Did King John really offer to convert to Islam when he sent an embassy to the Almohad Caliph, al-Nasir in 1215? Which scholars helped translate Arabic works from Arabic into Latin and how did this influence the curriculum at English universities? Why did so many Arabic words enter the English language in the medieval period? What did Salah al-Din and Richard the Lionheart think of each other? Find out which Midlands’ families joined the Third Crusade and what local landmarks served as a base for the Knights Templar.

Join MIAH Foundation for an online talk where historian Dr Neelam Hussain explores these questions and much more as she discusses encounters between the 12^th and 15^th centuries with Dr Fozia Bora, Associate Professor of Islamic History at the University of Leeds. Co-hosted by Rend Nawari.

MIAH Foundation are grateful to the Arab British Centre for their generous funding and support for this event as part of our ‘People, Places, Traces: A Millennium of Arab-British Encounters’ heritage project. This project will also contribute to the Arab British Centre’s Arab Britain digital story archive. You can find details of the rest of the project here.

This is a free online event (via Zoom), open to the public. Please register your interest in attending here and a link will be sent to your email before the event.

This event is part of People, Places, Traces; a project documenting a millennium of interactions and exchanges between the British Isles and the Arab world through a series of public talks, essays and oral history interviews in the East Midlands.

The project is run by the Museum of Islamic Arts & Heritage (MIAH) Foundation and was awarded our Arab Britain commission following an open call in 2022.