Year 1 - Studies on Knowledge and Authority in the Hawza

The Research Programmes sponsored in the first year of the Hawza project examined the link between knowledge and authority in the hawza, focussing particularly on how the curricula, learning techniques and research production promote or thwart the development of particular types of authority. The sponsored projects each examine this issue, using different case studies and methodologies.

Four Research Programmes were chosen for support in this first year, and the results of their projects, supplemented by other studies, will be published in volume one of the project’s collected papers. The sponsored research programmes were:



Training female ulama in Jama’at al-Zahra – New Opportunities for Old Role Models?
Roja Fazaeli (Trinity College Dublin) and Miriam Kunkler (Princeton University)
A project examining women’s training in the hawza, looking specifically at one women’s theological seminar in Qum, Iran. For more details, click here



Representing the Iconography of Shi’a Religious Knowledge: Interaction between the Visual and the Textual in two Shi’i Learning Centres in Damascus.
Alessandro Cancian (Institute of Ismaili Studies, London) and Massimiliano Fusari
A comparative study of the construction of knowledge and authority within two hawzas in Damascus, using both textual and visual materials. For more details, click here



Philosophy in the Qom Hawza post-1979
Alexander Hainy
An examination of the manner in which the disputed position of philosophy (falsafa, irfan, hikmat) in the hawza curriculum reflects the disputed ideas of the ideal scholar and his or her authority within the scholarly community. For more details, click here



A Critical Appraisal of Two Important Channels for Disseminating Modern Knowledge in the Hawza (Qum and Mashhad): Hybrid Students and Research Institutes
Mohammed Samiei (ICAS, London)
A quantitative and qualitative study of the introduction of new types of knowledge into the hawza environment – with particular emphasis on science and information technology and their employment in the ideas and training in the hawza. For more details, click here