The AMI Podcast

Al-Mahdi Institute
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AMI Podcasts explore a range of different topics including the latest cutting-edge research within the field of Islamic Studies, book reviews by prominent authors and academics, and discussions among scholars of diverse faiths and denominations within Islam.

  1. 5 days ago

    The Tug of War over Imāmī Creed & ʿIlm al-Rijāl | Dr Syed Ali Hur Kamoonpuri | Research Seminar

    ʿIlm al-rijāl is often treated as a technical, almost mechanical science — a matter of chains, dates and verdicts. But the criteria by which a narrator is praised or discredited are themselves shaped by theology, and theology changes. In this research seminar, Dr Syed Ali Hur Kamoonpuri (Aligarh Muslim University) traces that entanglement across a thousand years. He argues that the Baghdad school of the Buyid period evaluated transmitters against a firm and uncompromising stance on ghulūw, with Ibn al-Ghaḍāʾirī's Kitāb al-Ḍuʿafāʾ as its most rigorous expression — a work still rated highly by scholars including Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani. After the Safavid era, however, beliefs once treated as marks of exaggeration came to be counted among the essential doctrines of the Twelver school, and later scholars reopened the earlier rijāl verdicts in order to rehabilitate transmitters previously criticised as ghālī figures. Dr Kamoonpuri sets this trend against a contemporary counter-current — Ayatollah al-Burūjirdī, Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani and Ayatollah Muḥammad Bāqir al-Ṣadr — which holds that the early authorities read the ghulāt more soundly. His conclusion is a dialectic: doctrinal change rehabilitates transmitters, and the narrations of those rehabilitated transmitters then become fresh evidence for the very theology that rehabilitated them. Dr Syed Ali Hur Kamoonpuri specialises in Qurʾānic studies, Islamic intellectual history, Arabic language and literature, and Shīʿī studies. He holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Aligarh Muslim University, graduating with distinction and university medals, and was awarded his PhD in 2019 for a four-volume dissertation on the exegesis of Nahj al-Balāgha in the late ʿAbbāsid period. He has published more than twenty-five peer-reviewed articles and lectures internationally.

  2. 7 Aug

    "The Definition of Ghulāt" by Tabriz Gasimov

    In this presentation, Tabriz Gasimov revisits the meaning of ghulāt through hadith literature, tracing it to the concept of "lie" (kadhib) — understood as betraying a trust or disclosing confidential teachings — rather than divinization alone. He shows how this reframing suggests some narrators dismissed as ghulāt may in fact be reliable, with implications for re-evaluating core Shi'i doctrines on Tawḥīd and Imamate.

  3. 6 Aug

    "Traces of the Ghulāt in Shīʿī Hadith Literature: A Computational and Thematic Analysis of Ghulāt-Affiliated Traditions in al-Kulaynī's al-Kāfī" by Peyman Ünügür Tekin

    In this presentation, Peyman Ünügür Tekin combines classical rijāl criticism with computational analysis to trace narrations transmitted by ghulāt-affiliated narrators in al-Kulaynī's al-Kāfī. She asks whether their presence reflects incidental infiltration or a deliberate transmission strategy concentrated on particular doctrinal themes.

  4. 6 Aug

    "The Historical Link between Jesus and Ghuluww: Jesus's Function in Ghulāt Thought and its Impact on Shi'a Hadith" by Hossein Barati & Sobhan Ranjbarzadeh

    In this presentation, Hossein Barati and Sobhan Ranjbarzadeh trace how various ghulāt sects appropriated Jesus's ascension and extraordinary attributes to legitimize claims about ʿAlī, Ḥusayn, and the Hidden Imam. They show how Shi'i Imams and later Qom theologians responded directly to these Christological analogies in shaping mainstream doctrine.

  5. 6 Aug

    "Esotericism Embodied: Traces of Ghulāt Thought and Symbolic Expression in Yemeni Islamic Architecture" by Mohamed Enab

    In this presentation, Mohamed Enab shifts the study of ghulāt currents from hadith and polemic to material culture, reading Yemeni mosques and inscriptions from the Ṣulayḥīd and Qāsimī periods as a visual archive of Shi'i esoteric authority. He shows how architecture became a site where reverence, legitimacy, and accusations of religious excess were negotiated.

  6. 6 Aug

    "Between Bāṭin and Sharīʿa: The Druze as Ghulāt in Formative Shiism" by Wissam H. Halawi

    In this presentation, Wissam H. Halawi situates Druze doctrine within the long-running tension between esoteric knowledge and legal normativity in early Shi'ism. Rather than a radical break, he argues the Druze intensify existing ghulāt dynamics — hierarchical knowledge, a divinized guiding figure, and the suspension of exoteric law — reframing them as a distinct legal school.

  7. 6 Aug

    "Tracing the Legacy of the Mufawwiḍa Ghulāt in Imami Shi'a Theology" by Mohsen Kadivar

    In this presentation, Mohsen Kadivar distinguishes rubūbī ghuluww (attributing lordship to the Imams) from tafwīḍī ghuluww (attributing supra-human but non-divine status), tracing how the latter — though initially contested by the Imams' own companions — gradually became mainstream Imami theology from the fourth century onward, sidelining its early opponents.

  8. 6 Aug

    "Ghulāt in the Sunnī Tafsīr Tradition: The Historical Trajectory and Function of the Concept from the Classical to the Contemporary Period" by Ayşe Uzun

    In this presentation, Ayşe Uzun traces how the term ghulāt functioned in Sunni tafsīr — originally a broad marker of "excessiveness" applied well beyond Shi'ism, before narrowing and intensifying in 20th-century works like Tafsīr al-Manār. She shows how this shift reflects changing sectarian, political, and ethical concerns rather than a purely doctrinal one.

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About

AMI Podcasts explore a range of different topics including the latest cutting-edge research within the field of Islamic Studies, book reviews by prominent authors and academics, and discussions among scholars of diverse faiths and denominations within Islam.

Information

  • Creator
    Al-Mahdi Institute
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    369
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Al-Mahdi Institute
  • Show Website
    The AMI Podcast

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