February 2022 Lecture: Seyed Ammar Nakshawani

On Thursday 17 February 2022, a public lecture entitled ‘Human Rights in Early Islam: The Treatise of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib’ was held at the Maurice Borrmans Library of the PISAI.

Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib, son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, first Shi‘i Imam and fourth Caliph, is a monumental figure within the Islamic tradition. The lecture presented and examined Imam Ali’s conception of human rights in the light of his various testaments, letters and orders sent by him to his governors as well as anecdotes from his life.

The lecturer, Dr Seyed Ammar Nakshawani (PhD University of Exeter), Associate and Research Director on the Global Shi’a Diaspora at the Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, is a specialist of Islamic intellectual history; his name has been listed several times in the World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims.

On Friday 18 February 2022, Dr Nakshawani gave a seminar for the PISAI academic community entitled ‘The Map of Shii Scholarship: Qom, Najaf, and Beyond’.