Categories : Field-specific (academic)

SEMINAR

TO COMMEMORATE THE MARTYRDOM OF

IMAM ALI (a.s.)

SUNDAY 1st MARCH 2026 – 2:00 PM

VENUE – REGENT’S UNIVERSITY LONDON
TUKE HALL
INNER CIRCLE, REGENT’S PARK, LONDON NW1 4NS

Tube station: Baker Street

Chair: Professor Robert Gleave

Robert Gleave is Professor of Arabic Studies in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, UK. He researches the history of Shīʿīsm, with a particular interest in Shiite Law. His most recent collaborative publications are (with Kumail Rajani) Shi’ite Legal Theory: Sources and Commentaries (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press / Gibb Memorial Trust, 2023) and (with Omar Anchassi), Islamic Law in Context: A Primary Source Reader (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). He has carried out research into the history of Shiism and the Shiite communities in Iran, Iraq and India. He is currently British Academy Wolfson Professor – and is completing a monograph on the history of Shiite law in the early 19th century CE.

Dr Reza Shah-Kazemi

Nothing but Beauty: Hazrat Zaynab and the Meaning of Bearing Witness

Dr Reza Shah-Kazemi is an author in the fields of Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion; Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies; and Managing Editor of Encyclopaedia Islamica. He studied International Relations and Politics at Sussex and Exeter Universities before obtaining his PhD in Comparative Religion from the University of Kent.

Shaykh Dr Gulamabbas Murtaza Lakha

Interfaith Reflections on the Psalms of Imām ʿAlī (as) and the Old Testament

Shaykh Dr Gulamabbas Murtaza Lakha is a researcher and tutor in Psychology of Religion at the University of Oxford. His first degree in Economics & Econometrics was followed by the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and entrepreneurship, serving as CEO of an investment firm he founded in 2004. Concurrently, he earned four postgraduate degrees in Psychology and Neuroscience (including neuroimaging of dhikr practice for an MSc dissertation), Theology, Islamic Studies, History and Arabic, with an MPhil thesis on commentaries of al-Ṣaḥīfa al-Sajjādiyya, together with papers on early biographical dictionaries (ṭabaqāt) on Imām Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (as) and Shaykh al-Kulaynī. He continued at Oxford University for a DPhil in Psychiatry, examining how Islamic concepts and practices can inform psychotherapeutic treatments. Following religious training over two decades, he has lectured widely on contemporary Islam and was accredited as a Shaykh in 2020 by the Hākim al-Sharʿ for Europe of Grand Ayatullah Sistani.

AN OPEN INVITATION
PLEASE BE SEATED BY 2:00 PM
ORGANISER & SPONSOR: THE AHMED FAMILY – C/O MUHAMMADI TRUST (020 8452 1739)

The first lecture of 2026 in our online series, “Material Culture, Art, and Architecture of Pre-Safavid Shīʿism” will take place on Zoom on Wednesday, February 18th at 15:30 CET:

The Emamzadeh Yahya Project: Reflections on an Interdisciplinary and Independent Research Initiative and Online Exhibition

with Keelan Overton

If you would like to attend, please register here: https://universiteitleiden.zoom.us/meeting/register/MGNA8u2HT3Ca1RG5ubxtXA

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with information on how to join the meeting.

To stay updated on upcoming events, learn more about our broader project, “Embodied Imamate: Mapping the Development of the Early Shīʿi Community 700–900 CE,” or watch recordings of previous lectures in this series, please visit our YouTube channel (Embodied Imamate) and our website: https://embodiedimamate.hcommons.org/.

Shiʿi Studies Symposium 2026: “Ritual in Shiʿi Islam”, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 15-16 May 2026

The symposium explores the practices through which Shiʿi institutional, communal, and theological commitments are enacted and contested. We welcome papers with a variety of approaches, spanning the earliest periods of Shiʿism up through the contemporary moment.

Deadline for abstracts: 28 February 2026. Information: https://tinyurl.com/5y4nnjut

【Call for Papers】International Conference “Sunnis” and “Shiʿis” across History: Confessional Identities, Mutual Perceptions, and Academic (Mis)Conceptions

Articles on “Alevism: History, Religion, and Transformation” for a Special Issue of the Open Access Journal “Religions”
We welcome historical, ethnographic, comparative, and theoretical perspectives from religious studies, anthropology, history, sociology, ethnomusicology, and political science to situate Alevism within broader debates on religion and modernity.
Deadline for abstracts: 15 January 2027.
Information:
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/167FG68S4I

For more information, click here.

Shaping the Dawn of Islam in Germany (1983-1989): Al-Fadschr, the Twelver Shiite Magazine of the Islamic Center Hamburg
Oriento Moderno

Due to current events (including the inaccessibility of some digital libraries and research databases), the deadline for submitting abstracts for the 11th Annual Conference on Shi‘i Studies has been extended to 31 January 2026.