Categories : Field-specific (academic)

The Shi’i clergy and perceived opportunity structures: political activism in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon

During the last four decades, the Middle East has witnessed the rise of Shi’i political activism, through the direct engagement of clerical elites in socio-political arenas. With the re-emergence of activism on the part of Shi’i mujtahids and its impact on the ascent of Shi’i community in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, scholars have defined a distinct strategic difference between what they characterise as ‘quietist’ and ‘activist’ Shi’i mujtahids.

The making of a transnational religion: Alevi movement in Germany and the World Alevi union

The literature on migrants’ religious movements generally see them as backward and conservative movements that are resistant to change. On the contrary, this paper shows that transnational religious movements are shaped by interactions between origin and destination places’ political, legal and social structures, and may take different pathways across time and place.

Special issue of Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (19/1, April, 2019) on the ‘Nexus between Sectarianism and Regime Formation in a New Middle East’.

Edited by Morten Valbjørn and Raymond Hinnebusch

This special issue of Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (vol 19,1) explores the nexus between sectarianism and regime formation in a ‘new Middle East.’

More specifically, it examines a) how sectarianism impacts on the trajectories of different types of regime over time (with the main – but not exclusive – focus being on their location along the authoritarian/democratic continuum), b) whether different kinds of regime dilute or inflame sectarian identities and animosities, c) whether the study of regime formation in a sectarian context requires distinct analytical tools, or whether we can stick to the already existing approaches from the (post)democratization tradition.

All articles of the special issues examine how sectarianism and regime formation/type might be inter-related, though in different ways: they cover different regime types (authoritarian republics, monarchies, and semi-democracies), both Shia- and Sunni-majority countries, countries with and without a Shia/Sunni schism at home, and geographical areas ranging from the Gulf to the Levant, and in addition to these intra-regional comparisons the Middle East is moreover compared with other regions. The studies also differ in their methodology, ranging from a large-N study to comparative snapshots of similar dynamics in several country cases in order to test and demonstrate issues such as the relative power of sectarianism, and longitudinal case studies showing the interaction of sectarian configurations and regime change over time.

The special issue is linked to the interdisciplinary research project SWAR: Sectarianism in the Wake of the Arab Revolts at Aarhus University (www.ps.au.dk/swar).

Morten Valbjørn and Raymond Hinnebusch Exploring the Nexus between Sectarianism and Regime Formation in a New Middle East: Theoretical Points of Departure

Lasse Lykke Rørbæk Religion, Political Power, and the ‘Sectarian Surge’: Middle Eastern Identity Politics in Comparative Perspective

Raymond Hinnebusch Sectarianism and Governance in Syria

Adham Saouli Sectarianism and Political Order in Iraq and Lebanon

Courtney Freer The Symbiosis of Sectarianism, Authoritarianism, and Rentierism in the Saudi State

Hasan Hafidh and Thomas Fibiger Civic Space and Sectarianism in the Gulf States: The Dynamics of Informal Civil Society in Kuwait and Bahrain beyond State Institutions

Morten Valbjørn What’s so Sectarian about Sectarian Politics? Identity Politics and Authoritarianism in a New Middle East

Short Back and Sides in: Journal of Sufi Studies Volume 6 Issue 1 (2017)

Qalandars have often been depicted in negative terms in medieval and pre-modern literature by Sufis themselves, clerics and historians. Treatises composed by Qalandars are rare, thus the possibility of producing a balanced survey of their form of Sufism and contribution to the socio-political and religious climate of any given period is difficult.

Twelver Shia in Edinburgh: marking Muharram, mourning Husayn

Fayaz S. Alibhai Founded by the Wali-Al-Asir Trust in August 1989, the imambargah in Edinburgh’s Leith district describes itself simply as a ‘Shiʿa Community Centre’ and an ‘Imambargah following the Shiʿa Ithna Asheri (Twelver) school of thought, based in Edinburgh’. It is indistinguishable from the other buildings around it on Great Junction Street.

The Idea of Iran: The Second Safavid Century

Date: 11 May 2019 Time: 9:45 AM Finishes: 12 May 2019 Time: 6:00 PM Venue: Brunei Gallery Room: Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre Type of Event: Symposium The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the establishment of the new Safavid regime in Iran, heir not only to the succession of leadership of the Safavid sufi order, but also to the Aq Qoyunlu dispensation of western Iran and more remotely to the Timurid Empire in the East.

Local Elites and Dynastic Succession: Tabriz prior to, under and following Mongol Rule (Sixth/Twelfth to Ninth/Fifteenth Centuries) in: Eurasian Studies Volume 16 Issue 1-2 Year 2018

This article analyses the history of Tabriz from the late sixth/twelfth to the end of the ninth/fifteenth century. It develops the thesis that the local elites played an active and important role in determining a specific sequence of dynasties passing through the Mongols to the Safavids.

The Diversification of the Muslim Community in St. Petersburg in the 2010s in: Journal of Religion in Europe Volume 11 Issue 2-3 Year 2018

Through the intensification of migration, the number of Muslims has multiplied in ethnically Russian areas, including St. Petersburg. Within the heterogeneous Muslim community of the city, countless new communities and initiatives have emerged, but they increasingly face suspicions and restrictions from the authorities.

ʿĀmir b. ʿĀmir al-Baṣrī: Ismāʿīlī or Unorthodox Twelver Šīʿī-Ṣūfī? in: Arabica Volume 66 Issue 1-2 Year 2019

ʿĀmir b. ʿĀmir al-Baṣrī, according to evidence in his tāʾiyya, composed this long didactic mystical poem either in 700/1300-1301 or 731/1330-1331, while he was exiled to Sīwās in Anatolia. The object of this paper is fourfold. First, to give a brief sketch of his life gleaned from the extant Sunnī sources and determine the date of al-tāʾiyya’s composition or completion.

M Terrier, ‘Neuf ans d’études shīʿites (2009-2017). Bilan et perspectives’, Studia Islamica 113/2 (2013)

Abstract
This article purports to report, without claiming to be exhaustive, on the recent dynamism within Shīʿi studies and their echoes throughout the various fields of Islamology. The first part will present a brief history of Shīʿi studies and the successive biases that have affected them. The second part will retrace the course of these studies over nine years (2009-2017), focusing on three collective works that rehabilitate in different ways Henry Corbin’s analyses (m. 1979), considered outdated by some. The third part will address three areas in which recent Shīʿi studies have proved particularly fruitful: the history of early Islam; the intra-Shīʿi minorities and the origins of Islam; Islamic philosophy after Averroes (d. 1198). The sum total will reflect a decompartmentalisation of Shīʿi studies both internally, between the different currents and aspects of Shīʿism, and externally, between Shīʿism and Sunnism, philosophy or Sufism.