Shi’a Minorities in the Contemporary World

Oliver Scharbrodt is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Chester. He is the author of Islam and the Baha’i Faith: A Comparative Study of Muhammad ‘Abduh and ‘Abdul-Baha ‘Abbas (London and New York: Routledge, 2008) and editor of the Yearbook of Muslims in Europe (Leiden: Brill). Yafa Shanneik is Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Birmingham. She researches the dynamics and trajectories of gender in Islam within the context of contemporary diasporic and transnational Muslim women’s spaces. Currently, she is working on a project which explores women’s narratives of transnational marriage practices performed by Iraqi and Syrian women who have settled in Europe or other countries in the Middle East since the 1980s. The project focuses on the historical developments and contemporary understandings and approaches of marriage practices among displaced Iraqi and Syrian Muslim women and foregrounds questions of identity, home and belonging of women constituted through local, national and transnational scales of migration experiences.

This edited volume provides unique empirical research on the usually under studied Shi'a minorities in different contexts, from Europe to Latin America and Cambodia. It is an important contribution to the fields of immigration,　 transnational and religious studies.

• Introduction1. ‘My Homeland is Husayn’: Transnationalism and Multilocality in Shi’a ContextsOliver Scharbrodt and Yafa ShanneikPart I: Localising Global Shi’a Minority Spaces 2. Performing Shi’ism between Java and Qom: Education and RitualsChiara Formichi3. Mi corazón late Husayn: Identity, Politics and Religion in a Shi’a Community in Buenos AiresMari-Sol García Somoza and Mayra Soledad Valcarcel4. Bektashism as a Model and Metaphor for ‘Balkan Islam’Piro Rexhepi5. Living Najaf in London: Diaspora, Identity, and the Sectarianisation of the Iraqi-Shi’a SubjectEmanuelle Degli EspostiPart II: Transnational Shi’a Trajectories 6. Global Networks, Local Concerns: Investigating the Impact of Emerging Technologies on Shi’a Religious Leaders and ConstituenciesRobert J. Riggs7. ‘Still We Long for Zaynab’: South Asian Shi’ites and Transnational Homelands under AttackNoor Zehra Zaidi8. From a Marginalised Religious Community in Iran to a Government-sanctioned Public Interest Foundation in Paris – Remarks on the ‘Ostad Elahi Foundation’Roswitha BadryPart III: ‘Alid Piety and the Fluidity of Sectarian Boundaries9. Ideas in Motion: The Transmission of Shi’a Knowledge in Sri LankaHarun Rasiah10. Limits of Sectarianism: Shi’ism and ahl al-bayt Islam among Turkish Migrant Communities in GermanyBenjamin Weineck11. ‘For ‘Ali is Our Ancestor’: Cham Sayyids’ Shi’a Trajectories from Cambodia to Iran Emiko StockEpilogue12. Shi’a Cosmopolitanisms and ConversionsMara A. Leichtman