The Prophet's Heir: The Life of Ali Ibn Abi Talib

Various Speakers

Summary

The life and legacy of one of Mohammad’s closest confidants and Islam’s patron saint: Ali ibn Abi Talib, arguably the single most important spiritual and intellectual authority in Islam after prophet Mohammad. The discussion will look at the discussion of and contestation around Ali in South Asia

Discussant:

Hassan Abbas: Distinguished Professor of International Relations at the National Defense University in Washington DC. Earlier he served as a Distinguished Quaid-i-Azam Professor at Columbia University and held various fellowships including at Harvard Law School’s Islamic Legal Studies Program & Program on Negotiation and at the Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

He regularly appears on international media as an analyst on security related issues in South Asia and Middle East and has also testified before the US Congress on “ Women fighting for Peace: Lessons for Today’s Conflicts ” in 2016, and before the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom at the U.S. Congress on “ Protecting Houses of Worship and Holy Sites ” in 2019.

His publications include various reports and opinion pieces on security challenges in South Asia and The Taliban Revival: Violence and Extremism in Pakistan – Afghanistan Frontier (Yale University Press, 2015); and most recently The Prophet’s Heir: The Life of Ali ibn Abi Talib (Yale University Press, 2021).

Rana Safvi has published seven books so far on culture, history, and monuments of India. These are Tales from the Quran and Hadith , the Delhi Trilogy : Where Stones Speak , The Forgotten Cities of Delhi and Shahjahanabad the Living City of Old Delhi . She has translated both the editions of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan 's seminal work on Delhi -Asar us Sanadid , Dastan e Ghadar and four accounts of 19th and 20th century Delhi from Urdu to English.

Dr. Tahir Wasti: The Application of Islamic Criminal Law in Pakistan: Sharia in Practice

Panel to be moderated by: Dr Ayesha Siddiqa, Non-resident fellow at the National University of Singapore Institute for South Asian Studies. She was research associate at the SOAS South Asia Institute and Center for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD), Charles Wallace fellow at St Anthony’s College, Oxford and Pakistan fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She is an author of two books: Pakistan’s Arms Procurement and Military Buildup, 1979-99 , and Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy , and currently working on militancy and extremism in South Asia.

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Contact email: ssai@soas.ac.uk