The conference brings together researchers working on Shia minorities outside of the so-called “Muslim heartland” (North Africa, Middle East, Central and South Asia). The conference focuses on Shia minorities in Western and Eastern Europe, North and South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia that emerged out of migration from the Middle East and South Asia in the 20th and 21st centuries, in particular. The papers presented at the conference offer unique comparative insights into Shia minorities in a variety of contexts across the globe. The conference is organised by the new Chester Centre for Islamic Studies and held in conjunction with a research project on transnational Shia networks that operate between Britain and the Middle East, funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. For more information, see: http://www.chester.ac.uk/node/35376. To register or further queries, email ccis@chester.ac.uk.

1. Shia Minorities in the Contemporary World:
Migration, Transnationalism and Multilocality
@
Chester Centre for Islamic Studies (CCIS)
20-21 May 2016
Hollybank CHB002, University of Chester
(campus map)

2. PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME
Day 1: Friday 20 May
09:00 – 09:30: Registration and refreshments
09:30 – 10:00: Welcome
Oliver Scharbrodt, 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 Authority
11:00 – 11:15: Tea/Coffee break
11:15 – 12:45: Session 1
Performing Shiism: Rituals and Practices I
Yafa Shanneik (University of South Wales), “Husyan is our Homeland”: Shia
Mourning Poetry in Women Rituals in London and Kuwait
Writing 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.

3. This paper examines the thematic focus around Imam Husayn as homeland (watan)
that has been repeatedly used in poetry recited in women-only religious gatherings
(majalis) in London and in Kuwait. It analyses the reception of this poetry and the
emotional affect on women of various backgrounds residing in contexts that are
different in geographical, political and migratory terms. Yet, these gathering use similar
symbolic imageries during Ashura rituals. The paper also addresses to what extent
the reference of the martyr as “homeland” is also used as a literary tool in pre-Islamic
poetry.
Marios Chatziprokopiou (Aberystwyth University), Performing Muharram in
Piraeus: the Lamentation for Imam Husayn in a Migratory Context
Ashura 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 worl, and of their resistance against oppressive powers. During
the first ten days of Muharram, Shia communities around the world gradually reenact
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

4. 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.
Noor Zaidi (University of Pennsylvania), “Still we long for Zaynab”: South Asian
Shias and the Shia Shrines
The 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 Generation in Indonesia

5. This paper introduces the Shii initiation ritual called taklif ceremony organised by
female Qom alumni in Indonesia. The ritual has an important role in helping researcher
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 the 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 2
Performing Shiism: Rituals and Practices II
Ekaterina Kapustina (European University at St. Petersburg), Moharramlik and
the Modern Shia community of Derbent in Translocal Reality
The 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 20th 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

6. 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 Indonesia
Shias 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.

7. 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), The Arbaeen Pilgrimage:
Movement and Mobility among young Shias in UK and USA
Following Ashura it is customary for devoted Shias to carry out street processions to
commemorate the anniversary of the forty days after Imam Husayn’s death in 680 CE.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, and despite serious security issues, millions
of Shias from around the world organise trips to Iraq to experience the annual Arbaeen
pilgrimage to Imam Husayn’s mausoleum in Karbala. This paper will focus on the
evolution of this massive pilgrimage and how it has become a significant spiritual,
social and political event - even a new rite of passage - for young devoted Shias living
the UK and USA. Based on personal reflections given by British and American Shias
this paper examines the ways in which Arbaeen has become a communicative,
symbolic and competitive space to engage with internal divides within and between
local and transnational Shia and Sunni communities. Simultaneously, it has become
a platform for Shias in the West to see themselves as part of an emerging, cross-
ethnic global Shia community. The local and transnational social and economic
infrastructure that supports the Arbaeen pilgrimage will also be discussed in relation
to the proliferation of local charity events international tour operators and religious
guides, and media campaigns. This paper will critically engage with sociological and
anthropological literature (e.g Turner, Eade, Snallow and Werbner) on the processes
that surround pilgrimage ritual in relation to ideas of the sacred, authority structures,
subjectivities and identity formation, gender and tourism.
15:30 – 15:45: Tea/Coffee break
15:45 – 17:15: Session 3
Diasporic Shia Minorities: Transnationalism and Multilocality
Zahra Ali (University of Chester), Being a Young Devout Shii in London:
Religiosity and Multiple Senses of Belonging between the UK and Iraq

8. This 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 organizations 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.
Elvire Corboz (University of Aarhus), Heritage Symbols Reformulated: The
Legacy of the Ahl al-Bayt and the Shaping of Iran’s Activist Version of Shiism in
Europe
This paper will explore the use of Shii heritage symbols in Europe by what I call “Iran-
oriented” institutions, and the meanings that these symbols are given in the process.
This topic brings together two issues of interest that have been explored in the
scholarship on Shiism in reference to communities in Arab, South and East Asian, as
well as African countries, but not in the West. First is the question of Iran’s reach to
Shia outside the country, and while the actual influence of the Islamic Republic should
not be overemphasised, it is worth considering what becomes of its norms and values
when those are addressed to communities living in a European environment. In
particular, the “activist” version of Shiism propounded by the Iranian state is not, it
appears, transplanted uniformly as such, but is framed in accordance with the context

9. in which it is disseminated in order to be made relevant to its target audience. As such,
activism can mean greater participation in the public sphere of European countries,
outreach to “communicate the universal value of justice” inherent in Shiism to the
larger society, sometimes proselytization among non-Muslims or non-Shia, and also
the fight against obesity and unhealthy living behaviour, or the like. This confirms that
the expectations of transmigration scholars about the transformation and
accommodation of transnational practices and ideas to contextualised localities also
hold true in the case of state-sponsored transnationalism. Second, and in line with
other studies that have analysed how the “Karbala paradigm” can be articulated
differently in various historical and geographical settings, this paper is interested in the
interpretations of the Shii heritage that sustain Iran’s activist version of Shiism in its
European making. The bulk of the primary material used for this analysis will consist
of the videos of the commemorations of the birth and death of the ahl al-bayt which
have been held in the past decade by the London-based Islamic Centre of England
and the Ahlul Bayt Islamic Mission.
Chris Heinhold (University of Chester), Who is Hussain: Contemporary
Campaigning at the Glocal Level
Since 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

10. 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.
Samra 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 Detroit
Beginning 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 (Signal, 1997). 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.
17:15 – 17:30: Tea/Coffee break

11. 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 May
9:00 – 10:00: Keynote Lecture 2
Liyakat Takim (McMaster University), title to be announced
10:00 – 10:15: Tea/Coffee break
10:15 – 11:45: Session 4
Diasporic Shia Minorities: Identities in Transition
RezaGholami (Keele University), Cultures of Integration: Pride, Shame and New
Religious Identities among UK Iranians
Although 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

12. 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 Shi`ism 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 Subject
How 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

13. 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 Aires
This 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

14. 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 Foundation
Over 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

15. 12:00 – 13:30: Session 5
Shia Communities in Formation
Piro Rexhepi (University of Rijeka), The Bektashi Tariqa and the Postsocialist
Politics of “European Islam” in Southeastern Europe
As 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 (University of Oakland), 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

16. 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), Lines back to Ali, Road forward Shiism: A
Historical Anthropology of Cham Sayyids’ Trajectories from Cambodia to Iran
A small village. A couple of families. A few leaders. Just a couple of years. It didn’t
take much for a handful of Cham Muslims in Cambodiato “leave” traditionally assigned
Sunna in favour of Shia. From the journeys undertaken by a few students to/in Qom,
from the hopes of young gents learning Farsi, from the elders’ readings of newly
imported Shia texts, we could conclude that something barely emergent, brand new,
a move, a trend, just started. We could. And yet. Yet there is this road long taken by
merchants from Persia to Champa, back and forth. Yet there are those touches of Shia
in one too many ritual, one too many legend. Yet there is the bold line: the one that
has always linked the small village, these few families, this one leader: to Ali and back.
A trace made of Sayyid generations who always claimed their ascendance to the ahl-
al-bayt, who always remembered the battles in their name – maybe the one in Karbala,
surely the ones in Cambodia – and who just had to come back to the Shia womb, over
there, all the way: Qom. It is them, those few Cham Sayyids, born from the womb of
the Cham wife of Ali – as it is said, told, known - that this paper offers to get along: in

17. constant dislocation, searching for the line to end where it all started, looking for the
roots of Shia in Iranian seminaries. A long story, a piece of longue durée history, using
preliminary fieldwork materials from Iran and Cambodia, showing that the affiliation to
Shia by a few, denied by the many Sunni, and considered as new, is nothing but…
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
Muslims
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 Shafii 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 17th 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 celebratw 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 3

18. Seyyed Fadhil Milani & Mohammad Mesbahi (Islamic College London), Muslim
Migration to Europe, Challenging (European) Modernity and the Necessity of the
ijtihadi Approach
15:45 – 16:00: Tea/Coffee break
16:00 – 17:30: Session 6
Shia Transnationalism between Global and Local Dynamics
Sufyan Abid (University of Chester), An Alternative umma: The Construction
and Development of Shia Globalism among South Asian Shia Muslims in
London
This 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).

19. 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 Europe
Brussels 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.
Hafsa Oubou (Northwestern University), Transnational Conversion and Global
Networks among Moroccan Shia Converts
This 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

20. 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.
Robert Riggs (University of Bridgeport), Global Networks, Local Concerns:
Investigating the Impact of Emerging Technologies on Shii Religious Leaders
and Constituencies
Shii 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 20th 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.

21. 17:30 – 18:00: Concluding discussions
18:00: Dinner