News

STEP Cohort 18 student-teachers spent two weeks at IIS exploring faith, ethics and practice. They connected Ismaili traditions with classroom teaching, and met the Sikh community at Southall Gurdwara.

Hussain Jasani shared IIS research at the Ismaili Center, Houston, on ginans, Khojki manuscripts, and South Asian Ismaili heritage. He also invited the Jamat to help preserve historical materials held within families.

Dr Fatima Dhanani and Dr Alex Henley joined leading scholars at the EASR-IAHR congress 2026 in Bucharest. They spoke on new critical and decolonial approaches to the study of religion.

Dr Najam Abbas spoke at the Gulf Research Centre Cambridge on changing youth migration from South Asia to the Gulf.

In this new IIS publication, Dr Mohammad Rasekh examines how Muslim inheritance law can respond to changing family structures.

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.