GISC Conference. Nature & Islamic Creative Expressions

Nature & Islamic Creative Expressions
February 6-7, 2026
Cahoots, 206 E Huron St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Visit https://myumi.ch/9p8xx for full conference details.

The Nature and Islamic Creative Expressions conference, organized jointly by Aliyah Khan, Director of the Global Islamic Studies Center (GISC) and Associate Professor, and Christiane Gruber, Professor in the Department of the History of Art and founder of Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online, will be held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on February 6-7, 2026. A dozen scholars and practitioners of global Islamic art and narratives will examine Islam’s relationship to the natural world over the centuries and consider how Islamic thought and Muslim traditions offer alternative solutions to today’s ecological challenges.

We study and leverage the intersections of ecology and spirituality by drawing on the deep knowledge of diverse fields, including art history, Islamic philosophy and theology, Muslim cultural studies, literary studies, architecture, and community activism in locales from the Ottoman Empire to Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Trinidad. Our aim is to identify what historical and contemporary Islamic perspectives on nature offer to unfolding global conversations about the earth and our shared and symbiotic human, animal, and plant futures, thus building sustainable futures and potentially interrupting the Anthropocene.

Featuring the work of:
Christiane Gruber | University of Michigan, Organizer
Aliyah Khan | University of Michigan, Organizer
Omolade Adunbi | University of Michigan
Katherine Bartsch | University of Adelaide, Australia
Patricia Blessing | Stanford University
Gohar Dashti | Visual Artist
Anna M. Gade | University of Wisconsin, Madison
Sune Haugbølle | Roskilde University, Denmark
Charlotte Maury | Louvre Museum, Paris
Mohamed Amer Meziane | Brown University
Amanda Phillips | University of Virginia
Elizabeth Rauh | The American University in Cairo
Saleema Waraich | Skidmore College

The Nature and Islamic Creative Expressions conference is free and open to all University of Michigan students, faculty, staff, and the public. All sessions will be held at the Cahoots Ann Arbor Event Space, 206 E. Huron St., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104.

This conference is brought to you by the Global Islamic Studies Center and the Department of the History of Art, and cosponsored by: the Institute for the Humanities, the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the Department of American Culture, the Arab and Muslim American Studies Program, the Program in the Environment, the Center for Middle Eastern & North African Studies and the Islamophobia Working Group.


*Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
Email: -- islamicstudies@umich.edu