The IsmailisAdherents of a branch of Shi’i Islam that considers Ismail, the eldest son of the Shi’i Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 765), as his successor. consist of two main branches the’NizariIsmailis and the Musta’lian Tayyibi Ismailis. Both have their roots in theFatimidperiod of Ismaili history and differ primarily over their respective belief in theImamat.that is, spiritual leadership of the community.
The Nizari branch believes in a living, physically presentImam. Their present and forty-ninthImamisPrince Karim Aga Khan. The Musta’lian Ismailis believe that their twenty-firstImam, al-Tayyib, went into physical concealment(satr)and that while theImamatcontinues in his line, authority in his physical absence is exercised by a vicegerent,da’imutlaq,who acts on his behalf. In their encounter with modernity therefore, the two communities reflect a different pattern of historical and institutional development.
Authors
Azim Nanji is currently Special Advisor to the Provost of the, and a member of the Board of Directors of thein Ottawa, a joint partnership between His Highness the Aga KhanA title granted by the Shah of Persia to the then Ismaili Imam in 1818 and inherited by each of his successors to the Imamate. and the Government of Canada. He has held many prestigious academic and administrative appointments, most recently as Senior Associate Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at, where he was also lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies. From 1998 to 2008, Professor Nanji served as Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London.
Professor Nanji has published numerous books and articles on religion, Islam and Ismailism, including:The Nizari Ismaili Tradition(1976),The Muslim Almanac(1996),Mapping Islamic Studies(1997) andThe Historical Atlas of Islam(with M. Ruthven) (2004) andThe Dictionary of Islam(with Razia Nanji), Penguin 2008. In addition, he has contributed numerous shorter studies and articles in journals and collective volumes includingThe Encyclopaedia of Islam,Encyclopaedia Iranica,Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World, andA Companion to Ethics. He was the Associate Editor for the revised Second Edition ofThe Encyclopaedia of Religion.
Within the, he has served as a member of the task force for the(AKU-ISMC) and Vice Chair of the Madrasa-based Early Childhood Education Programme in East Africa. He served as a member of the Steering Committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1998, 2001 and 2016.
Professor Zulfikar Hirji
Zulfikar Hirji is an Anthropologist and Social Historian of Muslim Societies and Cultures. He is currently Associate Professor of Anthropology at York University, Toronto. He was formerly a Research Associate at þþø, London, and Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford.
