Thread by @mullasadra

Fascinating conversation @DandiaAsad @Simon_W_Fuchs on #Shiism in #Pakistan tradition and reform, decentering #Lucknow, rise of #Shii claims to Islam and not just content with polemical vernacularisation google.co.uk/amp/s/newbooks… 1/

And as @Simon_W_Fuchs says those #VernacularTracts volumes in the @BLAsia_Africa are really neglected treasure troves - just yesterday discovered three philosophical texts never seen before 2/

One of the key findings @Simon_W_Fuchs is the role of the scholarly debates in #Shii journals on the nature of religious authority demonstrating a dynamic and involved relationship between religious elites and communities in #Pakistan and in #Najaf uncpress.org/book/978146964… 3/

And that the contestations of who represents the #marja in #Pakistan is not a new phenomenon nor are such conflicts of the periphery and centre merely a result of #1979 and the #Revolution; furthering exploding the activism vs quietism reading of Shii #marjaiyya 4/

Further @Simon_W_Fuchs shows that #esotericism matters - it’s socially significant, theologically involved and politically significant - suggesting an interesting comparative study of the political theology of esotericism in #Pakistan between Sufis and Shia (of all types) 5/

@Simon_W_Fuchs on impact of #Revolution and #Khomeini and importance of #SayyidArifHusaini who indigenised the politics becoming a major new #martyr followed by #Lahore as centre more recently of #khatt_e_imam by #SayyidJawadNaqvi 6/

New Iran influenced politicised clergy emerge in the age of dictatorship under #Zia and further decenter #Lucknow and #Najaf in an idiom of resistance rooted in South Asian of discourse of civil disobedience 7/

Not just a result of violence but #Shia in #Pakistan highly visible - but this was not just post #1979; while it is the subject of other studies one needs to link up the different political choices of the #Shia from earlier #communism to later #islamism albeit #state-centred 8/

Last point #sectarianism and similar phenomena show that #texts matter (very much agree); @Simon_W_Fuchs acknowledges #Devji work on this and contestations of what #Islam and #Pakistan mean for rival political projects without discounting the imp of social political contexts 9/

@Simon_W_Fuchs imp point that early anti-Shii polemics #ahl_e_hadith and non-political but politicised as #Shia become ‘political problem’ post-1979 and led by #Deobandis (and I would add now by #Barelvis in the Labaik movement) 10/

one major take home @Simon_W_Fuchs is the need for a more connected #intellectual_history that works between and across languages and transationally - #SouthAsia #Iran #Iraq #WestAsia are far more historically and recently connected - study of #Islam needs integration 11/

And authority need not be unidirectional influence or mono-causal or unipolar - but negotiated with multiple centres as well as overlapping types of allegiances and identities - these can be gauged by a range of sources including the more popular and literary 12/