Spiritual Abuse in the Muslim Context 2025
Held on 24 April 2025 on the banks of Loch Lomond, this landmark conference was the first of its kind in the UK to centre the topic of spiritual abuse within the Muslim context bringing together scholars, practitioners, and community organisations, researchers and survivors for a day of dialogue, learning, and collective accountability.
Why It Mattered
Spiritual abuse remains one of the least understood and most silenced forms of harm in Muslim contexts. This conference created space to ask difficult but necessary questions:
How does religious authority get misused?
What does spiritual harm look like in practice?
How can faith and ethics guide responses to abuse?
Rooted in Islamic epistemologies, the event held space for both critical reflection and constructive solution-building, always centred around the lived realities of survivors.
Each keynote offered a distinct perspective on power, accountability, faith, and healing from legal frameworks to theological ethics to grassroots experience.
What the Day Offered
Community-led conversations on harm, healing, and justice
Theological exploration of spiritual abuse and religious misuse
Workshops and panel discussions with scholars, therapists, and community organisers
A space for honest reflection, connection, and the beginning of a wider movement