iERA Info

The Islamic Education and Research Academy, known simply by its initials iERA, has welcomed a recent report by Universities UK, the body responsible for issuing guidelines/clarifying regulations surrounding the voluntary segregation of sexes at Muslim religious events at British universities. The report addresses concerns voiced by a number of factions expressing opposition to the notion of gender segregation, and contends that imposing an unsegregated area on a religious event whose attendees or speaker(s) are religiously opposed to it is unacceptable. iERA were glad to learn that the report went further, stating that any university or institution hosting such an event in the future should be mindful of preserving religious groups’ rights to freedom of speech/expression, including in relation to gender segregation.

Confusion in relation to the matter erupted in the aftermath of an iERA event held at University College London (UCL) titled “Islam or Atheism: Which Makes More Sense?” on the 9th of March 2013. The event featured a debate involving iERA’s Hamza Tzortzis and UCL’s Professor Lawrence Krauss, but was engulfed in controversy relating to the seating arrangements made by iERA. The controversy culminated in UCL refusing any subsequent bookings from iERA, accusing the academy of “forced segregation”. iERA would later publish the findings of its own externally supervised into UCL’s allegations, which concluded that there was no evidence of forced segregation at the event. Furthermore, this report detailed the manner in which iERA had complied with its duties under the Equality Act 2010, providing both segregated and mixed seating for attendees.

Anti-Islamic groups then began to apply enormous pressure on UCL to break ties with iERA. Saqib Sattar, who is vice chairman of iERA, notes that conversations broke down when UCL bowed to this pressure and took the rash decision to suspend bookings as well as refusing to cooperate with iERA’s investigation. He now feels the latest report by Universities UK vindicates both the arrangements made by iERA and the report launched by his organisation thereafter.

Suffice it to say the confusion erupted in part due to a lack of clarity in regards to regulations at university religious events, compounded by the propaganda issued by anti-Islam organisations. The former has now been resolved in light of Universities UK