‘Open access’

To mark this year’s International Education Day, with its theme “Recover and Revitalise Education for the COVID-19 Generation”, students, teachers and programme staff at the IIS’s Department of Graduate Studies reveal how the Institute’s programmes have responded to the pandemic.

This full colour publication, entitled Living in Historic Cairo: Past and Present in an Islamic City, examines the relationships between the inhabitants of Cairo and the historic space they occupy, as well as documenting the restoration of the al-Darb al-Ahmar neighbourhood by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) and other agencies. The book, edited by Dr Farhad Daftary, Professor Azim Nanji and the late Professor Elizabeth Fernea of the University of Texas, provides a useful contribution to the ‘museumification’ debate.

The Institute of Ismaili Studies is pleased to announce the publication of Keys to the Arcana: Shahrastani’s Esoteric Commentary on the Qur’an, translated by Dr Toby Mayer. This book, published in association with Oxford University Press, is part of the IIS’ Qur’anic Studies series, which aims to illustrate the rich diversity of approaches which have appealed to the Holy Qur’an throughout Muslim intellectual history.

The second-largest Shiʿa community in the world, the Ismailis are settled in over 35 countries across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, North America and Australia.  

In this chapter, the author examines the implications of two contemporary trends: increasing homogenisation of higher education across many parts of the world and the reassertion of affiliations to local identities. It is argued that in some cases such homogenisation has resulted in the marginalisation of knowledge about people's local contexts, including that of religious traditions.

The Silk Road: A Living History, an open-air photography exhibition documenting Christopher Wilton-Steer’s journey along the historic trade route, opens in King’s Cross on April 8th.

The IIS, in conjunction with the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (IOM) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), organised an international conference in Saint Petersburg to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Wladimir Alekseevich Ivanow, the pioneer of modern Ismaili Studies.

The Central Asian Studies unit of the IIS, in collaboration with the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (IOM) of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan (AST), has published a new Tajik edition of Nasir-i Khusraw’s Jami‘ al-Hikmatayn (Twin Wisdoms Reconciled).