From Attachment to a Sacred Figure to Loyalty to a Sacred Route: The Walking Pilgrimage of Arbaeen

Around 20 million Shia pilgrims shape one of the world’s biggest pilgrimages in Iraq, called “Arbaeen,” many of whom walk long distances to Karbala city as a part of the ritual every year.

Shi’i clerical networks and the transnational contest over …: Ingenta Connect

This article explores the transnational contest over sacred authority in contemporary Shi’i Islam as it plays out between contemporary maraji’ (sources of emulation) and the Iranian Supreme Leader, and in practice between their respective networks.

The Impact of the Black Death on Iranian Trade (1340s-1450s A.D.)

The Great Plague, generally known as the Black Death, swept many parts of the three continents of Asia, Africa and Europe in the mid-14th century repeatedly for decades and inflicted widespread demographical, social and economic consequences.

The Coronavirus Is Exacerbating Sectarian Tensions in the Middle East

The novel coronavirus is advancing across the Middle East, straining frail public health services and exacerbating preexisting political and sectarian tensions, both within states and between regional rivals.

“All the City’s Courtesans: A Now-Lost Safavid Pavilion and Its Figural Tile Panels”: Metropolitan Museum Journal, v. 54 (2019) | MetPublications | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum Journal is issued annually and publishes original research on works of art in the Museum’s collection. Highlights of volume 54 include conservators’ discoveries of Renaissance sculptor Andrea della Robbia’s workshop techniques; a new reading of lavishly dressed women on tile panels from 17th-century Iran; and John Singer Sargent’s decisive role in choosing his socialite sitters’ fashionable attire.

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.

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.

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 ‘Merits of Isfahan’ from Arabic into Persian | Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society | Cambridge Core

References to RMI in this article are to . Since the manuscript from which Ṭihrānī worked is dated 735/1334-5 (Editor’s Introduction, [ bāʾ]), I take the published edition of RMI to represent a reasonable facsimile of the text available to Āvī in 729/1328-9.

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