| Fourth Annual Conference on Shi‘i Studies | |
| 5-6 May 2017 | |
| Panel: Qur’an Studies | |
| The Qur’an between the past and the present: A search for response | Yahya Baiza, The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, UK |
| to modern social realities | |
| A comparative study of Biblical and Qur’anic methods of exegesis | Mohammed Ali Ismail, The Islamic College, London, UK |
| Panel: Texts: Past and Present | |
| Chaired by Amina Inloes, The Islamic College, London, UK | |
| Was ʿĀmir b. ʿĀmir al-Baṣrī an Ismāʿīlī as claimed by some scholars, or was he an unorthodox Twelver Shīʿī Ṣūfī who had gone through a phase of mystical union with the Divine? | Ismail Poonawala, University of California, Los Angeles, USA |
| Formulations of Imami scriptural knowledge in Shi‘i texts before and after the ghaybah | Dominique Sirgy, Yale University, USA |
| The Zaynab-Ziyād dialogues: Constructing a Zaynabian theology at the level of the texts | Christopher Clohessy, Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic studies |
| Shi‘i fiqh manuals (risālah ʿamaliyyah): Past and present | Sayed Hossein Al Qazwini, Karbala, Iraq |
| Panel: Shi‘i ritual practice: Ashura and Arbaʿīn | |
| Chaired by Amir DeMartino, The Islamic College, London, UK | |
| The nature of the commemoration of Ashura in Iraq pre- and post-2003 | Jafar Ahmad, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK |
| The Arbaʿīn pilgrimage as a liminal and heterotopian practice: A study of alternative mode of living throughout the pilgrimage process | Mohammad Nasravi, Royal Holloway University of London, UK |
| Of blood and blades: How the Western press (mis-) represent the Ashura rituals | Zeinab Ghasemi Tari, University of Tehran, Iran |
| Hossein Nazari, University of Canterbury, UK | |
| Panel: Shi‘i ritual practice: Iranian and Turkish | |
| Chaired by Hamid Tehrani, The Islamic College, London, UK | |
| The city of Ardabil and its influence in Turkish Shi‘i Devotion | Stefan Fa, University College, London, UK |
| Abbas Fanniasl, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Iran | |
| Techno-Muḥarram: The mourning soundscape and the Shi‘a public in post-revolutionary Iran | Babak Rahimi, University of California, San Diego, USA |
| Panel: Art and literature | |
| Chaired by Amina Inloes, The Islamic College, London, UK | |
| Intimations of the hidden Imam in the literary work of Jorge Luis Borges | Frank Julian Gelli, London, UK |
| A new Arabic amulet bowl from Eṣfahān with Persian inscriptions, Ali Reza Sedighifard Collection | Ali Faraj, University of Milan, Bicocca, Italy |
| Turkish influences on architecture in the Zaydī Qāsimid state in Yemen | Mohamed Ahmed Abd Elrahman, Fayoum University, Egypt |
| Panel: Authority in Shi‘ism | |
| Chaired by Mohammed Ali Ismail, The Islamic College, London, UK | |
| The authority of the Imāmī marājiʿ | Cameron Zargar, University of California, Los Angeles, USA |
| The 1080-year-old person: The clergy and the Shi‘i community | Mohammadreza Kalantari |
| Royal Holloway University of London, UK | |
| Al-Azhar and Shi‘ism: Tolerance, opposition or ambivalence? | Syamsuddin Arif, Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought and Civilizations, Jakarta, Indonesia |
| Panel: Political theory and contemporary thought | |
| Chaired by Amir Dastmalchian, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK and | |
| The Islamic College, London, UK | |
| Shi‘ism and democracy | Liyakat Takim, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada |
| Developing the political concept of theocracy: The case of velayat-e faqīh and the Islamic Republic of Iran | Ezra Tzfadya, Otto Friedrich University, Bamberg, Germany |
| Al-Ākhūnd al-Khurāsānī and al-mashrūṭah (the Constitutionalist Movement) | Sayyid Fadhil Bahrululoom, London, UK |
| Justice and ethics as totipotent emergent properties: A critical rationalist perspective | Ali Paya, The Islamic College, London, UK |
| Panel: Shi‘ism in South Asia | |
| Chaired by Muhammad Zakaria, The Islamic College, London, UK | |
| case of Gilgit-Baltistan Ismailis in Karachi, Pakistan | Khurshid Sana Khan, London, UK |
| Mystical philosophy in the light of Sufism and Vedantism | Tayyaba Fatima, Govt. College Women University, Faisalabad, Pakistan |
| Mohammad Obaid Aslam, Allama Iqbal Open University, Faisalabad, Pakistan | |
| The Quṭb Shāhī era and the contributions of Mīr Momin Astarābādī in the spread of Shi‘a Islam in the Deccan | Mirza Abbas |
| The Islamic College, London, UK | |
| Panel: Shi‘ism worldwide | |
| Chaired by Amina Inloes, The Islamic College, London, UK | |
| From disenfranchisement to wealth: The invention of a Shi‘i bourgeoisie in Lebanon between education, diaspora, remittances and neoliberal practices | Omar Bortolazzi, American University in Dubai, UAE |
| Navigating identity: An overview of the Shi‘a Hazara community in London and the | Rabia Latif Khan, SOAS University of London, UK |
| Midlands | |
| The study of Shi‘ism in Denmark | Nour Tessie Jorgensen, University of Copenhagen, Denmark |
| The role of supplementary schools in shaping the Islamic identity of | Karar Alsalemi, The Islamic College, London, UK |
| Muslim youth | Mohammad Mesbahi, The Islamic College, London, UK |