The AMI Podcast

In this presentation, Dr Warner focuses on the relationship that the book ʿUyūn portrays between al-Riḍā and his eventual murderer, the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Maʾmūn. Imamicide though he is, al-Maʾmūn in ʿUyūn is no Yazīd, for what we see in al-Ṣadūq’s work is not a portrait of absolute, irredeemable evil but a man who has a choice; a man who encounters the imām, who recognises the imām but who ultimately fails to make good that encounter and so is ultimately damned. This intense vision of the stakes of meeting God’s ḥujja forms the core of ʿUyūn, around which are explorations of a range of other relationships that include both al-Ṣadūq’s readers’ relationship with their imām(s) and al-Ṣadūq’s relationship with the powerful, irascible vizier al-Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād.

The shortage of organs donated for transplantation is resulting in the deaths of three people daily in addition to being burdensome on the NHS, which has to provide costly treatments. Quantitative surveys on the attitudes of British Muslims towards donation reveal that although the majority say that they are happy to receive an organ if needed, they are reluctant to become donors. Individuals feel constrained by advice from religious leaders and the interpretation of religious scriptures, considering organ donation to contravene Sharia rulings. In light of the imminent transition towards a system of ‘deemed consent’, in which there is a presumption that everyone is willing to donate their organs, Muslims are faced with the question of whether they want to opt out of saving, potentially, several lives.

Sayed Hossein Qazwini (Islamic Seminary of Karbala) discusses the different Shi'i Fiqhi views on Women's right to child custody.

Dr Omar Anchassi (University of Edinburgh) presents on the early juristic position within the various schools of jurisprudence regarding marriage to non-Muslim women who are either pagans or from the Abrahamic religions.

What does it mean to be a practicing Shi'a in Europe in the contemporary moment? How do individuals from Shi'a backgrounds negotiate their place in European society, especially in countries where Shi'is represent a "minority of a minority" with regards to the wider Muslim population? Drawing on my doctoral research among practicing Shi'is in the UK, this seminar will present some of the key findings regarding the development of a modern "British Shi'a" identity, as well as ask questions about the transferability of such an identity across European borders. The seminar will thus function simultaneously as an exploratory workshop, encouraging feedback and interaction from participants regarding their own sense of identity and belonging, and the ways in which academic scholarship needs to reflect the changing nature of what it means to be Shi'a in the modern world.

Despite their broad agreement about the definition of belief (īmān) and about key theological doctrine, Muslim scholars in the 15th-17th century Maghrib argued fiercely over whether and how to teach that doctrine to non-elite members of society. This seminar will explain the concepts, argumentation, and stakes of these disputes and discuss several moments when "the belief of the common folk" became an especially heated issue. In doing so, it moreover offers space to reflect on the appropriateness of translating īmān as belief and on the place of belief within Islamic thought.

Leaving Iberia: Islamic Law and Christian Conquest in North West Africa examines Islamic legal responses to Muslims living under Christian rule  in medieval and early modern Iberia and North Africa. The fall of al-Andalus, or Reconquista, has long been considered a turning point when the first substantial Muslim populations fell under permanent Christian rule. Yet a near-exclusive focus on conquered  Iberian Muslims has led scholars to overlook a substantial body of legal opinions issued in response to Portuguese and Spanish occupation in  Morocco itself, beginning in the early fifteenth century. By moving beyond Iberia and following Christian conquerors and Muslim emigrants into North Africa, Leaving Iberia links the juristic discourses on conquered Muslims on both sides of the  Mediterranean, critiques the perceived exceptionalism of the Iberian  Muslim predicament, and adds a significant chapter to the story of  Christian–Muslim relations in the medieval Mediterranean. The final portion of the book explains the disparate fates of these medieval legal opinions in colonial Algeria and Mauritania, where jurists granted lasting authority to some opinions and discarded others. Based on research in the Arabic manuscript libraries of five countries, Leaving Iberia offers the first fully annotated translations of the major legal texts under analysis.

Standpoints on the Belief in Imam Mahdi: A Sunni-Shia Discussion

Scrutinising the Sunni Standpoint on the belief in Imam Mahdi by Shaykh Muhammad Umar Ramadhan

Reassessing the Mainstream Shi'i Standpoint on the belief in Imam Mahdi by Prof. AbdulAziz Sachedina