News

Dr Zehra Kazmi gave an online lecture for the Centre for Studies of Plural Societies in Delhi. She explored how South Asian Muslim writing uses nostalgia and grief to challenge present-day politics.

Three IIS scholars presented papers at the Association for Iranian Studies conference in Utrecht in August 2026. Their panel traced the role of intellect from Nasir Khusraw and Rumi to Ismaili women in Iran today.

Dr Karim Javan has published the first comprehensive catalogue of the 126 Persian manuscripts held at IIS. The volume opens centuries of Ismaili history, thought, and literature to new research.

Students from STEP C-18 visited Córdoba, Madinat al-Zahra, and Granada on a field trip to Andalusia. Four student teachers reflect on what the sites taught them and how the experience will shape their teaching.

Pandit Sandip Bhattacharjee, one of the leading vocalists of the Kirana gharana tradition, visited the Aga Khan Centre, performing ragas and reflecting on traditional musical apprenticeship.

Read the reflections of a GPISH alumnus on a Cairo site that held the tombs of the Fatimid Imam-caliphs, later became a market and a rubbish mound, and is now al-Azhar Park.

UNESCO has inscribed Alamut Castle and six associated fortifications on the World Heritage List, recognising the centre of the Nizari Ismaili state as a place of scholarship as well as a stronghold.

Two GPISH graduates, Hidoyatullo Shozodamamadov and Muhammad Ali Sohail, have received Farhad Daftary Doctoral Scholarships 2026 for DPhil study at the University of Oxford.

IIS Senior Research Associate Dr. Amier Saidula has published a new book on how the Tajiks of Xinjiang hold order and identity together through their own customs and the law of the Chinese state.

Dr Jalal Badakhchani, the scholar of Persian Ismaili literature of the Alamut period, passed away in London on 11 August 2026, aged 85. He taught the Institute's first generation of students, and made the writings of Nasir al-Din Tusi legible to modern readers.