Summary
The Shiʿi Imams played a key role in early Islam. Revered scholars descended from the Prophet Muḥammad, they posed an existential threat to the legitimacy of the ruling caliphs in the 8th and 9th century CE. Their leadership defined the quietist yet oppositional Imami Shiʿi community scattered throughout the Islamic empire. Imami Shiʿism was a key part of the turbulent thesis and antithesis which formed Islam, and it remains greatly influential until today. Remarkably, there is no comprehensive history of the Imamate. There are a number of reasons for this, central among which are that scholarship on Imami Shiʿism has approached it as a doctrinal and intellectual phenomenon. However, religious groups are also fundamentally social phenomena. ImBod will result in the first comprehensive history of the Shiʿi Imamate. It will position the Imamate as a social phenomenon, framing it as an interaction between two aspects which are rarely explicitly theorised: the Imams, and the Imami community who recognised them. ImBod will identify and study the key spheres in which the Imams and the Imami community operated, including the Imams’ household, elite Arab clans (especially the Prophet’s family and the dynasties of the caliphs), the network of Imamic agents, the scholars, and the communities who came to be associated with Shiʿi Islam through kinship, conversion and migration. ImBod will map out overlapping networks of interaction across these spheres and identify key actors and institutions responsible for mediating and performing the Imamate in the community. ImBod will not conceive of the Imamate as an essence, but as a set of social processes, some, but not all, instigated and controlled by the Imams themselves. Crucially, ImBod will study these processes as performed spatially and embodied materially by actors and physical objects linked to the Imams. ImBod will enrich Islamic history by providing a paradigm for studying how religious authority was embedded in society.
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| Web resources: | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101077946 |
| Start date: | 01-01-2024 |
| End date: | 31-12-2028 |
| Total budget - Public funding: | 1 499 700,00 Euro - 1 499 700,00 Euro |
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Original description
The Shiʿi Imams played a key role in early Islam. Revered scholars descended from the Prophet Muḥammad, they posed an existential threat to the legitimacy of the ruling caliphs in the 8th and 9th century CE. Their leadership defined the quietist yet oppositional Imami Shiʿi community scattered throughout the Islamic empire. Imami Shiʿism was a key part of the turbulent thesis and antithesis which formed Islam, and it remains greatly influential until today. Remarkably, there is no comprehensive history of the Imamate. There are a number of reasons for this, central among which are that scholarship on Imami Shiʿism has approached it as a doctrinal and intellectual phenomenon. However, religious groups are also fundamentally social phenomena. ImBod will result in the first comprehensive history of the Shiʿi Imamate. It will position the Imamate as a social phenomenon, framing it as an interaction between two aspects which are rarely explicitly theorised: the Imams, and the Imami community who recognised them. ImBod will identify and study the key spheres in which the Imams and the Imami community operated, including the Imams’ household, elite Arab clans (especially the Prophet’s family and the dynasties of the caliphs), the network of Imamic agents, the scholars, and the communities who came to be associated with Shiʿi Islam through kinship, conversion and migration. ImBod will map out overlapping networks of interaction across these spheres and identify key actors and institutions responsible for mediating and performing the Imamate in the community. ImBod will not conceive of the Imamate as an essence, but as a set of social processes, some, but not all, instigated and controlled by the Imams themselves. Crucially, ImBod will study these processes as performed spatially and embodied materially by actors and physical objects linked to the Imams. ImBod will enrich Islamic history by providing a paradigm for studying how religious authority was embedded in society.Status
SIGNEDCall topic
ERC-2022-STGUpdate Date
12-03-2024
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