An outline of my some of my previous Intellectual Enquiries and résumé.

A deep enquiry into Islam and the West

As an undergraduate I became fascinated with the complexity and confusion surrounding the relationship between Islam and the West. The breakdown and lack of depth ‘sensemaking’ led into a multi-layered enquiry/rabbit hole lasting 4 years. I delved into the history of Western political polarisation on these questions and the shifting historical perspectives on generalisations like ‘Islam’ and ‘Islamism’ or ‘political Islam’. The enquiry ranged from contemporary Jihadist insurgency and CVE/CNVE responses into the history of that movement dating back and prior to the Afghan Jihad 1989. The polarisation around the Charlie Hebdo Attacks in 2015 was particulary striking to me and became my undergraduate thesis: 'Nous Sommes Tous Charlie? Changing attitudes to Islamist blasphemy controversies from the Rushdie Affair to Charlie Hebdo’.

As I went deeper I increasingly found the discourse at the CVE and government affiliated foreign policy think tanks to be lacking depth. There was an ingrained modernist approach distorted further by the market incentives in media and constraints in the ability of that conversation to delve deeper into the psycho, religious, cultural and historical layers. During my time in the Terrorism, Security & Society MA program associated with the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation I completed my largest piece of work ‘Power, History & The Sacred-Islam in Modernity: A re-appraisal’. I drew out three novel aspects the role of Islamic historical consciousness, the role of historical pragmatism across a spectrum of Islamic states and Salafist and Islamist groups as well as an examination of the rapid shifts in Western perception of Islam from medieval christendom to the enlightenment and contemporary secular and modern West.

Finding such an absence of deep, open and enquiring conversation in my 4 years I ultimately moved beyond the questions I had begun with. I knew that I needed to look much more deeply into conversation, into myself and the nature of human experience to find a place for this conversation to be had.

Résumé:

Studies:

History (BA) Queen Mary University of London: Thesis ‘Nous Sommes Tous Charlie? Changing Attitudes to Islamist Blasphemy Controversies in the West from the Rushdie Affair to Charlie Hebdo’. Awarded Special Subject Prize for outstanding grade.

Terrorism, Security & Society (MA) King’s College London: Thesis ‘Power, History & The Sacred: A re-appraisal of Islam in Modernity’

Internships & Experience:

Events Assistant, Rebel Wisdom-Assisted in live events and the Rebel Wisdom Summit 2019. Zoom facilitator for online festivels during lockdown ‘Resilience & Sensemaking’, ‘Clarity & Connection’ and the ‘Rebel Wisdom Festival’ (5k attendees).

Research Assistant, The Henry Jackson Society

Acting primarily as a research assistant I aided in an array of projects including the Global Britain initiative for which I helped gather and crunch data assessing nations differing geo-political strengths on the world stage. As well as this I partook in a number of projects for the Centre for the Study of Terrorism covering both Islamist and Far right extremism. This included gathering and analysis of extremist video content and the extensive research and development of profiles on Islamist terror attacks in Europe. I also engaged in an independent research project investigating the nature of Ramadan Jihadism over the course of the internship resulting in a report and Op-ed.
Non-research based activity included assisting in the running of Parliamentary events and report launches. I created media audits for the Director of Communications as well as compiling and editing a daily news brief for the organisation's subscriber base.

Volunteer Training, Campaign assistance Local and National, Liberal Democrats, 2015