Table Of ContentSHI‘A MINORITIES IN THE
CONTEMPORARY WORLD
Alternative Histories: Narratives from the Middle East and Mediterranean
Series Editor: Sargon Donabed
This series provides a forum for exchange on a myriad of alternative histories
of marginalised communities and individuals in the Near and Middle East and
Mediterranean, and those of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean heritage. It also high-
lights thematic issues relating to various native peoples and their narratives and – with
particular contemporary relevance – explore encounters with the notion of ‘other’
within societies. Often moving beyond the conventional state-centred and dominant
monolithic approach, or reinterpreting previously accepted stories, books in the
series examine and explain themes from inter-communal relations, environment,
health and society, and explore ethnic, communal, racial, linguistic and religious
developments, in addition to geopolitics.
Editorial Advisory Board
Professor Ali Banuazizi
Dr Aryo Makko
Professor Laura Robson
Professor Paul Rowe
Professor Hannibal Travis
Books in the Series (Published and Forthcoming)
Sayfo: An Account of the Assyrian Genocide
‘Abd al-Masih Nu‘man of Qarabash
translated and annotated by Michael Abdalla and Łukasz Kiczko
Tunisia’s Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority
Marta Dominguez Diaz
Palestinian Citizens of Israel: A History Through Fiction, 1948–2010
Manar Makhoul
Armenians Beyond Diaspora: Making Lebanon their Own
Tsolin Nalbantian
The Art of Minorities: Cultural Representation in Museums of the Middle East and
North Africa
Edited by Virginie Rey
Shi‘a Minorities in the Contemporary World: Migration, Transnationalism and
Multilocality
Edited by Oliver Scharbrodt and Yafa Shanneik
Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria
Deanna Ferree Womack
edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/ahnme
SHI‘A MINORITIES IN
THE CONTEMPORARY
WORLD
MIGRATION, TRANSNATIONALISM
AND MULTILOCALITY
Edited by Oliver Scharbrodt
and Yafa Shanneik
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish
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© editorial matter and organisation Oliver Scharbrodt and Yafa Shanneik, 2020
© the chapters their several authors, 2020
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The right of the contributors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and
Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
CONTENTS
List of Figures viii
Acknowledgements ix
The Contributors x
Glossary xv
Introduction
1 ‘My Homeland is Husayn’: Transnationalism and Multilocality in
Shi‘a Contexts 3
Oliver Scharbrodt and Yafa Shanneik
Part I Localising Global Shi‘a Minority Spaces
2 Performing Shi‘ism between Java and Qom: Education and Rituals 33
Chiara Formichi
3 Mi corazón late Husayn: Identity, Politics and Religion in a Shi‘a
Community in Buenos Aires 46
Mari-Sol García Somoza and Mayra Soledad Valcarcel
vi | contents
4 Bektashism as a Model and Metaphor for ‘Balkan Islam’ 73
Piro Rexhepi
5 Living Najaf in London: Diaspora, Identity and the
Sectarianisation of the Iraqi-Shi‘a Subject 96
Emanuelle Degli Esposti
Part II Transnational Shi‘a Trajectories
6 Global Networks, Local Concerns: Investigating the Impact of
Emerging Technologies on Shi‘a Religious Leaders and
Constituencies 123
Robert J. Riggs
7 ‘Still We Long for Zaynab’: South Asian Shi‘ites and
Transnational Homelands under Attack 142
Noor Zehra Zaidi
8 From a Marginalised Religious Community in Iran to a
Government-sanctioned Public Interest Foundation in Paris –
Remarks on the ‘Ostad Elahi Foundation’ 163
Roswitha Badry
Part III ‘Alid Piety and the Fluidity of Sectarian Boundaries
9 Ideas in Motion: The Transmission of Shi‘a Knowledge in
Sri Lanka 185
Arun Rasiah
10 Limits of Sectarianism: Shi‘ism and ahl al-bayt Islam among
Turkish Migrant Communities in Germany 209
Benjamin Weineck
11 ‘For ‘Ali is Our Ancestor’: Cham Sayyids’ Shi‘a Trajectories from
Cambodia to Iran 227
Emiko Stock
contents | vii
Epilogue
12 Shi‘a Cosmopolitanisms and Conversions 257
Mara A. Leichtman
Notes 281
Index 310
FIGURES
5.1 Iraqi institutions in London by political/religious affiliation 101
5.2 Map showing the main religious institutions in the ‘Shi‘a
triangle’ of northwest London 102
5.3 ICARE Facebook post depicting Iraqi soldier from the PMF
militia 109
10.1 Website of Oniki İmam Yolu 218
11.1 ‘Ali Hanaphiah (and his doubles) 234
11.2 From Zayn Al-‘Abidin to Nosavan 238
11.3 Repetitive Zayn Al-‘Abidins 242
11.4 Wali Songo (Part I) 245
11.5 Wali Songo (Part II) 245
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This volume is one of three publications that came out of a conference organ-
ised at the University of Chester in May 2016. The conference provided a
unique platform to bring researchers from a variety of disciplines together who
work on Shi‘a minorities in non-Muslim contexts. The conference concluded
the project ‘“Karbala in London”: Transnational Twelver Shia Networks
between Britain and the Middle East’ that investigated Twelver Shi‘a organi-
sations and communities based in London. The project was funded by a
research grant of the Gerda Henkel Foundation. We would like to thank the
Gerda Henkel Foundation for providing the funding for the project and this
publication and for making the conference in Chester possible.
In particular, we owe thanks to the contributors to this volume for their
patience in the longer than expected journey of putting this volume together.
We are also grateful to Nicola Ramsey and Kirsty Woods at Edinburgh
University Press for their support for this book project.
The Editors
Birmingham, July 2019
ix
CONTRIBUTORS
Roswitha Badry is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Freiburg,
Germany. Her publications and research interests centre on the history of
the MENA-region since the nineteenth century, the continued influence of
classical ideas in contemporary discourses, Shi‘a Islam, gender issues, (auto-)
biographies of religious scholars and intellectuals, and contemporary Arabic
literature.
Emanuelle Degli Esposti is Research and Outreach Associate at the Centre
of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge, where she is investigating intra-
communal antagonism and identity politics. In particular, her work makes
use of theories in critical discourse analysis and psychoanalysis to theorise
the production of in- and out-group boundaries relating to Sunni-Shi‘a sec-
tarianism, especially at the level of everyday practices. She holds a PhD in
Politics and International Studies and an MSc in Middle East Politics from
SOAS, University of London, and an MA and BA in Philosophy and Modern
Languages from the University of Oxford. Her doctoral research drew on the
case study of the Iraqi Shi‘a diaspora to develop an alternative framework
for conceptualising sectarianism as the unconscious of identity formation.
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