The Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs at Harvard Divinity School undertakes advanced research on the multifaceted and diverse manifestations of Shi’ism in the contemporary world. The study of Shi’ism, religious mobilization, and the challenges of sectarian conflict is more pressing now than ever in modern history. From the war in Yemen, the civil strife in Syria, and the devastation in Iraq and beyond, a diverse array of ethnic and confessional Shi’a movements have emerged as a significant dynamic on the Middle Eastern geopolitical landscape witnessing a historic mobilization of Twelver, Zaydi, Alawi and other minority religious movements. In this context, Iran’s foreign policy in the region and its network of allies under the umbrella of the “Axis of Resistance” is a significant topic of study given its outsized role and influence in regional geopolitics.

This is all the more salient given the ongoing nuclear standoff between Iran and the United States and the Iran-Saudi cold war. Beyond concrete regional effects, these emerging developments impact global politics—including international security, foreign policy concerns, and global energy markets. It also fosters broader theoretical debates on modernization, religion, and politics.

The Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs encompasses an interdisciplinary approach with a focus on the history, sociology, theology, and politics of the diverse Shi’a communities and nations across the globe—who number at least 220-250 million individuals mainly spread across the Middle East, Central and South Asia, Africa, and the West. From the flourishing of global Shi’a diaspora communities in the West to the growth of highly interconnected state and nonstate actors in the Middle East to pressing intellectual debates in the Islamic world, the study of Shi’ism is of growing importance in world affairs. Indeed, the rise of modern Shi’ism has been one of the most eventful developments shaping the cultural and sociopolitical landscape of the Islamic world. To facilitate in-depth scholarship on such a rich and expansive field, this project is organized according to four primary domains of research and study:

1) Shi’a history and identity,

2) Shi’ism and geopolitics,

3) ethnic and religious sectarianism and sectarian de-escalation,

4) the global Shi’a diaspora.

Funded in part through a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, the Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs conducts a rich content-based study of Shi’a thought and identity across transnational Shi’a contexts inclusive of a diversity of denominational (Twelver, Ismaili, Zaydi, Alawi, Alevi, and beyond) as well as diverse ethnic groups across the Middle East, South and Central Asia, Africa, and Shi’a diaspora communities across the globe.

This is crucial given the interlinked institutional nature of Shi’a political and social networks that span well beyond modern boundaries of the Middle East state system. Yet scholarly research on these topics face two primary challenges:

 (a) the historical marginalization of the study of Shi’ism that has been problematically treated in academia as “nontraditional” Islam, and

(b) the theoretical underdevelopment of the intersection of religion and politics within Islam, including on the issue of sectarianism. Our work furthermore conducts a unique research track on the academic study of Ashura and the life and legacy of Imam Hussain, generously funded by the Jaffer Family Foundation of New York.

The Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs was established in 2019 at the Weather head Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) and, after three years of conducting research and hosting events, workshops, and symposia, moved to Harvard Divinity School in July 2022 in order to further advance research and education on the multifaceted nature of Shi’a Islam.

Contacts

Address: Harvard Divinity School, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

Email: globalshiism@hds.harvard.edu

Website: https://shiism.hds.harvard.edu/

Edited by Ines Weinrich

Publisher: Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB) (2016)

Performing Religion investigates the relationship between texts, actors, and contexts in the study of Muslim devotion. Research in Islamic Studies to date has taken texts primarily as a medium of information. This volume emphasizes the material quality of texts, both written and oral. It focuses on the sound and rhythm of their performance, on non-verbal elements, and practices of framing and embedding. Performing Religion also looks at the interpretation of religious practices which are not based on lengthy textual foundations but nevertheless constitute an important part of believers’ lives.

The assembled case studies encompass contemporary as well as historic perspectives and include examples from Andalusia, Egypt, Italy, Greater Syria, Turkey, Central Asia, Yemen, Iran, and India. Part I explores objects, actions, and notions in the context of the acquisition of blessing (baraka). Part II asks how believers use, alter, and publically enact texts in ritual settings and what kinds of performance are inscribed into the text. Part III analyses the negotiation of meanings, aesthetics, and identity which occurs in new and often transcultural contexts. Rather than viewing texts as a repository of ideas, the present volume accentuates their ritual functions and the aesthetic experiences they provide.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: From Texts to Performances
• Part I: Objects, Actions, and Notions in the Context of Blessing

– Antique Phallic Symbol or Mobile Relic? Remarks on the Cult of the qubaʿ in Ḥaḍramawt

– Shared Rituals through ziyārāt in Lebanon: A Typology of Christian and Muslim Practices

– Conforming to and Breaking with Social Norms: Two Contrary Modes of baraka

– The Quest for Sufi Transmissions as Links to the Prophet: Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī (d. 1791) and his Encyclopedic Collections of Sufi salāsil

• Part II: The Staging and Performance of Texts

– Between Poem and Ritual: The Burda by al-Būṣīrī (d. 1294-1297)

– A “Deserted Site of Display”: Performing the Crafts’ risāla in Pre-socialist Central Asia

– Woe, a Hundred Woes! 19^th-Century Muḥarram Elegies in Iran as Performative Poetry

– Preaching Performances Revisited: The Narrative Restaging of Sermons in the Travelogue of Ibn Jubayr (d. 1217)

– Everyday Islamic Practice in Modern Egyptian Literature

• Part III: Negotiating Meaning, Aesthetics, and Identity

– The Open Ritual: Indeterminacy in a Modern Sufi Ceremony

– Essentializing Difference: Text, Knowledge, and Ritual Performance in a Sufi Brotherhood in Italy

– Burning With Love: Consumerism and Recent Trends in Islamic Music in Turkey

Source: orient-institut.org

As of 2010, there were an estimated 1.6 billion Muslims around the world, making Islam the world’s second-largest religious tradition after Christianity. And although many people, especially in the United States, may associate Islam with countries in the Middle East or North Africa, nearly two-thirds (62%) of Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the Pew Research Center analysis. In fact, more Muslims live in India and Pakistan (344 million combined) than in the entire Middle East-North Africa region (317 million).

However, the Middle East-North Africa region has the highest concentration of Muslims of any region of the world: 93% of its approximately 341 million inhabitants are Muslim, compared with 30% in sub-Saharan Africa and 24% in the Asia-Pacific region.  Muslims make up a majority of the population in 49 countries around the world. The country with the largest number (about 209 million) is Indonesia, where 87.2% of the population identifies as Muslim. India has the world’s second-largest Muslim population in raw numbers (roughly 176 million), though Muslims make up just 14.4% of India’s total population.

Pew Research Center uses an array of surveys, census reports, population registers and other data sources to estimate numbers of Muslims and other religious groups around the world, the goal being to count all groups and people who self-identify with a particular religion. The figures presented here are as of 2010.

Looking ahead, the Center estimates that by 2050 the number of Muslims worldwide will grow to 2.76 billion, or 29.7% of world’s population. The share of the world’s Muslims who live in sub-Saharan Africa will increase from 15.5% in 2010 to 24.3%. Asia, which is currently home to more of the world’s Muslims (61.7%) than all the other regions combined, will continue to host a majority of the world’s Muslims, albeit with a smaller share (52.8%). As for the Middle East and North Africa, the region will roughly maintain its share of the world’s Muslims, rising only slightly from 19.8% to 20.0% in 2050. Just 0.2% of the world’s Muslims live in North America. In the U.S., Muslims are projected to double from 0.9% of the population in 2010 to 2.1% by 2050 based on recent demographic and migration patterns.

Source: Pew Research Center