Ummatics 2023 Inaugural Conference:

Umma Beyond the Nation-State: Imagination, Solidarity, Praxis

June 13-15, 2023

Bahariye Mevlevihanesi – Istanbul, Turkey

The Muslim Umma today is marked by a paradoxical situation of great possibility and massive dispossession. Muslims are more numerous, educated, connected, and resourceful than ever before—and deeply divided, among other factors, by the borders of the (post-)colonial nation-state. In conventional scholarly approaches, the language of the Umma—as an idiom of international solidarity, as a political affect, and as a theological commitment—competes with other objectified, identitarian categories (e.g., ethnicity, nation, and class). Meanwhile, global interconnections and neoliberal adjustments have weakened state territoriality; and from Euro-America to Israel, India, and China, old-fashioned state nationalisms are being replaced by or recast in civilizational nationalisms that are fundamentally hostile to the Muslim Umma. At this time of transformation and the intensification of global inequities, approaching the middle of the fifteenth hijrī century, we seek to revisit and thematize the Muslim collectivity today.

Registration is now closed as we have reached capacity. We look forward to a fruitful conference.