Events

Event image for the Rethinking Texts and their Contexts in Muslim Societies conference
  • 23 Oct - 24 Oct 2023
  • Aga Khan Centre and online
  • Conference

Rethinking Texts and their Contexts in Muslim Societies

This interdisciplinary conference will explore the diverse trajectories and contexts of texts in Muslim societies from oral cultures to the digital age.

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  • 29 Sep 2022
  • Online
  • Ismaili History

The Exoteric Tradition of the Fatimids: Sources, Reception, and Interpretation

Al-Qadi al-Nuʿman, the most prolific Fatimid jurist, was tasked with the responsibility of compiling literature that would serve as an authoritative point of reference in the burgeoning Ismaili state. It is evident that he had to have recourse to earlier hadith collections. This talk will address the historicity of these sources, how they ended up in North Africa, and what factors dictated the selection and interpretation of their material for Ismaili law and belief systems.

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  • 22 Jul 2022
  • Aga Khan Centre and Online
  • Conference

Mu’tazilism and the Qur’an Conference

This conference will focus on the influence of Mu`tazilism on all aspects of the Qur’an, its status, interpretation, and relationship to the Prophet. The speakers will address Mu`tazilite thought and the influence it had on Islamic theology in other schools.

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A semi circular disc with a group of people sitting together and some Arabic inscriptions around it.
  • 14 Jul 2022
  • Aga Khan Centre and Online

Pre-Existence: a Myth and its Implications in Imami-Shiʿi Thought

The notion that events bearing far-reaching consequences for the human condition took place prior to the creation of the world and of man has been a central theme in the Islamic literary tradition. This lecture seeks to demonstrate how the raw materials of this notion in Imami-Shiʿi thought were addressed, creatively interpreted and elaborated upon by thinkers of two periods: the Buwayhid (945-1055 CE) and Safavid (1501-1722 CE).

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A round dish with diverse colour combinations and humans, animals and geometric designs painted inside of it
  • 09 Jun 2022
  • Online
  • Webinar

A Fatimid Text on the Necessity of the Imamate: The Book of Interim Times and Planetary Conjunctions (Kitāb al-Fatarāt wa-l-qirānāt)

This lecture will discuss the contents and context of The Book of Interim Times and Planetary Conjunctions as well as the state of current scholarship on it.

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  • 26 May 2022
  • Aga Khan Centre
  • Book launch

Book launch: “Patterns of Wisdom in Safavid Iran”

Join us for this special event celebrating the scholarship and academic achievements of our late esteemed colleague, Dr Janis Esots, and to mark the launch of his latest publication, Patterns of Wisdom is Safavid Iran: The Philosophical School of Isfahan and the Gnostic of Shiraz.

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Dish/Magic Bowl, Qing Dynasty, 1786 (AH 1201), (British Museum)
  • 28 Apr 2022
  • Online
  • Webinar

Soul’s Imaginal Motion in Abū Ya‘qūb al-Sijistānī’s (fl. 10th CE) Kitāb al-Maqālīd and Risālah al-Bāhirah

This lecture will focus on what Abū Ya‘qūb al-Sijistānī (d.ca. 361 AH/972 CE) presents in Kitāb al-Maqālīd and Risālah al-Bāhirah on imaginal motion as the domain of Soul and Soul World. Just as much as Soul’s movement is determining how natural time and natural motion arise, Soul’s activities shape and condition what is- what is existing and coming into existence.

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  • 22 Apr 2022
  • Aga Khan Centre
  • Webinar

Documentary Screening and Discussion on Climate Anxiety

The documentary focuses on climate anxiety due to natural hazards, such as flooding in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. This documentary presents their side of the story, as a starting point for discussions around climate anxiety.

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  • 25 Mar 2022
  • Aga Khan Centre
  • Talks and Lectures

"The Proper Name" by Professor Faisal Devji

This event is the closing keynote address of the IIS-Cambridge workshop on the study of Islam at the end of the empire. The workshop brings together scholars of Muslim thought in order to reassess and reconsider a critical moment in the making of modern Islam: the transition from orientalism to “Islamic Studies”.

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  • 17 Mar 2022
  • Aga Khan Centre
  • Book launch

Command and Creation: A Shi'i Cosmological Treatise - Book Launch

Join us for this special launch event for Command and Creation: A Shi’i Cosmological Treatise, with author Dr Daryoush Mohammad Poor in lively conversation with Dr Toby Mayer, both Senior Research Associates at The Institute of Ismaili Studies.

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  • 03 Mar 2022
  • London
  • Book launch

Ismaili Festivals Book Launches in Series of Popular Events

Ismaili Festivals: Stories of Celebration by Dr Shiraz Kabani, the first title in the IIS’s Living Ismaili Traditions series, has launched in recent weeks at a series of popular events.

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