‘Ottoman Archival Documents on the Shrines of Karbala, Najaf, and the Hejaz (1660s-1720s): Endowment Wars, the Spoils System, and Iranian Pilgrims’
Selim Güngörürler
JESHO, 64/2021, 897-1032

This study introduces and publishes an array of Ottoman archival documents on the shrines of Ahl al-Bayt imams in Iraq, the endowments dedicated to these shrines, and the Shiite-Iranian pilgrims visiting these sites as well as the Kaaba and the shrine of Muhammad in the Hejaz. Focusing on the later seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries, it discusses the political-economic function of Islamic endowments, interconfessional contacts resulting from pilgrimage by Shiites in Sunni territory, and the potential use of Ottoman archives to enrich our knowledge on trans-Ottoman themes.

Discussion Forum on Divine Scriptures invites applications in three levels for a one-year fellowship in Islamic historical Theology beginning in August 2022.

DFDS 1 fellowship (Eligibility: The fellowship is open to 5 PhD students in the Biblical or Islamic Studies)
DFDS 2 fellowship (Eligibility: The fellowship is open to 3 scholars who have competed their PhD within the past three years in the Biblical or Islamic Studies.)
DFDS 3 fellowship (Eligibility: The fellowship is open to 2 Assistant Professors in the Biblical or Islamic Studies.)

Teaching load is six courses for the academic year, three per semester. Course units includes Historical methodology; Method of analyzing the history of Islam; Comparative History of the Divine Scriptures; History of Islamic thought; The structure of the transmission of Islamic heritage civilization and Historical analysis of religious texts (TPET)
The fellow will be expected to participate in the activities of the DFDS Programs one semester-long course. A complete application includes: a letter of application, a curriculum vitae, and a letter of recommendation. Please send your application for review by May 20, 2022 to ahmadi_mh@ut.ac.ir (Dr. Mohammad Hasan Ahmadi, Asso. Prof. University of Tehran and Executive Director of Discussion Forum on divine Scriptures (DFDS).

The applications will be considered by DFDS steering committee and the Approval applications will be sent out by June 17.
More Information: https://zabanshenasitarikhi.ir

“More than Mourners: Women and the Shaping of the Iranian Taʿziyeh”
Eleanor Lucy Deacon (University of Edinburgh)

Apr 21, 2022
12:30pm-2:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

On Zoom:
https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/97438384705
Meeting ID: 974 3838 4705

This talk explores Isfahan through the lens of seventeenth century household anthologies (majmu’a). Thousands of manuscripts produced in Isfahan assembled urban objects ranging from portraits and letters from friends, to poems depicting the central square, to marriage contracts and talismans. Authors collected, curated, and bound together material generated by Isfahan’s culture of adab to learn how to act and relate to other residents of a diverse and ever-growing capital city. With these family collections, Professor Babayan tells a new history of Isfahan at the transformative moment it became a cosmopolitan center of imperial rule. Bringing into view people’s lives from a city with no extant state or civic archives, Kathryn Babayan reimagines the archive of anthologies to recover the dialogic relationship between the city and its residents.

National Museum of Asian Art
Tuesday, March 15 at 12 pm EST, please join us for “Fit for a Palace: The Craze for Safavid Carpets in Seventeenth-Century Europe” with Jessica Hallett.
In the fifteenth century, the city of Venice was the principal gateway for the arrival of highly valued knotted-pile carpets with geometric designs from the Ottoman Empire. When the Portuguese opened the sea route to India in 1498, Asian carpets became more accessible to consumers in Europe. In Iran, the Safavids decided to seize the opportunity and capture this new overseas market. A revolution occurred in Safavid production with the rise of an urban carpet industry that reacted swiftly, embarking on innovative changes to materials, colors, designs, and dimensions to compete with cheaper Turkish carpets. In Europe, a craze ensued as the elite looked to substitute their old-fashioned geometric carpets with new floral ones, turning the floors of their palaces into gardens. In this talk, Jessica Hallett, curator of the Middle East and China at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, will address how the synergy between makers in Iran and consumers in Europe created this “craze.”
Jessica Hallett was guest curator for Iraq and China: Ceramics, Trade and Innovation at the National Museum of Asian Art (2004). She has curated many exhibitions in Lisbon, since then, including The Oriental Carpet in Portugal at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (2007) and The Rise of Islamic Art at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2019), both of which were awarded national prizes. Her publications include various academic articles and catalogues on ceramics, textiles, and carpets as well as the book Mamluk Glass in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (2000). She is currently preparing with Clara Serra a catalogue of Gulbenkian’s renowned carpet collection.
Register here: https://smithsonian.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_I6w65FMNQtqOrQgSnzy17Q
For more information please visit our events page: https://asia.si.edu/events or contact us: AsiaScholarlyProgram@si.edu

IMES Research Seminar Series
University of Edinburgh, Spring 2022
“De-centring (the study of) Shiʿism”

Note the rescheduling of the IMES research seminar of 21 February, which will offer two fascinating presentations by IMES PhD candidates Lucy Deacon and Carlos Mendez.

The new date for this seminar is Monday 28 March at 17:15. Those who had already registered for the talk should not need to register again. Here is the registration link, both just in case and also to review the full list of presentations https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYlcuyvqjgvHdaSodYsuXt5D9W4T3lim0DW

Lucy Deacon (UoE)
Karbala from Canvas to Stage: The Influence of Traditional Storytelling on the Iranian Taʿziyeh
Carlos Mendez (UoE)
Exploring the Intra-Shiʿi Moral Panic behind the Controversial Film “The Lady of Heaven”