Although al-Sijistānī was a leading figure in the development of Ismāʿīlī philosophy, particularly its Neoplatonism, serious investigation of his writing has been slow to enter modern scholarship, in part because his works have remained inaccessible until...
Read More »The School of Hillah and the Formation of Twelver Shi’i Islamic Tradition
This book argues that Imami Shi'ism is better understood as a discursive tradition, and that from the late Abbasid to the post-Ilkhanid period, Hillah, in southern Iraq, was a center of scholarship, debate and...
Read More »Classical Naṣṣ Doctrines in Imāmī Shīʿism: On the Usage of an Expository Term
This article reexamines the use of the term naṣs, which since Marshall Hodgson has been used in modern historiography to refer to an indigenous Shīʿī mechanism of succession to the imamate....
Read More »Was Muḥammad Amīn al-Astarabādī a Mujtahid?
Since the turn of the twentieth century, the main biographical sources and studies dealing with the life and thought of Muḥammad Amīn al-Astarabādī (d. 1036/1626-7) have upheld the view that he....
Read More »The ‘Alids: The First Family of Islam, 750-1200
This book provides the first social history of the ‘Alids in the crucial five centuries from the 'Abbasid Revolution to the Saljuqs (second/eighth to sixth/twelfth centuries).....
Read More »The Emergence of Modern Shi’ism: Islamic Reform in Iraq and Iran
Thought provoking and challenging, this book examines the foundations of modern Islam, and provides fascinating insight into the region's religious and political developments both...
Read More »Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī’s Kashf al-Rība ʿan Aḥkām al-Ghība and Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn
The treatise Kashf al-rība ʿan aḥkām al-ghība (“The Removal of Doubt from the Rules concerning Malicious Gossip”) was composed in 949/1542 by the famous Twelver jurist Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 965/1558), known as...
Read More »Shiʿi Educational Traditions and Systems in Early Modern Iraq and Iran
The formation of the Safavid state (1501-1722) in Iran was transformative for Shī‘īism and its educational systems. The sixteenth century, therefore, was a turning point for the proliferation of Shill scholarship and educational institutions in Iran and the shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala' in southern.....
Read More »Text and Interpretation: Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and His Legacy in Islamic Law
This book examines the main characteristics of the legal thought of Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, a preeminent religious scholar jurist of Medina in the first half of the second century of the...
Read More »Ashura: Uprising as Struggle for Justice to Uphold Humanity
Ashura has always been a school where the character of a man has been tested and developed and Imam Hussein (A.S) has been the greatest teacher of humanity in this school....
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