The borough’s most prominent Muslim campaigners against terrorism are branching into academic circles.

Forest Gate’s branch of international organisation Minhaj-ul-Qur’an invited Shaykh Bilal Hussain to speak on human rights at Queen Mary University on Wednesday.

In this first trip to the Tower Hamlets-based university, Shaykh Bilal Hussain led a seminar on Islam’s place in modern times.

Minhaj-ul-Qur’an’s communication liaison officer Adnan Sohail said the answers offered at the seminar provided a guide to the objectives of Islam.

“This timely seminar endeavoured to tackle a number of the most pressing religious questions of our age,” he said. “Against the backdrop of an ever-increasing discourse about the ‘future of Islam’, and with a deluge of calls for the ‘reformation’ of Islam, the need to understand the true nature and relevance Islam has never been greater.”

Following the format of a university-level seminar, the session began with an examination of Islam’s legal framework, before exploring the religion’s scriptures and the sanctity of life in Islam.

Adnan believes understanding these issues is vital to learn the true role of Islam in the world, particularly in relation to human rights.

“It helped provide a road map for pursuing and appreciating the higher objectives of religion from a traditional Islamic perspective,” he said. “The scriptural study perused references from the Qur’an and Hadith in their explication of the indisputable inviolability of life, and the unequivocal prohibition of indiscriminate killing.”

“As a case study of the higher objectives and principles of Islam, the seminar covered topics such as human rights in Islam, and how the universal principles guide

and govern the particulars of the Law.”

The seminar was part of Minhaj-ul-Qur’an’s Seekers scheme, which attempts to utilise academic approaches to Islam to better communicate its approach to human rights.

It is overseen by the group’s own charity, Minhaj Welfare Foundation, which in September took aid to migrants in Calais camps.

Seekers is part of the group’s recently-launched Peace Education Programme, which has seen the group’s global leader Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri call for education of young people to battle “radicalisation”.

Dr Qadri launched the initiative in June, following on from his ruling against terrorism, which he published in 2010.