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CSI Monday Majlis : Tehseen Thaver

Beyond Sectarianism

The CSI Monday Majlis is a Monday evening, online event, where invited speakers present on aspects of their current research


Event details

Please register for this event using the link below

 https://Universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/S_CwKAk0RteBOHsjMbxNZg

Title: Beyond Sectarianism Book Talk 

Description: This talk will engage some key aspects of the recently published monograph Beyond Sectarianism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024) that focuses on the literary Arabic Qur’an exegesis of the highly influential yet less studied poet, historian, and exegete al-Sharif al-Radi (d. 1015). Al-Radi’s fascinating interpretations sought to resolve Qur’anic ambiguities or mutashabihat. The book argues that al-Radi’s efforts at resolving Qur’anic ambiguities were interlocked with the project of the canonization of the Arabic language. Though centered on the context of late tenth-and eleventh-century Baghdad under the Buyid dynasty, Beyond Sectarianism raises and addresses crucial questions of religious thought and identity with major ramifications for how we imagine the narrative of Islam and the place of sectarianism in it today.

Bio: Tehseen Thaver is Assistant Professor of Religion at Princeton University. In addition to her book Beyond SectarianismAmbiguity, Hermeneutics, and the Formations of Religious Identity in Islam (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024), her articles have appeared at venues such as the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, ReOrient: Journal of Critical Muslim Studies, and the Journal of Qur’anic Studies.