From religion to politics, Saudi Arabia feeling chill of isolation

Historic joint Shia-Sunni prayer on occasion of Eid-ul-Zuha in Lucknow

and in Washington, DC., also.

Published 26.6.16
Features film/videos on Shii communities and their situations.

Shia Rights Watch Bi-Annual Report – Shia Rights Watch

Creating Frankenstein: The Impact of Islamic Ultra-Conservatism in South Asia by James M. Dorsey :: SSRN

Why is Pakistan allowing an imam to call for jihad against our Shia community?

‘Sunni-Shi’i Rapprochement:
Internal Contradictions’

Hamid Mavani

Abstract
Ecumenical initiatives to promote Sunni-Shi’i reconciliation and
mutual respect have failed to take root because they do not tackle
the incendiary issues that prompt each branch to view the other with
disdain, if not as outright apostates or unbelievers. I argue that this
will not change until the main fault lines in their worldviews, communal
self-understanding, sacred narratives, history, theology, and
philosophy are confronted head-on.

If this cannot be done, then all proclamations of Muslim unity and
brotherhood/sisterhood under one ummah will remain hollow and
lack substance, because each side’s internal discourse would remain
unchanged. Any type of mutual tolerance and coexistence prompted
by expediency and power dynamics cannot be expected to be deeprooted
and long-lasting. The United States, along with such other
local and foreign players as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, and
Syria, have instrumentalized Sunni-Shi’i sectarianism to promote
their own myopic vested interests. The result is clear for all to see:
an exponential increase in Sunni-Shi’i antagonism.

The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 33:1 (2016), 133-47

“Vernacularization of a Persian Ismâ`îlî text in Sindhi: the case of Pandiyât-i Jawânmardî”

Zahir Bhalloo
(CEIAS/EHESS)

This paper examines the Persian text known as Pandiyât-i Jawânmardî attributed to the thirty fourth Nizârî Ismâʻîlî Qâsim Shâhî imâm, Mustanṣir biʼllâh II (d.904/1498). Based on a comparison of the oral tradition and the textual evidence, I argue that Pandiyât-i Jawânmardî, like the text Kalâm-i Pîr among the Ismâʻîlîs of Badakshan was initially a sacred object, and in the Sindhi context, a living pîr, that served as an instrument of conversion and islamization. Only later did it serve to legitimize the relationship between the Ḥasanî sayyid lineage of the pîr-s accepted by the Khojas of South Asia and the Ḥusaynî sayyid lineage of their Ismâʻîlî imâm-s, the âghâ khân-s.

01.06.2016, CEIAS/EHESS, 190 avenue de France 75013 Paris, Room 638-640 (6th floor)

Workshop ‘The Vernacularization of Muslim and Hindu Traditions: The Case of Sindhiyyat’

organized by CEIAS research groups “New Muslim Elite and the Vernacular” and “Gujarati and Sindhi Studies”

The Oriental African: Assessing 200 years of Khōjā Asian Islamic heritage in East Africa

Journée d’études franco-allemandes sur le chiisme contemporain | École Pratique des Hautes Études