Categories : Field-specific (academic)

Introducing: Studies in Shiʿi Materiality
Series editors: Karen Ruffle, University of Toronto & Babak Rahimi, University of California, San Diego

This new, interdisciplinary book series is the first dedicated to material practices, ritual, embodiment and the sensorium in Shiʿism, seeking to understand Islamic practices in everyday contexts from a broad historical and theoretical perspective.

> Focuses on lived Shiʿism as a lived tradition that is multiplex and creative rather than singular in expression
> Engages with all periods of history
> Features studies of Shiʿi communities including Ithna ʿAshari, Ismaʿili (Nizari and Tayyibi), Zaydi, Druze, Bektashi, Alevi, Nusayri, and ʿAlid traditions including Sufism
> Covers Shiʿi and ʿAlid traditions in South, Central and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Turkey, the Caucasus, Africa, Europe, North America and Australia
> Encourages interdisciplinary approaches and methods

Find out more on the Studies in Shiʿi Materiality series page.

The 2024 Annual Conference of the British Association for Islamic Studies final programme can be viewed online here: www.brais.ac.uk/conferences/brais-2024, including

The Science of Hadith Across Time and Tradition
Chair: Haroon Sidat (Cardiff University)
Ahmed Ragab Abu Zayd (University of Wales TSD), The Historicity of Biographical Sources on Ḥadīth Narrators: Why Al-Mizzī’s Tahdhīb Al-Kamāl Is Larger than Its Source?
Zachary Wright (Northwestern University), Sufism and Hadith Scholarship in the Eighteenth Century: the Writings of Muḥammad Ḥayāt al-Sindī
Haider Hobballah (Al-Mahdi Institute), The Emergence of the Hadith Critique Movement in the Twentieth Century Shīʿī Context: The Case of Abū al-Faḍl al-Burqaʾī
Amina Inloes (The Islamic College), Eclipses and Lament in Twelver Shīʿī Ḥadīth

Global Perspectives on Gender, Identity and Society
Chair: Alyaa Ebbiary (University of Lancaster)
Giammarco Mancinelli (École pratique des hautes études), Second generations and the mosque in Italy: Feminisation without feminism
Muhammad Tajri (Al-Mahdi Institute), Denying Dichotomy?: The Intersection of LGB Shīʿa Muslims
Ummul Fayiza Puthiya Peedikayil (University of Warwick), Muslim Women’s Rights and the Codification of Muslim Personal Law in India: Revisiting the Enactment of Muslim Women Act 1986
Ayesha Ulhaq (University of Cambridge) A qualitative study of Muslim women’s safety and resilience in the face of individual and cultural trauma in Britain

Of Coming and Becoming: Muslim Identities in Europe
Chair: Alyaa Ebbiary (University of Lancaster)
Jaffer A Mirza (King’s College London), The early Shi’a religious spaces in Britain (1960s-1970s)
Sayed Mahdi Mosawi (University of Edinburgh), Religious Dynamics in Transition: A Study of Hazara Migrants in Scotland
Akif Tahiiev (Goethe University Frankfurt), Becoming a Shia in Russia: understanding the reasons of Conversion to Shi’ism in Russia
Thijl Sunier (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Branding Islam: Claims-Making, Knowledge Production and Academic legitimation

Sufi Knowledge Production in Pre-Modern Islam
Chair: Saeko Yazaki (University of Glasgow)
Faris Abdel-hadi (University of Exeter), The Aporia of Interpreting a Premodern Andalusian Mystic: Ibn ʿArabī’s Religious Pluralism
Eyad Abuali (Cardiff University), Space, Affect, and Imagination in the Transmission of Knowledge in medieval Sufism
Zoheir Esmail (Al-Mahdi Institute), Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī and the Oneness of Being in al-Muḥīṭ al-Aʿẓam
Bronislav Ostřanský (Czech Academy of Sciences), Sufi Dreams as a Tool of Spiritual Guidance: The Example of al-Risāla al-Qushayrīya

W.M. Watt Lecture
Arabic has been taught at the University of Edinburgh for over 260 years, and today our department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies (IMES) is globally recognised as a leading centre in the field.
From his appointment as Lecturer in Arabic in 1947, until his retirement as Professor in 1979, William Montgomery Watt made an outstanding contribution both to Islamic scholarship and to the development of IMES.
The inaugural Watt Lecture was launched in November 2015 to mark the 50th anniversary of Watt’s Inaugural Lecture as the first Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies in Scotland.

The 2024 lecture
We are delighted to welcome Professor Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (École Pratique des Hautes Études – Sorbonne) to deliver the seventh annual W.M. Watt Lecture.
For more information and to register, click here.

At the upcoming Ninth Annual International Conference on Shi‘i Studies, 11 May, 2024, ICAS Press will celebrate its silver jubilee with the release of its largest publication to date: Al-Asfa, A 17th-Century Shi‘i Exegesis of the Qur’an by Mulla Muhsin Fayd Kashani.

All other ICAS Press books will be available at a 40% discount.

See the conference schedule and register here.

Zahra Ali Syed
Towards a Sustainable Arbaeen: Advocating for a Plastic-Free Pilgrimage in Iraq
Wednesday (exceptionally) Majlis Online on the 15th of May, 17:00-18:30 (UK time)
Centre for the Study of Islam, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter
Register please on this link:
https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwtfu6urTMjHNQIy-gFG9vRSwPaXwi1smsB

Oxford Political Thought Seminar on 8 May.
Tahera Qutbuddin and Nebil Husayn as speakers, addressing the theme of “Alids.”

Speaker 1: Tahera Qutbuddin
Title: Just Governance in the Teachings and Practice of Imam Ali
Speaker 2: Nebil Husayn
Title: The Family of Ali as Political Thinkers

Date: 8 May, 2024
Time: 4-5.30pm (UK time)
Venue: Online Zoom
Registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7o2XvHfAT9CNFYoHI5K53g

The book is Open Access, and the PDF may be downloaded from Brill’s website and shared freely.