Integration or Isolation: Black Shi’ism in the American Diaspora
Liyakat Takim McMaster University, Ontario, Canada Keywords: double-minority, American Shi’is, Twelver Shi’ism, Black Shiʿi, Shi’i Islam In a country that claims to be founded on Judeo-Christian values, the experiences of minority groups such as Muslims are often relegated to the margins of discourses on religion.
In Praise of the Few. Studies in Shiʿi Thought and History
In Praise of the Few: Studies in Shiʿi Thought and History is a selection of Etan Kohlberg’s research on Shiʿi Islam over a period of fifty years. It includes previously published articles, revised dissertation chapters, and a full bibliography of the author’s work.
Al-Mahdi Institute is offering three fully funded scholarships for its Four-year Hawza Programme, starting in September 2020. The Hawza Programme offers students the opportunity to engage in an in-depth study of religion, theology and language through the integration of traditional Islamic sciences taught at seminaries of Qom and Najaf, with modern approaches and theories. On completion, students are awarded a postgraduate MA in Islamic Studies by the University of Birmingham. The scholarship, available to UK/EU students, includes on-campus accommodation, monthly stipends of £200 and the full MA course fees in the final year. Find out more or apply now here. The deadline for applications is Monday 31st August 2020.
Political Repression in Bahrain | Middle East history
Exploring Bahrain’s modern history through the lens of repression, this concise and accessible account work spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, looking at all forms of political repression from legal, statecraft, police brutality and informational controls.
Iran and the Deccan
In the early 1400s, Iranian elites began migrating to the Deccan plateau of southern India. Lured to the region for many reasons, these poets, traders, statesmen, and artists of all kinds left an indelible mark on the Islamic sultanates that ruled the Deccan until the late seventeenth century.
Shi’i division over the Iraqi state: decentralization and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq
This article traces the evolving political platform of one of Iraq’s oldest and most powerful Shi’i political parties, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). Drawing on an analysis of 15 years of primary materials produced by ISCI, it focuses principally on their promotion of decentralization as a path towards peace and stability in Iraq.
Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Religious Healing and Sacred Health Curing: Online Documentary Film Program and Debate (week 1). After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.
A virtual documentary film presentation and debate organized by the Network of the Anthropology of the Middle East and Central Eurasia of EASA in collaboration with the Religion and Society Research Cluster, Western Sydney University. Introduction to the program by Dr. P. Khosronejad (Western Sydney University), and debate by Dr. R.
Week 1 Film Presentation:
THE SMELL OF DUST
Majed Neisi, 2002, 11 minutes, Iran.
Synopsis
During the sacred month of Moharram in Iran, Shiite Muslims mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hossein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad. A rumour spread throughout the city of Ahwaz in the south of Iran: Imam Hossein had been sighted in an earth soccer field where the annual passion play (Taziyeh) commemorating him was being performed. The earth of the field was said to be blessed and to miraculously heal the infirm. People came out in droves, often with their infirm in tow; people unable to speak, blind people, cripples, and many more, brought together by their faith in miracles.
Al-Karkh: the Development of an Imāmī-Shīʿī Stronghold in Early Abbasid and Būyid Baghdad (132-447/750-1055)
Abstract Following the foundation of Baghdad by Caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 136-158/754-775) in 145/762, the neighbourhood of al-Karkh attracted many Imāmī scholars, becoming the centre of the Imāmī wikāla (network of deputies of the Imām) in the late 3rd/9th century, and then the heart of the Imāmī ḥawza (seminary) and the rationalist school of theology which developed under the Būyids (333-447/945-1055).
Colour, Light and Wonder in Islamic Art – Saqi Books
Colour, Light and Wonder in Islamic Art Home> Books> Saqi>Colour, Light and Wonder in Islamic Art The experience of colour in Islamic visual culture has historically been overlooked. In this new approach, Idries Trevathan examines the language of colour in Islamic art and architecture in dialogue with its aesthetic contexts, offering insights into the pre-modern Muslim experience of interpreting colour.
The seventeenth-century Shah Mosque in Isfahan, Iran, represents one of the finest examples of colour-use on a grand scale. Here, Trevathan examines the philosophical and mystical traditions that formed the mosque’s backdrop. He shows how careful combinations of colour and design proportions in Islamic patterns expresses knowledge beyond that experienced in the corporeal world, offering another language with which to know and experience God. Colour thus becomes a spiritual language, calling for a re-consideration of how we read Islamic aesthetics.
