A list of our scholarship award alumni and their research areas
2018
Sadiq S. Habib(Religious Studies, SOAS)
Thesis:Identity Processes Among Emerging Adult 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. in Europe and North America – A Study in Integral Anthropology
2017
Taushif Kara(History, University of Cambridge)
Thesis:Colonial Born?: Migration, Memory, and Islam for the Khoja of East Africa
2016
Amaan Merali(Oriental Studies, University of Oxford)
Thesis:TheOttomansand the Ismailis (1887-1914): Imperial Perceptions of an Inter-Imperial Community
Azzam Al-Kassir(Politics, Birkbeck, University of London)
Thesis:Continuity and Change in the Thought and Praxis of Salafi-Jihadism: Reading into the writings of the ideologues and Strategists of Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria
Muhammad Dost Khan(History, Royal Holloway, University of London)
Thesis:Historicising Perceptions Of The West In Pakistan’s Political Discourse
2015
Aslisho Qurboniev(Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge)
Thesis:The Organisation of Learning and Knowledge Transmission in Egypt and Ifrīqiyya under the Fāṯimids: Institutions, Patronage, Networks and Practices
2014
Karim Javan(Religious Studies, SOAS)
Thesis:Qiyama in Ismaili Histories
2013
Rahim Gholami(Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter)
Thesis:Ismaili Neoplatinism in two Fatimid texts: A comparative study of al-Sijistani’s al-Yanabi and Nasir Khusraw’s Khwan al-ikhwan with an annotated English translation of Khwan al-ikhwan
Shumaila Hemani(Ethnomusicology, University of Alberta)
Thesis:Singing the Shah-jo-Raag in Pakistan and India
2012
Zulfiqar Khimani(Sociology, University of Cambridge)
Thesis:Transnational Religious Belonging: The Case of Nizari Ismaili Muslims
2011
Zarangez Karimova(Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter)
Thesis:The Structure and Content Analysis of the Three Shīʽī Ḥadīth Works: Kitāb al-jami` al-Wāfī, Wasā’il al- Shīʻa ilā ahādīth al-sharīʻa and Bihār al-Anwār
Ula Zeir(Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Edinburgh)
Thesis:SalamiyyaA city in central Syria, which was the residence of several early Ismaili imams in the pre-Fatimid period.: A City of the Ismailis in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century Ottoman Syria (1839-1918)
2010
Laila Kadiwal(Sociology, University of Sussex)
Thesis:Religious Pluralism in Ismaili Muslim Religious Education: From difference to diversity
Sorbon Mavlonazarov(Anthropology, Durham University)
Thesis:Changes and Continuity in Shrines Visitation in Badakhshan: A Case Study of Wakhan Valley
2009
Zamira Dildorbekova(Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter)
Thesis:The Dynamics of Islam and Modernity in Tajikistan: Contemporary Ismaili Discourse
Shayesteh Ghofrani(Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter)
Thesis:Comparative analysis of the Concept ofWilayain Shi’ism andSufismin the Formative Period
2008
Sultonbek Aksakolov(History, SOAS)
Thesis:Islam in Soviet Tajikistan: State Policy and the Practice of Religion from 1950-1985
Shaftolu Gulamadov(Religious Studies, University of Toronto)
Thesis:The Ethical Dimension of the Ismaili Tradition of Badakhshan
Amier Saidula(Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh)
Thesis:A Last Refuge: National Law, Traditional Dispute Resolution and Tajik Survival in Xinjiang Today
2007
Zouhal Avzalshoeva(Law, University of Sussex)
Thesis:Nobody beats an obedient woman’: state and non-state responses to violence against women in Tajikistan
Rafiq Rahim Ajani(Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter)
Thesis:The Development of the Mystical Theology and Ethics of Rindi in Persian Poetry from the Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries
Sharaf Oshurbekov(Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of York, Toronto)
Thesis:Contested Spaces and Contested Meanings: Isma’ili Muslim Places of worship in Badakhshan region
Sabrina Datoo(History, University of Chicago)
Thesis:Fashioning Muslim Life: Yunani Medicine and Muslim Liberalism in Colonial India c. 1880 – 1930
Aly Kassam-Remtulla(Education, University of Oxford)
Thesis:Muslim Chaplaincy on Campus: Institutional intent and implications
2006
Shiraz Hajani(South Asian Languages and Civilisations, University of Chicago)
Thesis:The Great Resurrection – ReconstructingAlamutFortress of the Nizari Ismailis in northern Iran, which fell to the Mongols in 654 AH/1256 CE.
Wafi Momin(South Asian Languages and Civilisations, University of Chicago)
Thesis:The Formation of Satpanth Ismaili Tradition in South Asia
2005
Zulfiya Ashurmamadova(Education, University of London)
Thesis:Financing Education in Tajikistan: Tradition and Transition
Jamil Kassam(Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations, University of Chicago)
Thesis:TheNizarisduring the Safavid Period
Nourmamadcho Nourmamadchoev(History, SOAS)
Thesis:The Ismailis of Badakhshan: History, Politics and Religion from 1500 to 1750
2004
Maryam Rezaee(Politics, University of York)
Thesis:Women and Higher Education: An Analysis of Women’s Development, Empowerment, and Class Position with Special Reference to the Ismaili Women of Iran
Karim Gillani(Music and Religious Studies, University of Alberta)
Thesis:Sound and Recitation of Khoja Ismaili Ginans: Tradition and Transformation
Otambek Mastibekov(Near and Middle Eastern Studies, SOAS)
Thesis:Leadership and Authority of Ismailis: A Case Study of Badakhshani Community in Tajikistan
2003
ArifJamal(Law, University College London)
Thesis:Liberal Theory and Islam: (Re) Imagining a Muslim Public Square
Marodsilton Mubarokshoeva(Education, University of Oxford)
Thesis:Universities in Muslim Context: Concepts, Challenges, and Opportunities
Nacim Pak(Anthropology of Media, SOAS)
Thesis:Shi’i Expressions of Religion and Spirituality in Iranian Cinema
2002
Yahia Baiza(Education, University of Oxford)
Thesis:Education in Afghanistan, 1901-2006: Developments, Influences and Legacies
Abdulmamad Iloliev(Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge)
Thesis:Poetic Expression of Pamiri Ismalism: The Life and Thought of Mubarak-i Wakhani, a Nineteenth-century Mystic Poet and Religious Scholar
Vafo Navkarov(Philosophy, University College London)
Thesis:Justice, Persons & Institutions
2001
Amin Mahdavi(Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science, University of Edinburgh)
Thesis:An Event-Driven Distribution Model for Automatic Insertion of Illustrations in Narrative Discourse: A Study Based on the Shahnama Narrative
Gurdofarid Miskinzoda(Islamic Studies, SOAS)
Thesis:On the Margins of SiraFrom Arabic, lit. way of life, way of acting, conduct; as a literary genre, sira means a biography and times of an individual. In the Muslim context, the sira typically…: Mughulta’i (689-762/1290-1361) and His Place in the Development ofSiraLiterature
Saeed Zeydabadi-Nejad(Social Anthropology and Media Studies, SOAS)
Thesis:Post Revolutionary Iranian Cinema: Ideology and Cinematic Critique
2000
Miriam Ali-de-Unzaga(Material Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford)
Thesis:Weaving social life. Moroccan Rural Textiles, People and Changing Values
1999
Omar Ali-de-Unzaga(Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge)
Thesis:The Use of the Qur’an in the Epistles of the Ikhwan al-Safa
1998
Laila Halani(Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford)
Thesis:Discourses of Religion and Development: Agency, Empowerment and Choices for Muslim Women in Gujerat, India
Fahmida Suleman(Islamic Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford)
Thesis:The Lion, the Hare and Lustre Ware: Studies in the Iconography of Lustre Ceramics from Fāṭimid Egypt (969 – 1171 CE)
1997
Zulfikar Hirji(Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford)
Thesis:The Co construction of Space and Relatedness Amongst Swahili speaking Muslims of the Indian Ocean: Zanzibar, Mombasa and Muscat