Three scholars from 国产视频 (IIS) presented papers at the held at , 5-8 August 2026. Dr Daryoush Mohammad Poor and Dr Rahim Gholami co-chaired a panel on 鈥楻eason, Revelation, and Revival: Esoteric Hermeneutics from N膩峁r-i Khusraw to R奴m墨 and the Present鈥. They were joined by Dr Maryam Rezaee of IIS and Dr Alice Hunsberger (State University of New York at Old Westbury), author of the IIS-published (2000).
Rahim Gholami鈥檚 Paper on R奴m墨鈥檚 惭补迟丑苍补飞墨
Dr Rahim Gholami opened with 鈥楽triking with Part of It: R奴m墨鈥檚 Re-readings of Qur示an 2:67鈥73 in the 惭补迟丑苍补飞墨鈥. Dr Gholami described how, in the story of Moses and the cow, the Israelites press for detail after detail, and the animal is described almost exhaustively. Then, where a concealed murder is to be exposed, the command turns vague. It states: 鈥榮trike him with part of it (产颈-产补士岣峣丑腻)鈥, although the part is never identified. The dead man rises, the crime comes out,, and the passage closes, hoping its hearers may come to reason.
R奴m墨 returns to the scene three times in the 惭补迟丑苍补飞墨, taking apart its elements 鈥 command, sacrifice, fragment, blow, disclosure, resurrection 鈥 and re-distributing them in what Dr Gholami describes as a kind of esoteric pedagogy.
Dr Gholami argued that 产颈-产补士岣峣丑腻 becomes a grammar of divinely authorised efficacy. The body-serving intellect loses its mastery, and discursive reason works under the light of what R奴m墨 calls the Intellect of intellect (士补辩濒-颈 士补辩濒Reason, intellect, mind. This noun does not appear as such in the Qur鈥檃n, although the verb 士aqala is used (as in Q. 2:44, 鈥楧o you not understand?鈥). See also 士补辩濒鈥搃…): the intellect is the husk, the Intellect of intellect the kernel.
Women Facing Barriers to Education
Dr Maryam Rezaee moved the panel to present-day Iran with 鈥楨mpowerment under Constraint: Ismaili Women鈥檚 Responses to Educational Barriers in Iran鈥. Her paper drew on interviews and questionnaires among Ismaili women in Mashhad and Tehran who wanted to complete a university education but had not managed to do so.
These women faced a combination of barriers: families could not always finance study away from home; daughters were required to care for younger siblings; and economic pressures sometimes meant that they had to take up jobs straight after secondary school. Another issue the women faced was the national entrance examination, which could be used as a tool for ideological vetting rather than determining academic merit. Women who were unable to pursue higher education paid the price in restricted mobility, economic precarity and social invisibility.
Dr Rezaee鈥檚 paper also focussed on what the women did next: some took up vocational courses or places in private institutions, while others turned to voluntary service inside their communities. Drawing on Kabeer, Sen, and intersectional feminist theory, Rezaee argued that empowerment is a process of negotiating constraint, not a destination reached only through a degree. She understands taqiyyaPrecautionary dissimulation of one’s religious beliefs, especially in time of persecution or danger, a practice especially adopted by the Shi’i Muslims., religious discretion, in the same light: a working strategy for moving safely through public institutions while keeping one鈥檚 faith intact.
The Egypt N膩峁r-i Khusraw Did Not Describe
Dr Alice Hunsberger鈥檚 paper, 鈥樷淎re you in obeisance or not?鈥 Navigating Egyptian Politics with N膩峁r-i Khusraw鈥, concerned accounts in the medieval Persian author鈥檚 厂补蹿补谤-苍腻尘补. She described how N膩峁r-i Khusraw spent three years in Fatimid Egypt (439鈥442/1047鈥1050) and was chosen each year to accompany the imperial HajjThe word Hajj usually refers to the annual pilgrimage by Muslims to the Ka士ba in Mecca, also called the Great Pilgrimage, in contrast to the 士Umra, the Lesser Pilgrimage. More caravan with the kiswa and the caliph鈥檚 payments to Mecca and Medina. He praised almost everything he saw: the Cairo bazaars, the Fatimid justice system, the salaried army, and the management of the Nile flood. Yet at Aydhab, before he had even left Egypt on the road home, N膩峁r found himself with an empty purse, for which he gives no explanation.
Dr Hunsberger described how N膩峁r recounts two major events of Fatimid history but deliberately refrains from mentioning their contexts. In the first of these, two months after N膩峁r arrived in Cairo, soldiers murdered the influential Jewish jeweller, Abu Sa士d al-Tustar墨. Twenty thousand horsemen then amass before the palace until a servant emerges with one question: 鈥楢re you in obeisance or not?鈥 N膩峁r-i Khusraw鈥檚 description omits crucial explanations and context for this event. Namely, that the caliph鈥檚 mother Rasad, a Nubian former slave, had been brought to the palace by al-Tustar墨, who later became her key ally at the head of the Fatimid treasury, while she ruled as regent for al-Mustan峁r (r. 427鈥487/1036鈥1094). The vizierA high officer of state, equivalent of a chief minister. al-Fall膩岣ツ and the Turkish guard murdered al-Tustar墨, but within a year Rasad had al-Fall膩岣ツ imprisoned and killed.
The second event was the Aleppo campaign of 441/1049鈥50. N膩峁r鈥檚 sparse account in the 厂补蹿补谤-苍腻尘补 reports that the ruler of Aleppo rebelled, so the caliphIn Arabic khal墨fa, the head of the Muslim community. See caliphate. sent out 士Umdat al-Dawla but he was killed at Aleppo. From her reading of the chronicles, Dr Hunsberger identified the Aleppan rebel as the Mird膩sid Thim膩l b. 峁⒛乴i岣, and 士Umdat al-Dawla as the general Rifq, an African eunuch in his seventies, who led thirty thousand men on the Fatimids鈥 third failed campaign against the city.
Dr Hunsberger noted that N膩峁r never names al-Mustan峁r, al-Z膩hir or Rasad, but he was a witness to the early cracks in Fatimid rule 鈥 factional armies, a contested vizierate and a strained treasury 鈥 that would later erupt as the Mustan峁riyya crises, as epitomised by his own empty purse at Aydhab.
Reconciling Faith and Intellect
Daryoush Mohammad Poor鈥檚 paper, 鈥楻econciling Faith and Intellect: N膩峁r-i Khusraw鈥檚 Rationalism鈥, concerned questions of philosophy and epistemology. He asked how far a mind can travel on its own and noted that an intellect that inquires, tests and criticises must be squared with a revelation that requires assent to truths it does not submit for inspection.
N膩峁r-i Khusraw attempted to answer these questions in his J膩mi士 al-岣kmatayn, composed in exile in 462/1070 in the valley of Yumg膩n in Badakhsh膩n. Dr Mohammad Poor鈥檚 paper concerned the theme of nourishment of the human intellect. The intellect needs feeding from two sources: philosophy, including the natural sciences and metaphysics, and revelation, as interpreted by 迟补示飞墨濒The elucidation of the inner or esoteric meaning, b膩峁璱n , from the literal wording or apparent meaning of a text, ritual or religious prescription.. These are the 鈥榯win wisdoms鈥 of the work鈥檚 title, and the soul鈥檚 progress towards perfection depends on their reconciliation.
The argument runs in two directions. Against the literalists, N膩峁r defended the spirit of inquiry. Against the philosophers, and Ab奴 Bakr Mu岣mmad b. Zakariyy膩示 al-R膩z墨 in particular, he defended revelation. Al-R膩z墨 held prophecy to be superfluous, since philosophers can recall souls to their true world. N膩峁r鈥檚 reply was that the philosophers who do that are the prophets.
The contemporary point is that faith and reason are still presented as opposites, by secularists who take religious commitment as a failure of rationalism, and by fundamentalists who see critical inquiry as a threat to faith. N膩峁r-i Khusraw argues against this false opposition: intellect is a divine gift, so neglecting it fails the Giver, but reason is only complete under an illumination that it cannot itself generate.
The Thread
In closing, Dr Mohammad Poor traced intellect as the thread running through all the papers. Although R奴m墨 is not generally considered an Ismaili, he followed in N膩峁r-i Khusraw鈥檚 footsteps given the prominence he grants to the intellect. In Dr Rezaee鈥檚 account, the role of intellect can be seen in the women鈥檚 striving for higher education and the value they place upon the pursuit of learning. The value of intellect is also upheld by the various institutions of the Ismaili Imamat, such as 国产视频, 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. University, the University of Central Asia, and the wide network of educational institutions built over the past 150 years. Finally, Dr Mohammad Poor鈥檚 paper showed how N膩峁r-i Khusraw identified the substance of intellect as joy (蝉丑腻诲墨): joy comes with the removal of ignorance, ignorance is removed by knowledge, and knowledge is what intellect produces.
The papers are a tribute not only to the figure of N膩峁r-i Khusraw, a towering figure for the Iranian and Central Asian IsmailisAdherents of a branch of Shi’i Islam that considers Ismail, the eldest son of the Shi’i Imam Ja士far al-峁⒛乨iq (d. 765), as his successor., but also to the role of intellect in the Ismaili tradition, throughout history and down to our own contemporary times.
