‘Open access’

Dr Walid Ghali presented a paper entitled To print or not to print. Is that still the question? at the 38th Annual Conference of the Middle East Librarians Committee (MELCom), which was held at Leiden University in The Netherlands.

STEP student Asma Ehsanyar talks about her journey with IIS and how she's learned about herself and her community along the way.

ISCU is taking part in History Day 2023, showcasing its video series and recent publications alongside other libraries and institutions.

A fortress on the summit of an isolated rocky hill in the Alburz mountains, situated some 18km west of Damgan in northern Persia.

We are excited to announce that, as part of its long-term digital strategy, the IIS’s Department of Curriculum Studies has started a phased roll-out of the IIS Digital Curriculum e-book platform.

As part of a series of celebratory events that have been taking place within the first year of the opening of the Aga Khan Centre and of IIS moving into its new and permanent home, IIS hosted an educational programme for its friends and supporters during the weekend of 15-16 June.

Although Taqi al-Din Ahmad b. Ali al-Maqrizi and ‘Imad al-Din ldris composed their works almost three centuries after the Fatimid dynasty, they draw upon a spectrum of earlier sources.

This article traces the origin and evolution of the Assassin legends with the aim of invalidating the scholarly and popular legitimacy they have acquired over the centuries. The creation and widespread promulgation of these stories detailing the Nizari Ismailis use of hashish, the earthly paradise created by the "Old Man of the Mountain" and the deadly missions Ismaili devotees were ready to undertake were the result of several factors.

Edited and revised from a paper originally presented at the 'Perspectives in Islamic Studies' conference, held at The Institute of Ismaili Studies in the summer of 1998, Dr Tazim R. Kassam examines the ways in which Islam is presented in Religious Studies curricula. She questions the prevalent representations of religions as structural identities that can be easily categorised and essentialised, proposing a model such as Marshall Hodgson's The Venture of Islam to complement contemporary conversations in Religious Studies departments.

What are the forces that shape present-day Islam? Are we to believe the project of capitalist democracy is the most suitable form of social philosophy and practice for Muslim societies? Are there are other models, trajectories and epistemological frameworks that have validity? What is the relationship between globalisation, tradition and modernity in Islamic contexts? In this wide-ranging essay, the author addresses these questions through three interrelated key concepts, which he exposes to critical analysis: present-day Islam, Islam as a living tradition and the phenomenon of globalisation.

This article chronicles the main events and personalities associated with the Ismaili dawa in Persian speaking lands. Beginning with the nascent and divergent Ismaili groups and communities that were established following the death of Imam Jafar al-Sadiq in 148/765, the article presents an historical survey of the process by which the dawa was spread throughout the region.

The writer argues that imam al-Mahdi intended Yemen to be the seat of the imamat, giving political as well as topographical reasons for this preference.