The research that has been brought together in this volume was intended to be presented at the 4th Birmingham Spring Islam Conference in April 2020. Individually, we have both had a longstanding interest in the ways European Islamic studies is being reformed in response to demographic changes in European states, concerns over security and integration, higher education policy reforms, and social and political conflict over university curricula. We wanted to bring together experts from across Europe with the aim of creating a volume that can provide insight into the extent of these changes across Europe and the varied ways states have responded to a broadly similar set of issues.

In the event, this conference had to be held virtually due to the lockdowns brought about by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic earlier in the year. This meant, of course, that it was not possible to have the in-depth discussions of the draft papers which can normally take place face to face. However, meeting on Zoom meant that we could have participants from further afield who would not have been able to take part in a conventional event – meaning that this collection has a wider range of contributions. Despite the unfavourable circumstances we held some good critical evaluations of the draft papers on Zoom in a meeting spread over two days. Responses to those discussions and further written comments from participants led to the present volume.

We are grateful to Emma House and Isobel Birks at Edinburgh University Press and to the two anonymous reviewers whose comments were very helpful to us in producing the final versions of the papers. We also want to thank colleagues at the Muslims in Britain Research Network for supporting and promoting the conference. We owe a particular debt of gratitude to Dr Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor for agreeing to provide a concluding chapter reflecting on the contents of the volume.