The conference will commence at 09.00 GMT on 20 May. Doors open at 08.00 GMT.
Devotion to the Prophet Muhammad and his family (often referred to as the Ahl al-Bayt) is a pervasive and enduring part of Islamic piety, both in history and as the lived reality of millions of Muslims. While such devotions have often been sidelined as ‘non-canonical’ or as the prerogative of sectarianised minorities, this conference sets out to take them seriously as an object of study, examining their pivotal role in Islamic thought and practice, and reflecting upon the due place of Ahl al-Bayt-centred devotions within the broader academic study of Islam.
Focussing on devotion to the Ahl al-Bayt as an immensely diverse phenomenon, expressed multifariously across different times and places, the conference brings together an international group of experts to share their research on the different facets and manifestations of Ahl al-Bayt-centred devotion, and to investigate the conceptual networks that connect them. Amongst other topics, the papers will explore devotion as expressed through narrative, material culture, music, architecture and ritual. A recurring concern, meanwhile, is the importance of devotional ideas and expressions in constructing different group identities and in mediating between them.
The conference will close with a concert performed by the IIS student ensemble. Concert attendance will be included with conference registration.
Schedule
8.30 – Registration
9.30 – Director’s Welcome – Professor Zayn Kassam
9.35 – Introduction – George Warner & Maria De Cillis
Contested Geographies: Iraq’s Great Shiʿi Shrines Amidst the Ottoman–Safavid Rivalry (1508–1648)
May Farhat, Lebanese American University, Beirut
Shiʿi Objectologies: Towards a Relational Theory of Shiʿi Materiality
Karen Ruffle, University of Toronto
The Reflection of MuḥarramFirst month of the Islamic lunar calendar, often referred to as the ‘month of mourning’ because of the death of Imam Husayn b. ‘Ali at the Battle of Karbala in 680. Rituals in Late Safavid Silk Textiles
Mohamad Reza Ghiasian, University of Kashan (presenting author) and Mohammad Mashhadi Noushabadi, University of Kashan
11.30 – Health Break
12.00 – Panel 2: Reconstructing Early Devotion: Sources and Methods
Chair: Gurdofarid Miskinzoda
Scions of the Prophet Muhammad: The FatimidsMajor Muslim dynasty of Ismaili caliphs in North Africa (from 909) and later in Egypt (973–1171) More and their Veneration of the Ahl al-Bayt
Shainool Jiwa, IIS
Listening with Longing: In Search of Early Shiʿi Devotional Narrative
George Warner, IIS
Maintaining Early Islamic Imperial Sovereignty in the Face of the Ahl al-Bayt
Mohammed Allehbi, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
13.30 – Lunch
14.30 – Aga KhanA title granted by the Shah of Persia to the then Ismaili Imam in 1818 and inherited by each of his successors to the Imamate. Centre tours
15.30 – Panel 3: Mapping Modern Devotion: Sources and Methods
Chair: Fouad Marei
The Ahl al-Bayt in Recent Popular Literature from Khwārazm/Uzbekistan
Ingeborg Baldauf, Humboldt University Berlin (Emerita)
Aspects of Devotion to the Prophet’s Family among the IsmailisAdherents of a branch of Shi’i Islam that considers Ismail, the eldest son of the Shi’i Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 765), as his successor. of Badakhshan
Nourmamadcho Nourmamadchoev, IIS
Devotion to the Prophet and His Family in 20th-century Bosnia and Herzegovina Dženita Karić, University of Amsterdam
#AhlulBayt: Narratives of Devotion to the Prophet’s Family on Instagram
Akif Tahiiev, Goethe University Frankfurt
9.30 – Panel 4: Gināns and Ismaili Devotion
Chair: Daryoush Mohammad Poor
Sing a Song to Udho, the Messenger of God: Krishna and his Companions as the Ahl al-Bayt in Ismaili and Chishtī Sufi Hindi Poetry William Rees Hofmann, IIS
Poetry and Performance: The Devotional Life in Satpanth Ismaili Gināns Tazim Kassam, Syracuse University
Pīr Muḥammad and Shāh ʿAlī: The Teacher–King in Satpanth Ismaili Literature Imran Visram, University of Oxford
FatimaDaughter of the Prophet Muhammad and his first wife, Khadīja bint Khuwaylid. Also wife of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and mother of al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn. Goes to a Wedding: Veneration through Humour in Women’s Taʿziya of Qajar Iran Lucy Deacon, University of Fribourg
Acoustic Ahl al-Baytism: Rethinking Sectarian Boundaries through Sonic Devotional Practices
Stefan Williamson Fa, University of Cambridge
From Tribal Kinship to Covenantal Duty in 7th-Century Kufa: The Tawwābūn, al-Mukhtār and Loyalty to the Ahl al-Bayt Hasan Al-Khoee, IIS
Duʿāʾ Zaman al-Ghayba: An Instance of Messianic Devotional Literature in Twelver-Imāmī Shiʿism Vinay Khetia, University of Toronto
13.30 – Lunch
14.30 – Special Lecture
‘We are what we can remember’: Reflections on Siting (Ismaili) Heritage, Identity, and Devotion
Fayaz Alibhai, IIS
15.30 – Health Break and Group Photo
16.00 – Panel 6: Storytelling and the Devotional Imagination Chair: Lucy Deacon
Where Shall I Send my Invitation? The Imams’ Succession in Ismaili Devotion Shafique Virani, University of Toronto
Unseen Devotion: A Family of Jinn and Imam Husayn Uzair Ibrahim, University of Exeter
Husayn, al-AzharA major mosque and institution of learning founded in Cairo by the Fatimid Imam-caliph al-Muʿizz (d. 975). and the Socialist Underpinnings of Modern Egyptian Devotional Literature Hawraa Al-Hassan, University of Cambridge
18.30 – Dinner for participants
9.00 – Panel 7: Scholarly Authority and the Regulation of Devotion
Chair: Dagi Dagiev
Contesting Devotional Practices in Contemporary Twelver Shiʿism Oliver Scharbrodt, Lund University
Ahl al-Kisāʾ as a Source of Protection and Polemics: Li Khamsatun Devotional Poetry in the Pandemic Era
Siti Sarah Muwahidah, University of Edinburgh
Sunni Devotional Traditions Centred on the Ahl al-Bayt in Premodern Egypt: Muḥammad al-Sabbān’s Isʿāf al-Rāghibīn fī Sīrat al-Muṣṭafā wa-Faḍāʾil Ahl Baytihi al-Ṭāhirīn (1185/1771) Rachida Chih, CNRS, Paris
10.30 – Health Break
11.00 – Panel 8: Defining, Debating and Revering the Ahl al-Bayt Between SunnisAdherents of the majority branch of Islam, Sunnism; from the term sunnī which means a follower of the sunna of the Prophet Muhammad. and Shiʿis
Chair: Maria De Cillis
Al-Naʿīm al-muqīm in Context: A Mid-7th/13th-Century Manāqib of the Prophet, Fatima, and the Twelve Imams Kazuo Morimoto, University of Tokyo
Sunni Sufi Devotion to the Ahl al-Bayt and Sunni–Shiʿi Relations between Dissociation and Rapprochement in Modern Iraq and Yemen
David Jordan, Ruhr University of Bochum
Seeing the Imam in his Luminous Form: 13th/19th-Century Shiʿi Sufi Devotion to the Ahl al-Bayt between Doctrine and Practice
Alessandro Cancian, IIS
Please note that filming and photography may take place during the event, and be used across our website, newsletters and social media accounts. These could include broad shots of the audience and lecture theatre, speakers during the talk, and of audience members participating in Q&A.
Views expressed in this conference are those of the presenting scholars, not necessarily of IIS, the Ismaili community, or its leadership. Promotion of this event is not an explicit endorsement of the ideas presented.
