News: Research

In a joint project, the University of Toronto’s Institute of Islamic Studies seeks a researcher to write a report on the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and allegations of its discriminatory practices against religious minorities and persons of colour with specific focus on access to and respect for legal counsel.

Last March, 2021, the Institute of Islamic Studies (IIS) was pleased to host the online platform for Under Layered Suspicion: A Review of CRA Audits of Muslim-led Charities. The report was the fruit of a collaborative research and engagement process led by Anver Emon, Director of the IIS, and Nadia Z. Hasan, Chief Operations Officer of the National […]

After nearly 50 years of obscurity, a large collection of rare manuscripts in the basement of the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library has found new life as the Institute of Islamic Studies (IIS) and the University of Toronto Libraries (UTL) agreed upon and implemented a plan to catalogue this collection, thereby opening it up to […]

We at the IIS are proud to launch a new research report, in partnership with National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), called “Under Layered Suspicion: A Review of CRA Audits of Muslim-led Charities”. The report can be found at: layeredsuspicion.ca The report finds potential biases and prejudicial policies that influence the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) […]

We’re very excited to share some updates from the Reading Muslims project, as we develop the project throughout the year ahead. About Reading Muslims Reading Muslims is an interdisciplinary conversation on the role of texts and textuality within Islamic studies. The project re-examines the methodological assumptions surrounding the history and use of texts across a […]

A report was recently published by the Institute of Islamic Studies (IIS), led by Dr. Sarah Shah, on the status of health data and research on Canadian Muslims. The paper titled “Canadian Muslim Health Exceptionalism—Community Consultation” is available to the public here: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/102879 Abstract:This report follows a recent scoping review on Canadian Muslim health. The […]

On Oct 16th, a French schoolteacher in the suburbs of Paris named Samuel Paty was murdered by a Muslim man for showing his classroom caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The aftermath has placed Islam and Muslims under scrutiny with the government claiming that “Islamist separatism” is challenging the Republic’s values and unity. In this podcast, […]

MiCA partners Memorial University and Muslim Association of Newfoundland and Labrador (MANAL) have been awarded an SSHRC grant to launch the Muslim Narratives and Lives in Newfoundland and Labrador Community Project (MNL in NL Community Project). Lead by co-PIs Jennifer Selby and Ayse Sule Akinturk, the project will both locate and create archival materials to […]

The Institute of Islamic Studies will launch in Fall 2020 a new research collected entitled Reading Muslims. Supported with a recently awarded grant from UofT’s Connaught Global Challenge Fund, Reading Muslims will be lead by Co-PIs Anver M. Emon and IIS Post-Doctoral Fellow Youcef Soufi. Over the next two years, Reading Muslims will host a […]

In 1973, David Esplin, then associate chief librarian of the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library, purchased from Sulaiman’s Book Shop in Beirut, Lebanon, a collection of almost 1,200 manuscripts. These texts were primarily in Arabic and from the 19th century, although some go back as far as the 17th. This collection, in its astounding number […]

As stated in the inaugural director’s message in September 2019, the IIS is committed to advancing the scale and scope of advanced research.  This year, we began with two research labs, the Study of Islam and Muslims in Canada (SIMiC) and Between the Straits.  We are pleased to announce the formation of a third research […]

Over the course of two weekends in the month of August 2018, a graduate research team from Université de Montréal conducted field work in Toronto out of the IIS offices. We were a team of about ten Masters and Doctoral students from UdM’s sociology department. Our project, entitled “Political Fictions : An analysis of fictional […]