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Select Bibliography
The bibliographical reach of individual entries of the EQ as a whole both encompasses
and supersedes all previous summaries of the history and development of Qur’anic
Studies. Although the relevant entries have been cited above, special attention should
be given to Marco Schöller, “Post-Enlightenment Academic Study of the Qur’an,”
EQ 4 (2004), 188–208.

Erik S. Ohlander

Shi ism

A. Definition
Shi ^ism represents the numerically most relevant minority of Islam, gen-
erally distinct from Sunni Islam for its stress on the legitimacy of the succes-
sion of the members of the family (ahl al-bayt) of the Prophet Muhammad at
the head of the Muslim state after his death. Presently no precise statistics are
available, but according to most reliable sources Shi^a Muslims should range
from 10 to 15 % of the whole world Muslim population.
While a detailed definition of Shi ^ism through history is above the scope
of the present article, some important points need to be stressed on. The
name is the ellyptical form of shi ^a ^Ali, that is the group of supporters of ^Ali
b. Abi Talib (d. 662), whose claims to the right of being the only legitimate
Caliph after Prophet Muhammad were staunchly opposed by the Meccan
traditional ruling elite. As pointed out by Jafri (Origins and Early Development
of Shi ^ism, 1979), Muhammad was linked to the most prominent sacerdotal
family of Mecca, the clan of the Hashimites, or Banu Hashim, and according
to the pre-Islamic custom in fact of political authority, the leadership had to
remain in that line.
As head of the Hashimites was generally recognized ‘Ali, on the grounds
of his kinship with the Prophet, his marriage to Fatima and his undisputed
religious knowledge and ascetic spirituality. Nonetheless, a (later disputed)
election established Abu Bakr (d. 634) as leader of the newborn community,
and the close associates of ‘Ali followed him in refusing to pledge allegiance
to the first Caliph. ‘Ali was not the only member of the Hashimite family to
be given preference, but his standing as the closest associate of Muhammad
was supported by a number of testimonies and eventually led to a wider rec-
ognition during the first years of Umayyad rule.

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Soon the majority of the legitimist opposition to the rule of the Banu
Umayya, whose centers were Medina and even more the new city of Kufa,
shifted its stress from the Hashimites to the ‘Alid line of the family, through
Hasan b. ‘Ali and his brother Husyan. The latter, slaughtered along with
some eighty supporters in the plan of Karbala by a vanguard of the army of
Yazid b. Mu‘#awiy ya, second Umayyad ruler then based in Damascus, on 680
a.D. had to become the main charachter in the tragedy that soon turned into
one of the most powerful foundative metaphor of the Shi ^ite ethos.
Messianic and chiliaistic doctrines that had always accompanied ‘Ali’s
feelings passed through the decades on the religious line of the lineage of
Husayn, up to his 9th successor in the time of the early ‘Abbasid rule, Hasan
al-‘Askari, later recognized as the 11th Imam, who gave birth to the 12th and
last Imam recognized by the principal branch of the Shi ^as, later to become
the so called “twelver Shi ^is”. According to their doctrine, the 12th Imam
known as the mahdi (“right guided”) never died and entered a state of occul-
tation in the year 940, to come back only at the end of times to deliver univer-
sal justice to the whole world. Around the theme of the absence of the Imam,
twelver Shi ^as had developed along centuries a rich philosophy, a subtle
theology and a complex, yet not univoque, system of political thought. While
the first culminated in the 17th century with the influential summa of the Per-
sian philosopher Sadr al-Din Shirazi (d. 1640), which synthesized the ishraqi
philosopy of Suhrawardi and the visionary neoplatonism of Ibn Sina
(Avicenna), and the second was a substantial re-arrangement of Mu ^tazilite
rationalist kalam in Imami terms, the latter – after some four centuries of tra-
vail – brought to the endorsement of the theory of the Islamic State, worked
out in practice by Imam Khomeini’s principle of the government of the Is-
lamic jurisprudence scholar (Wilayat al-Faqih).
The elementary articles of faith based upon the belief in five “pillars”
(arkan al-din) – that is oneness of God (tawhid), Justice of god (^adala), prophecy
(nubuwwa), imamate (imama), and judgment (qiyama) –, though not incorrect
in principle, must be considered a later development, stressed on as a conse-
quence of confrontation with the Sunni’s “five pillars.” This codification in
any case does not date back to the time of the Imams.
Shi ^ism itself is divided into branches, following the recognition of the
authority of one or another of the Imam of ^Ali’s lineage, the most importants
of which nowadays are Ismailis, Zaydis, and Alawites (the latters being re-
cently absorbed, at least as to what concerns official juridic recognition, into
the mainstream of Imami twelver Shi ^ism), who maintain the bulk of their
followers respectively in the Indian subcontinent, Yemen, and the costal
areas between Syria and Turkey. Detailed account of history and doctrines of

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95 Shi ism

the sects mentioned and of the others either numerically esigue or disap-
peared along centuries, falls beyond the scope of this introductory outlook,
but the interested reader may begin looking the the relevant entries in EI2,
EIr, and the works mentioned above.
Needless to say, Shi ^ites did not escape the broadening of geographical
landscape that interested, at the end of 20th century, all the traditional relig-
ious and cultural groups, this being a major epistemological turn in the defi-
nition of the object of Islamic studies, that today must relocate their focus
both on Muslim countries and diasporic cultures.

B. History of Research
The history of the study of Shi ^ism suffered the fate of being approached as
a matter merely tangential to that of mainstream Sunni Islam. The scarce
accessibility of primary sources that affeced research up to the second half
of the 20th century has certainly contributed to the backwardness of academic
awareness on history and doctrine of Shi ^ism; nevertheless, Sunni prejudice –
vehiculated by eresiographers such as al-Baghdadi, Ibn Hazm, and al-
Shahrastani – by the means of wich most scholars of Islamic studies ap-
proached the theme, had been central to their understanding of that impor-
tant branch of Islam, and must not be downplayed. Accordingly, many early
scholarly overviews have been made either taking into account biased sec-
tarian perspectives or considering Shi ^ism as a minor chapter in the history
of Islam, also given the difficulties faced by scholars wishing to obtain Shi ^i
manuscripts in Sunni countries. Thus the picture of Shi ^ism that has
emerged is one of a political and economic-based movement degenerated
into a religious millenaristic heresy.
In the Middle Ages, scanty information on Shi ^ism, particularly ga-
thered in encounters with Fatimid Ismailis, were provided by Crusader
writers such as William of Tyre and Jaques de Vitry (see Etan Kohlberg,
“Western Studies of Shi#a Islam,” Shi#ism, Resistance and Revolution, ed. Martin
Kramer, 1987, 31–44,), but were marred by prejudice and distortion. After
the Crusades, Shi ^ism remained largely unknown in Western academic
circles. Even after the establishment of the Safavid empire, in the 17th cen-
tury, those European Islamicists who engaged in the study of Arabic as an
extension of the study of Hebrew and theology, paid no or little attention
to the accounts of diplomats, missionaries and merchants based in Imamite
Persia.
An exception can be found in the well-informed and somehow pre-post-
modern writings of the eclectic diplomat Joseph Arthur comte de Gobi-
neau, whose Trois ans en Asie (1859), Religions et philosophies de l’Asie centrale

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(1865), and Histoire des Perses (1896) proved to be rather impartial accounts
about Iranian Shi ^ism, quite an oddity for his times.
Pioneering academic undertakings and publications devoted to Shi ^ism,
such as Garcin de Tassy’s edition and translation of a “Shi ^i” chapter of the
Qur#an (1842), Ignaz Goldziher’s Beiträge zur Literaturgeschichte der Shi#a und
der sunnitischen Polemik (1874), G. Browne’s relevant chapters in A Literary
History of Persia (published in 1969), and Dwight M. Donaldson’s The Shi#te
Religion (1933), must be evaluated considering their over-dependence on po-
lemical works (whose echoes continue affecting scholarship even in later lit-
erature). The only works comparable to that of Goldziher for the brand of
robust scholarship are those authored by the German scholar Rudolph
Strothmann, among whose writings, the book Die Zwölfer-Schi#a (1926),
and several entries for the first edition of the Encyclopédie de l’Islam, provide
excellent samples of early scholarship on Imamism, Zaydism and Ismailism.
One major turning point in the availability of primary sources, both for
Western and native academics of Shi ^ism, has been the publication between
1934 and 1978 of the most comprehensive list of writings by Imami religious
scholars, collected in 25 colossal volumes by Aqa Buzurg Tihrani (Al-dhari ^a
ila tasanif al-shi ^a, 1353–1398).
Anyhow, an even superficial overview of the first volume of Parson’s
Index Islamicus, the main bibliographical index for Islamic studies, covering
the years 1906–1955, can give an idea of the paucity of works dedicated to the
matter.
The key character in the passage from the first Orientalist and Sunni-
oriented scholarship on Shi ^ism to a more aware and informed research has
been the French scholar Louis Massignon. Serving as military officer in
Iraq and thereby providing an unusual and pioneering critique of the then
dominating Orientalist discourse, Massignon contributed to the develop-
ment of the study of Shi ^ism by first outlining important aspects of the mys-
tical-oriented ethos of Shi ^ism (see Opera Minora, vol. 1, articles: “Die Ur-
sprünge und die Bedeutung des Gnostizismus im Islam;” “Der gnostische
Kult der Fatima im Shiitischen Islam;” “La Mubahala de Médine et l’hyper-
dulie de Fatima;” “La notion du voeu et la dévotion musulmane à Fatima,”
1963), and – not less relevant – by tutoring Corbin’s first steps in the world
of ithna ^ashariyya (“Twelver”) mysticism. A pupil of Etienne Gilson and
Jean Baruzi, Heideggerian philosopher Henry Corbin, once having been
in touch with Iranian Shi ^ism at the Sorbonne as a young phenomenologist,
then with first-hand sources in Istanbul while working at the local French
Institute, and finally in Tehran as the director of the French Institute of Iran-
ian Studies and founder of the series Bibliothèque iranienne, never abandoned

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97 Shi ism

his spiritual and scholarly attachment to Iran and Shi ^ism, devotedly collect-
ing, editing, and translating some of the most important works of Shi ^ite
theology, philosopy, and gnsosis (^irfan).
By the time Henry Corbin was completing his monumental magnum
opus about Iranian Islam, devoting volumes I and II of En Islam iranien: Aspects
spirituels et philosophiques (1971–1972) respectively to twelver Shi ^ism and to
the Esfahan’s and Shaykhi’s schools of thought, social protest against the
despotic rule of the Shah Reza Pahlavi, led by the clergy of Qom, was erupt-
ing in the streets of Tehran, and eventually ended in the last revolution of the
20th century. The religious nature of the new political order drew inter-
national attention to Shi ^ism, and prompted an unprecedented impetus for
examination of the phenomenon by Western scholars, whose interest in
political science, sociology and anthropology of Iranian Shi ^ism was paral-
leled by a corresponding resurgence in religious studies.

C. Articulation and Main Issues

The history of the study of Shi ^ism might be functionally divided in the two
broad categories of religion and social sciences. The first is referred to the
scholarly tradition that may be considered heir to the lineage of classical
Oriental studies, yet taking into account a great deal of internal differenti-
ation and the introduction of the critique of orientalist discourse, which is
commonplace after the publication of Edward W. Said’s momentous Orien-
talism in 1978. The second, different in scope, methodologies, and foci, en-
compasses those works whose concern have more to do with contemporary
problems enacted in social and cultural practices than with hair-splitting
philological and textual matters. The two approaches are getting more and
more overlapping and interrelated, so that it is not unusual for authors to
shift from one to the other with ease. Therefore, this diadic conceptual struc-
ture has to be considered functional and fuzzy.
The above-mentioned 1874 study of Ignaz Goldziher was not fol-
lowed by a corresponding flow of studies on Shi ^ism, and up to the publi-
cation of En islam iranien, research about Shi ^ism was desultory and inter-
mittent both diachronically and synchronically. Nonetheless, a number of
landmark works were produced in different research centers around the
world, are worth being mentioned. Italian historians Sabino Moscati (“Per
una storia dell’antica Shi#a,” 1955, 251–67) and Laura Veccia Vaglieri
(“Sul ‘Nahj al-balagha’ e il suo compilatore ash-Sharif ar-Radi,” 1958, 1–46)
provided informed contributions on various aspects of early Shi ^ism. Most
studies on Shi ^ism were, however, carried out by mainstream islamologists
working on the history of early Islam, such as in the case of the articles of

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W. Montgomery Watt (among which “Shi ^ism under the Umayyads,” 1960,
158–62; “The Rafidites: A Preliminary Study,” 1970, 110–21), and world-
acclaimed historian Marshall G. S. Hodgson (“How Did the Early Shi ^a Be-
come Sectarian?,” 1955, 1–13); one exception may perhaps be found in the
seminal works of one of the pupils of the renowned Islamicist Alessandro
Bausani, Gianroberto Scarcia (“A proposito del problema della sovranità
presso gli Imamiti,” 1957, 95–126; “Intorno alla controversia tra Akhbari e
Usuli presso gli Imamiti di Persia,” 211–250 1958; “L’eresia musulmana
nella problematica storico-religiosa,” 1962, 63–97).
Different is the case of the Soviet islamologist W. Ivanow who, begin-
ning from the 3rd decade of the 20th century, had devoted his whole scientific
endeavor to the study of the Ismaili religious phenomena, editing and stu-
dying an impressive amount of first-hand works (Studies in Early Persian Is-
mailism, 1948).
Meanwhile, Corbin was training a generation of scholars that would
eventually vivify international debate on Shi ^ism both in Iran and in Western
academia, and his contribution to the development of studies on Shi ^ism,
though not void of methodological oddities (at least for standard Islamic
studies; after all he was a phenomenologist philosopher by training), can
hardly be overestimated. His intellectual circle, linked to the broader and
prestigious milieu of European phenomenologists meeting on a regular
basis at the Eranos sessions in Ascona, haunted by, among others, Mircea
Eliade, Carl Gustav Jung, and Gershom Scholem.
Famed Iranian intellectual Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a prolific traditional-
ist scholar still active and presently based in North America, besides writing a
number of best selling general surveys about Shi ^ism and Sufism, authored
significant contributions to the knowledge of Imami philosophy (“Le
shi#isme et le soufisme: leur relations principelles et historiques,” 1970,
215–33; Sadr al-Din and His Transcendent Theosophy, 1978; Shi#ism: Doctrines,
Thought, and Spirituality, 1988), but his major achivement was the foundation
of the Imperial Academy of Philosophy in Tehran (after the Revolution re-
named Anjuman-i hikmat wa falsafa, Institute for [the study] of Hikma and
Philosophy), that eventually became, besides the French Institute of Iranian
Studies directed by Henry Corbin, the second research center of attraction
for those academics, Iranian and foreigners alike, interested in the study of
Imami Shi ^ism. Outside of Iran, two major centers were involved in Cor-
bin’s effort to vivify traditional Iranian philosopy. The first was of course the
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne, where Corbin used to
teach dense courses related to his pioneering research in Iran (Itineraire d’un
enseignement, 1993); the second was McGill’s University Institute of Islamic

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99 Shi ism

Studies, founded in 1954 by Wilfred Cantwell Smith and whose Professor

of Islamic Thought was, from 1964, Corbin’s close associate Hermann
Landolt. Other important public intellectuals and researchers that shared
a common path with Corbin’s pupils play a pivoltal role in Iranian internal
debate today, and their names are well-known: Dariush Shayegan, based in
Paris and Tehran, where he teaches courses on comparative religions, and
author of widely acclaimed and best-selling essays on Iranian religious cul-
ture; Reza Davari Ardakani, a conservative philosopher, famous for his
controversy with the leading progressive intellectual ^Abdolkarim Sorush;
Nasrollah Pourjavady (Kings of Love, 1978, with Peter Lamborn Wilson),
whose books and articles on Imami Sufism are widely read both in Iran and
abroad.
More than tangential to the main characters of this environment were
the contributions of revered Imami clerics, most notably the late ^Allama Ta-
bataba#i, author of the renowned introductory essay Shi ^a dar Islam (1962,
English trans. by Seyyed Hosseyn Nasr, Shi#ite Islam, 1972), and whose im-
portance is testified by his conversations and correspondences with Henry
Corbin (Shi ^a, 1960).
The situation changed for the better at the end of the 1960s, when one
major event occured in marking the passage of the study of Shi ‘ism from a
small circle of practitioners to a broader audience of specialists and readers,
that is the 1968 Colloque de Strasbourg, a round table about Shi ^ism attended by
the then leading specialists of Imamism plus a representation of the old gen-
eration of Islamicists that had done research on this topic. Worth noting is
the participation of Henry Corbin, G. Vajda, Seyyed Hosseyn Nasr, Fran-
cesco Gabrieli, Wilfred Madelung, and the leading Lebanese cleric Musa
Sadr, whose paper never reached the editors and is thus missing from the
proceedings.
Starting from the end of the 1970s, a number of excellent monographs
have appeared, marking the new course of interest that experienced a deter-
minant acceleration due to the imminent revolution. Among these, Seyyed
Husayn M. Jafri’s The Origins and Early Development of Shi#a Islam (1979), pro-
vides an interesting account of the ideological substratum preparing the
ground for the formation of Imami doctrines; Mojan Momen’s An Introduc-
tion to Shi ^i Islam (1985), provides a general and well-informed overview, and
Heinz Halm’s Die Schia (1988) gives a well-grounded solid sample of scholar-
ship on Imamism. Furthermore, Farhad Daftary’s writings on Ismailism
(especially The Isma#ilis: Their History and Doctrine, 1992), represents an indis-
pensable reference for those interested in this branch of Shi ^a Islam.

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D. After the Revolution in Iran and the Rise of Social Sciences Applied
to Shi ism
Besides those academics investigating Shi ^ism on the religious and historical
level, the revolution fueled another quite fruitful research line, which isthat
of the social sciences, notably anthropology, political science and sociology.
Earlier enterprises, like the fieldwork conducted by Bryan Spooner in
Iran during the 1960s (“The Function of Religion in Persian Society,” 1963,
83–95) proved to be isolated undertakings. It was carried out on the grounds
of a solid training in anthropology but without a deep awareness of the tex-
tual tradition of Shi ^ism. Following the political concerns that arose in the
West due to the revolution, research centers began to produce a generation of
specialists with solid training in Islamic Studies but at the same time more
and more interested in contemporary matters. Modern and contemporary
history (Nikki Keddie, Religion and Politics in Iran: Shi ^ism from Quietism and
Revolution, 1983), at times viewed from a rigorous religious historical per-
spective (Hamid Algar, Religion and State in Iran 1785–1906: The Role of the
Ulama in the Qajar Period, 1969), sociology (Said Amir Arjomand, Farhad
Khosrokhavar), anthropology (Micheal J. Fischer, Mehdi Abedi, Oliver
Beaman), social history (Roy P. Mottahedeh), came to be well represented
as academic disciplines encompassing several sides of the Shi ^ite religious
phenomenon. On the other hand, interest in Iran happened to awake an in-
novative stream of scholarship in contemporary Shi ^ism in other geographi-
cal settings, namely Iraq, Syria, and the Sub-continent. In addition to this,
debate around themes critical to the understanding of Shi ^ism as an au-
tonomous spiritual reality, as sketched out by Corbin and his associates, con-
tinued providing the academe with exceptional scholars, such as Wilfred
Madelung, Ethan Kohlberg, Andrew J. Newman, Todd Lawson, Juan
Cole, Norman Calder, Robert Gleave and others, while a brilliant gener-
ation of native academics based in outstanding Western research centers, like
Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Hossein Modarresi Tabatabai, Abdula-
ziz Sachedina, succeeded in animating the landscape by introducing a sig-
nificant deal of fresh ideas and expertises. They represent at present the
backbone of the academic study of Shi ^ism around the world, and their ca-
pacity to share their knowledge through a transnational network makes the
perspectives for further development of the field decidedly stimulating and
multifaceted in approaches, methodologies and views.
In the last years, renewed academic interest of Shi#ites in their own
religion gave birth to the publication of basic research tools like specialistic
encyclopedias. Those who read Arabic or Persian use regularly these often
well-written and peer reviewed (even if not void of bias) works as start up

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101 Shi ism

tools for their research. One such work is the Persian Da#irat al-ma^arif-i tas-
hayyu^ (2001).

E. State of Reaserch and Perspectives

Scholars hailing from the two above mentioned offsprings (i.e., those heirs to
Corbin’s experience in Iran and those continuing the “classical” orientalist
positivist approach), together with the well represented new generation
of native scholars endowed with either religious or academic background,
enhanced significantly the quantity and quality of research on Shi ^ism dur-
ing the nineties and up to the first decade of the 21st century. As for Twelver
Shi ^ism, research has achieved relevant goals in better assessing the crucial
terms of the phenomenon as an independent chapter of the spiritual history
of Islam, ponting out the esoterical peculiarities of ‘Alid religion as emerging
from a detailed analysis of the early sources. This is in particular the case with
the work of one of the most influential scholars of Shi ^ism, Mohammad Ali
Amir-Moezzi, who inherited the phenomenological gist of Corbin, merged
with a more rigorous brand for methodological accuracy. His Le guide divin
dans le shi ^isme originel (1992) no doubt represents a milestone in determining
the exact nature of the first historical manifestations of Imamism, presented
as a religion grounded on the initiation into divine secrets and essentially de-
picted as a mystical doctrine. As Amir-Moezzi puts it, critical to the under-
standing of Shi ^ism is the evolution from a non-rational esoterical doctrine
to a rationalist and politically engaged movement, centered on the expan-
sion of the prerogatives of the ulemas during the absence of the Imam. Com-
plementary to Amir-Moezzi’s work, are the studies of Etan Kohlberg on
the historical process that led to the definition of the Twelver orthodoxy (see
Belief and Law in Imami Shi ^ism, 1991). Crucial to all these discourses is in fact
the very theme of the a ^lamiyya (the quality of the “most learned,” a ^lam) and
of its social and political implications, once relegated to the Imams and their
designed representatives, and shifted along history to an organized class of
religious professionals, a theme of momentous importance for the modern
Shi ^ite political thought. Thus, the so called “Imamology,” – so deeply inves-
tigated by Amir-Moezzi in a series of articles, published separately in vari-
ous specialistic journals between 1992 and 2005 and recently collected in one
volume (La religion discrète: Croyances et pratiques spirituelles dans l’Islam shi#ite: As-
pects de l’imamologie duodécimaine, 2006) – devoid of the figure of the legitimate
Imam, becomes the justification for the institution of the rationalist imi-
tation (taqlid) of the “most learned” and the management of political power
by its ultimate theorization, the marja ^al-taqlid (lit. “source of the imi-
tation”), discussed in depth in The Most Learned of the Shi ^a: The Institution of the

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Marja ^Taqlid, ed. Linda S. Walbridge, 2001. Another well represented area
of scholarship is that of the Esfahan school of philosophy, be it or not con-
nected to jurisprudence theories of any relevance to political actuality (for an
example of both, see respectively A. J. Newman’s “Towards a Reconsider-
ation” (1986, 165–99), and Christian Jambet, Se rendre immortale, 2001), sub-
ject of a scholarly renaissance even in Iran as a consequence of Corbin’s redis-
covery, and its mystical implications. International symposia on Mulla Sadra
and his school are held on a regular basis in Iran. Needless to say, the revo-
lutionary elite’s interest in, and appreciation of, the subject matter is not un-
related to the success of Mulla Sadra and his school of thought in his mother-
land after the revolution. Whatever the political implications of the study of
Mulla Sadra in Iran, outstanding works on him and his school were recently
published (one example is Sajjad Rizvi, Mulla Sadra Shirazi: His Life, Works and
Sources for Safavid Philosophy, 2007).
Closely intertwined with the issue of the authority of the marja ^, one of
the main object of scholarly analysis, is that of the internal intellectual and
juristic debate among Shi ^ite religious scholars. In this sense, the conflict be-
tween the akhbaris (traditionalists) and the usulis (rationalist “fundamental-
ists”) represents one of main lines of research, object of close scrutiny by a
number of scholars (see for instance Andrew J. Newman, “The Nature of the
Akhbari/Usuli Dispute in late Safawid Iran,” 1992, 21–51, and 250–61). Ob-
viously Islamic Republic of Iran, being nominally a Shi ^i theocracy, lies on
the backgronund of most areas of the scholarly discourse on Shi ^ism, and
provides live material (such as the problem of Islam and democracy, Muslim
reformism, relations between religion and politics, and so on) to the special-
ists, even those who are not directly involved in modern political history.
In recent years, some high-quality introductions to Shi ^ism have been
written andpublished, such as Juan Cole’s Sacred Space and Holy War (2002),
Amir-Moezzi and Christian Jambet Qu’est-ce que le shi#isme (2004), and
Marco Salati e Leonardo Capezzone, L’islam sciita: storia di una minoranza
(2006).
Khomeini’s theory of the “guardianship of the jurist” (wilayat-i faqih) is
also a much debated matter and does not cease to be at the center of scholarly
production, having among Muslim scholars few overt supporters (as Hamid
Algar, author of The Roots of Islamic Revolution, 1983 and Christian Bonaud,
author of L’Imam Khomeini, un gnostique méconnu du XXe siècle. Métaphisique et
théologie dans les œuvres philosophiques et spirituelles de l’Imam Khomeyni, 1997) and
many detractors. The abrupt rush of the theme on the international scene had
as a consequence a retroactive inspection of the history of the notion, and re-
cently the vibrant debate on the legitimacy of the theory culminated in West-

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103 Shi ism

ern academia reporting the most outstanding and controversial voices and
themes of the dispute, as in Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Richard Tapper, Islam
and Democracy in Iran. Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform, 2006. To grasp an idea
of the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of today’s Shi ‘ite studies, it is use-
ful to refer to Colin Turner and Paul Luft’s Shi ‘ism (2007) which provides a
collection of studies on Shi ‘ism written over the last 50 years.
Indicative of the lively status of the subject at large is the proliferation of
initiatives, research groups, conferences and scholarly publications (one in
particular, the Journal of Shi ^i Islamic Studies, is entirely devoted to the study of
Shi#ism in its full complexity).
At present, even though Iran and Twelver Shi ^ism remain to a great
extent the most crowded topics in academic enquiry on Shi ^ism, the state of
research on either lesser religious sects or ethnic realities is significatively
active, if one notices that one of the most prestigious and qualified institution
of the study of Shi ^ism is the London based Institute for Ismaili Studies, which
is vocated for (even if not only) the academic study of Ismailism, and gives
voices to the views of ethnic minorities. Another quite promising research
subject is the rising theme of the articulate structure of relations and conflict
between tradition/religion, in this case Shi ^ism, and democacy, a debate that
engages at a high degree many high-rank religious intellectuals in Iran and
abroad. Projects, conferences, and centers focusing on Shi ^is in general or on
specific aspects of Shi ^ism are proliferating particularly in the UK. One telling
example is the British Academy-funded project on the “Authority in Shi ^ism”
(www.thehawzaproject.net), which aims to create a broad network of scholars
working on the theme and improve the status of research on Shi ^ism.
The rise of the internet as a research tool has introduced in the arena of
the academic study of Shi ^ism a wave of novelty. Even if authoritative vali-
dation criteria are not yet commonplace in the use of electronic public re-
sources, most present-day scholars non only use the internet as a quick basic
search tool, but also have implemented personal or instuitional web pages –
like the resource list of the University of Georgia (USA), http://www.uga.edu/
islam/shiism.html – (even excellent up-to-date weblogs) that constitutes
valuable databases for students and scholars. One such example is the Insti-
tute of Ismaili Studies website (www.iis.ac.uk), whose Academic Publi-
cations sections provides a useful list of high-quality academic writings.
Another relevant example is the personal page of University of Michigan’s
Professor Juan R. I. Cole (http://www-personal.umich.edu/ jrcole/), also pro-
viding a quite good selection of his academic papers dealing with Shi#ism.
A major epistemological shift has occurred in Religious Studies (and
thus in the Study of Islam and Shi ^ism), with the rise of the internet: old

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Archaeology in Medieval Studies 104

encyclopedias, even scholarly and specialistic, usually failed in giving voice

to their “object of inquiry” and resulted in rather monophonic approaches.
Today every student has the possibility to have a glance at a plethora of
resources directly written and published in the net (often in a great varie-
ty of languages) by religious foundations, charities, research institutes
and the like. This kind of resources (such as the good Twelver Shi ^a-run
www.al-islam.org, providing an impressive number of primary sources,
links, scholarly and non-scholarly articles and e-books) offers a stimulating
challenge for traditional academic approaches to Shi#ism, overcoming the
risk of one-way academic interpretations.

Select Bibliography
Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, La guide divin dans le shi ^isme originel: au sources de l’ésotér-
isme en Islam (Paris: Veridier, 1992); Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi and Christian
Jambet, Qu#est-ce que le shi#isme? (Paris: Fayard, 2004); Henry Corbin, En islam iranien:
Aspects spirituels et philosophiques, 4 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1971–1972); Michael
M. J. Fischer, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution (Cambridge Ms. & London: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1980); Syed M. Jafri, Origins and Early Development of Shi#ism
(London: Longman, 1978); Farhad Khosrokhavar, Anthropologie de la révolution iran-
ienne. Le rêve impossible (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997); Ethan Kohlberg, The Formation of
Classical Islamic World: Shi ^ism (Burlington: Ashgate, 2003); Heinz Halm, Die Schia
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1988); Le Shi#isme imamite. Colloque de
Strasbourg (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970); Yitzakh Nakash, The Shi ^is of
Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Mojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi
^I Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi ^ism (Oxford: Geroge Ronald, 1985);
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Reza Vali Nasr, Shi#ism: Doctrines,
Thought, and Spirituality (New York, SUNY Press, 1988); Abdulaziz Sachedina, The Just
Ruler in Shi ^ite Islam: The Comprehensive Authority of the Jusrist in Imamite Jurisprudence (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1988); ^Allama Tabataba#i, Shi ^a dar Islam (Tehran:
Nashr-e Sherkat-e Enteshar, 1348); Liyakatali Takim, The Heirs of the Prophet: Charisma
and Religious Authority in Shi ^ite Islam (Albany: State University of New York, 2006).

Alessandro Cancian

Archaeology in Medieval Studies

A. Definition
Medieval archaeology is the study of the material culture of the Middle Ages
in all its forms, but especially as evidenced through the systematic processes
of survey, excavation and interpretation common to the wider archaeologi-

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