Introduction

In the basement of Ealing Town Hall in West London, several dozen young men and women, dressed mostly in black and green, mill around a number of charity and marketing stalls. Amongst the stalls giving out food, water and tea, and those selling books about Shi‘a Islam and CDs of religious eulogies (known as latmiyyat), are several promoting British and international charities, including the Al-Ayn Foundation, the Iraqi Children's Aid and Repair Endeavour (ICARE), the Imam Hussain Blood Donation Campaign (an offshoot of the Islamic Unity Society and affiliated to the NHS), and the ‘Who Is Hussain?’ campaign. The various charities’ representatives give out leaflets and flyers to the attendees, raising awareness about the work they do on the ground in Iraq and the UK and soliciting donations and offers of volunteering from the crowd.

This is a snapshot from London's second annual Imam Hussain Conference, an English-language event organised and run by a group of young British-born Iraqi Shi‘ites and held on 9 November 2014. Along with a full programme of events, including speeches and talks on topics such as ‘Exploring Imam Hussain's proof for the existence of God’ and ‘Hussain: The reality of an eternal martyr’, the conference also represented an opportunity for young British Shi‘ites to connect with the wider Shi‘a world and be exposed to humanitarian and political trends on the ground in Iraq. The presence of charitable organisations at the conference thus constituted a way for second-generation Iraqis in the diaspora to feel connected to and participate in the shaping of Iraqi civil society. However, the fact that these charities – all of which are in some way affiliated to Shi‘a religious networks – represented the only meaningful link to Iraq at the event suggests that, for young Britishborn Shi‘ites at least, orientations towards Iraq are increasingly being channelled through networks of charity and patronage that are explicitly tied to sectarian religious notions of identity and belonging.