Join us on Sunday, December 31st, at 2pm EST for an informative discussion with Dr. Farah Kawtharani on her book, “Political Thought in Contemporary Shi’a Islam”.
Hosted by Dr. Vinay Khetia, this instalment in our series ‘The Insight Interviews’, promises to be an engaging conversation.
View a recording below, or listen on your favourite platform:
Dr. Kawtharani is a researcher on Middle Eastern politics and Islamic political thought. Her current research is on legal reform in Islamic law and the development of a discourse on human rights and the protection of religious minorities.
She has taught a variety of courses on Middle Eastern politics, Islamic history, and all levels of Arabic language, including Arabic literature at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.
She holds a PhD from McGill University in Middle Eastern politics. Her research addresses Shi’i Islamic reformist thought in the twentieth century, with an emphasis on the Shi’i legal discourse on the modern state and secular governments. She has examined Shi‘i legal arguments that attempt to accommodate modern multi-confessional states, in particular the legal critiques against Khomeini’s political theory of wilayat al-faqih (the Guardianship of the Jurist), specifically in the Shi‘i spheres of the Arab world. Currently she is researching the rising political movements against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
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