Global Networks, Local Concerns: Investigating the Impact of Emerging Technologies on Shi‘i Religious Leaders and Constituencies

Throughout history religious traditions have had to be translated (or “transmediated”) for new generations in changing contexts of communication. Religion, “cannot be analyzed outside the forms and practices of mediation that define it”. It then becomes paramount to explore how the transition from one mode of mediated communication to another contributes to reconfiguring a particular religious practice. The focus should be on the cultural practices of mediation rather than on the media themselves. However, the extent to which media technologies are driving forces in transformations of Shi‘i religious institutions is a key focus in this paper

Najaf: A Historical Center of Power & Economy: 1500 - 1920

Most scholarly focus on Najaf has centered on its religious significance in Shi‘i Islam or on its political roles throughout its history. This study is the first to analyze the role of economics on political and religious institutions during the period 1500-1920

Virtual Ayatollahs: The Expansion and Contraction of Religious Authority

Beginning the early 1990s the ways in which humans communicated with one another went through a rapid and irreversible evolution, based upon the invention and spread of the Internet. Reaching into all aspects of human life – communication, science, education and of course, religion – the structural changes that took place have impacted humanity in various ways. In Shi’ite Islam various competing religious authoritative sources have been created, and old ones have evolved to accommodate the newly free access to information made possible through the Internet

Radicalism, Reform and Migration: The Transformations of Shaykh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr

This paper posits that the late Shi‘i clerical activist Shaykh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr of Saudi Arabia represented a culmination of the nexus of regional political competitions, transnational religious knowledge networks, inter-generational tensions in contemporary Shi‘ism, and radical post-revolutionary Shi‘i politics. Thus, a more rigorous examination of his life holds relevance as a corrective to monolithic historiographies of the Saudi Shi‘a as a united community. Applying social movement theory and framing him within the processes of Globalization shows the complex intersection of religion and politics within a marginalized religio-political community

Reform Movements of Early 20th Century Lebanese Shi'a Communities

A poster examining reform movements of early 20th Century Lebanese Shi'a communities