The Study of Shi’i Islam

Shi’i Islam is a broad subject encompassing history, theology, ritual, culture,and other topics. Several current monographs provide an overview ofone or more of these subject areas. Two examples that come to mind arePedram Khosronejad’s edited volumes on Shi’i pilgrimage, ritual, and materialculture, The Art and Material Culture of Iranian Shi’ism: Iconographyand Religious Devotion in Shi’i Islam (2011) and Saints and Pilgrimsin Iran and Neighboring Countries (2012). While these volumes help usunderstand the pilgrimage practices, art, and other cultural expressions ofShi’ism, they are not focused on the fundamentals, such as the movement’shistory, various theological schools, legal traditions, and textual sources.The Study of Shi’i Islam: History, Theology, and Law helps to fill this voidwith its large and serious collection of essays on Imami, Ismaili, and ZaydiShi’ism.The volume is organized into eight sections: “History and Historiography,”“The Qur’an and Its Shi’i Interpretations,” “Shi’i Hadith,” “Shi’i Law,” “Authority,”“Theology,” “Rites and Rituals,” and “Philosophy and IntellectualTraditions.” Contributions include essays by some of the greatest contemporaryscholars working in Shi’ism, including Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, EtanKohlberg, Sajjad Rizvi, Maria Massi Dakake, and Wilferd Madelung.The Study of Shi’i Islam opens with a preface that includes a succinctand important discussion about the marginalization of Shi’ism in the academy.The reasons for the lack of attention, which has been somewhat remediedin recent years, include a worldview that used Western Christianity tocreate categories of Islam and the popularity of scientific Orientalism. As the ...