Edited by: Farhad Daftary, Amyn B. Sajoo, Shainool Jiwa

Publisher: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd (September 29, 2015)

Series: Muslim Heritage Series

The world’s 200 million Shi’i Muslims express their faith in a multiplicity of ways, united by reverence for the ahl al-bayt, the family of the Prophet. In embracing a pluralistic ethic, fourteen centuries of Shi’i Islam have given rise to diverse traditions and practices across varied geographic and cultural landscapes. The Shi’i World is a comprehensive work authored by leading scholars from assorted disciplines, to provide a better understanding of how Shi’i communities view themselves and articulate their teachings. The topics range from Shi’i Islam’s historical and conceptual foundations, formative figures and intellectual, legal and moral traditions, to its devotional practices, art and architecture, literature, music and cinema, as well as expressions and experiences of modernity. The book thus provides a panoramic perspective of the richly textured narratives that have shaped the social and moral universe of Shi’i Muslims around the globe. This fourth volume in the Muslim Heritage Series will appeal to specialists and general readers alike, as a timely resource on the prevailing complexities not only of the ‘Muslim world’, but also of the dynamic Shi’i diasporas of Europe and North America.

Contents

1. Remembering Muhammad (Omid Safi)
2. Imam Ali (Reza Shah-Kazemi)
3. Imam Ja‘far al-Sadiq and the Elaboration of Shi‘ism (Karim Douglas Crow)
4. Legal Traditions (Andrew J. Newman)
5. Intellectual Traditions (Paul E. Walker)
6. Governance and Pluralism under the Fatimids (909–996 CE) (Shainool Jiwa)
7. Moral Authority in the Safawid State (Rula J. Abisaab)
8. Devotional Practices (Ali S. Asani)
9. Shi‘i Communities in History (Farhad Daftary)
10. Remembering Fatima and Zaynab: Gender in Perspective (Zayn Kassam and Bridget Blomfield)
11. Art and Architecture (Jonathan M. Bloom)
12. Literature (Eric Ormsby)
13. Music (William Sumits)
14. Shi‘ism in Iranian Cinema (Nacim Pak-Shiraz)
15. Diasporas (Zulfikar Hirji and Karen Ruffle)
16. Modernity: The Ethics of Identity (Amyn B. Sajoo)

Source: I.B.Tauris

Author: Mushegh Asatryan

Publisher: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd (November 30, 2016)

Series: Shi’i Heritage Studies

Among the various Muslim communities that were articulating their doctrinal positions in the early Islamic centuries, one in particular was known derisively as the Ghulat (‘extremists’). This was owing to their specific interpretation of Islam, which included an ‘extreme’ devotion to the Shi’i Imams and the family of the Prophet, and controversial religious ideas, such as the transmigration of souls into other human or sub-human forms. Widely active in Iraq in the 8^th and 9^th centuries, the Ghulat developed a complex worldview and produced a rich religious literature. Until now, understanding of this community has mainly relied on sources produced outside of the group, which are inaccurate or polemical in nature. This book looks at newly recovered primary texts in order to study the Ghulat first hand. Mushegh Asatryan examines the development of the Ghulat writings, situating the community within a broader historical context and offering a comprehensive survey of their distinctive cosmology.

Through his detailed analysis, the book offers insight into the formation of one of the earliest religious traditions in Islamic history as well as the nature of the community in which texts were produced and circulated.

About the Author

Mushegh Asatryan is Assistant Professor of Muslim Cultures at the University of Calgary. He received his PhD from Yale and has published on various aspects of Islamic history and on the history of early Shi’ism. His recent publications include ‘An Early Shi’i Cosmology: Kitab al-ashbah wa l-azilla and its milieu’ and ‘Bankers and Politics: The Network of Shi’i Moneychangers in Eighth-Ninth Century Kufa and their Role in the Shi’i Community’. Previously he was a Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies and he has taught at Yale, Trinity College and Fairfield University.

Source: I.B.Tauris