World of Islam: Festival 50th Anniversary + Q&A

Description

Fifty years after the landmark World of Islam Festival transformed Britain’s cultural landscape, this special event reflects on one of the most ambitious celebrations of Islamic civilisation ever staged in the West.

Founded and curated by Ahmed Paul Keeler, the 1976 festival brought together art, scholarship, architecture, music and spirituality in an unprecedented encounter between Islam and the modern West.

Through this illustrated lecture, discussion and reflection, the event explores the festival’s lasting legacy and asks what its vision of beauty, balance and civilisational dialogue might still offer a world facing growing fragmentation, polarisation and cultural uncertainty.