Lifelong Learning Articles -- Key words Islam, Muslim community, mediation, dispute resolution In this paper, the author highlights the fact that the concept of mediation exists in many cultures and traditions in the world and that, unfortunately, its centrality as a dispute resolution mechanism in Islam is obfuscated by a negative image of the faith shaped largely by media images internationally. Through ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Lifelong Learning Articles -- Download PDF version of this articleNasir al-Din al-Tusi was born in February 1201 and died in Baghdad in June 1274. His lifetime witnessed the existence of such luminaries as Roger Bacon, Ibn 'Arabi, Moses Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas, Ibn Taymiyya, Gregory Chioniades and Levi ben Gerson. Tusi acquired the honorific title of Khwaja (distinguished scholar and teacher) in his ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Lifelong Learning Articles -- Download PDF version of this article The Qur'anic ethics of care and generosity are woven deep into the fabric of Muslim civilisations. Embodied in the daily life of Prophet Muhammad, this ethical spirit emanated from the belief that Allah had entrusted responsibility and obligations to mankind as a whole and to the community of believers in particular. "I ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Lifelong Learning Articles -- The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art's expanded 'Islamic galleries' carries spectacular displays of calligraphy, miniatures, glassware, rock crystal, woodwork, metal artefacts and jewellery from various periods. However, following many decades of viewing such exhibitions, and especially in anticipation of the opening of the Aga Khan Museumin Toronto, one ponders on the choices made by curators and the ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Lifelong Learning Articles -- Surat 33 al-Ahzab of the Qur'an, it is known, is composed of pronouncements and legislation in the time around the Battle of the Trench and the Siege of Medina in Du'l-Qa'da of the year 627 CE. The legislation, containing the designation of Muhammad as the Seal of the Prophets (khatam al-nabiyyin) obviously had a major bearing on the ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Lifelong Learning Articles -- One of the goals of the Institute's website is to facilitate access to secondary literature on Islamic and related fields for the benefit of a non-specialist readership. This section of the website carries a number of articles by the Institute's academic staff, which suit the needs and interests of a non-academic readership. As with all such publications, they ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Lifelong Learning Articles -- pluralism_-_beyond_ethnic_and_sectarian_identities_-_amyn_sajoo.pdf (353.6 كيلوبايت) By Dr. Amyn B. Sajoo "At the heart of a democratic ethic is a commitment to genuine dialogue ... a readiness to give and take, to listen, to bridge the empathy gaps as well as the ignorance gaps that have so often impeded human progress. It implies a pluralistic readiness to welcome diversity and to ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Lifelong Learning Articles -- The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) was established in 1977 with the objective of promoting scholarship and learning on Muslim cultures and societies, historical as well as contemporary, and encouraging a better understanding of their relationship with other societies and faiths. The Institute's founding aim was defined by a basic and continuingre-assessment of existing scholarly endeavours in this ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Lifelong Learning Articles -- ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- The Nizari or more properly the Nizari Isma'ili Muslims, like other Shi'i communities, acknowledge 'Ali as imam after the Prophet. The Nizari Ismailis have continued to give allegiance to imams descended from Imam 'Ali, on the basis of the principle of designation (nass) by the imam of the time. As of 2002, His Highness the Aga Khan, Shah Karim ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- A popularisation of the Sanskrit word jnan, which is generally defined as 'contemplative or reflective knowledge.' Among Ismailis originating in the Indian subcontinent, the word refers to the part of their tradition whose authorship is attributed to those who converted and preached beginning in the eleventh century. The languages in which the ginans exist reflect the areas from which ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of article (112 KB) Sijistani and Philosophy Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani was first and foremost a member of the Ismaili underground mission - the da'wa, as it is known in Arabic - that operated in the Iranian province of Khurasan and Sijistan during the tenth century. His activities and the works he wrote must be seen in ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of articleKahak is a village located about 35 km northeast of Anjudan and northwest of Mahallat in central Iran, with the ruins of a fairly large caravanserai. Kahak was an important locality in the late medieval period for the Qasemshahi NizariIsmaili community in Iran, but now it is a small and isolated village with a Twelver ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of article (32 KB)Key words: Optika, Ptolemy, vision, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, al-Kindi, Euclid, Ibn al- Haytham, astronomy, Islamic civilization, Avicenna, Nasir al-Din Tusi, intromission, Kitab al-manazir (The Optics), meteorology. Optics, as a scientific discipline that explores the nature and comportment of vision and light, finds its earliest methodic roots in Euclid's elementary treatise, the Optika (ca.300 ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of article (112 KB) Location and Description A fortress on the summit of an isolated rocky hill in the Alburz mountains, situated some 18km west of Damgan in northern Persia. Thrust forward into a sloping plain, the hill of Gerdkuh rises about 300 metres above its base, and seen from the south, the access direction to ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of the article Abu 'Ali Ibn Sina (ca. 980-1037 CE), known in Latin as Avicenna, was a physician, natural philosopher, mathematician, poetic mystic, and princely minister. Of Persian descent, he was born in Afshana in the province of Bukhara. His chief philosophical work, Kitab al-shifa' (Book of Healing), which was known in Latin as Liber Sufficientia, ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Ismaili literature ("literature" is used here in its wider sense to include all the written products of scholarly disciplines delineated by learning, religion, and science) refers to the literary production of more than a millennium, from the middle of the 3rd/9thcentury (i.e., before the advent of the Fatimids in 909 CE in North Africa) to recent times. It deals ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of this article Satr, "concealment", a term used in a variety of senses, particularly by the Isma'iliyya. The Isma'ilis originally used it in reference to a period in their early history, called dawr al-satr, stretching from soon after the death of Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq in 148/765 CE to the establishment of the Fatimid state in 297/909 ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Life In striking contrast to other Ismaili writers of the time (s.v., Hamid ai-din al Kirmani; Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani), a good deal of information exists on Khusraw's life, most written by his own hand, some by a (hostile) contemporary, some by later historians, and some apocryphal. He has been included in every major literary or historical survey produced since ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of this article 'Ayn al-Qudat Al-Hamadani, Abu 'l-Ma'ali 'Abdallah [or Muhammad] b. Abi Bakr Muhammad b. [Abi 'l-Hasan] 'Ali b. al-Hasan b. 'Ali al-Mayanaji [or al-Miyanaji] was an influential Sufi and important author of original works on mystical theology and spiritual practice in both Arabic and Persian; famous as a Sufi martyr. He was publicly executed ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Dawr(Ar. and Pers.), period, era, or cycle of history, a term used by Isma'ilis in connection with their conceptions of time and the religious history of mankind. The early Isma'ilis conceived of time (zaman) as a progression of cycles or eras, dawrs (Ar. pl. adwar), with a beginning and an end. On the basis of their eclectic temporal vision, ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Key words:Guregen, Samarqand, Chagatai, Chingiz Khan, Khurasan, Transoxania, Persia, zayl, Majma', Zubdat al-Tawarikh, Muzzafarids, Mamluk, Ottoman, Shah Rukh, Ulugh Beg.Download PDF version of article (72 KB) The Timurids were a dynasty of Central Asian nomadic origin that dominated the Middle East and Central Asia in the 8th AH (14th CE) and 9th AH (15th CE) centuries. The founder, Timur ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Medieval Nizari Ismaili missionary in Syria. He reorganized the Nizari community in Syria and played a prominent role in the regional politics of his time, entering into shifting alliances with Salah al-Din (Saladin), the Crusaders, and others to safeguard the independence of his community. Sinan was the original 'Old Man of the Mountain' of the Crusaders, who made the ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of the article (121 KB) Hamdan Qarmat b. al-As'at (d. 321 AH / 933 CE), was an Ismaili da'iand founder of the Ismaili movement in Iraq. He came from a village in the tassuj of Badaqla, east of Kufa, and is described as working as a carter when he was converted by the Ismaili da'i Husayn ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of article (32 KB)Key words:Esoteric, Basra, Baghdad, compendium, mathematics, music, logic, astronomy, physical sciences, natural sciences, soul, ethics, revelation, spirituality, philosophy, Ikhwan, Shi'a, Ismaili, Fatimid, Qur'an, Abrahamic monotheism, Torah, Canonical Gospels, ancient Indian and Persian classics, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Euclid, Ptolemy, syncretism, history of ideas in Islam, Muslim civilisation.Ikhwan al-Safa' Ikhwan al-Safa' (the Brethren ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of article (159 KB) Free Will in Ismaili Shi'ism Free will versus predestination was an important theological debate, with political implications, in Muslim society dating back to Omayyad times. The Ismailis adopted an intermediate position in thes debate and eventually accommodated the relevant issues within their theological doctrines. At one extreme, a variety of Islamic movements ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of article A learned theologian, poet, stylist and an accomplished diplomat, Shah Tahir Husayni was also the most famous Imam of the Muhammad-Shahi branch of Nizari Ismailism. He was born in the final decades of the 9th AH/ 15th CE century in the village of Khund, near Qazwin in northern Persia, where his forefathers known locally ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Although many of these castles in Persia were taken and demolished by the Mongols, the ruins still give an impression of their immense power. As far as we know, there are no other Ismaili monuments still extant with the exception of isolated remains of pottery kilns, for instance at Andij in Alamut. It should be remembered that Ismaili castles, ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of this article (32 KB) Abu Ja'far Muhammad b. 'Ali was one of the most learned Muslims of his age. He played a pivotal role in the history of early Islam as an authority on the exegesis of the Qur'an, the Traditions of the Prophet (Hadith), and on all matters relating to the rites, rituals, and ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of article (105 KB) Nasir al-Din Tusi, Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Hasan, by far the most celebrated scholar of the 7th/13th century Islamic lands was born in Tus, in 597/1201 and died in Baghdad on 18 Dhu'l Hijja 672/25 June, 1274. Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon were his contemporaries in the West. Very little is known ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download the Article in PDF format (68 KB) Khaki Khurasani, Imamquli, Isma'ili poet and preacher of 17th-century Persia (b. Dizbad; d. Dizbad, after 1056 AH / 1646 CE). He was born in Dizbad, a village in the hills half way between Mashhad and Nishapur, which at the time was the largest dwelling place of the Isma'ilis of northern Khurasan. ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Origins and Early History On the death of Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq in 148 AH/765 CE, his followers from among the Imami Shi'i split into six groups of which two may be identified as proto-Ismailis or earliest Ismailis. Imam al-Sadiq had originally designated his second son Isma'il (the eponym of the Ismailiya) as his successor to the imamate. A majority ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Key words: Ishraq, "science of lights", al-Suhrawardi , Avicenna, Aleppo,nur al-anwar, asalaal-mahiyya, al-nur al-mudabbir, presential knowledge (al-'ilm al-huduri), Islamic thought, Sufi tradition,dhikr, Plato, Hermes, Empedokles, Pythagoras, Neoplatonic. Download PDF version of article (72 KB) Derived from "illumination," a conventional translation of the Arabic term ishraq (lit. radiance, shining of the rising sun), "illuminationism" refers to the doctrine of the ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Language group within the family of Pamir languages, which belong to the Modern Eastern Iranian languages. Languages of the Shughni-Rushani group are spoken in the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan, particularly in the autonomous region of Badakhshan; in the Afghan province of Badakhshan; and in Xinjiang in China. The Shughni-Rushani language group consists of five languages: Shughni, with the ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of this article. Table of contentsEarly life of Ivanow A Shift in Research Ivanow meets Aga Khan III Pioneering Steps in Ismaili Studies Early life of Ivanow Vladimir Alekseevich Ivanow, (b. St. Petersburg, Russia, 3 November 1886, d. Tehran, 19 June 1970; variously spelt Ivanov and Wladimir), was a Russian orientalist and leading pioneer in modern ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of this article (68 KB) A major Isma'ili Shi'ite dynasty, the Fatimids founded their own caliphate, in rivalry with the 'Abbasids, and ruled over different parts of the Islamic world, from North Africa and Sicily to Palestine and Syria. Established in 297/909 in Tunisia, the seat of the Fatimids was later transferred to Egypt in 362/973. ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of article (113 KB) Introduction and Early Life Muhammad b. Zayn al-'Abidin b. Karabala'i Dawud (b. ca. 1266/1850; d. 1342/1923), foremost Persian Nizari Ismaili author and poet of modern times, who is referred to as Haji Akhund in the Persian Nizari community. Feda'i was born in Dezbad/Dizbad or Dezbad-i Bala (Razmara, Farhang IX, p. 180), an ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of the article Khayrkhah Harati, Muhammad Reza b. Sultan Husayn Ghuriani, Nizari Ismaili da'i, author, and poet. He was born into a prominent Nizari Ismaili family in Ghurian near Harat, in present day western Afghanistan, in the final decades of the 15th century CE and died not long after 960 AH/1553 CE, the latest date cited ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Aga Khan is the title inherited by the modern imams of the Shi'a Nizari Ismaili Muslims. The title was first granted by the Iranian ruler Fath 'Ali Shah to Imam Hasan 'Ali Shah (1804 -1881), who also served as governor of Qum, Mahallat, and Kirman. Forced to leave Iran, he settled eventually in British-ruled India. His son, Imam Shah ...

Click to view ❯❯❯

Encyclopaedia Articles -- Download PDF version of article (32 KB)After the defeat of the Iranian Sasanian dynasty in 637-638 CE, the conquering Muslim army occupied Iraq and established on the banks of the Euphrates a garrison town called Kufa. The new province would henceforth be ruled from this newly founded settlement. In time, it grew into a major administrative capital that had ...

Click to view ❯❯❯