News story -- GPISH (2018) alumna Semina Halani received a scholarship from Harvard University to attend a four-week Institute of World Literature Summer Programme in July. The programme, which took place online this year owing to the pandemic, included a total of ten seminars taught by leading professors and researchers in world literature, together with outstanding guest lectures and the opportunity for ...
News story -- WTEP (1994) alumna Nazneen Lakhani attended the G7 Summit as a Hindi Interpreter in June. Here she gives an insight into her experience, which included working with India's prime minister, Narendra Modi. "I had the privilege of working at the G7 Summit with my colleague, Amina Saif, to interpret simultaneously in Hindi for the prime minister of India, Narendra ...
News story -- Professor Ali Asani, who teaches on the IIS's GPISH programme and is a member of the Institute's Board of Governors, has been awarded the Harvard University 2021 Alpha Iota Prize for Excellence in Teaching. He has also been appointed to the Chancellor's Commission of Aga Khan University (AKU). The Alpha Iota Prize is voted on by Harvard's chapter of ...
News story -- GPISH alumna Professor Nacim Pak-Shiraz has been appointed as a governor on the board of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS). Nacim, who was appointed alongside five other leading figures in arts, business and culture, also serves on the IIS's Board of Governors. The RCS is a conservatoire of dance, drama, music, production and film in Glasgow, Scotland. In ...
News story -- Zulfiqar Khimani has recently been promoted to Manager for Educational Programmes in the Department of Community Relations. He also undertakes academic work and teaches on the GPISH programme. Here he talks about his new role, his plans for the unit and what he values most about working at the IIS. What does your role entail and what are your ...
News story -- The IIS Student Recognition Awards were held at the Aga Khan Centre on July 29th. Students, faculty and staff attended the in-person event, the first of its kind in over a year. In an upbeat atmosphere, the ceremony recognised those students who had made outstanding contributions over the past academic year. Two awards were given: one for service to ...
News story -- Nabila Walji is a second-year student on the Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities (GPISH) and has recently opened her first exhibition--UnBelonging in my Fatherland--with Calgary's Arts Commons. Here she talks about her combined academic-artistic photographic and writing practice, which explores identity, culture, discrimination and community, with a focus on her partly East African heritage. Please could you ...
News story -- Dr Otambek Mastibekov, Manuscript Researcher and Cataloguer in the Ismaili Special Collections Unit, set up Maktab-i Madḥiya-khānī in Tajikistan in 2011. On July 2nd I gave a talk called "Restoring the Values of the Past: Creating a School of Music in Tajikistan", which was part of The Silk Road: A Living History exhibition, presented by the Aga Khan Foundation ...
News story -- It is with deep sadness that the IIS announces the untimely loss of Dr Janis Esots, colleague and esteemed scholar. Born in Jaunpiebalgas, Latvia, in 1966, Janis received his first degree in 1991 from the prestigious Moscow Institute of Literature (Department of Translation, Persian language group) and obtained his doctorate in 2007 from Tallinn University, Estonia, with the thesis: ...
News story -- Created specifically for the Jamat, Living Ismaili Traditions (LIT) is the IIS's first in-house series and is set to launch on September 2nd with Ismaili Festivals: Stories of Celebration by Dr Shiraz Kabani. This innovative series will spotlight Ismaili histories and cultures, and through author reflections will explore what it means to be an Ismaili and part of the ...
This lecture looks at how the authors of literary sources of history constructed their narratives of scholarly apostasy in line with their own sectarian and political affiliations. Find out more about this lecture. This recorded online event is part of the Islamic History and Thought Lecture Series. ...
News story -- Making Paradise: Exploring the Concept of Eden through Art and Islamic Garden Design is the latest exhibition at the Aga Khan Centre Gallery. In this interview, its curator Esen Salma Kaya gives an insight into the multi-sensory show. How did the Making Paradise exhibition come to be? Could you tell us a bit about its concept and themes? I ...
News story -- The Islamic Gardens at King's Cross were one of 15 across the UK capital chosen to feature in London Open Gardens' virtual event. A short film of the roof gardens, terraces and courtyards in the Aga Khan Centre (AKC) on a sunny day was screened as part of the 90-minute broadcast on June 12th. Students from The Institute of ...
News story -- We are delighted to announce that Professor Farid Panjwani and Dr Arif Jamal have been appointed to senior management positions in two renowned academic institutions. Their career paths started with GPISH, and both now also sit on the IIS Board of Governors. Farid Panjwani, one of IIS's first GPISH graduates, made Dean Professor Farid Panjwani, a graduate from the ...
News story -- The IIS has continued its engagement with the Aquinas and "the Arabs" International Working Group Meeting this year, which runs online in May-June 2021. On May 19th, the Institute sponsored the panel "Ismaili Thought: Between Neoplatonism and Aquinas" at the conference, which this year has the title "Philosophy in the Abrahamic Traditions: Structures of Being, World and Mind". The ...
In this video, Dr Farhad Daftary speaks about how this book builds on decades of research, and represents an important contribution to the Ismaili community. Dr Farhad Daftary, Co-Director of The Institute of Ismaili Studies and, since 1992, Head of the Department of Academic Research and Publications is a leading authority on Shi'i studies, and particularly its Ismaili tradition. In this ...
Events -- 17th June 2021 -- Islamic History and Thought Lecture Series Sign up to IIS academic news, publications and events alerts. Register for this lecture During the medieval period, theʿulamāʾ had a prominent social status in Islamic dominions and were often closely connected to the sources of political power. Yet, the historiographical sources report cases of Muslim scholars accused of apostasy ...
To understand the formation of Twelver Shiʿism, we must understand the ways in which the authority of the traditional four agents and other community leaders was contested. Find out more about this lecture. This recorded online event is part of the Islamic History and Thought Lecture Series. ...
News story -- Audiobooks have seen a steady rise in popularity over the past few years and this trend has only intensified since the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns. Not only are they convenient (available at the press of a button and accessible while doing other activities like cooking or exercising), but the experience of being read to can be ...
News story -- Paradise is referenced over 130 times in the verses of the Qur'an, indicating the importance of this theme to the Islamic faith. It is also the subject of myriad works of spiritual literature and poetry, where it appears as an expanse of luxuriant, verdant gardens, irrigated by rivers, ponds and fountains. At Making Paradise's online opening on April 29th, ...
News story -- Rafiq Rayani is a student on the IIS's Secondary Teacher Education Programme (STEP). Here he presents five strategies to master the craft of teaching that he has learned from his teachers and peers, and from personal experience, during his time at the Institute. 1. We teach who we are It is said that a teacher's disposition has a significant ...
News story -- There are few concepts as widely misunderstood as shari'a. This is the case among both Muslims and non-Muslims; in the West, especially, misconceptions surrounding shari'a--which literally translates as "the way"--have evoked fear and hostility, and fed into Islamophobia. "Sadly, shari'a has become a metaphor today", says Dr Keshavjee, a scholar affiliated with The Institute for Ismaili Studies (IIS), "for ...
News story -- The IIS ran its first online international academic conference, Islamic Traditions in 'Greater Khurāsān': Ismailis, Sufis and Sunnis, at the end of February. Convened by Dr Dagikhudo Dagiev of the Shiʿi Studies Unit, the conference explored a variety of manifestations of Islamic culture in 'Greater Khurāsān', a medieval name for a vast geographical area that includes contemporary Central Asia, ...
News story -- Nazia Sajid Karmali is a first-year student on the IIS's Secondary Teacher Education Programme (STEP). Living your dream in the midst of a lockdown sounds daunting, doesn't it? That's because it is! My experience flying to London from Mumbai for the first time to pursue my long-nurtured dream of studying at the IIS has been nothing short of a ...
News story -- The Silk Road: A Living History, an open-air photography exhibition documenting Christopher Wilton-Steer's journey along the historic trade route, opens in King's Cross on April 8th. Over a period of four months in 2019, photographer Wilton-Steer travelled 40,000 km overland from London to Beijing, traversing 16 countries. The Silk Road: A Living History, which comprises over 160 photographs arranged ...
Watch Dr Wissam Halawi (University of Lausanne) speak about the origins and later history of Druzism, which in its early development, parted from mainstream Fatimid doctrine. Find out more about this lecture. This recorded online event is part of the Islamic History and Thought Lecture Series. ...
News story -- The IIS's new Board of Governors met staff and shared their thoughts on, and early plans for, the Institute on March 5th in an online town hall. The meeting was a chance for the governors, who took up their roles in December 2020, to reveal their aspirations after their recent inductions and first Board meeting, as well as an ...
News story -- Second-year students on the Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities (GPISH) presented their MA dissertation research proposals on March 2nd.In an online session watched by fellow students, teaching faculty, scholars and staff, the 11 students outlined their studies' topics, research questions, methodologies and limitations. The proposals touched on a broad and diverse range of subjects--women's rights, refugee studies, ...
Events -- 22nd April 2021 -- Islamic History and Thought Lecture Series Sign up to IIS academic news, publications and events alerts. Register for this lecture The traditional account of the early occultation-era Imami Shiʿi community depicts a series of four agents as mediating for the hidden Imam between 874 and 940 CE. Hitherto, scholarship has taken the authority of these agents ...
News story -- Attiya Nathoo is in her final year of the IIS's Secondary Teacher Education Programme (STEP). Here she shares her experience of the course, the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the three biggest lessons she's learned as she approaches graduation. As I write this, I reflect on my journey from being a STEP student to pursuing this dream of ...
News story -- For International Women's Day, we asked IIS staff and students to highlight one woman from Muslim societies and cultures who inspires them--and who they think more people should know about. From scholars to singers to activists to writers, every woman chosen and her life and actions express this year's theme: "Choose to Challenge". Here, staff and students tell us ...
News story -- Pedro Sánchez Rodriguez is a Librarian at the Aga Khan Library who oversees the Aga Khan Library Digital Collections (AKLDC) project, together with Shah Hussain, Librarian. Here, for World Book Day, they discuss the recently launched Ismaili Printed Materials Collection and the amazing response it has already received. We initiated the AKLDC project in 2019. Its aim is to ...
News story -- Mr Pyarali Jiwa passed away peacefully at his home in London on 2nd February 2021, and was laid to rest on 11th February. He was predeceased by his beloved wife, Maleksultan, and is survived by his three sons, their families, and his beloved grandchildren, through whom his legacy will continue to live on. Pyarali will be remembered by IIS ...
Events -- 17th March 2021 -- Islamic History and Thought Lecture Series Sign up to IIS academic news, publications and events alerts. The Druze dogma was developed in the 5th / 11th century in Cairo during the reign of the sixth Fatimid caliph al-Ḥākim. The founders of this dogma, notably Ḥamza, were Ismaili missionaries who, in their writings known as al-Ḥikma or ...
News story -- Professor Ebrahim Moosa, a leading exponent of contemporary Muslim thought, will be giving the keynote address for the 2021 IIS Short Course on "Shari'a: Development of Fiqh and Ethics in Muslim Contexts", which will run online between April 12th and 30th. One of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world, according to The Muslim 500, he is a ...
News story -- To mark this year's International Education Day, with its theme "Recover and Revitalise Education for the COVID-19 Generation", students, teachers and programme staff at the IIS's Department of Graduate Studies reveal the challenges posed by the pandemic, how the Institute's programmes have responded, and what it's like to teach and learn under lockdown. Both IIS graduate programmes, the Secondary ...
Watch Dr Mathieu Terrier (CNRS, Paris) present three case studies that illustrate the evolution of Imami Qur'anic exegesis in the early modern and modern eras in the first event of the IIS's Islamic History and Thought Lecture Series. Find out more about upcoming events in the Islamic History and Thought Lecture Series. ...
News story -- On Tuesday 24th and Friday 27th November third-year students on the Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities (GPISH) presented their field research papers to an audience of academics, students and staff. Although the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic posed a particular challenge this year, with research necessarily being largely desk-based and presentations delivered via Zoom, students successfully harnessed ...
IIS Update -- Find out more about the key initiatives and achievements of the IIS in 2019-20. The Institute has been publishing an annual IIS Update since 2000, to inform its supporters, affiliates and well-wishers of its programmes and activities. The IIS Update includes information about the Institute's recent and forthcoming projects, as well as news about its publications and staff. ...
Film showcasing the Aga Khan Library and its collections for History Day 2020. Film showcasing the Aga Khan Library and its collections for History Day 2020. ...
