Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies Exeter

15/10/2026

Online event

Monday October 19th 2026
Bink Hallam
Beyond Maths and Magic: Towards a Poetic Vision of ‘Magic Squares’ in Islamicate Societies
17:00-18:30 UK

Please register here or via the link in our bio: https://tr.ee/nGaA2DbICV

13/10/2026

13/10/2026

Students! Tell the Students' Guild what matters most to you!

Help shape what Officers lobby the University on this year.

Housing. Money. Your course. Campus. Whatever gets you thinking “someone really needs to sort that” - the Guild wants to know.

Closing Date is Friday 16 October.

Click here or via the link in our bio: https://tr.ee/eiseBd793O

09/10/2026

Online event on Monday!

Centre for the Study of Islam's Monday Majlis with Ismail Fajrie Alatas
The Architecture of Refuge: How Protection is Built, not Decreed
Monday 12th October 2026
17:00-18:30 UK time

Register for this Zoom event here or via the link in our bio: : https://tr.ee/XjFT8OSqk2

09/10/2026

Calling IAIS students! Become an academic representative!

IAIS is looking for both an undergraduate rep and a postgraduate rep to join the team.

As a rep you will work with your department to make positive changes and improve your academic experience. You will boost your employability and gain communication and teamwork skills.

If you are interested, please do not hesitate to approach the Student Experience Director, Sabiha Allouche.

08/10/2026

✈️ Student travel report✈️

Suhaib Shaukat, a student at IAIS, was a recipient of The Prince Alwaleed Award, a prestigious scholarship providing students with the unique opportunity to deepen their understanding of the Arabic-speaking world through immersive experiences. It aims to enhance students' Arabic language proficiency and cultural knowledge.

Suhaib travelled to Morocco. Here's what he said about his experience:

"It was a fascinating experience to travel to Morocco, where I had the opportunity to improve my Arabic skills. As a student who is interested in gaining knowledge about the wider Middle East region, it is important to understand the language to gain a deeper understanding of the politics, economics, and, most importantly, the culture.

My main aim for the trip was to build confidence in speaking the language, which I was able to do through various interactive activities and interacting with the locals. Alongside this, I got the opportunity to discover various historical and cultural sites in the country, including the National Museum of Jewellery & Adornment in Rabat, showcasing the rich history of Morocco in the area of jewellery and ornaments.

Another great place that I was lucky enough to visit was the Hassan Tower, a minaret of an incomplete mosque, which is another important part of the country’s history!

From the rich and aromatic tagines to the traditional couscous and beautifully crafted Moroccan pastries, each dish offered a unique combination of flavours and spices. The country’s vibrant culinary culture was truly a memorable part of my experience, making my time in Morocco even more enjoyable.

Special thanks to Ruth Smyth-Bonfield for the support and assistance throughout the whole process."

✈️ The Prince Alwaleed Award can be applied for by students of IAIS and is generously funded by Alwaleed Philanthropies. ✈️

06/10/2026

EVENT CANCELLED - Apologies for the late notice.

IN PERSON EVENT

Wednesday 7th October
Thomas Suarez
Anatomy of a Genocide by Nomenclature
16:30 for a 17:00 start - 18:30
LT2, IAIS

All welcome - students, staff and supporters!

Tom Suárez is best known for his critically acclaimed book, “Palestine Hijacked – how Zionism forged an apartheid state from river to sea”. His new work, “Palestine Mapped”, explores the history of the mapping of the region and the manipulation of geographic thought that has contributed to today’s genocide. A professional Juilliard-trained violinist and composer, he is a former faculty member at Palestine’s National Conservatory of Music.

Genocide is not a circumstance of the Israeli state, but its very purpose, the only possible method to replace an indigenous population with an imported one. As that state inflicts ever greater death, misery, and destabilization, a key question, never satisfactorily answered, becomes all-important: Why are we, the so-called Western countries, eager co-genociders?

The usual geo-political explanations fail to explain the reality. What, then, explains our suicidal empowerment of this state, and our repression of ourselves on its behalf? The role of our collective cultural-geographic hard-wiring is insufficiently acknowledged, because it is the very lens through which we see the world.

05/10/2026

☕Our weekly term-time coffee mornings start again Wednesday!☕

It's a time for an informal catch-up between IAIS undergrads, IAIS postgrads, IAIS academics and IAIS professional services.

See you in the IAIS Common Room from 10-11 on Wednesday.

05/10/2026

You are spoilt for choice today as we kick off our events season at IAIS. We have a choice of two for you and everybody is welcome - students, staff, supporters!

IN-PERSON
Monday 5th October
5.30pm
Room 2.1, Peter Chalk Building
Emad Hajjaj, Drawing the Other Narrative: The Art of Political Caricature

ONLINE
Monday 5th October
5.00-6.30pm (UK)
Zoom. Register here or via the link in our bio: https://tr.ee/HgXab7HEnA
John P Cooper, ‘Embark in the name of Allah’: religious and secular meaning in the ‘decorative’ practices of Yemeni boatbuilders

02/10/2026

Beyond Boundaries: Crossing Borders in Archives and Research on the Middle East Conference took place on 16-17 September 2026.

Following on from the success of the 2025 DAME Conference and building on conversations that developed from there, we again brought together a diverse group of researchers, archivists, librarians, artists, and activists who are involved in archival projects, archival thinking, and the practice of archiving, with the aim of exploring the theme of border-crossings within, across and beyond the Middle East.

Archival collections often traverse borders, rarely bound to a single location and frequently dispersed across institutional, public and personal sites both within the region and in contexts of diaspora and exile.

These archives preserve traces of historical actors – from migrants and merchants to students and exiles – who themselves navigated geographical, national, and cultural boundaries.

At the same time, archivists and researchers encounter their own forms of border-crossings in the course of archival work, both in practice and across disciplinary and methodological boundaries.

The thematic panels included Archival Absences; Presences across Borders, Q***r and Affective Transnational Archives, Feminist Voices in the Archive, New Approaches to Kurdish Archives, and Archives of Migration, Diaspora; Exile.

The keynote speaker was Dr Mezna Qato (University of Cambridge) and there was a special panel on the Gulf Committee Archive and a conversation with Helen Lackner.