‘3’

Fifteen Members of the Class of 2004 and 180 alumni of the Institute’s varied programmes were honoured at a graduation ceremony at Le Meridien Grosvenor House Hotel in London on the afternoon of October 19, 2003. In attendance were over 1,600 guests including the Chairman of the Institute’s Board of Governors, His Highness the Aga Khan.

The IIS welcomed 15 new students this year onto its Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities (GPISH) in September 2008. The students of the class of 2011 originate from Canada, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, USA and the United Kingdom and have diverse academic backgrounds, ranging from psychology, philosophy, and religious education to marketing, languages and political sciences.

An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Volume 2: Ismaili Thought in the Classical Age, is the second in this multi-volume work presenting an overview of the tradition of philosophical thought in Persia that has continued for over two and a half millennia. Compiled, edited and introduced by S. H. Nasr and M. Aminrazavi, this volume deals with what may be considered the ‘Golden Age’ of Ismaili philosophy.

The Pontificio Instituto di Studi Arabi E d’Islamistica (PISAI) in Rome, which is part of the Vatican’s initiative to promote study, research and a better understanding of the Muslim world and Muslim-Christian relations, organises annually the Bradley Conference, to which a Muslim scholar is invited to deliver a presentation. This year, the guest speaker was the Director of The Institute of Ismaili Studies, Professor Azim Nanji.

On June 24, Professor Eric Ormsby, Chief Librarian of The Institute of Ismaili Studies, spoke on a selection of images of Muslim Architecture at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The talk was part of an architecture week special event, the V& A and RIBA Study Rooms Open Day, which is part of an ongoing initiative of the museum entitled ‘Alternating Currents: Dialogues in Islamic Architecture’.

Students from the class of 2008 of the Institute’s Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities visited the Ashmolean Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford as part of their course on the Anthropology of Islam. Taught by Dr Zulfikar Hirji, the course introduces students to the discipline of anthropology and explores the diversity of Islam.