Islamic studies is quickly becoming one of the most popular subjects to study. As Islam begins to play a more influential role in current events, both in the UK and abroad, a deeper understanding of its core principles, its history and its future has never been more important. Read more…
LIMITS OF ORTHODOXY? THE TEXT AS LOST AND FOUND IN PRE-MODERN SHI`ISM
The religious ‘text’ has long been held to be the repository of the normative for those researching the history and development of Shi`ism in the pre-modern period. Dr Newman will explore the extent to which the texts, authored by a small number of identifiable scholarly elites when the community, as society at large, was overwhelmingly illiterate, can shed light on Shi`i dynamics across the centuries following the occultation of the Imam. He will also address the causes and implications of the relative loss of copies of such works over these years and their rediscovery in the later 17th century.
Dr Andrew Newman is the founder and moderator of the ‘Shi`i News’ list and its associated website ‘Shi News and Resources’. His most recent book, Twelver Shi`ism: Unity and Diversity in the Life of Islam, 632 to 1722, was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2013.
This event is free and open to the public (no registration required)
Tube: Jubilee Line to Willesden Green Station
Buses: 52, 260, 206, 460, 266, 302
Islamic Studies in the light of Future Studies: A Critical Assessment
The aim of this lecture is to critically explore the ways in which Futures Studies could help in the development of Islamic Studies. Once upon a time, ‘Islamic Studies’ (in the narrow sense of the word) was limited to certain number of disciplines of interest either to traditional practitioners in seminaries who dealt with it with the epistemic attitude of ‘committed insiders,’ or orientalists who were studying it with the mentality of ‘outsiders’.Today however, Islamic Studies,