In this talk, Toby Matthiesen outlines his motivations for writing the The Caliph and the Imam: The Making of Sunnism and Shiism as well as some of the challenges he faced in the process. He explains how the book contributes to and departs from earlier work and how it can contribute to discussions of religion and politics more broadly, especially in the early modern period.
The Caliph and the Imam: The Making of Sunnism and Shiism
Speakers
Toby Matthiesen
Lecturer
Toby Matthiesen is Senior Lecturer in Global Religious Studies (Islam) at the Department of Religion and Theology of the University of Bristol and has previously held fellowships at the Universities of Oxford, Venice, Stanford, Cambridge, and the LSE. He is the author of Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Spring That Wasn’t (Stanford University Press, 2013), and The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2015). The Caliph and the Imam: The Making of Sunnism and Shiism was published by Oxford University Press in 2023.
Faisal Devji
Professor
Faisal Devji is Professor of Indian History and Director of the Asian Studies Centre at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He has held faculty positions at the New School in New York, Yale University and the University of Chicago, from where he also received his PhD in Intellectual History. He is a Fellow at New York University’s Institute of Public Knowledge and Yves Otramane Chair at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. Recent publications include Islam After Liberalism, The Impossible Indian: Gandhi and the Temptation of Violence, and Muslim Zion: Pakistan as a Political Idea.
Islamic History and Thought Lecture Series
Hosted by The Institute of Ismaili Studies (London) and convened by Dr Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, the Islamic History and Thought Lecture Series is designed to invite scholars of various international academic institutions, specialising in intellectual, social and political aspects of medieval and early modern Islamic societies, to present and discuss their research. Watch previous lectures on our YouTube channel.
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Views expressed in this lecture are those of the presenting scholars, not necessarily of IIS, the Ismaili community or its leadership. Promotion of this lecture is not an explicit endorsement of the ideas presented.
