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 »Appendix al-Sayyid ʿAlī al-Ḥusaynī al-Sīstānī on Uṣūl al-Fiqh in Twelver Shīʿī Thought: Its Importance and Historical Phases
What follows is a translation of the first, and part of the second, introductory discussions in the transcribed notes of al-Sayyid ʿAlī al-Ḥusaynī al-Sīstānī’s (b. 1930) advanced lectures on...
Read More »A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work: Ibn Ṭāwūs and His Library
Raḍī al-Dī Ibn ṭāwūs (d. 664/1266 in Bagdad) was a major figure in the history of Shī'ī thought. He published works on subjects ranging from tradition (ḥadīth) and polemics to history and...
Read More »Article: From Bidʻa to Sunna: The Wilayat of Ali in the Shiʻi Adhan
In this paper, the writer examines the pronouncements of early Shiʻi jurists on the issue of adhan and compares and contrasts their views with the verdicts of later...
Read More »Encounters with the Hidden Imam in Early and Pre-Modern Twelver Shīʿī Islam
In this book, Omid Ghaemmaghami demonstrates that in the early years of what came to be known as the Greater Occultation, Shīʿī authorities maintained that all contact with the Imam had been sundered, forcing him to...
Read More »Call for Papers: Sovereignty, Legitimacy and Authority in Twelver Shia Islam
This conference invites papers on the topic of clergy-state relations in Twelver Shia Islam, from the post-ghayba period (ca. 941 CE) to...
Read More »Creating a Diasporic Public Sphere in Britain: Twelver Shia Networks in London
Based on ethnographic research in London, this article provides novel insights into the Twelver Shia Muslim organizational field in Britain and its engagement in...
Read More »Book: The Rebel and the Imam in Early Islam
The writer discusses three key case studies - the revolt of Mukhtar b. Abi 'Ubayd, the life of the Twelver Shi'i Imam Musa al-Kazim and the rebellion and subsequent death of the Zaydi Shi'i Imam Yahya b. 'Abd Allah - in calling for...
Read More »Twelver Shia in Edinburgh: Marking Muharram, Mourning Husayn
Research on the Shia in Scotland and of their spaces of worship and gathering continues to be under represented in the research field of Muslims in Britain. According to the 2011 census, there are...
Read More »A Minority within a Minority: the Complexity and Multilocality of Transnational Twelver Shia Networks in Britain
This article investigates the dynamics around the creation of transnational Shia communal spaces in north-west London, the public representation of Shia Muslim identities by networks and organizations based there to illustrate their multilocal connectivities and internal heterogeneity. Academic scholarship on Shia Muslim minorities in the West has described them as …
Read More »