studies at the University of Exeter with a focus on Islamic legal theory. She originally undertook Islamic training at Ibrahim College and Muslim Seminary in London, where she completed the traditional alimiah programme. After this, she completed an MA in Islamic studies at SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies. Shahnaz has also worked in public policy and strategy, delivering on agendas such as community cohesion and gender, faith equality, and faith quality, both at a local and national level. She continues to take an active role through various voluntary activities, as well as teaching in a community context. So Shahnaz will be talking about the women's outreach part of the project. The UMSET project had a subcommittee to deal with female religious leaders, Islamic teachers, alimers, sheikhat, as well as the very small but burgeoning Islamic institutions for female Islamic training. So over to you, Shahnaz. Thank you, Alia, for that introduction, and thank you everyone for joining us today. So, as Alia's mentioned, I'll be talking a little bit about the work of the female subcommittee, which I was only just to emphasise a very small cog in the wheel of that work, and a lot of credit goes to my colleagues, Sheikhat-Safir Dorat, and Dr Alia Abiery, as well, just to emphasise that. But it was definitely not an add-on, this aspect of the project. The experience as a female seminary graduates and their role in wider society after graduation was a theme that permeated the entirety of this project. We recognise that it was important to capture female voices throughout our research and ensure that our recommendations spoke to their experiences as much as anyone else's. So it was with that in mind that UMSET set up a specific subcommittee made up for female scholars and academics to advance understanding and formulate specific proposals for female Muslim scholars. Now the key objectives for this subcommittee included establishing a working relationship with a female-only seminary in London, which we were able to do, and with them we were also able to identify appropriate curriculum changes in order to place them on the path to accreditation. Our experience was that there was a lot of enthusiasm to develop curricula and move towards better outcomes for their students. For this reason, we also wanted to ensure that the resources we developed to help seminaries gain accreditation was also open and fit for purpose for female Daryl alums, which we were also able to do through our toolkit, which we'll hopefully be able to share with you over coming days. So connecting with existing female community leaders was also an important aspect of this strand of our work, and so we were able to identify an interview of range of community leaders and scholars. And these interviews provided us with rich data that we hope will inform a future toolkit for aspiring leaders and scholars and will also hopefully help us to explore graduate and career pathways for female seminary graduates. But one pathway that did begin to stand out from the outset and which the team explored in depth as a separate strand, but there's also very much related with our research into female graduate pathways was that of chaplaincy. So the work of OMSEP's female subcommittee shows that there is great interest amongst young Muslim women in training to become chaplins. They see chaplaincy as valuable both within and beyond their communities. OMSEP undertook interviews with existing Muslim chaplins across different sectors to understand this pathway better. Many of these highlighted that there is greater need for female chaplins due to current shortages of female graduates employed in this role. For example, on university campuses over 60% of university chaplins are Christian and 9.2% are Muslim. Now, while this figure mirrors the percentage of Muslim students on campus, most of those Muslim chaplins are male, whereas more than half of Muslim students are female. These interviews also emphasise that while Muslim seminary graduates have the theological training to deal with contemporary issues that they may face as a chaplain, they still require training in pastoral care and communication as well as mentoring opportunities to take on the chaplaincy role confidently. The OMSEP team are confident that the next phase of this project will address the shortcomings at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and make a significant improvement to Muslim theological education at three different levels. So incorporating chaplaincy into new accredited courses will open new doors to develop programmes that will facilitate other relevant vocations such as counselling and teaching. Secondly, training Muslim seminary graduates in chaplaincy will provide them transferable soft skills which they can use in other careers. Finally, introducing chaplaincy courses into Muslim seminary training programmes will provide graduates the pastoral, counselling and soft skills that are urgently needed and requested by Muslim communities. Now a pilot chaplaincy course modelled around servant based spiritual leadership, which emphasises humility was also offered to a group of 18 male and female undergraduates and graduates from Ibrahim College during the 2018-19 academic year. This pilot course was highly successful and provides a practical example of how chaplaincy training can be offered as a module within existing curriculum frameworks. Furthermore, it also highlights a greater need for female Muslim healthcare chaplins and the urgent need for female role models. Our work on graduate pathways has also shown the importance of chaplaincy as a highly viable career prospect for female graduates who are enthusiastic, as I said about such roles within the health and social care sector. Developing chaplaincy is a viable and established professional route to increase the potential for female seminary graduates to work across health and social care settings in England and across the UK is a vital and important way of enhancing female leadership roles in wider society. So the work of the subcommittee looking at both the challenges and outcomes for female seminary graduates and the possibility of chaplaincy as a viable career prospect particularly for women for female graduates was extremely fruitful. But this work is just really at the beginning and it provides a good foundation, but really the next phase of this project is key if we want to continue going forward and see further results on the ground. And hopefully you'll get to kind of read a little bit more about this in the report that you'll be receiving, but hopefully that's given you a bit of a snapshot of the work of the female subcommittee. Wonderful. Thank you so much. You've really outlined with a lot of depth and rigor the kind of work that we were doing. And, yeah, now it's time to move on to our final guest speaker, Dr Mahmood Chandia and just to introduce Dr Mahmood. One moment. Dr Mahmood Chandia has a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Manchester. He is now at UCLan, the University of Central Lancashire, and he's held positions as a senior lecturer in and program leader for Islamic Studies. He is now program leader for the MA in Intercultural Business Communication and the Humanities Foundation Studies Program, as well as senior lecturer in Religion, Culture and Society. He's also an associate member of the UCLan Cybercrime Research Unit. He lectures on a variety of humanities and social science disciplines. He's also a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. So, over to you, Dr Mahmood. Thank you. Salaam a'laykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Alhamdulillahi. Wahdahol salatu wa salaam wa ala maen la nabiyya baidah. Amma baad fa awwzu billahi me'n yshwethawni wa'r gymysmillahi rahmae'n rahim fa' atabirwya'u li'l absawer. Sadaf cw'l lawhu'l maen la nabiyya. Good evening to everybody. And thank you for extending this invite to me as well. It's very kind of you. I feel very privileged and honoured. I welcome the comments so far from my core panellists and some very important and significant, may I add, points have been made on different aspects. Perhaps I should also put on record that listening about the work of the Cambridge Muslim College and visiting the Cambridge Muslim College is a different experience and I would certainly encourage people to go and view the great work that is happening there, as well as the Cardiff University and the Islamic Foundation. I would like to just mention a few points regarding the graduates and the work that has been happening in the Northwest of England. As has already been introduced, I am based at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, which may not be classified as the Paris of the Northwest. Nevertheless, it's quite a strategic location because it is very near to three important Darul Ulums and that is Darul Ulum Berry and Darul Ulum Blackburn and Darul Ulum Bolton. Of course, in these very same towns, we have some part-time routes that offer Darcynys army that are being taught as well, where university attending students attend in the evening to study the Darcynys army. My experiences over the last 20 years, I have noticed and taught many Darul Ulum students coming into higher education. They've started off enrolling at what we facilitated at UCLan, which is the acronym for University of Central Lancashire on Islamic Studies programs, and then eventually they branched out into social science degrees. I'm sure Professor Adelhaqim Murat will support me in saying the importance of social science and the legacy of our Islamic heritage. Now, then there was a movement, a phase where the students were coming from Darul Ulum Berry or Blackburn or Bolton, but were not taking up the opportunity of having their learning compensated and having an informal accreditation, rather they were entering into different disciplines, whether that be social science or non-social science based. From about 2000 to 2010, the first decade, we saw a very great focus on Islamic studies or religious studies, which then developed into religion, culture and society. Then there was a phase of moving into sort of non-religious or theological studies. At the moment at UCLan, what we have offered from September 2021 is that any Darul Ulum student who will successfully complete a bridging program will be able to enter directly onto a postgraduate program, directly onto the MA in Religion, Culture and Society. Some students have already taken up the opportunity to have an informal interview and will be enrolling on the bridging program and will be given a direct route onto the MA program, which I do believe is substantial progress because I have personal experience of trying to accredit Darul Ulum program since the 1990s. So over the last 30 years, and I'm sure the previous report of, I think it was called Muslim Faith Leadership Training by Professor Alison Scott Barman, and the current one, which I also commend, will testify this is a significant development in this phase. I have also seen many Darul Ulum students and we have to realize Darul Ulum dynamics are changing. We have in places, young leadership, we have Ulama, whose children have become an Alim now and who are realizing there is a text V context dynamics that needs to be balanced out. So the Darul Ulums, I think are major players. They have equally a lot to offer to British higher education. And one of the lessons perhaps they would need to learn is how education is talked about within universities and the transferable skills that need to be developed within university graduates. I was very pleased to note all of the speakers at the heart of their conversations were talking very favorably in fact about Darulum graduates and the skills that they have its unlocked raw potential that needs to be let loose on society. Equally, there is perhaps a dearth of opportunities within Darul Ulums for them to teach perhaps the higher texts that they were going through themselves and perhaps a dearth of opportunities within masjids or mosque or any academy to for them to engage. So my experiences indicate them a lot of them are accepting the notion of social mobility via education and seizing the opportunities of perhaps three or four or five extra years of learning, and the world is there oyster after this. I have even decided to migrate to places like North America, where there is perhaps a greater appreciation of the, the efforts that they have done. So, I think there is a lot of core learning to be done by the British higher education system. It's important for Darul Ulums as well. It's important to have people in the middle who would be able to facilitate and understand the challenges that both institutes face. I mean, I personally know it can be difficult to explain to admission officers, the learning that Darul Ulums students have done within a context of higher education. It's about learning outcomes and transferable skills development, et cetera. So I think this would be perhaps an important conversation to be had from both. I think there is an appetite and I've known students from Darul Ulums go from their alimia graduation, straight on to moving on to artificial intelligence, data science, and a whole host of non theological related sciences. So I think this is a very important development. Perhaps if I may use the most famous words, one important step for mankind in this relationship between, at the heart of it, two learning centres, which equally has a lot to offer to each other. And I think as equal players, there is, I think, good progress to be made. And maybe the Darul Ulums can learn a few lessons about how the whole conversation around enrichment and enhancing the curriculum and adding value to the learning experience of the students. Likewise, perhaps for higher education, it's how do Darul Ulum, how are they able to instill this notion of applied study and rigorous study, because I'm sure university lecturers will tell you, so they struggle sometimes to get university students to read books. So there is a skill there as well within Darul Ulum students alongside many others. I have been indicated that I should be summarising my points. So I will once again commend the efforts of Professor Alison Scott Bowman and her team, and the other efforts that are happening across the UK, whether that's at Islamic Foundation or Cardiff or the Cambridge Muslim College. I think there are good opportunities for mutual conversations at a peer to peer level. And I'm sure there will be very interesting developments in the future. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you so much, Dr Mohamed Chandia. You've really enriched our panel discussion today. I really appreciate your insights, particularly to have the Northern representation there as well. So we've come to the end of our guest speaker interventions today and we've also come to the end of the official timing of the event. We are a little bit over time. However, I would just like to ask participants if you are able to stay on for another 10 to 15 minutes that we will take questions and answers shortly. If however you need to go, that's fine. We've just had quite a lot to squeeze into today's session. Some of you will already have seen that the link to the report has been placed in the chat. If you can't see it, that's not a problem because we will be emailing all attendees the link to the report and also the link to the academic journal article, which we wrote based upon the project. Just before we go on to question answers, because I know some people might need to leave, I would really like to thank our key partners and our task force for helping us and supporting us all the way through this project. Firstly, our key partners in the project where we were trying to build bridges between institutions on the side of the Muslim seminaries. Secondly, we had a Suffolth Institute at in Birmingham, which is an unconventional seminary, but nonetheless based upon some of the same curricula. Noodle Islam, Women's Seminary in London and Mahdi Institute, a Shiree seminary in Birmingham and Ibrahim College also of London. And for the university partners, we had Birmingham University, St Mary's University of Twickenham and Leeds University, and we're extremely grateful to all the partners for participating in our bridge building in our roundtables and the curriculum mapping exercise that we did together. There's also a little list of the representative organisations that were involved in our consultative task force, again, we're very grateful. The list of names is too long, so unfortunately we couldn't name everybody individually, but the gratitude is nonetheless for that. So I would now like to go on to question and answer. I know that there's a question. Ilya, can I just interrupt you for a second, given that we're running over, would you like to, as chair, just like to check with Mr Colin Bloom that he's able to stay on for a few minutes? Yes, absolutely. Not perhaps you could speak now. Yes, Mr Colin Bloom is the independent faith advisor for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, if I'm not mistaken, and he's very kindly offered to just give a perspective at the end of the event, so would you like to go now? Please, if I can. I'm sorry, I have another appointment that I've got to get to, but thank you so much for the opportunity. I'm having to do this on my iPhone because the Government computer here doesn't allow me to do Zoom for some bizarre reason, but in any event I really found today's meeting really interesting, very helpful. And I really welcome the contribution that the report has made. I've had a quick read of it. I think it's a really valuable conversation to have in seeking to find ways of accrediting faith-based higher education institutions. I think that, as one of your speakers said, there is a journey of accreditation and validation that needs to happen. And I think that it feels like you're well on the way to making some very real progress. And also, as Sheikh Shams Mohammed so helpfully suggested that there could be almost like a team approach, you know, with the community, with donors, with universities and with government to sort of help build capacity sort of in this effort and really sort of embed that capacity into the process. So I think that's very welcome. As Professor Allison said, I'm publishing a review that's coming out later this year, a report that's coming out later this year. And that report really has three major sections to it. The first is really asks the question is faith good for society. It might seem like a really stupid question to ask, but is faith good for society? And actually you'd be surprised very few how rarely that question is asked. So I'm seeking to answer that. And I don't think anyone on this call would be surprised that the answer is yes, faith is overwhelmingly good for society and makes an overwhelmingly positive contribution to society, both in civil and in civic life. And so the second part really sort of leads on from that, which is well in which case how can government do better and what can government do to engage better with faith communities. And then the third section really looks at the challenges that exist within faith practice and that's something that we're looking at. And you'll be pleased to know that I will be covering chaplaincy, including the pastoral care and counselling, whether it's in prisons or on higher education campuses. And as you know, I found that the comments really, really helpful of Shahanez from the female subcommittee. I thought that was a really excellent contribution and I've made lots of notes on that so I'm grateful for that. I'm sure that section on chaplaincy is going to get an honourable mention in my in my report. Anyway, thank you for the invitation to be with you. It's been, as I say, a really valuable conversation. And I guess let me finish by just saying JZK. Thank you very much, Mr Colin Bloom. And for those who don't know, JZK is just our club here. Thank you in the Islamic greeting. Thank you very much for for adding your reflections and we'll now promptly go on to question answers because we've got actually quite a lot of Q&A. I'd like to start if it's okay with Professor Mohammed Hamdol-Halim of SOAS, who is of your host institution for this project. Professor Hamdol-Halim, I know that you have your hand up so I'm going to allow you to talk. Are you able to talk now? You need to unmute yourself. Welcome to this meeting and I support the project very much. I should feel actually proud of myself for having been able on my own initiative over the last seven or eight years to gain admissions to a number of seminaries graduates into the MA Islamic studies at SOAS. You see, but we have done it because you see these institutions are not recognized institutions. So the registry was automatically would say no, have nothing to do with these people. I had to do it gradually by first asking some of these graduates to go and gain and get one year diploma of the Muslim college. And then suggested that we could have take one or two of them and try and see how it will work. It worked very well indeed. After two or three years, I said, anybody who objected to what I was doing in the registry, I said to them, look at the exam results of the MA Islamic studies and see for yourself. Many of these people have done very well indeed. Some of them now actually are brighter and more able than normal university students who have been admitted in the normal way. You have to see I had to change the culture even my own culture. I'm committed to the British system of education and would not be seen to dilute it would have to do things to enable these people to be accepted in the system. And this has been done. I think these people in Darryl Olwm and so on, they are there. Muslim parents are there who wanted their students or their children to have religious education. But it really is sometimes I would see it as a terrible thing to let a child to go into a system of education where they won't be admitted to higher education and won't have normal jobs and so on. They have to do something, develop their curriculum, develop their curriculum. I can sit and talk to anyone who is interested in this in order to get more of them able to admit it and within a while, the universities as a whole will see that these are valid institutions and allow their students to come into the university. As I said, I think we have done very well in the center of Islamic studies and we had a good number of these people for some reason more women students than men do better. We have this year, we have actually one who is from a seminary in America not here and she is fantastic. So why should someone like this not be enabled? And you know, many of them have really gone to do PhDs and work this. That is, they should be enabled to develop their own curriculum. Professor Penning, thank you so much. You've actually hit on something a really important part of the motivation for this project. And I'm really grateful you've been able to come and tell us your perspective because you've been really instrumental in giving a step up and enabling a lot of the Darlhalum and Islamic Seminary graduates to gain further postgraduate degrees at SOAS. For those of you who don't know, Professor Abdul-Halim is like a godfather of Islamic studies in the UK universities and he's a world famous translator of the crime into English. And we're very grateful to have his support and also just his vision for bridging Islamic studies in mainstream British universities and in the traditional and devotional institutions. So thank you so much, Professor Abdul-Halim. We've got quite a lot of questions, so I'm going to move on to some of the written questions. I have a question from Mr Ismail N Ismail. Speaking as a student of both part-time seminary and as a postgraduate student in the UK university, may I please ask why the focus is on restructuring or reconfiguring the centuries old structure, as opposed to leaving it as it is. And it's instead working alongside Western academia to accept and recognise seminary education for what it is. So that's a really pertinent question and I'd like to point it to Sheikh Shams. Are you able to answer that one please briefly if you can. Thank you for that. I think we can't respond to that question directly. We can't escape the realists on the ground, which are that seminary graduates are not, they do not have what two things. So one, they're not coming out with some of the wider skills that are required in order for them to be better at them up. And that's a simple question of not so much just curriculum development in order to receive accreditation, but more just a question of development in seminaries and a lot of positive things have been said about our seminaries and they're doing a fantastic job given their overall context. But in terms of seminaries working contextually within the, based upon what the needs of the society are, it's possible to say that seminaries in India, in place like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are actually more connected to their context, because there is no, there is no way that they cannot be. Whereas in the UK, with no link to higher education, as well as to the employment sector, there is something of a disconnect that reality cannot just be ignored, because seminaries do not exist in a vacuum they never have done. And the idea that, you know, their century is old and are unchanged is, you know, that idea is there, but it's not true that they are unchanged, but rather they always go through development and also the if you want if we want to see evidence of that, then we simply have to look at the fact that seminaries in different parts of parts of the world have different curricula. They have different Nisaba, they have different syllabi, because they have different contexts, seminaries across the ages have had different emphasis. Like I'm going to keep referencing this talk I listened to and I'll actually share this somehow, perhaps on Facebook or something like that. But the growth money kind of imprompt to addresses all of this and he talks about, he mentions a talk yesterday and he talks about how the curriculum needs to be adapted based upon the way things have changed, and he particularly used the example of, of a kind of classical logic and philosophy and and theological references in Dursan Nizami curriculum as it was yesterday sort of in his time, and then and and the need for or rather he was saying that, and we're changing it now to incorporate contemporary philosophy. That is a change that would have been unthought of. It would have been unthinkable, you know, 10, even 20 years ago. So I think it's inevitable that that will happen. And the second thing I was going to say is, is referencing it back to what I said before that that curriculum development does not mean we change the core objectives of our series but rather things can be done, given, and I can tell you from experience because I've gone through this a couple of times now, things can be done in a way where the core values and the core priorities of the seminary curriculum can be retained with with some with some changes in order to make them more compatible with UK higher education, and I wouldn't be involved in this effort if I didn't think that was possible. Thank you very much. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I was just going to say that the, the reference that you gave to what to talk with Manny's talk. We can hopefully share it with all the attendees because we'll be sending everyone a follow up email. That would be really useful. Yeah. Also, we actually have a lot of very person and very juicy interesting questions and we won't be able to cover them all because we're over time so I'm going to select one question each panelist. And then hopefully, if the panelists are able to support with this, we'd like to answer all the questions in writing and send them out to the attendees after the event because a lot of them are very, very useful, interesting questions. I've got one. I have a question for Professor Allison Scott Bowman. If you don't mind, this is from chef Mohammed buta. And the chef asks firstly to what extent do you think this report impacting to what extent do you see this report impacting on bridging the two worlds of Islamic seminary and secular universities. Has there been any positive talks regarding further or future collaboration between universities and seminaries. And secondly, if this if you can very briefly say what are your thoughts on current bridging programmes, such as the Warwick University MA MA in Islamic education sort of bridging the seminary and university qualifications. Okay, thank you. I'll try and be brief. That's a brilliant question. I could talk about this for days. But very briefly, I would say that I do think that this work has shown that there is eagerness. We were able to work. Obviously, this is pre COVID. So as I mentioned, we have to revive all these connections with a mask on probably. We had very, very, we worked very well with Mary's Roman Catholic University in Trichonum. They felt they found a very strong resonance with our work, because they are working constantly at that cusp, the cusp between the theological and the secular, if you like, although that's I know that's a very crude division. We also have had very good conversations and seminars and workshops with Birmingham University. And our colleagues at Leeds have been amazing. So those are just three highlights. Remember this? Well, you don't know this. We didn't tell you this. This project had to be completed within six months. This is just the way it was. That was what government needed. We did it brilliantly. But that did mean that it was very intense within those five to six months, we could only focus on a small number of institutions. So there's plenty of partnership there. We had fantastic workshops together, bringing the two types of institution together. Your other question about bridging very briefly. I think these bridging programmes are fantastic. There's also one at Birmingham University working with our Mahdi College. And these are, whether you call them bridging or whether you call them hybrid or blended, they are a fantastic way of bringing students and staff together who might otherwise not meet and might otherwise not compare their different worldviews, different and similar worldviews. I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you very much, Professor Allison Scott-Bannerman. I have another question, if possible, for Sheikh Abdelhaqe Morad. This is from an anonymous questioner. Aren't we really talking about two different episthems? And do we really need to think about whether universities or the secular world are willing to entertain them? It's a conversation that has to happen since we live in one world and one country. I think it helps to remember that in the British context, even state-funded universities have historically been hospitable not just to religion as religious studies, but to religion as theology and the legacy reasons that's always been Christian theology. So in a sense, one way of looking at this whole question is whether the academy, which tends to assume that theology is slowly dying away, is prepared to extend that exception, which, as it were, implicitly privileges, privileges inside a discourse to non-Christian religions as well. And I think that's a question that a lot of universities are kind of struggling with at the moment. It certainly is an injustice and a structural inequality that if you come to the University of Cambridge, for instance, you can study Christianity as a Christian with people who share your faith perspective and are helping you to explore it as an insider, but you cannot do the same thing if you belong to any other world religion. That's a structural inequality that I think is at the heart of this debate and I think needs to be pushed back again. Thank you very much for that, Shehab Lechim. I've got now got a question from Yahya Burtz, and if I can direct that to Ustala Shahnaz-Baigham, if that's okay with you. And Yahya is saying thank you for this important report and intervention, maybe blessed with divine acceptance, I mean. While it is right that seminary graduates need to have their qualifications recognised, thereby open up new career opportunities for them, what can be done to ensure that the adequate training for the challenges facing the imams in 21st century Britain, and I assume, you know, imamate means Islamic teachers and leaders generally in 21st century Britain in terms of intellectual, pastoral professional skills will be sustained or developed. So what can be done to ensure that adequate training for these challenges will be sustained or developed. After all, integration of Islamic seminaries must still serve the goal of providing the next generation of Islamic religious leaders who can serve their communities. Ustala Shahnaz, do you have any reflection? I'll just give a brief one. I'm probably not the most qualified in this panel to answer that question, but thank you, Yahya, for that very pertinent question. I think we sort of envisaged in this project a really holistic approach to kind of developing their own norms in this direction. So, so kind of getting accreditation wasn't at the expense of understanding wider community needs and how to train up Daryl Llam graduates for that purpose. So as kind of Shams has already mentioned, you know, it's not about forgetting what the overall objective of Daryl Llam education is and what we hope to get out from Daryl Llam graduates in terms of the benefit and the impact on the ground and for the wider community. We definitely envisaged a holistic approach to this and accreditation was one aspect of it. But as I mentioned in my kind of session, you know, the sort of importance of things like chaplaincy and counselling as viable career options and as part of the training package of a Daryl Llam graduate was an important way to address some of these, some of these needs on the ground and that kind of wider role that a Daryl Llam graduate can play. So, you know, I think it is, it's a big question. And, you know, we definitely would like to explore that going forward, but I hope that kind of has touched a little bit on on your question. I'm going to direct the next question to Dr Sheikh Mahmood Chandia. And then we've got one spoken question from Professor Sophie Giddy at Ray of Cardiff University. And then perhaps there might be time for one more question and then we're going to have to wrap up for the evening. So the question for Dr Mahmood Chandia is from Ismail Nahouda. In your time at Daryl Llam's, what developments have you seen and in your time at universities in the Northwest? What developments have you seen in Daryl Llam graduates? Wow, what a loaded question. Back to something that Professor Alison Scott Baumann said for the question they would ask. I think engaging with higher education institutes is a natural step for Daryl Llam's, because most of them offer GCSE programs, some of them offer a levels in different subjects. So it's a natural phase of development. This is why there has been a success for this project, but some Daryl Llam's, and I'm sure they have just taken a geographic selective process of who to engage at the moment with. And there will be perhaps other Daryl Llam's who may wish to come on board. So it's a natural point of development in Daryl Llam cycles. Secondly, I have noticed within Daryl Llam's a different levels in different Daryl Llam's a more informed awareness of globalization pluralism. The need to apply text to context, the need to develop Olamar and leaders who may not all be going into being imams that conserve the community in different capacities with a critical awareness of society. So there is this realisation how to get there that has been a struggle sometimes with our Olam's and some have been more successful than others. As far as university development, well there are some universities that have caused championed the cause of wider access. And because of the constituency of communities around those universities, and the Northwest is a good example of this. The opportunities that the higher education programs, whether that's been in Islamic studies, theology religious studies or social science programs or STEM subjects have been seized upon by Daryl Olam graduates. They have developed in confidence, they have developed in their identity, they have been acquired a lot of transferable skills, and some of them alongside whatever profession they have decided to undertake also providing gratis and free services to some of the Daryl Llam's or some of the mosque's etc. So I do feel it's a natural development and Daryl Olam's may well consider this. It's important to keep the Daryl Olam's on board within the conversation and Daryl Olam's, as Sheikh Shamsul Duhar said, as we begin to talk we'll perhaps develop a more deeper relationship and understand each other better. But I think Daryl Olam need to be core players, and not Daryl Olam's also need to understand it, there is no imposition of thought here, nor is there imposition of a change to curriculum. There is an acknowledgement, a lot of Daryl Olam students are taking up the opportunities to enrol on university programs in their different locations, and this is one way perhaps to help them. Thank you very, very much, Dr Mahmood Chandy for addressing that. We're going to take one spoken question from Professor Sophie Giliot-Ray. I think I've enabled you now to speak. Thank you very much indeed. Greetings everyone, and many congratulations on this important work you've been doing, which I see is really building on the work we've been doing in Cardiff on imam training, Muslim chaplaincy and so on. I've just got a sort of nagging worry about what I'm seeing happening in the university sector post COVID, and I'm hoping that this isn't necessarily happening in other universities, but at the moment we're having lots of meetings in Cardiff about how we're going to deliver our programs next academic year and in the years afterwards. I'm hearing more and more talk about blended learning and online delivery, which would cut right across the spirit of embodied learning that is so important within the traditional Islamic seminary world. As Sheikh Shams was mentioning, the idea that the pupil learns at the feet of their teacher, and this idea of emulating your teachers by copying their manners of their adab. So I'm really worried about a potential pedagogical divide if the universities kind of move much more towards online and blended learning and what happens to that traditional mode of learning. Alison, did you want to ask a question or Alison, you had your hand up? I could reply to that if you wish. Sophie, it's lovely to hear your voice. I think you're absolutely right, there are huge risks, and we're blundering into a space that none of us understand the consequences of, you're absolutely right. But I have to say that one of the things that came out of this project, which I hope will hearten you, is that because of the some of the young women we were working with. Wished to be quite private and quite protected in their study mode. It seemed actually to be for them quite liberating to be able to work online. So you're absolutely right I agree with you completely about all this stuff about blended guided all these terms. The minute we get we're drowning in terms which one becomes very suspicious of I completely agree. But I think that that is a really positive aspect of our work that at least for the next three to five years while we're achieving and kind of bridging towards a new understanding of higher education in a properly coherent manner, which includes Muslim students in this way. I think it's actually quite liberating for certainly for the young women to have this option of working online. So thank you is brilliant question. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Allison. And if I can add just very briefly actually pedagogy in Islamic higher education was one of the key issues of my own doctoral research. And pedagogy has always adapted itself throughout the history Islamic education depending on time and context and physical situation and I, I called it pedagogical hybridity in the British context because some of the new institutions are keeping a lot of the traditional valued methods of teaching and learning, and also adapting using a lot of modern and commonplace Western pedagogical methods. And I would be delighted to speak to you about that in more detail in the future. Unfortunately now we have to close the event it's come to seven o'clock. I'm really so honoured that all the panelists have been able to join us it's been a fantastic discussion. I'm really pleased and delighted that we had so many interested and engaged attendees we had up to, I think about 130 attendees in the event. And I'd like to just thank you all very very much for giving your Tuesday evening to discuss these issues. We were really heartened by the investment and the excitement and the interest in what we've been doing and we really hope that, even though this was a pilot project that in the future we can build on it. Please do stay in touch. We will be emailing all the attendees afterwards with the report with an executive summary with the academic paper that we wrote based on the project. Also the resource, any resources for example Sheikh Shams mentioned and any outstanding questions. There were some absolutely fascinating questions that were shared that unfortunately we couldn't cover. We've had attendees from all over the world. There was questions from Trinidad and Tobago from Sri Lanka, a question related to Islamic education in Qom Iran. And I'm sure there's various other locations that people haven't mentioned. So on that note I would like to close. I think Professor Allison if you would be able to just end the event please. Well I'd love to ask Shams to do that, but I just wanted to say thank you so much for chairing so excellently. Alia that was lovely. I think we are intending to capture all these questions electronically and answer them so we can respond we will respond in text form and I apologise along with Alia for the fact that we run out of time. But it was a very, very, very interesting session and I think it would be appropriate for Sheikh Shams to bow us out. Thank you. Thank you Allison. So time right times being a bit of a challenge hasn't it throughout. We had six months as Allison mentioned, so I think everything that we've said should be understood in context of that, especially things like which data belongs. We were able to engage with, you know, mainly it was blackburn a sofa, nor Islam and so on. That was a combination of just convenience and whoever seemed to have all I was I was already kind of was interested and we knew of them through our networks that they, they would be interested in something like this and I suppose what's important is is for us to proceed on to a next phase where we can engage other darloons and that's what we're hoping for this we ask everybody to support us with their prayers and to think about this more and more. We will, as Allison has said I'm glad this came up we'll try and answer all of these questions because I think they're extremely important. So please, you know just just look out for for posts and things like that. I don't know I'll share on my social media. And hopefully at some point we can come up with some sort of online presence for OMSAP as well, which we will share with everyone. So let's see how all of that goes. Thank you very much. Once again, thank you to the team and to the panelists. This has been fantastic although brief. You know, we hope that this continues until we get to some sort of actual result on the ground in terms of in terms of results for our seminaries, inshallah. Thank you very, very much, Sheikh Shams. I'm really torn that there were so many interesting and useful questions that we couldn't cover. Hopefully we'll be in touch with the attendees, some of them had questions and they've gone now. But thank you again for everyone who's attending. And we look forward to being in touch with you about any next steps that we hope to take and hopefully you'll be able to read the report and give us some feedback as well. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for attending and good evening.