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 “Knowledge and Authority in the Hawza” will be on 30th March 2010 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 in June 2010 on the theme of “History and Development in the Hawza” has been posted in the workshops section.

In January 2010, the call for Research Programme Grants (up to £5000) also on the theme of “The History and Development of the Hawza” will be announced, and awarded in March 2010. Watch this space for details.

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