Margaret Harris Lecture on Religion 2015: ‘Veils, Values and Voices- Religion and the Public Space’

Published On Tue 3 Nov 2015 by Grant Hill

Islam, and its position within western societies, will be examined at a public lecture at the University of Dundee next week.

Professor Mona Siddiqui will deliver the Margaret Harris Lecture on Religion 2015, entitled ‘Veils, Values and Voices – Religion and the Public Space’, at the University’s Dalhousie Building on Wednesday, 11th November.

Professor Mona Siddiqui is internationally renowned as a public intellectual and media commentator and has been awarded an OBE for her contribution to interfaith services. She has spoken on religion and politics at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and was named in the Debretts 500 list of the most influential people in the UK for 2015. Her most recent book is entitled ‘Hospitality in Islam’.

She said, “At a time when much of the western world is trying to understand and situate the role of religion in the public sphere, Islam has probably become one of the most easily identifiable images of religious life in our urban societies.

“Yet the visibility of Islam has become problematic for many who see the faith and its followers as being opposed to the freedoms of liberal democracies. The diversity of religious belief systems co-existing in society requires an active commitment to certain values. Diversity should not mean that as a society, we hold nothing in common.”

The Margaret Harris Lecture was instituted in 1965 and is named after an early benefactress of the University whose estate endowed its first chair of physics and more recently, in 1973, the Chaplaincy Centre. Past speakers have included the Dalai Lama and leading religious affairs commentators.

The Margaret Harris Lecture 2015, ‘Veils, Values and Voices- Religion and the Public Space’, takes place at the Dalhousie Building, Old Hawkhill, from 5.30pm on Wendesday, November 11th. 

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