Islams Ibadites: l’Ibadisme dans les sociétés de l’Islam médiéval et contemporain

Islams Ibadites is a research blog dedicated to French research on Ibadism in medieval and contemporary Muslim societies. Over the past ten years, the uncovering and discovery of important sets of primary sources in Arabic resulted in a growing interest from researchers and students in this school of Islam. Cyrille Aillet, a French researcher, is the creator and moderator of this blog. He started working on Ibadism in medieval North Africa around 2010, in particular in an oasis (named Ourgla) located in contemporary Algeria.

Islams Ibadites aims at centralizing the scholarship on Ibadi communities in both Middle Eastern and Western societies, from the Middle Ages to the contemporary period, produced by numerous researchers and students. Its contents are categorized as follow:

Within each category, visitors will find interesting information like a list of researchers specializing on the topic, international conferences, summer schools, lectures, and publications announcements, book reviews, etc:

Despite focusing on the same topic, Islams Ibadites offers a very different perspective than that proposed on the Ibadi Studies research blog we had reviewed in January 2020.

Both the blog content and the interface are in French.

Islamic Paleography and Codicology workshop: a Summary

From Monday September 11th to Friday September 14th, the Islamic Studies Library had the pleasure to host an Islamic Paleography and Codicology workshop co-organized with the Institute of Islamic Studies, and the McGill Islamic Studies Students Council.

Participants had the opportunity to listen to inspiring and enlightening lectures, some of which involved the display and manipulation of manuscripts and rare books from the McGill Library and Archives collections.

Day 1 of “Islamic Paleography and Codicology Workshop”: An Introduction to the Arts of Bookmaking

Guests lectures were delivered by internationally renowned scholars in the field: Professor François Déroche from Collège de France (Paris, France) and András Riedlmayer from the Aga Khan Program Fine Arts Library at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA). Professor Déroche’s presentation focused on a research he has been conducting on three mammoth Qur’ans from the Ommeyad and Abbasid periods. András Riedlmayer’s lecture focused on the arts of illuminating and illustrating manuscripts in the Islamic World, and concluded with a fascinating section on the fake illuminated manuscripts market.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other lectures covered various aspects of the production of manuscripts (such as writing supports, scripts, illuminations and illustrations, covers and bindings), as well as some challenges that arise when working with manuscripts (such as identification, location, attribution, etc.). And all sessions of the workshop were very well attended by members of both the McGill community and the wider community.

Day 3 of “Islamic Paleography and Codicology Workshop”: The Persian Manuscripts Tradition

Special thanks go to the Institute of Islamic Studies, the Post-Graduate Students’ Society, McGill Libraries and Archives  and the Dean of Arts Development Fund for supporting this event.

Workshop with Sussan Sheikh

On Wednesday, 29th of July 2015 the Islamic Studies Library will host a workshop with Sussan Sheikh.

Calligraphy- Sussan Sheikh_ISL_2015“Susan Sheikh was born in the city of Hamedan, Iran in 1961. She started practicing Iranian calligraphy in 1982 under Iranian calligraphy masters Abdollah Foradi and Yadollah Kaboli. In 1988, Ms. Sheikh obtained the rank of “excellent calligrapher” from the Iran’s Association of Calligraphers and started her career as an art instructor. In years, she has trained several calligraphy apprentices who are in turn disseminating this revered form of Iranian art throughout the country. Ms. Sheikh has participated in more than twenty solo and group exhibitions and her artworks have been published in multiple calligraphy collections. She received an honorary excellence art award in 2007.”

The workshop is free and open to the public. If you are interested in joining us, please contact me (sean.swanick [at] mcgill . ca) to reserve a spot for space is limited.