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In Shi'i Islam, the Imams are considered to be the Possessors of the Command (ulu al-amr), and are the purveyors of divine authority in the world. The chapter speaks of the Ismaili Imams, Islamshah and Muhammad b. Islamshah; compares the modes of precautionary dissimulation (taqiyya) of Ismailis in Quhistan (where the community was persecuted) and Syria (where the bravery of the Ismailis was often romanticized); and highlights the emphasis placed on communal harmony. It also delves into the resurgence of the Ismaili da'wa at this time, particularly in South Asia under the able leadership of Pir Shams and his successors, including Pir Sadr al-Din.

This chapter explores expressions of Muslim militancy and extremism as they have emerged in Malaysia. While small in numbers and increasingly enervated as an ideology, militant extremism is nevertheless an important expression of Islamism that has occasionally surfaced in Malaysia and influenced thinking on trends and patterns. The chapter scrutinizes the Malaysian government’s confrontation with Islamic militancy in its domestic political sphere by investigating its operational and ideological countermeasures against the backdrop of an escalating Islamist political discourse. The chapter further discusses the Islamic factor in Malaysian foreign policy as another means by which the UMNO-led government bolsters its Islamic credentials, and it looks at how PAS has developed its own foreign policy agenda for similar purposes.

This chapter looks at the army building in three very different political environments: the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Lebanese civil war (1975–90), and the civil war in El Salvador (1979–92). Although the objective in both Bosnia and El Salvador was to develop a democratic army in the wake of the civil war, it has not been achieved fully in either setting. Lebanon is unique not just in the category of post-civil war army building but because it is an outlier in the entire group of twenty-seven cases studied in two important respects. First, in the first fifteen years after the civil war, a foreign army of Syria controlled some of Lebanon's territory and was instrumental in rebuilding the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). Second, aside from the state-controlled LAF, another local, contending or complementary and yet legitimate military force has functioned in the country: the militia of Hezbollah, a Shi'a Islamist political and paramilitary organization.

This chapter traces the institutional consequences of Kuwait’s coalitional strategy upon national development, revealing how new economic and political institutions after the 1950s kept the Sabah family in close contact with Kuwaiti society through the provision of patronage and protection to different coalitional allies. This made the autocracy well prepared to deal with two disastrous crises, the 1980s financial collapse and the 1990 Gulf War, which nearly ended its rule altogether.

The chapter explores the role that pilgrimages to the shrines of the Shi’a Imams and other members of the ahl al-bayt play in maintaining transnational and symbolic links to global Shi’ism. The fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the massive pilgrimage industry that has emerged as a consequence created particular connections of young American Shi’ites of South Asian background who consider Iraq as their actual ‘spiritual’ homeland and not Pakistan, the country of origin of their parents or grand-parents. The precarious contexts in which many of these shrines are situated equally create a sense of anxiety about losing this connection to the shrines. The bombing of the Al-‘Askari shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad, in 2007 and the perceived threat to the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab – Imam Husayn’s sister - near Damascus following the rise of ISIS in 2014 further strengthen to emotive connections of American Shi’ites to these places and yield particular articulations of sectarian identities in North America.

This chapter explores the evolution of environmentalism in Lebanon in the period since its independence in 1943. It contends that two main strands of environmentalism, challenging various aspects of the state and state policy, emerged prior to Lebanon's long civil war in response to inherent contradictions within the Lebanese state itself and the nature of its post-independence socioeconomic and political development. The first strand was a pioneer environmentalism rooted in liberal civil society that began to coalesce in the 1960s and represented elite concerns about the disappearance of nature but which ultimately took a more technical rather than political approach to environmental problem-solving. The second was a broad social movement largely embedded within the disenfranchised southern Lebanese and Beqa'a Valley Shi'a community that advocated for the more equitable redistribution of natural resources and state services in Lebanon. There was also a third—perhaps less-pronounced, but no less important—strand of environmentalism that emerged in Lebanon during its civil war to confront emergency situations and that served in an ad hoc and temporary manner to overcome the inability of the Lebanese state to protect particular communities in times of war or perceived local environmental catastrophe.

This chapter shows that the Shi'a Family Law formalizes many injustices to which women are persistently subjected and for which they are imprisoned. All women prisoners were moved from the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison to Badam Bagh. Badam Bagh means “Almond Orchard” in Dari, yet there is not an almond tree in sight. The majority of female prisoners are being held for violating social, behavioral, and religious norms. The stories of the prisoners are explained. Extensive work is ongoing to implement legislation to reform existing laws in line with the constitution, Afghanistan's international human rights obligations, and Islamic law. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) recommends that prison-based activities and post-release support activities be regarded as part of a comprehensive package of measures to address the issue of social integration in holistic and sustainable ways.

The introduction frames the edited volume both thematically and theoretically and provides an extensive discussion of key issues addressed in the book. In the beginning, the focus of the book, Shi’ism, is introduced. Historical background information on the origins and distinctive features of Shi’ism is provided and various trajectories of its globalisation outside of the so-called Muslim world explored. As part of the survey, the significance of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 in mobilising and politicising Shi’i communities is examined. As core part of the introduction the relevance of key terms central to the edited volume such as migration, transnationalism, diaspora, conversion and minority status to Twelver Shi’ism are investigated. Finally, the introduction presents some of the salient insights of the book: how limited Iranian influence on Shi’i communities worldwide is, how the double-minority status in which Shi’i communities in non-Muslim societal contexts find themselves brings both benefits and disadvantages, and how localised forms of Shi’a Islam emerge in conversation with global Shi’ism.

This chapter is the only one in this volume not focusing on Shi’a minorities in a non-Muslim context, by investigating Twelver Shi’ites in Indonesia. The chapter discusses the role that transnational educational institutions, sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran, play in Indonesia and the ambivalent perceptions of Iranian involvement: on the one hand, the Islamic Revolution created a global awareness of Shi’a Islam and initiated the conversion of local Indonesian Muslims to Shi’ism. The presence of Iranian institutions facilitates access to Shi’a literature and scholarships to study in Qom. On the other hand, Indonesian Shi’ites are equally eager to retain a certain independence from Iran in order not to appear as representing the interests of a foreign power in their country. The chapter also illustrates how local folklore traditions, articulating more a sense of ‘Alid piety than a specific Shi’a sectarian orientation, are also attended by representatives from Iran who frame these traditions in Java as local articulations of global Shi’ism.

Shi’a communities in South America are entirely understudied. Therefore, this chapter on Twelver Shi’a communities in Buenos Aires constitutes an important contribution to mapping Shi’a minorities globally. The chapter begins with an outline of the changing religious demographics of Argentina with the return of democracy in 1983 and the background of Muslim immigration and settlement in the country. Outlining the Shi’a Islamic field and its formation in the city’s neighbourhood of Floresta, the chapter discusses how local Shi’a communities relate both to fundamental doctrines of Twelver Shi’ism and the global influence of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and apply them to the local Argentinian context and situate the Islamic Revolution in particular within the context of anti-imperialist Latin American political activism.

The important and influential Iraqi Shi’a diaspora in London is the focus of this chapter. From the early 1980s, London emerged as one of the major centres of Iraqi Shi’a diasporic politics. The chapter provides an overview of the Shi’a religious field in London and its main actors and their transnational connectivities and focusses on the discursive formation of an ‘Iraqi-Shi’a diasporic subject’. Shifting the attention to the political economy of sectarianism in the diaspora, the chapter investigates the role of London-based charities in fostering and strengthening sectarian discourses both in the diaspora and in Iraq. Similarly, through the public performance of Shi’a identity in London at the annual processions during ‘Ashura’ in central London, a discourse of Shi’a victimisation is created presenting Shi’ites as victims of radical forms of Sunnism following the rise of ISIS in Iraq in 2014.

The formation and situation of the Twelver Shi’a community within the Muslim minority of Sri Lanka is discussed in this chapter. Being a minority within an already precarious minority in the country requires particular caution of Shi’a converts who often revert to the practice of taqiyya, often translated as pious dissimulation to denote the right and at times obligation of Shi’ites to conceal their faith in order to avert danger, harm or death. Shi’ites in Sri Lanka face in particular anti-Shi’a agitation by local Salafis with the support they receive from transnational actors. Equally, the chapter illustrates how Sri Lankan Shi’ites are part of transnational Shi’a networks linked to Iran but also other parts of South Asia, Pakistan and Afghanistan in particular, and how religious knowledge is transmitted via these networks and localised. While Shi’ites face a Salafi backlash in Sri Lanka, their conversion narratives often reveal a background in Sunni Islamist movements. In addition, Shi’ites forge alliances with traditional forms of Sunni Islam, in the form of Sufism in particular, that are equally targeted by Salafis.

A good example of the porosity of sectarian boundaries is provided in this chapter on Turkish migrants in Germany of Shi’a backgrounds. While the Shi’a religious field in Germany is fairly small and has only recently grown, Alevis from Turkey have had a long presence in Germany. The chapter discusses lines of cooperation between different Shi’a groups – a cooperation based on pragmatic considerations given their limited numbers and few resources in the small diasporic space of Germany. At the same time, Alevis, Twelver Shi’ites and Nusayri-Alawis from Turkey cooperate and hold events together based on the shared orientation towards and veneration of the ahl al-bayt that transcends the historical, cultural and doctrinal differences between these movements. At the same time, the chapter observes how certain Alevi movements undertake a rapprochement towards Twelver Shi’ism adopting some of its legal and ritual practices and following its clerical authorities.

To conclude the volume, the epilogue provides a final discussion of all contributions, focussing on the themes of cosmopolitanism and conversion and bringing in a perspective from the African context which is otherwise missing in the volume. Basing the discussion on theories of cosmopolitanism, the epilogue discusses the various contributions in terms of the different geographical axes they open, not only between the diaspora and its country of origin but also to the two centres of global Shi’ism, Iraq and Iran. These connections can be institutional, financial or educational but equally contain a strong symbolic element, in particular with regards to the shrine cities in Iraq as the actual and newly revived spiritual centre of global Shi’ism. Finally, the epilogue deconstructs the concept of ‘conversion’ addressed in many contributions which often demonstrate the fluidity of Shi’a identity constructions and the porosity of sectarian boundaries which defy simplistic narratives of conversion as a complete re-orientation of one’s religiosity. At the same time, becoming Shi’a also involves a localising of Shi’ism in particular context as most contributions illustrate.

This chapter focuses on Fawwaz’s portraits of early Muslim women, especially those of ahl al-bayt, the Prophet Muhammad’s family and lineage. It highlights her presentations of Alid and early Shi’i women given Fawwaz’s origins in the Shi‘i region of Jabal ‘Amil, Lebanon. Discussing women’s roles in the rift which led later to the development of sects in Islam, it finds that the biographical dictionary features an unusually high proportion of pro-‘Ali (Alid) and then Shi ‘i women, and that in their orientation these biographies signal a quiet but discernible Shi‘i perspective or allegiance. It then discusses Fawwaz’s emphases in her biographies of Muslim contemporaries: scholarship, literature, and reform, and how her life histories of Arab or Muslim contemporaries parallel those of Europeans.