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.

Balochistan: A powder keg at a geopolitical crossroads

Balochistan should be oozing with optimism as Chinese and Saudi investment pours into the troubled Pakistani province. It is not. Instead, Balochistan, a key node in China’s Belt and Road initiative that borders Iran, is gripped by anger, fear and uncertainty.

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.

NCHR Occasional Paper Series #11 2019 – Norwegian Centre for Human Rights

This paper, Blurring the Line between Countering Terrorism and Countering Dissent: The Case of Saudi Arabia, is written by Dr Norman Cigar, a Research Fellow at the Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA, from which he retired recently as Director of Regional Studies and the Minerva Research Chair.

See also: Foreign Policy
Los Angeles Times

UAE: Eight Lebanese Face Unfair Trial

(Beirut) – Emirati authorities detained eight Lebanese nationals for more than a year without charge in an unknown location, ill-treating them and denying them their due process rights, Human Rights Watch said today. Their trial, which began on February 13, 2019, continues to be marred with violations.

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.

Dr Michael Axworthy, FRSA, FRAS (1962-2019)

It is with great regret that we announce the passing of our colleague and friend Michael Axworthy on 16 March 2019. Michael read History at Peterhouse, Cambridge before moving on to a successful career at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; he met his wife Sally while they were both working at the British Embassy in Bonn.

See the Daily Telegraph obituary here.

The Middle East’s Great Divide Is Not Sectarianism

The spectre of sectarianism haunts the Middle East. It is blamed for chaos, conflict, and extremism. It defines what is seen as the region’s principal fault line: Sunni versus Shiite. It has the power and elegance of a grand theory that seemingly explains all.

‘Mīr Dāmād (m. 1041/1631), philosophe et mujtahid
Autorité spirituelle et autorité juridique en Iran safavide shīʿite’,
Mathieu Terrier

Studia Islamica, 113/2 (2018)

Abstract
Studies on Twelver Shīʿism, particularly in the context of Safavid Iran (907-1134 / 1501-1722), are characterized by a dichotomy between the emphasis on law and that on philosophy, reflecting the duality between both the exoteric and esoteric dimensions of this religion. Based on this observation, this article presents a corpus of known and lesser known texts of Mīr Dāmād (d. 1041/1631), a philosophy master and super- mujtahid at the court of the Shāhs in Esfahan, in order to analyse the link between these two facets of his personality and shed some light on the relationship between legal and spiritual authorities in modern Shīʾism. The first part of this paper studies Mīr Dāmād’s portrait in the Shīʿi prosopographical sources. The second part deals with his legal works, notably his fatwās on Friday prayer and defensive jihād. The third part analyses the doxographic notice devoted to Mīr Dāmād by his former student Quṭb al-Dīn Ashkevarī (d. between 1088 and 1095 /1677 and 1684), which weaves legal, philosophical and mystical texts authored by his teacher. This study will show that in the view of Mīr Dāmād and his disciples, the temporal authority of the jurisconsult, during the period of Great Occultation, remained inseparable from the spiritual authority of the Gnostic (ʿārif), whose metaphysical knowledge was both rationally proven and mystically experienced.

South Asian Geopolitics: Saudi Arabia: 1 Iran: 0?

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi seemed to fine tune the officer’s statement by not mentioning Yemen in his remarks to the Saudi paper and limiting Pakistan’s commitment to the kingdom itself. “If anyone would create chaos in or attack the Kingdom, Pakistan would stand by its brethren Saudi Arabia,” Mr. Qureishi said.