The Psalms of Imam Zayn al-’abidin: The sahifa al-Sajjadiyya and Its Place in Ismaili Thought
Event Details
Join us as we have a conversation with Dr Daryoush Mohammad Poor on the topic “The Psalms of Imam Zayn al-’abidin: The sahifa al-Sajjadiyya and Its Place in
Event Details
Join us as we have a conversation with Dr Daryoush Mohammad Poor on the topic “The Psalms of Imam Zayn al-’abidin: The sahifa al-Sajjadiyya and Its Place in Ismaili Thought“
Abstract
The Ṣaḥīfa al-Sajjādiyya – the collection of supplications attributed to the fourth Shīʿī Imam, ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn, Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn – is widely regarded as the most important body of devotional literature attributed to any of the Shīʿī Imams after Imam ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. Often called the “Psalter of the House of Muḥammad”, it has shaped centuries of theological, ethical, and spiritual reflection. Modern scholarship has tended to treat the Ṣaḥīfa as belonging primarily to the Twelver Shīʿī canon. This talk recovers the largely overlooked reception of the Ṣaḥīfa within the Nizārī Ismaili tradition. Drawing on the witness of the Fatimid-era scholar al-Muʾayyad fī al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī and on a detailed cross-reading of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Alamūt-period ethical compendium, the Akhlāq-i Muḥtashamī, the talk shows that the Ṣaḥīfa was not a marginal or peripheral text for the Ismailis but a constitutive element of their ethical and imamological literature – woven across forty chapters, read through a distinctly Ismaili lens, and transmitted in a recension with its own textual character. In doing so, it invites a broader understanding of the Ṣaḥīfa as a shared inheritance of the entire Shīʿī community, received and reinterpreted across its different branches.
This programme will be face to face and streamed online.
We will be streaming the programme live on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/sicmtv
If you would like to recite Qur’an during the programme, please do let us know: email us: info@sicm.org.uk
Time
Location
Mahfil Ali
39 Gloucester Road, North Harrow
Organizer
Speaker
Dr
Daryoush Mohammad Poor is an Associate Professor in the
Department of Academic Research at The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS),
London, and the former Interim Head of the Contemporary Studies Unit (CSU). A
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), he serves as the Editor of the Ismaili
Heritage Series and is a lecturer within the Department of
Education.
Dr Mohammad Poor’s scholarship
is defined by its deeply interdisciplinary character, bridging classical
Islamic philosophy and Shi‘i studies with contemporary political theory and
emerging global challenges. His work increasingly explores the intersection of
the humanities with digital transformation and Artificial Intelligence. In this
capacity, he has recently collaborated with UK
Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
of Canada on high-level research initiatives examining the ethical, social, and
faith-informed implications of AI and emerging technologies.
He holds a PhD in Political and
Social Studies from the University of Westminster (2012). His major
publications include Authority without Territory: The Aga Khan
Development Network and the Ismaili Imamate (2014); The
First Aga Khan (2018), a co-edited translation of the memoirs of
the 46th Ismaili Imam; and Command and Creation: A Shi‘i
Cosmological Treatise (2021), a Persian edition and English
translation of Muḥammad al-Shahrastānī’s Majlis-i maktūb.
Beyond his research and
teaching, Dr Mohammad Poor holds several key advisory and editorial roles. He
is a member of the Advisory Board for the
Encyclopaedia Iranica,
specifically overseeing the field of Ismaili Studies. He also serves on the
editorial board of the Journal of Religious Minorities Under
Muslim Rule. Previously, he was a member of the Aga Khan Education
Board for the UK (2015–2019).
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