Welcome to the website of “the Hawza Project”, or as it is officially known “Clerical Authority in Shiite Islam: Culture and Learning in the Seminaries of Iraq and Iran”, it is a project funded by the British Academy and sponsored by the British Institute of Persian Studies, and the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies.

My name is Robert Gleave. I am Professor of Arabic Studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, and director of this three year project which brings together both established and emerging scholars to examine the role of the Shi’i seminary system (known as the hawza) in the construction and maintenance of clerical authority in Shi’i Islam.

The project has a particular focus on recent intellectual developments in the seminary cities of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, and Qum and Mashhad in Iran, but welcomes studies on hawzas across the Shi’i world.

The project holds three workshops each year on different themes. The next workshop, on the theme of “History and Development of the Hawza” will be on 29th March 2011 at Royal Holloway College, University of London. A final programme will be posted on the news and events section, where you can find programmes of past workshops. A “call for paper proposals” for the workshop on 15th June 2011 on the theme of “Challenges and Prospects for the Hawza” has been posted in the workshops section.

The best way to keep in touch with all the project’s activities is to fill in the form in the contact section. I hope you enjoy reading about the project’s activities, and do get in contact if you want to be involved further.

Robert Gleave
Director of the Clerical Authority in Shi’i Islam project
Personal Webpage: http://huss.exeter.ac.uk/iais/staff/gleave/
E-mail:gleave@thehawzaproject.net