Categories : Field-specific (academic)

Angels Hastening: The Karbalāʾ Dreams

Christopher Clohessy, resident faculty member of Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI), and visiting lecturer at the Pontifical Beda College also in Rome.

When, on an autumn Medina night in 61/680, the night that saw al-Ḥusayn killed, Umm Salama was torn from her sleep by an apparition of a long-dead Muḥammad, she slipped effortlessly into a progression of her co-religionists who, irrespective of status, gender or standing with God, were the recipients of dark and arresting visions. At the core of those Delphian dreams, peopled by angels or ğinn or esteemed forbears and textured with Iraqi dust and martyrs’ blood, was the Karbalāʾ event. Her dream would be recounted by an array of Muslim scholars, from al-Tirmiḏī, stellar pupil of al-Buḫārī, and Ibn ʿAsākir, untiring chronicler of Syrian history, to bibliophile theologian Ibn Ṭāʾūs and Egyptian polymath al-Suyūṭī. But this was not Umm Salama’s only otherworldly encounter and she was not the only one to have al-Ḥusayn’s fate disturb her nights. This presentation will explore their story.

Register in advance here. After registering, you will receive an email containing information about joining the event.

Hosted by Sabine Schmidtke (School of Historical Studies, IAS) and George A. Kiraz (School of Historical Studies, IAS and Editor-in-Chief, Gorgias Press) in cooperation with Angelos Chaniotis (School of Historical Studies, IAS).

For more information, please contact ds@ias.edu

Webinar: Covering Contemporary Shiism in Europe: Methodological Insights, 9 March 2022 10:00 AM CET
Convener and chair: Minoo Mirshahvalad (FSCIRE)

Oliver Scharbrodt (Lund University), Using a Spatial Methodology in the Study of Diasporic Religions: The Example of Transnational Twelver Shia Islam in Europe
Ingvild Flaskerud (University of Oslo), Reflections on methodological challenges in the ethnographic study of Shi’is in Europe: Access to the field and comparable findings
Avi Astor (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), Analyzing the Performative Dimensions of Shia Public Ritual in the Diaspora
Fouad Gehad Marei (University of Birmingham), How To Do No Harm: Reflections towards a responsible ethnography of Shi‘i Islam

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88389117597?pwd=NGZMNkVOclBnRHRweTJ6ajZTWDBhQT09
ID meeting: 883 8911 7597
Passcode: 666752

CfP: “Materiality, Rituals and Senses: The Dynamic World of Lived Shi‘i Islam”, Tbilisi, Georgia, 19 – 21 October 2022
This conference explores the material, ritual and sensory forms of expression that constitute and shape the experiences of Shi‘i Muslims in diverse geographies and different time periods. It therefore seeks to uncover the dynamics of lived Shi‘i Islam and its varied temporal and spatial dimensions.
Themes: Devotion and ritual practice and its multiple sensory, material, embodied and aesthetic forms; Gendered dimensions of Shi‘i cultural production; Translocal and transnational entanglements and flows of ideas, capital, and people; Political economy of Shi‘i cultural production; Impact of regional and world politics on content and form in Shi‘i cultural production.
We welcome research on various subdivisions of Shi‘i Islam, including the Twelver, Ismaili, and Zaidi subbranches, as well as research on Alid piety and different forms of devotion to ahl al-bayt more generally. Scholars of all career levels and disciplinary and interdisciplinary backgrounds are encouraged to submit an abstract, including from Anthropology, Area Studies, Cultural Studies, History, Islamic Studies, Media Studies, Political Science, Religious Studies, Sociology, Ethnomusicology and other relevant and related disciplines and fields.
Deadline for abstracts: 15 April 2022.
Further information:
https://www.ctr.lu.se/en/about-us/calendar/event/materiality-rituals-and-senses-dynamic-world-lived-shii-islam/

Al-Mahdi Institute is now enrolling for courses in Islamic Studies starting on the 28th February 2022. Courses available for enrollment are Hadith & Rijal Studies, Arabic Level One and Islamic Ethics which can be studied virtually live on-demand at anytime and place.

Deadline for applications is Thursday 24th February 2022.

Find out more or apply now: https://mailchi.mp/almahdi.edu/islamicfeb2022semester

💯 World-class line-up of over 60 panelists and world-renowned presenters, in the world’s largest virtual conference, with over 110 global collaborations.

https://conferenceimamali.com/?mc_cid=9ff1f768cd&mc_eid=745ddc2b63

IMES Research Seminar Series
University of Edinburgh, Spring 2022
“De-centring (the study of) Shiʿism”

Note the rescheduling of the IMES research seminar of 21 February, which will offer two fascinating presentations by IMES PhD candidates Lucy Deacon and Carlos Mendez.

The new date for this seminar is Monday 28 March at 17:15. Those who had already registered for the talk should not need to register again. Here is the registration link, both just in case and also to review the full list of presentations https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYlcuyvqjgvHdaSodYsuXt5D9W4T3lim0DW

Lucy Deacon (UoE)
Karbala from Canvas to Stage: The Influence of Traditional Storytelling on the Iranian Taʿziyeh
Carlos Mendez (UoE)
Exploring the Intra-Shiʿi Moral Panic behind the Controversial Film “The Lady of Heaven”

‘To be God’s Sign in the Age of Globalisation: MarjaꜤiyya between Crisis and Progress’
Contacts: Minoo Mirshahvalad, Bianka Speidl // mmirshahvalad2@gmail.com
More information at:
http://www.sesamoitalia.it/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/25.-Mirshahvalad-and-Speidl.pdf

The XV Conference of SeSaMO, Explaining Crisis, Beyond Chaos. The Middle East and North Africa in Global Change will take place in presence at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’, Naples – Italy the 22-24 of June 2022.

The Psycho-Architectonics of the Imżā Inscriptions: Denotations and Connotations of Text in the Arts of the Safavids

The Courtauld, University of London
March 3, 2022, 18:00-19:30 (London)

By Dr. Mahroo Moosavi

By working between the two media of art and literature, this paper challenges some manners by which the textually infused arts of the early modern Iran have been conventionally perceived. While through the inherited discourse of Western art history, the inscription or epigraph is an appurtenance of the object’s visual and thematic language or is, on some occasions, reduced to a purely scientific and palaeographic element, this paper suggests an alternate discourse that extends the significance of such texts, especially the imżā [signature] inscriptions, beyond the normative, emphasising their particular agency as possible strategic ‘interventions’ envisioned and adopted by the artist, architect, or the patron.

Tracing its earlier roots in the increasing use and thematic specificities of text in the artistic productions of the Persianate societies from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries onwards, this paper aims to open the current methodologies and understandings of the arts of the Safavids (1501-1722 AD) to a rereading. It does so by engaging with the ‘signature inscriptions’ as systematic architectonic design strategies that constantly de and re construct the object/space and the inter-woven micro politico-cultural context around it through activating the emotive-cognitive recipients of the user. By focusing on a number of cases such as the early seventeenth century mosque of Luṭfullāh in Isfahan and the mid-sixteenth century Sultan Ibrāhīm Mīrzā’s manuscript of Haft Awrang of Jāmī, this study shows how the application of text in the arts of early modern Iran operates as a mechanism through which the boundaries between different branches of art and knowledge may blur, making space for the reception and perception of art as an abstruse apparatus that functions through the layers of connotations of Persian psyche, language and literature.

Dr Mahroo Moosavi is Bahari Fellow in the Persian Arts of the Book at University of Oxford, Oliver Smithies Lecturer at Balliol College, University of Oxford, and Lecturer in architectural history, theory, and design at the University of Sydney. Her research is concerned with the intertext of art/architecture and poetry/prose, with a particular focus on the early modern Iran, through an interdisciplinary study of art/architectural history, literature, and post-structuralist philosophy. Her current project analyses the interpretations of form and structure of rhetorical devices in the chancellery writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Iran to discern possible resonances within the artistic and urban system of the new city of Isfahan.

Please register at: https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/imza/

1. “Tekye-ye Dowlat” a documentary
Babak Rahimi is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Tekye-ye Dowlat
Time: Feb 15, 2022 12:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

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2. “Photography of Moharram Rituals inside the Golestan Palace(1860s-1900s)”
Pedram Khosronejad (Powerhouse Museum, Sydney)
Time: Feb 17, 2022 02:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

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Meeting ID: 994 0483 8317

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Meeting ID: 994 0483 8317
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