Shiraz Hajiani, PhD
I am scholar of religion and history and am an accomplished educator, researcher, mentor, and communicator with a record of teaching excellence and extensive experience in advising undergraduates, graduates, and continuing education students. I use multi-disciplinary approaches, including digital humanities methodologies, to study and teach religion, history, literature, and thought. I specialise in Islamicate history and thought, Shiʿism, Ismaili studies and with regional expertise in the study of the Middle East, North Africa, Central and South Asia
Education and Research
Alwaleed Postdoctoral Fellow
in Islamic Studies
Postdoctoral Fellow
Transcendence and Transformation
Lecturer in Islamic Studies
Harvard Divinity School
Research: Imamate, Soteriology, and Eschatology in Nizari Ismaili and Islamicate Thought. Produced a critical edition of an undated treatise
B.Sc.
University of London
Queen Mary College (Chemistry)
School of Oriental and African Studies
(‘minor': Islamic Studies)
M.T.S.
Harvard Divinity School
(2005)
M.A.
University of Chicago
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
(2009)
Ph.D.
University of Chicago
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
(2019)
MA Thesis: Enemies of the State: Constructions of the Ismāʿīlīs in the Siyāsat-nāma (Book of Government) of Niẓām al-Mulk
The thesis examines religion and history in the Middle Periods, and boundary formations through the construal by Muslims of other Muslims as the "religious other" in the era of Sunni revival at the end of the "Shiʿi Centuries”.
Thesis Advisors: John E. Woods and Franklin Lewis
Doctoral Dissertation: Reconstructing Alamut: New Approaches to the Study of the Qiyāma and the Nizari Polity in Iran.
The dissertation examines the development of doctrines of imamate and Islamic eschatology in early Nizari Ismaili Shiʿism and the historiography and history of the Nizari polity (1090-1256). Using multi-disciplinary approaches of historical, textual and narrative analyses as well as innovative tools of digital humanities, this research on the doctrinal, social, institutional, intellectual, political histories and thought, recovers subdued factional voices and traces of non-extant Nizari doctrinal texts which are fragmentarily embedded in Persian historical chronicles and maps not only conflicts but also the complex relations between the Nizaris and their adversaries: the Sunni ʿAbbasids, Saljuqs and Mongols.
Dissertation Committee: John E. Woods, Farhad Daftary and Paul Walker
U.S. State Department Fulbright Research Fellowship (2017-2018)
Commenced a second multi-year research project, beginning with ethnographic work in Tajikistan, to study religion in Central Asia before, during and after the Soviet period.
Under the aegis of the US Embassy, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, provided research methods training for Kyrgyzstan State Commission on Religious Affairs. Consulted with State Commission leadership on strategic planning for research. Coached Commission’s researchers to optimise work-flows, data analysis and reporting. Presented lectures at madrasas, universities and academic venues as part of US State Department outreach
Zidi Valley, Tajikistan, © Shiraz Hajiani 2020
Languages
Primary research languages: Arabic and Persian: work on 11–16th century historical and doctrinal texts. Have edited and translated Nizari doctrinal tracts dated back to the 12th century. Have translated 5 Persian chronicle accounts of the Nizari Polity in Iran. Finalising my annotated translation of the section on the Ismailis in Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah’s (d. 1318) Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh (Compendium of Chronicles) for publication
Other languages: English, French, Gujarati, Kutchi, Hindi-Urdu, Russian, Spanish, and Tajik