Categories : Field-specific (academic)

Legalised Pedigrees: Sayyids and Shiʽi Islam in Pakistan | Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society | Cambridge Core

Legalised Pedigrees: Sayyids and Shiʽi Islam in Pakistan – SIMON WOLFGANG FUCHS

Beyond structure and agency: Rethinking political identities in Iraq after 2003

This paper examines ethno‐symbolic and instrumental explanations of ethnic and sectarian identities placed within the constructivist turn in the study of political identity, both in the abstract and how they have been deployed to explain the increasing contemporary influence of ethnosectarian mobilisation in Iraq and the wider Middle East.

Sunnis and Shi’a

When Muhammad died in 632 without a male heir, Sunnis contended that the choice of a successor should fall to his closest companions, but Shi’a believed that God had inspired the Prophet to appoint his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, as leader. So began a schism that is nearly as old as Islam itself.

The Bektashi Shi’as of Michigan: Pluralism and Orthodoxy within Twelver Shi’ism

Project Associate Mohammad Sagha writes on the Bektashi Shi’a community based in Michigan, USA for the Visions Blog. He explores debates on orthodoxy and heterodoxy within Islam and the need to examine the diversity and pluralism within modern Shi’ism which is often overlooked in larger debates of Islam and the Muslim world.

Zahid Ali Fellowship

The Zahid Ali Fellowship was established in 1997 by The Institute of Ismaili Studies in the name of Professor Zahid Ali (1888-1958), a pioneer of modern Ismaili Studies, at the bequest of Professor Zahid Ali’s son, the late Professor Abid Ali, and his family.

Sunni-Shia Reconciliation in Malaysia

The 1996 fatwa [recognizing “Sunni Islam” as the official religion of Malaysia] was a pivotal turning point that paved the way for subsequent efforts at “othering” the Shia minority, and through this to discredit and deny them their human rights.

Approaches to the Qur’an in Contemporary Iran

Approaches to the Qur’an in Contemporary Iran explores the importance of the Qur’an in the religious, artistic, political, and intellectual discourses in modern and contemporary Iran from the nineteenth century to the present. The chapters included in the volume have been written by some of the most authoritative specialists in the modern history of Iran.

The solitude of the Orphan: Ǧābir b. Ḥayyān and the Shiite heterodox milieu of the third/ninth-fourth/tenth centuries | Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies | Cambridge Core

The community of Shiite alchemists gathered under the pen name of Ǧābir b. Ḥayyān produced an important corpus first studied by Paul Kraus, who dated it between the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries. The religious, doctrinal and political issues of the corpus – especially in the last two collections – show that the Ǧābireans were a real sectarian trend unknown to heresiographers.

A Pioneering Workshop on Legal Maxims

By Kumail Rajani Al-qawāʿid al-fiqhiyya – Islamic legal maxims – have received limited attention in the plethora of works on Islamic law and legal theory published in the last two to three decades. With the aim of further advancing the study of Islamic legal maxims, the Exeter-based LAWALISI (LAW, Authority and Learning in Imami Shiʿite Islam)…

For more information on the LAWALISI project, see here.

Transnational Shi’ism in Southern China and the Party-state’s “Hawza” Diplomacy

This article seeks to transcend the Sunni-centered narratives that often inform the discussions on Islamicate interactions with China. Following a cursory historical view of Shi’ism’s influences on Chinese expressions of Islam, the article presents a rough sketch of the contemporary transnational Shi’ite communities that have emerged over the past few decades in southern China, most notably those of Guangzhou (Guangdong) and Yiwu (Zhejiang).