Shii News – Academic Items

1.Marriage and Divorce in Modern Islamic Law

Tuesday 23rd April 2019
Seminar Room 1: IAIS, University of Exeter

If you wish to attend, please email: csi@exeter.ac.uk

Marriage and Divorce in Modern Islamic Law

Tuesday 23rd April 2019
Seminar Room 1: IAIS, University of Exeter

In the last 200 years, a series of legal innovations have appeared in both Islamic legal thought and practice in the areas of marriage and divorce. In this workshop we will examine the changes in how marriages are conducted, and how divorce is initiated. The workshop is sponsored by the Understanding Sharia: Perfect Past Imperfect Present project (www.usppip.eu) which has been examining how the past is employed in contemporary Islamic law, and how it has been responding to societal change in the modern period.

1230 Lunch
1330 Introduction: Robert Gleave (Director of USPPIP Project) 1400 Dr Sejad Mekic (Exeter, USPPIP Fellow), ““Tafwid al-Talaq: Delegating the Power of Divorce to the Wife in Hanafi and Imami Legal Traditions”

1430 Dr Nijmi Edres, (Göttingen, USPPIP Fellow; Exeter, Visiting USPPIP Fellow) “Stipulations into Muslim marriage contracts in Israel: preliminary insights into tafwid al-talaq and property relations agreements”

1500 Dr Mahmood Kooria, (Leiden, USPPIP fellow): “High Rate of Divorce among Matrilineal Muslims: Islam and Law in the Indian Ocean Littoral”

1530 Coffee/Tea
1600 Mr Mahmoud Afifi (Lancaster University): “Q4: 34: marital qiwamah and ‘wifely discipline’”

1630 Dr Ayesha Shahid (Coventry University): “Protecting Muslim Women’s Right to Post-Divorce Maintenance in Pakistan: Making the Case for Law Reform”

1700 Mr Muhammad Al-Marakaby (University of Edinburgh): “The impact of social norms on fatwas of marriage and divorce: an ethnographic study at Al-Azhar’s Fatwa Council”

1730 Concluding remarks: Robert Gleave

 

 

 

2. Call for applications: Residential Fellowships for the Critical Edition of Key Text

This call for applications pursues a novel approach to one of the fundamental problems of Islamicate History, and Islamicate intellectual history in particular: With the support of the Alexander von Humboldt Kolleg of the Islamicate Intellectual History of the Later Middle and Early Modern Periods at the University of Bonn, scholars are invited to submit a proposal for the critical edition and/or translation into English of a key text of this period. With an estimated 85% of the texts of the Later Middle and Early Modern periods remaining unpublished, basic research (“Grundlagenforschung”) is required to make accessible key texts. In the case of Islamic Studies such basic research means indeed preparing critical editions of primary texts based on a careful selection and comparison of the extant manuscript witnesses of relevant texts.

In a time and world where critical editions are not the stuff that attract financial support, this is a unique opportunity for those scholars for whom solid philological work means something. Applications for the completion of an edition that has already been begun are also welcome.

With this, first, call for applications, we invite scholars to apply for two different strands of residential fellowships, one (i) for an already identified work that we believe deserves publication, and one (ii) bottom-up proposal for the preparation and publication of a critical edition of a text freely chosen and proposed by the applicant. The texts should pertain to the period 1200-1600 and can be written in Arabic, Persian, or Ottoman or Chagatay Turkish.

(i) Call for applications to prepare a critical edition of one of the unpublished parts of Ṣadr al-Sharīʿa’s (d. 747/1347) Taʿdīl al-ʿulūm. Applications are particularly encouraged from such scholars who have previously worked on Ṣadr al-Sharīʿa and/or have already started preparing a (partial) edition, though entirely new projects are equally welcome. The length of the fellowship depends on the reasoned timeline proposed in the application.

(ii) Call for applications to prepare a critical edition and/or English translation of a relevant text freely chosen and suggested by the applicant.

Eligibility: Scholars of all nationalities are eligible to apply. Applicants should hold the Ph.D. or equivalent in hand by the time of the start of their scholarship, usually in October of each year, and must prove excellent knowledge of the academic field, historical context, and literary language in which was composed the work they propose to edit, together with a thorough understanding of, and preferably prior experience in, reading and editing Islamic manuscripts according to the latest academic standards.

Duration: While Fellowships at the Alexander von Humboldt Kolleg are usually for the duration of 9 months, the length of the fellowships can be adjusted to the actual time needed for the critical edition of a given text, depending on the time necessary for completing such a project as reasoned in the proposal.

Fellowship: In addition to a monthly stipend, this research fellowship will provide successful applicants with working space as well as access to the various libraries and other research facilities at the University of Bonn. We shall also be happy to facilitate contact with other colleagues and research institutions in Bonn and in Germany. Depending on the experience of the applicant, a stipend equivalent to in the amount of an Alexander von Humboldt Post-doctoral Research Fellowship (2.650 Euro/month) or Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Fellowship (for scholars with a university post or equivalent) plus travel to and from Germany, and financial support to acquire the relevant manuscripts will be awarded. Information about support needed for the acquisition of relevant manuscripts should be provided together with a reasoned budget at the time of application.

To apply, please submit a letter of interest together with a curriculum vitae, a proposal, and in the case of Post-doctoral applicants also the names and contact details of three referees to fellowships@avh-islamicate.uni-bonn.de. The proposal should not exceed five pages, including bibliography, and should review the state of the art, state why it is important to publish the selected work, name the manuscript witnesses to be considered for the edition, explain the method to be used and why the applicant is apt to undertake the proposed edition, and give a realistic and reasoned estimate for the time and resources required to prepare the edition. Proposals for the completion of editions that are already under way are welcome, and will be scrutinized by the same standards as proposals that start from scratch.

Grant value: 2.650,– Euro/month, plus travel to and from Germany, and financial support to acquire the relevant manuscripts based on the budget submitted at the time of application.

Start date: 1 October 2019.

Closing date for applications is 12 noon on Friday, 17 May 2019.

To apply for this Fellowship, please submit the required application material to fellowships@avh-islamicate.uni-bonn.de.

Prior questions are welcome and may be directed to judith.pfeiffer@uni-bonn.de.

For further information, and how to apply, please see https://www.academia.edu/38788863/Call_for_applications_Residential_Fellowships_for_the_Critical_Edition_of_Key_Texts.

 

 

 

 

3. Islamic Art Circle, Revisiting Baghdad: Mosques, Caliphs and the ‘Ulama (May 8) and Bahari Foundation Lectures, The Shah and the ‘Ulama: A Tale of Two Mosques in Safavid Isfahan (May 9), Ruba Kana’an

 

The Islamic Art Circle at SOAS, London University

Revisiting Baghdad: Mosques, Caliphs and the ‘Ulama

May 8, 2019, 7:00 pm

 

The Bahari Foundation Lectures on Art and Culture of Iran, The Courtauld Institute of Art

The Shah and the ‘Ulama: A Tale of Two Mosques in Safavid Isfahan

May 9, 2019, 6:00 pm

 

Islamic Art Circle at SOAS, London University. May 2019 Lecture

The Islamic Art Circle at SOAS is delighted to announce that our May lecture will be given by Dr Ruba Kana’an, University of Oxford,  on Wednesday, 8^th May at 7.00 pm in the Khalili Lecture Theatre, L/G Phillips Building, SOAS, London University, WC1H 0XG – all welcome. Enquiries to Rosalind Wade Haddon: rw51@soas.ac.uk

 

Dr Kana’an’s topic is: Revisiting Baghdad: Mosques, Caliphs and the ‘Ulama

 

Her lecture will explore relationships between the historical narratives about Friday mosques in pre-Mongol Baghdad and legal discourses about Friday prayer. It revisits Jacob Lassner’s 1970 study of the Abbasid city where he translated and analyzed the topographical introduction to the multivolume work of the 11^th century historian al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (d. 1071), but departs from it by situating al-Baghdadi’s section on Friday mosques within the contemporaneous socio-religious context of the Abbasid city. The paper will demonstrate that the history of these mosques is intertwined with the formation of legal discourses on Friday prayer as exemplified by Abbasid period furu‘ literature. Furthermore, it will demonstrate that the legal discourses on Friday prayer that evolved predominantly in Abbasid Baghdad continued to influence the establishment of Friday mosques and shaping the urban growth of medieval cities.

 

The Bahari Foundation Lectures on Art and Culture of Iran. The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London

Thursday 9 May 2019, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Lecture Theatre 1, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Vernon Square, Penton Rise, King’s Cross, London, WC1X 9EW

 

Dr Kana’an’s topic is: The Shah and the ‘Ulama: A Tale of Two Mosques in Safavid Isfahan 

Safavid art of the sixteenth century is celebrated for its exceptional painted manuscripts and the monumental architectural patronage of its dynastic shrines. Yet the same period did not produce a single Safavid Friday mosque. This paper explores relationships between the historical narratives about the architectural patronage of Safavid Friday mosques and the legal discourses about Friday prayer. It examines views penned by Shi‘a ulama in the sixteenth century about the performance of Friday prayer during the occultation of the Imam (ghayba), and the impact of these debates on the architectural patronage of Isfahan’s two Friday mosques: the Great Mosque of Isfahan and the Shah’s Mosque begun under Shah Abbas 1^st in 1611. Theoretically, the paper takes a comparative approach to the patronage of Friday mosques. It situates Safavid architectural patronage within a comparative framework with similar debates that took place amongst Sunni legal scholars and shaped the monumental architecture of cities like Baghdad, Cairo, and Istanbul.

https://courtauld.ac.uk/event/the-shah-and-the-ulama-a-tale-of-two-mosques-in-safavid-isfahan

 

 

 

 

4. IN QUEST OF IDENTITY. STUDIES ON THE PERSIANATE WORLD:

Mirosława Michalaka Magdaleny Rodziewicz, eds.
ISBN: 978-83-8002-328-4
Publisher: Academic Publishing House DIALOG , Warsaw
Date Of Publication: 2015

 

Introduction
The Role of the King of Kings: An Interpretation in Historiography – Dariush Borbor
Kasravi – Was He Truly the Integrative Nationalist of Iran? – Stanisław A. Jaśkowski
A Glance at New Persian Translations of the Middle Persian Texts – Mateusz M. Kłagisz
Who is a Madame? – Anna Krasnowolska
A Lost Identity: Iranians as Seafarers and Explorers – Mirosław Michalak
The National Identity of Iranian Jews, As Manifested in their Intellectual & Judeo-Persian Contributions – Nahid Pirnazar
Blasphemers or Mystics? Reflection over the Nature of Revelation in Contemporary Iran – Magdalena Rodziewicz
Indigenous versus International? The Role of “Preislamic” Identity and Shici Islam in the Clashes of the Bāwandid Kingdom with the Nizārī Ismācīlīs in Northern Iran – Miklós Sárközy
Razi’s Egalitarian Idea – Reza Shomali
Rūmī, Balkhī, Mevlevī: The Ambiguities of Identity in the Poetry of Jalāl al-Dīn Muh.ammad (1207-1272 CE) – Rafal Stepien
How the Characters Speak for Themselves: Colloquial Language as a Mean of Expressing Identity in Čerāqhā rā man xāmuš mikonam, a Novel by Zoyā Pirzād – Katarzyna Wąsala
List of Contributors
Index

 

 

 

5. Apply now to the E.J W Gibb Scholarships 2019-20 (http://www.gibbtrust.org/scholarships/)

The Gibb Memorial Trust offers two annual scholarships to students studying at British Universities who are undertaking doctoral research in the field of the Trust’s activities.

The Gibb Memorial Trust’s Centenary Scholarship of up to £2,000 is available to postgraduate students at an advanced stage of their doctoral research in any area of Middle Eastern Studies (7th century to 1918) at a British university.

Centenary Scholarship application form & past recipients

The A. H. Morton Memorial Scholarship for Doctoral Research in Classical Persian Studies is for a maximum of £3,000 and can be applied to any year of a course of doctoral study at a British university, including for an approved period of study abroad.

H. Morton Scholarship application form & past recipients 

Applications must be submitted by 30 April. It is the applicant’s responsibility to contact two referees and to ask them to send references direct to me.

 

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