Shia Minorities in the Contemporary World:Migration, Transnationalism and Multilocality

@Chester Centre for Islamic Studies (CCIS)

20-21 May 2016Hollybank CHB002, University of Chester

(campus map)

PROGRAMME WITH ABSTRACTS

Day 1: Friday 20 May

09:00 – 09:30: Registration and refreshments 

09:30 – 10:00: WelcomeRob Warner, Executive Dean Faculty of Humanities

Oliver Scharbrodt, Director Chester Centre for Islamic Studies

 

10:00 – 11:00: Keynote Lecture 1:Sabrina Mervin (EHESS/Centre Jacques Berque), Linking Shia Minorities to the Shii Core: History, Rituals and Religious AuthorityStarting from the concept of walâya, the link that connects the believer to the Imam

and connects the believers among them, I will explore how Shia communities

organise themselves, far from the religious centres (Najaf and Qom). Through

several examples, I will analyse how they construct their history, related to the global

sacred history of Shiism, how they reinterpret and perform “imported” Shii rituals to

build their religious identity. I will also seek to analyse how they deploy locally the

religious authority emanating from the centres. I will then finally shed light on the

tensions between the centres and the peripheries and between the local and the

global. 

11:00 – 11:15: Tea/Coffee break

11:15 – 12:45: Session 1 Performing Shiism: Rituals and Practices IMarios Chatziprokopiou (Aberystwyth University), Performing Muharram in Piraeus: the Lamentation for Imam Husayn in a Migratory ContextAshura is the tenth day of the Islamic month Muharram. In Shiism, Ashura signifies

the commemoration of the martyrdom of Husayn, the grandson of Muhammad, who

was defeated in 680 CE by the forces of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid. This event has

often been used by Shia communities as a political paradigm of their minoritarian

position in the Islamic world, and of their resistance against oppressive powers.

During the first ten days of Muharram, Shia communities around the world gradually

re-enact Husayn's martyrdom through ritual lamentation, including narrations,

chants, weeping, chest-beating and self-flagellation. This paper builds on fieldwork

conducted in 2014 among the Pakistani Shia community of the Azakhana Gulzare

Zaynab, based in the city of Piraeus. I explore how the aforementioned political and

performative aspects of Ashura are displayed in the context of contemporary

Greece, marked by the rise of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, the adoption of

several of its main discourses by the former government, but also broader feelings of

xenophobia. If, as I argue, during the last few years Pakistani migrants became,

because of both the colour of their skin and their religious background, the principal

scape-goats of Greek racist and, in some cases, murderous attacks, how does this

racism affect Pakistani Shias in particular, given that they constitute “a minority

within a minority”? Before meeting the participants of the Ashura, my aim was to

focus on the discourses they would produce about their ritual actions in order to

interrogate if, and to which extent, they perceive their lamentation for Husayn as an

enactment of eventual grievances related to these multiple layers of their

minoritarian status in Greece. In this paper, I demonstrate how this initial research

question has been challenged by my interlocutors themselves and redirected

through the fieldwork process. Reflecting on the latter as a “nexus of performances

in which significant communicative events can happen” (Fabian 1999: 24) rather

than as a strict data collection based on questions and answers, I propose a more

complex understanding of the Ashura commemoration: it may also be an occasion

that provides a time-frame out of the ordinary, within which the participants can not

only enact the precariousness of their lives, but also suspend, or transgress this

reality.

Yafa Shanneik (University of South Wales), Shia Devotional Poetry in the 20th

and 21st Century from the Gulf to EuropeWriting elegies for the dead and performing them publicly is an Arab tradition dating

back to the pre-Islamic period. Al-Khansa’, a contemporary of the Prophet

Muhammad, is one the best known poetesses who composed plaintive and

melancholic poetry mourning the death of her two brothers. The style of her

lamentation poetry has created and shaped the genre of Arabic lamentation poetry

until the present. In the context of Twelver Shia Islam, writing elegies and performing

them in mourning rituals has been a central element in lamenting the death of Imam

Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in Karbala in 680 CE. The

lachrymal expressions and descriptions that characterises this lamentation poetry

have the religious and ritualistic function of metaphorically identifying and uniting the

participants with Imam Husayn and his cause. Yet, very little is known about Shia

lamentation poetry, particularly those performed during women-only Shia ritual

mourning practices. This paper examines the roots, development and

transformations of Shia lamentation poetry written by Shia women in Iraq, the Gulf

and Europe in the 20th century in light of dramatic geo-political and socio-religious

changes within Shia communities in the Middle East and diasporic communities in

Europe.

Noor Zaidi (University of Pennsylvania), “Still we long for Zaynab”: South Asian Shias and the Shia ShrinesThe fall of Saddam Hussain in 2003 led to an explosion in pilgrimage – or ziyarat – to

the Shia holy cities in Iraq, opening the doors for Shia faithful to visit sacred sites that

had been closed to them for decades. Yet even as pilgrims from around the world

visited Karbala and Najaf in the tens of millions, the increasing unrest in Damascus

would curtail visitation to the revered shrines of Zaynab bint ‘Ali and Ruqayyah bint

Husayn. The exhortation to undertake visitation to the shrines of Shia martyrs has

taken on a renewed vigor in Muharram celebrations in Shia diasporas around the

world, and pilgrimage groups from the United States have abounded. This paper

explores the longing for Shia shrine cities amongst South Asian youth in the United

States, with a particular focus on Shia communities in New York and New Jersey. It

analyzes how Shia shrine cities have replaced the “homeland” in the discourse of

second-generation immigrants, young American Muslims who express deeper

affinity to these distant sites and their affairs than to the state of Shias in their

parents’ native countries. Young Shias carry out pilgrimages individually or with their

peers, in groups aimed at inculcating a sense of transnational Shia solidarity

amongst the next generation of pilgrims. As the rhetoric around ziyarat as a religious

imperative has increased, so too have souvenir and gift exchanges, a practice that

has only recently permeated the rituals of younger generations of South Asian Shia

in these mosques. Encompassing these rituals and practices, however, is the impact

that the loss of the Sayyeda Zaynab shrine as a viable pilgrimage destination has

had on the way the events of Karbala are commemorated – a loss that is essential to

understanding the complex ways that young Shias long for the shrines of their

“history”.

Reni Susanti (Tilburg University), Taklif Ceremony: Women Ritual and the Creation of Future Shii Generations in IndonesiaThis paper introduces the Shii initiation ritual called taklif ceremony organised by

female Qom alumni in Indonesia. The ritual has an important role in helping

researchers to understand the Shia as a community and Shiism as practised in

Indonesia. Focus of the study will be on how the ritual adapted in the Indonesian

context, what kind of roles it serves in shaping Shii womanhood/manhood in

particular and the future Shii generation in general, as well as its role in empowering

Shii women as participants of the ritual. Based on the ethnographic work, it is

suggested that the ritual adapted from post-revolution Iran is not necessarily political

in nature nor intended to serve the political interest of Iran in Indonesia. Taklif, as an

initiation ritual, is a form of technology of the self with an Islamic framework that is

not only a locus for disseminating and exercising fiqh skills but also an embodiment

of the philosophical and metaphysical tenets of Shiism. Furthermore, the ceremony

also plays an important role in empowering Shii women as the ritual provides spaces

for women to consolidate themselves as minority group, to express their religiosity,

to learn and gain support from each other.

12:45 – 14:00: Lunch

14:00 – 15:30: Session 2Performing Shiism: Rituals and Practices IIEkaterina Kapustina (European University at St. Petersburg), Moharramlik and the Modern Shia community of Derbent in Translocal RealityThe Shia community of Derbent has a centuries-old history in the region. Shia Azeri

along with Armenians, Russians and Jewish made up the majority of Derbent

population by the beginning of the 20 th century. Strong migration flows of the last

hundred years have changed the ethnic and religious city structure dramatically.

Russians, Jewish and Armenians have mostly left Dagestan. Derbent was populated

by Sunnis coming from the mountain areas of the republic. In such conditions, the

local Shia community became largely closed inside the downtown of Derbent. As a

result in modern Derbent, Shia Azeri are both an ethnic and religious minority. On

the other side, in the last thirty years the Shia of Derbent like many other

Dagestanians migrated to other regions of Russia – Moscow, St. Petersburg, the gas

and oil centres of West Siberia, as well as Azerbaijan. At the same time, in the post-

Soviet period educational migration of young people became popular – the Shia

youth studied in Islamic universities in Iran. Most migrants, especially those

migrating within Russia, very often lead a translocal life, visit relatives and family in

Derbent from time to time and sometimes return there. In this context, the funeral

rites of Moharramlik become a social event that brings all Derbenters to their home

city. As a result, there is a clash of different views on the order of Ashura

celebrations, each of the views directly or indirectly depending on the migration

experiences of migrants and their families.

In my paper based on my personal fieldwork data, I will show the Ashura ritual

complex in post-Soviet Derbent Shia community. Through Ashura celebration, I will

analyse various points of view from representatives of different migration flows as

well as their attitude to the home city and its role and place in Shia world. In addition,

I will pay attention to the changes of the Shia community’s status in Derbent in the

context of the Sunni majority during recent decades. I also find it interesting to

observe the discussion between young Azeri who studied Islam in Iran and local

Shiism supporters, mostly represented by the elder generation.

Chiara Formichi (Cornell University), Performing Religion across the Indian Ocean: Ashura Commemorations in IndonesiaShias in Indonesia account for less than 1% of the Muslim population, yet devotional

practices dedicated to the “people of the house” involve more people than that.

Grounded in shards of a faraway past, today’s “lovers of the ahl al-bayt” are

committed to reclaim their histories in an effort to carve their niche within the

legitimate pale of Islam. Yemenis and Persians were amongst the first and most

assiduous traders to reach the archipelago in the 9-13th centuries: what started as

commercial connections rapidly evolved into religious and cultural exchanges,

stimulating rich vernacular Islamic traditions. In the 18th century, piety for the ahl al-

bayt and ritual performances marking the period of Ashura, were imported to

Sumatra by South Asian sepoy soldiers and convicts, under the brief period of British

rule there. The 20th-21stcenturies have been characterised by a stronger presence of

the greater Middle East region, more specifically Iran.

In this presentation. I illustrate four examples of Ashura commemorations in Java

and Sumatra (Jakarta, Bandung, Cirebon and Bengkulu) as windows to investigate

the nexus between local forms of devotion and claims to authenticity. Having

collected oral accounts of reconstructed histories, self-narratives, and genealogical

re-discoveries, I aim at unfolding the link between ritual practices and moral

geographies. Amidst a recent convergence towards an orthopraxy promoted by the

Islamic Republic of Iran, the quest for authenticity remains multi-sited, located in the

early Persian da’is of West Java, the sepoys of South Asia, the characters of the

Hindu epic Mahabharata, the Arabs of Hadramawt, the philosophers of Mashhad,

and the jurists of Qom.

Kathryn Spellman-Poots (Aga Khan University / Columbia University), Temporary

Marriage in the UK: Debates and Practice among British Shii Muslims

This paper is part of a larger study arguing that belonging to a Twelver Shii

community, in addition to a wider British Muslim or diasporic community, has

become a more salient identity for devout Shii in recent years. By focusing

specifically on the transmission and transformation of Twelver Shii practices the

project aims to demonstrate how young British Shiis are negotiating local, national

and transnational authority structures, creatively aligning themselves to fellow

Twelver Shii Muslims, and striving to establish themselves as social actors in British

society. This paper focuses on a form of marriage known as temporary marriage in

English (mut’a in Arabic and sigheh Persian). More specifically, it takes an

intergenerational and gendered look at the various ways in which this type of

marriage is practiced by young Twelver Shiis in the UK. Moreover it highlights the

range of viewpoints that British Twelver Shii Muslims have about this controversial

practice, in relation to the rulings of Shii authority, Sunni discourses and ethnic

customs. The paper argues that the discourse surrounding temporary marriage -

which engages with immodesty, deviant expression and sexual relations – serves as

a vehicle for young British Shiis to debate bodily technologies and how they are or

should be expressed and regulated in Britain’s secular and liberal society.

15:30 – 15:45: Tea/Coffee break

15:45 – 17:15: Session 3Diasporic Shia Minorities: Transnationalism and MultilocalitySamra Nasser (Western New Mexico University), Transnational Impact of Events in the Middle East on Post-Migratory Shia Minorities: The Case of Shia Lebanese in Metropolitan DetroitBeginning in 1975 and continuing until 1991, a period in which one third of

Lebanon’s population emigrated, Lebanese Shia displaced by their country’s civil

war arrived in Dearborn and settled in large numbers both in the South end area and

in East Dearborn. Lebanon has been one of the most troubled sites for sectarian

divisions in the Arab world, but sectarianism never really took hold in Southeast

Michigan with the same virulence it did in Lebanon during the civil war. However,

taking up residence in a foreign society known for its upward mobility opportunities,

and worries about how Arabs might be treated in a non-Arab society, often allows

previously warring factions at least to set aside their differences in the new land. The

term “transmigrants” provides a framework for conceptualizing the movement of

Lebanese Shia between Lebanon and the US. As transmigrants, they have tended to

maintain contact with their villages of origin; travel back and forth to Lebanon; send

money to Lebanon; and generally participate in Lebanon’s social, cultural, and

political life—despite the diverse generations and histories of migration that shape

this community. This analysis will focus on extending our understanding of immigrant

minority political integration of the Lebanese Shia transmigrant community within the

Metropolitan Detroit region and comparatively assessing those data with already

published data on non-Lebanese Shia (mostly of Iraqi origin) as well as non-Shia

Lebanese-Americans (mostly Maronites and Sunnis), retrieved from the U.S. Census

Bureau and the Detroit Arab American Study (DAAS). The implications from the

research will address how and at what rates these Lebanese Shia transmigrants

adjust and participate politically in their new host societies. It is the hope that this

comparison will reveal a better understanding of the Shia community’s potentially

contrasting levels and types of political participation.

Zahra Ali (University of Chester), Being a Young Devout Shii in London: Religiosity and Multiple Senses of Belonging between the UK and IraqThis presentation explores the religious beliefs and practices, and the socio-political

and transnational self-identifications of young educated British Shia (adherent of

Twelver Shiism) of Iraqi descent living in London. My research is based on a double

approach, socio-historical and ethnographic and is guided by an intersectional

analysis imbricating concepts of religion, ethnicity, class, sect and translocality. The

socio-historical approach looks at the evolution of transnational Iraqi Shia networks

between Iraq (Najaf-Karbala and Baghdad) and London since the 1990s to today

focusing particularly on the post-2003 period. The ethnographic approach relies on

semi-structured interviews and participant observation within youth-oriented British-

Iraqi Shia’s organisations and networks in London. In this presentation, I will seek to

address the following questions: how do devout British Shia of Iraqi descent

experience, express and define their religious beliefs and practices? What is their

relationship to Shia transnational networks and more precisely to Iraq as both their

country of origin and as the main land of the Shia sacred shrines and religious

authority? How does British-Iraqi Shia relate and define their relationship to other

Muslim communities? In exploring the religiosity and multiple senses of belonging of

young educated British-Iraqi Shia living in London I intend to enrich the existing, but

limited, literature on Shia communities in Europe and transnational Shia networks

and to develop an intersectional and complex understanding of notions of religiosity,

belonging-ness and translocality.

Chris Heinhold (University of Chester), Who is Hussain: Contemporary Campaigning at the Glocal LevelSince its inception in 2012, the “Who is Hussain” campaign has expanded from a few

dedicated youth based in London, to a global community of volunteers and activists

engaged in a mixture of social work and spreading their message of Husayn ibn ‘Ali.

While engaging in very particular types of civil society activities, focused on running

food banks and soup kitchens for the homeless, along with blood drives and the

providing of bottled water, these youth have created a space to spread the message

and the values of Husayn, as they understand them, to a wide and diverse audience.

Established as a means to reinforce their own religious values, and to bring the

message of Husayn to people beyond their own faith community, the “Who is

Hussain” campaign stresses that they “are apolitical, areligious and a-everything else

that should divide us from one another!” The campaign has moved rapidly from the

local to the global stage. This multilocal engagement has been achieved not only

through slick virtual presentation and savvy social media engagement, but with an

enduring focus on real world, grass roots level engagement, with volunteers active

across 60 countries. In this presentation, I will look at both the local and global

aspects of the “Who is Hussain” campaign, examining how the transnational scope

of the campaign is squared with the local contexts within which activists are

operating. This is a truly “glocal” endeavour, operating on a global scale while

remaining focused on local issues and embedded within local communities.

17:15 – 17:30: Tea/Coffee break

17:30 – 18:30: Book Launch Mara A. Leichtman (Michigan State University), Shi’i Cosmopolitanisms in Africa: Lebanese Migration and Religious Conversion in Senegal (Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 2015)

18:30: Dinner

Day 2: Saturday 21 May9:00 – 10:00: Keynote Lecture 2Liyakat Takim (McMaster University), Fiqh for Minorities: Shi'i Law in the DiasporaThis paper will examine the new diasporic jurisprudence that has emerged within

Shi'i juridical circles. Shi'i jurists (maraji‘) have responded to the needs of Shi‘i

communities that live as minorities in the West by recasting Islamic legal discourse

on Muslim minorities and reconciling Islamic legal categories to the demands of the

times. New situations and contingencies have prompted the experts in the field to

delve into the sources and to devise methodological devices in usul al-fiqh to enable

them to deduce fresh juridical rulings in order to deal with novel problems and

issues. In their writings, the maraji‘ have articulated the juridical and moral

parameters within which the followers are to base their demeanor.

The paper will also will argue that Islamic legal theory has posited a lacunae which

provides the flexibility to either revise earlier rulings or infer new rulings especially

keeping in mind the fact that Muslims live as minorities in the West. This paper will

argue that the principle of a lacunae (mintaqa al-faragh) in Shi‘i law can empower

jurists to go beyond the traditional parameters of the Shari‘a. The principle allows for

an expansion of Islamic law since jurists can legislate laws that have not been

explicitly prohibited by textual sources.

I will also demonstrate that in the past Shi‘i jurists often appealed to local customary

practices in legislating laws that were absent in revelatory sources. This juridical

practice is premised on the view that all reasonable beings accept and behave

according to common norms and values. Based on the principle of sira ‘uqala’iyya

(behavior that is accepted by all “reasonable” people), jurists can deploy American

customary law as a source of new legislation. Such considerations can lead to a

radically different formulation of diasporic jurisprudence.

10:00 – 10:15: Tea/Coffee break

10:15 – 11:45: Session 4Diasporic Shia Minorities: Identities in TransitionReza Gholami (Keele University), Cultures of Integration: Pride, Shame and New Religious Identities among UK IraniansAlthough the UK does not have a blanket integration policy to address the various

categories of immigrants, the idea of integration nonetheless has a continuous and

significant presence in British community relations. As such, the discourse of

integration orients itself towards second and third-generation diasporans as much as

it is aimed at recent arrivals. In British politics, integration is generally thought of as a

political and economic process ostensibly supporting multicultural co-existence

within an ethos of mutual respect. In recent decades, however, there has been an

argument in some quarters that integrationist discourses have de-emphasised

tolerance in favour of a more assimilationist approach (e.g. Mamdani 2002;

Kundnani 2007). Drawing on recent data from the UK Iranian diaspora, this paper

aims to complicate both perspectives by exploring the cultural dimensions of

integration mainly at the intra-diasporic level. Among UK Iranians, integration is

increasingly acting as an idiom for being a “good”, “successful”, “proper” Iranian; and

a failure to integrate is seen as unacceptable, shameful, even a reason to panic.

Furthermore, the impetus for integration derives from a sense of inferiority steeped in

a Eurocentric mentality which puts huge pressure on Iranians to do better in cultural

and economic terms to constantly justify their adequacy. Thus, successful integration

can only happen through reinforcing the superiority of Western/British civilization and

the inferiority of Iranian culture - a position which is predicated on a critique of Iranian

Shiism and Islam in general. In turn, these processes help the reconceptualization of

Shii religious identities among Iranians whilst driving some young devout Iranians to

assert belonging outside the Iranian community with other Shii populations.

However, these issues also relate to the machinations of Britain’s politics of

integrationism, which I argue only accepts certain types of integration whilst

continuing to problematize the life-styles of many integrated ethnic/religious

minorities. I posit, therefore, that British integrationism is neither about mutual

respect nor about assimilation. Rather, minorities can stay themselves as long as

they present/live a particular version of themselves. That is, the ideal ethnic minority

(especially Muslim) person will acknowledge, even if tacitly, the superiority of

Western civilization whilst conforming to Western standards of education, economic

activity and citizenship -all without being too religious.

Emanuelle Degli Esposti (SOAS), Living Najaf in London: Diaspora, Transnationalism, and the Sectarianisation of the Iraqi-Shia SubjectHow do the spaces we inhabit shape our lived experiences? And how do those lived

experiences in turn come to shape and influence our political subjectivity? Such

questions are rendered all the more important in studies of migrant or diasporic

populations who, by definition, conduct their daily lives in spaces and places that

were initially alien to them. Through a detailed study of Iraqi Shiis living in London,

specifically in the North-western borough of Brent, this paper will seek to trace the

ways in which religious institutions have carved up the physical and social landscape

of North London in ways that have enduring effect on the communities with which

they engage. The increasing diversification of different religious establishments, I

argue, has led to a fragmentation of the city-as-lived, in which the vast majority of

practising Iraqi Shiis engage with only small isolated pockets of the urban

environment on a daily basis. Moreover, the growing number of specifically Shia

schools, charities, mosques, community centres and other such institution has

resulted in what I call a “sectarianisation” of space in Brent, in which differently

practising Muslim sects inhabit different spaces within the city despite often living

within metres of each other. This sectarianisation forms part of a wider political

economy of Shia religiosity in Europe in which competing regional and international

powers (in particular Iraq and Iran) use financial and material resources to serve

their own interests, often at the expense of ordinary Shiis themselves. Drawing on a

mixture of interviews, participant observation, and mapping techniques, I bring

together theory and practice in order to sketch out the ways migrant lives can come

to be localised in certain spaces, and what that can ultimately mean in terms of their

political subjectivity and engagement. The focus on Shiis of Iraqi national

background is significant due to the specific historical and socio-political

circumstances of the Iraqi diaspora and the highly politicised nature of Shiism in

contemporary Iraq at the present time.

Mayra Soledad Valcarcel (University of Buenos Aires) and Mari-Sol Garcia Somoza (University of Buenos Aires/EHESS), Mi corazón late Hussein: Identity, Politics and Religion in a Shia Community in Buenos AiresThis paper is a brief overview of the identitarian transformations and recompositions

of the Shia community that has settled in the Floresta district of Buenos Aires. This

community has its roots in immigrants from the Bilad al-Sham region, who arrived in

Argentina between the end of the nineteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries. The

majority of Floresta’s Shiite community are of Lebanese origin (second, third or

fourth generation), although in recent years the number of converts to Islam

participating in it has risen. We propose to analyse the ways in which this community

has been rebuilding its collective identity and memory in recent decades, taking into

account the mutual implication among local and worldwide phenomena. We discuss,

on the one hand, the return of democracy to Argentina in 1983, which started a

process of greater visibility for religious minorities within a country of a strongly

Catholic cast. On the other hand, we look at the impact of the 1979 Islamic

Revolution in Iran on the members of this group, for whom the influence of this event

was to generate “the recovery of their identity and line of thought”. The links with the

Islamic Republic of Iran were first put down in the 1980s, through the presence of

Iranian Muslims in Argentina, a phenomenon that took material form in, among other

things, the construction in the Argentinian capital of the Al-Tauhid Mosque in 1983,

and subsequently through journeys of religious instruction made by Argentinian

Muslims from this community to Iran. Accordingly, we reflect on the continuities and

breaks in the articulation of Arab, Muslim/Islamic and Argentinian sense of self as

the identitarian loci of enunciation in this process of veering from a historical

otherness toward the development of a particular political and religious identity. We

look first at the tensions between the political-theological positioning of this group

and the rest of the Islamic community in the city. We then analyse the

communicative strategies deployed by this community (including their own particular

digital media and use of social networks) in confronting the prejudices and

stereotypes that view it as the main centre of public attention and media coverage in

light of the intricacies of the AMIA bombing. Lastly, we deal with the praxis of its

leaders, the formation of specific organisations, such as the Union of Argentinian

Muslim Women (UMMA or Unión de Mujeres Musulmanas Argentinas), and its active

participation in the Federation of Islamic Bodies of the Argentine Republic (FEIRA or

Federación de Entidades Islámicas de la República Argentina), or in the recent

Kirchnerist political association, Muslims in Charge (Musulmanes al Frente).

Roswitha Badry (University of Freiburg), From a Marginalized Religious Community in Iran to a Government-sanctioned Public Interest Foundation in Paris: Remarks on the Ostad Elahi FoundationOver the past decades the reformist (maktabi) branch of Iranian Ahl-e Haqq

(Yaresan) has undergone a stupendous metamorphosis that shows similarities with

other former “ghulat” groups but nevertheless seems to be unique. The

transformation process started three generations ago in Iran with writing down the

community’s religious tenets which had earlier been transmitted orally. Nur Ali Elahi

(d. 1974), called “Ostad Elahi” by his admirers, was mainly responsible for

reconciling the doctrines of the Ahl-e Haqq with Twelver Shia by placing them in the

context of esoteric Shia. Finally, his son Bahram Elahi (b. 1931) gave his father’s

teachings a universal dimension by publishing books in French for the growing

Western community and by establishing the “Ostad Elahi Foundation” in Paris (2000)

that is said to teach “ethics and human solidarity” according to Nur Ali Elahi’s

concepts. The foundation was even granted NGO special consultative status with

ECOSOC. This contribution will focus on the web presentation, the activities and

networks of the foundation. It will be argued that the community tried to benefit from

a booming Western interest in esotericism and a global ethos.

11:40 – 12:00 Tea/Coffee break

12:00 – 13:30: Session 5Shia Communities in FormationPiro Rexhepi (Max Planck Institute), The Bektashi Tariqa and the Postsocialist Politics of “European Islam” in South-eastern EuropeAs Muslim majority countries in the Balkans are designated for European Union

integration, Balkan Islam has emerged as an investigative field and a public

discourse that attempts to make meaning of the integration of Muslims in the

periphery of Europe in times of rising Islamophobia and overall EU integration

fatigue. This paper traces the discursive construction of Bektashi Shia Islam as a

model Muslim minority, an exceptional and exemplary Islam for Europe, one that, in

contrast to Sunni Islam, is produced as “secular”, “European” and “tolerant”.

Projecting Balkan Muslims as possible European subjects, this discourse allows for

the demarcation of EU political borders while spatially and temporally separating

Muslims in the Balkans from the larger Muslim world. I argue that the contemporary

accounts of Bektashi Islam as “Islam light” are not new but rather encumbered with

Orientalist accounts of early colonial cataloguing of Austro-Hungarian scholars and

imperial officials who used local networks to exert power, survey, archive

information, and manage local populations. Here, I examine how the genealogy of

colonial categorization and historicization of Bektashi Shia Muslims in the Balkans

according to ethnic ascriptions and as a different type of Muslim from those in the

Middle East and Africa is employed in contemporary discursive production of

European Islam. Specifically, I look at late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century

Austro-Hungarian ethnographies of Muslims in the Balkans that were used to

catalogue and inform colonial policies while establishing the colonial archives that

continue to influence knowledge production regarding Muslims in the Balkans. 

Arun Rasiah (Holy Names University), Ideas in Motion: The Politics of Knowledge and Patronage in Indian Ocean Islam

Twelver Shiism emerged in Sri Lanka following Iran’s Islamic revolution of 1979. The

political upheaval that inaugurated the fifteenth hijri century also reflected an

important shift in the transmission of religious knowledge. New Shii publications were

widely disseminated and found an audience open to new iterations of Islam.

Eventually new institutions of learning, embodying an alternative intellectual order to

the teachings of Sunni madrasas, imported Shii scholars from abroad while

dispatching students to traditional centers of learning. This paper, based on research

in Sri Lanka, examines how the politics of knowledge and patronage have both

enabled and constrained the scholarly networks that lead the Shii community. Bound

by conceptions of religious authority, Shii communities gather for religious

observance and instruction in centers led by ‘ulama’. They face numerous

challenges and adapt global discourses to navigate local concerns in the aftermath

of the civil war and an atmosphere of growing Islamophobia. Their double minority

status vis-á-vis the Sunni Muslim community and authoritarian state and non-state

actors compel them to observe taqiyya as a strategy of survival. Moreover,

persecuted members of Shii minorities from Pakistan and Afghanistan have sought

sanctuary in Sri Lanka, where the local Shia have played a critical role in their

resettlement. As asylum seekers and refugees on the margins of larger society, they

too share a sense of exile that recalls narratives of oppression relating to the

Prophet’s family, the ahl ul-bayt. Among them, scholar under threat of death also

serve in the capacity of resident ‘alim, transmitting philosophical knowledge from

Qom into the life of the fledgling community. Informed by practices of ritual, learning,

and politics, the resulting environment enculturates a unique Shii identity that brings

together local, regional and global perspectives.

Emiko Stock (Cornell University), Comfortably sitting in-between: Grains of Cham ‘Alid Piety to Rethink the Shi’a / Sunni DivideA porridge dark like the colour of martyrdom, insidious references to Ashura, ‘Ali and

Fatimah for role models, and a son a bit from Champa, a lot like Kerbala. And

somehow also, orders for mohr – praying stones from Kerbala – and memories of a

Persian king that has nothing to do with it all, but surely claims to have a whole lot to

say. ‘Shia character’ in Sunni Southeast Asia has long been searched for by

specialists of Islam aiming to demonstrate an early influence of Shiism in the region.

Following lines of devotion to the ahl al-bayt among the Chams – Muslims in

Cambodia – this paper suggests that those elements, rather than furthering the

divide of Shism / Sunnism by layering the two distinct entities, could be used to

demonstrate a common ‘Alid piety comfortably sitting in between. Following the

proposition developed by Hodgson (1955) and Formichi & Feener (2015), I further

explore the potentials for the notion of ‘Alid piety for Islamic studies and Southeast

Asian studies to lay down their disciplinary divide as much as their geographical

borders.

Anas P. A (Aligarh Muslim University), Cultural Representation of Shiism in Malabar Coast of Indian Ocean: A Case Study on the Social Life of the Kerala MuslimsThe Malabar Coast, the South-western shore of the Indian subcontinent, has been

an important marine trade and migration hub since ancient times. From a cultural

and religious perspective, the Kerala Muslim are so-called Mappila, Sunni Muslims

and followers of the Shafi‘i madhhab. Islam spread throughout of Malabar by the

preaching of the Arab and Persian Sufi missionaries. The Ponnani Sayyids who

migrated from Hadramaut took the spiritual and political leadership of Sunni Islam.

Shiism spread in this area by the preaching of the Shaikh Muhammad Shah (d.1766

CE) who settled in Kondotti in the middle of the 18th century. The growth of Shiism

created a disturbance among the Sunni scholars and led into great controversies

between the Ponnani and Kondotti factions. It continued until the first decades of the

20th century. At last, Shia Muslims repented and Sunnis absorbed them. The

interesting matter in this transformation is that the census of British government in

1871 has proclaimed the total numbers of Shia Muslims in this area were 14.9%. But

nowadays their numbers are a few, around a thousand families. However, Shia

culture and practices are flourishing among the Sunni Muslims. Sunnis are

maintaining the shrine of Muhammad Shah at Kondotti and celebrate the festivals of

Muharram, Milad, etc. The heroic exploits of Hazrat ‘Ali and his family are highlighted

in Mappilla literature and folklore. The main objectives of this study is to analyse the

cultural transaction of Shiite elements among the Sunni society, even they had

become extinct or a minority community and how Shiism has survived and coexisted

within the Sunni Muslim majority in the modern context.

13:30 – 14:45: Lunch

14:45 – 15:45: Keynote Lecture 3Seyyed Fadhil Milani & Mohammad Mesbahi (Islamic College London), Muslim Migration to Europe, Challenging (European) Modernity and the Necessity of the ijtihadi ApproachThis research will review the use of ijtihad by Shia ulama, outlining the source for the

principles that guide and inform Muslims on how to make Islam-based moral and

ethical choices to respond to the challenges faced by European modernity as a

modern concept, social entity and ideological force that needs to be addressed. This

paper will explore the contemporary concerns of ordinary Muslims at every level of

society living in the UK (European non-Muslim society), working alongside or

marrying non-Muslims. It will reflect on the desperate need for authoritative guidance

by such migrants and highlight a series of replies obtained on these targeted issues

within a myriad of complexities that confronts them on a daily basis. Moreover, there

will be a critical look at the traditional divisions of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb to

highlight the dynamics of the inclusion of Dar al-‘Ahd by contemporary European

Muslims in this innovative ijtihadi approach.

15:45 – 16:00: Tea/Coffee break

16:00 – 17:30: Session 6Shia Transnationalism between Global and Local DynamicsHafsa Oubou (Northwestern University), Transnational Conversion and Global Networks among Moroccan Shia ConvertsThis paper explores the transnational conversion and global networks among

Moroccan Shia converts. Morocco is an overwhelmingly Sunni country in which

conversion to Shia Islam for Moroccan citizens could possibly challenge the common

perception of both patriotism and the allegedly shared Sunni faith. The notion of an

ideal Islamic community promised by the Iranian Revolution in 1979 swept through

the Middle East and had a particularly profound resonance among the youth in North

Africa, as well as among Muslim immigrants in Europe who were, at that time,

relatively quiet minorities with transnational ties to their home countries but not

elsewhere. My proposed paper examines transnationalism through the lens of

religious conversion to understand more broadly the dynamics of religious minorities

in both the homeland (Morocco) and diaspora (Belgium and France, in particular).

This paper provides an interpretation of multilocality and transnationalism through

religious conversion while debating how for Moroccan emigrants to Europe, Morocco

has become both periphery and still center of an emerging Moroccan Shia Islam

whose community members are also part of Moroccan Shia immigrants in Brussels.

In what ways does the making of Moroccan Shia in the last 30 years in Morocco add

to our understanding of Muslim diaspora in the “West”, particularly for Moroccan Shia

immigrants? How do the epistemologies of Shia Islam among the Shia converts in

the homeland shape the Moroccan diaspora in Europe? Data for this paper include

field notes, interviews, and media from fieldwork in Morocco in summer 2015.

Sufyan Abid (University of Chester), An Alternative umma: The Construction and Development of Shia Globalism among South Asian Shia Muslims in LondonThis paper explores the paradoxical nature of Shia globalism as proposed and

propagated by Shia speakers and activists of a South Asian background in London.

The paper will elaborate the complexities that the proponents of Shia globalism have

to confront with while introducing themselves as an alternative umma vis-á-vis Sunni

Muslims. The paper discusses the negotiations and compromises that proponents of

the idea of “Shia Muslims as an alternative umma” experience while they present it

publically. The paper is based on fieldwork undertaken among South Asian Shia

Muslims living in London and the analysis is based on both discourse and religio-

political practices undertaken by these Muslims. The idea of Shia globalism brings

itself in the spotlight by denouncing terrorism and by showing solidarity with the

West’s “War on Terror” against various terrorist organisations of Sunni inclinations

across the world, yet at the same time, it creates its space within the Muslim world

by showing strong solidarity with the Palestinian cause by demonstrating severe

opposition to Israel. The Shia speakers and activists based in Britain emphasise

unity and consensus about the political leadership of the Supreme Leader in Iran as

single representative of global Shia Islam. The paper argues that idea of “Shias as

an alternative umma” has many conflicting and divergent points where the

“alternative umma” compromises the interests of either the Sunni Muslims or the

West. The paper also maintains that Shia globalism is not an acceptable position for

some sections of Shia Muslims who have their reservations about the hegemonic

ambitions of the Supreme Leader in Iran and about the ideology and institution of

wilayat al-fiqh (guardianship of the Muslim jurist).

Iman Lechkar (University College Brussels), Interpreting Khamenei and Fadlallah in Brussels: the Religious and Social impact of Middle Eastern Clerical Leaders in the Capital of EuropeBrussels is a super-diverse metropolitan city that counts 146 nationalities and 104

languages that are well spoken by its inhabitants. A quarter of the population is

Muslim (230,000) and between 15,000 to 20,000 are Shiites. This is a small but

important minority because through recent conversions and migrations this number

is incessantly increasing. Based on my doctoral research on Moroccan Belgian

Shiites, this paper draws on participant observation and semi-structured interviews

conducted from 2007 to 2010. During this period, I extensively visited two mosques

that attract the majority of Shiites in Brussels. While one mosque is clearly influenced

by Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, the other mosque is characterised by adherents

of Sayyed Mohamed Hussein Fadlallah. In this paper, I will explore how these two

mosques relate to these Twelver marajiʿ (highest Shia clerical authorities). By

drawing on the teachings of Khameini and Fadlallah, two different aesthetic

communities are constructed, enlarging and diversifying the Muslim landscape in

Brussels.

Robert Riggs (University of Bridgeport), Global Networks, Local Concerns: Investigating the Impact of Emerging Technologies on Shii Religious Leaders and ConstituenciesShii mujtahids represent themselves as transnational religious leaders whose

authority reaches followers all over the world. Historically they have developed and

maintained local constituencies through the positioning of loyal representatives who

collect the khums tithe, mediate local disputes and transmit messages on their

behalf. With the rise of a global information network in the late 20 th century, powered

by the Internet, mujtahids have established websites that play a vital role in the

maintenance of local constituencies. The use of Internet technology provides greater

opportunities for constituency-building and at the same time the potential loss of

control over the production and dissemination of knowledge. Internet websites allow

self-styled mujtahids to proliferate and diverse new centers of authority to form, thus

inverting historical center-periphery dynamics. To date, scholars have discussed the

effects of Internet technology on the authority structures of Shii scholars in furthering

competition for knowledge and authority. However, these studies have neglected to

highlight the increasing uniformity in thought that the Internet has encouraged -

structural transformations that have led to changes in Shia beliefs and practice.

Employing three analytical frames: discourse analysis of various Internet content,

Actor Network theory, and the globalization theories of Arjun Appadurai, this paper

positions Shii authority structures in a “disjunctive global economy of culture” and

elucidates the creative ways in which these uniquely situated religious authorities

articulate the relationship between the local and the global. These frames will explain

how new media has facilitated an increase in discussions, debates and challenges to

religious authority in Shii post-migratory societies in New York and London.

Clarifying the process of hybridization that takes place at the nexus of religious

authority, political and social conditions and new media in a Shii context will provide

a valuable tool for analyzing similar phenomena in other social contexts.

17:30 – 18:00: Concluding discussions

18:00: Dinner