Last month I visited two universities in Doha, Qatar: Hamad Bin Khalifa University and Qatar University. At Hamad Bin Khalifa, I gave a talk on a linguistic concept I am currently developing, which expands on the concept of heritage literacy that I have been writing about. The talk, titled ‘Heritage Literacy and a Sociolinguistics of Islam’, focused on how, through the proliferation and perpetuation of heritage literacy, vernacular script systems emerge as necessary tools for religious heritage education, further shaping the linguistic landscape of religious (particularly Islamic) practice.

The preservation of sacred religious texts has long been considered a core responsibility of religious institutions. However, a distinction exists between traditions that prioritise maintaining sacred texts in their original language and form, and those that permit or encourage translation, vernacularisation, and indigenisation. The latter type is where Islamic sociolinguistics should function as a heuristic tool.

This was the first time that I presented on my Hong Kong data and the ideas were well received, such that this is now being written up into a theoretical article. many thanks to the College of Humanties and Social Sciences at HBKU and Dept of English Literature & Linguistics for allowing me to visit them.