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This collection of essays explores the nature of political and religious leadership in Shi'ism. The contributors look at a variety of historical periods - from medieval to modern - to reveal the social, political, and theological factors that have influenced the development of Shi'ite leadership.

I.B.Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies The Muhammad Ali Hamdani Collection in the Library of The Institute of Ismaili Studies represents a large segment of the library collected over seven generations by an eminent family of scholars from the Da'udi Bohra community in India and the Yemen. The bulk of the manuscripts are Ismaili religious writings, but there are also a good number of interesting books of general Islamic, or indeed secular content, and these give a rare...

The Isma'ilis represent the second largest Shii Muslim community after the Twelvers, and are today scattered throughout more than twenty-five countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America. This 2007 second edition of this authoritative book traces the history and doctrinal development of the Isma'ilis from their origins in the formative period of Islam to the present day, a period of more than twelve centuries. All the major phases of Isma'ili history are covered, includin...

The Assassins is a comprehensive, readable, and authoritative account of history's first terrorists. An offshoot of the Ismaili Shi'ite sect of Islam, the Assassins were the first group to make systematic use of murder as a political weapon. Established in Iran and Syria in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they aimed to overthrow the existing Sunni order in Islam and replace it with their own. They terrorized their foes with a series of dramatic murders of Islamic leaders, as well as of some...

"An astonishingly powerful and profoundly moving story of a young couple willing to risk everything for love that puts a human face on the ongoing debate about women's rights in the Muslim world. Zakia and Ali were from different tribes, but they grew up on neighboring farms in the hinterlands of Afghanistan. By the time they were young teenagers, Zakia, strikingly beautiful and fiercely opinionated, and Ali, shy and tender, had fallen in love. Defying their families, sectarian differences, cult...

Centering Pakistan in a story of transnational Islam stretching from South Asia to the Middle East, Simon Wolfgang Fuchs offers the first in-depth ethnographic history of the intellectual production of Shi'is and their religious competitors in this ""Land of the Pure."" The notion of Pakistan as the pinnacle of modern global Muslim aspiration forms a crucial component of this story. It has empowered Shi'is, who form about 20 percent of the country's population, to advance alternative conceptions...