Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies

Photo of Professor Robert Gleave

Professor Robert Gleave

Professor of Arabic Studies

r.gleave@exeter.ac.uk

4025

01392 724025

Overview

Rob Gleave is Professor of Arabic Studies in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. From January 2023 until January 2026 he will be British Academy/Wolfson Professor with the research project “The Foundations of Modern Shi’ism: The End of Akhbārism and the Beginnings of Uṣūlism”. His CV is here and his publications list is here.

His research focuses on Islamic legal theory and practice, particularly legal hermeneutics, and the history of Shi’ite legal thought and institutions. He has directed a number of international research projects over the past 20 years exploring these issues. Details of his publications and projects can be found via the "publications" and "research" tabs on this page.

Until September 2022, he was Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam (CSI) and Director of the International Institute for Cultural Enquiry (IICE). 

His most recent research projects, both of which concluded in 2022, were:

  • Law, Authority and Learning in Imami Shi’ite Islam (www.lawalisi.eu) was a 6-year project (2016-2022) funded by the European Research Council (as an Advanced Award) aims to integrate the study of Imami Shi’ite law into the broader field of Islamic legal studies. The project appointed two postdoctoral research fellows for its first phase (2016-2019 - Drs Paul Gledhill and Wissam Halawi), and in its second phase,research fellows have included Drs Cameron Zargar (2019-2020), Amin Ehteshami (2019-2020), Raha Rafii and Kumail Rajani (2019-2022), Pooya Razavian and Omar Anchassi (2021-2022). The team was also joined at certain points by Dr Belal Alabbas, the British Academy Newton International Fellow based at the University of Exeter.
  • Islamic Law on the Edge was a collaborative, one year (2021-2022) project with Dr Adday Hernandez-Lopez of Complutense University, Madrid, examining neglected and marginalised areas of Islamic legal studies. The project organised workshops, networking events and a doctoral sudent summer school. The Research Assistant on this project was Ms Shahanaz Begum.

His past research projects have included:

Understanding Shari’a: Past Present Imperfect Present; this two-year project (2016-2018) was funded by the Humanities in the European Research Area consortium as part of the “Uses of the Past” programme. 

Islamic Reformulations: Belief, Governance, Violence, a 3-year project (2013-16) funded by the Economic and Social Research Council examining questions around the reformulation of notions of belief, governance and their relationship to violence in contemporary Islamic thought. 

Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Islamic Thought (www.livitproject.net) was a 3-year programme (2010-2013) funded by the ESRC examining how violence has been justified in Islamic intellectual history of Islam, and has produced the series of the same name, published by Edinburgh University Press.

Rob Gleave has been visiting fellow or scholar at the universities of Michigan (Ann Arbor), Oxford, Washington (Seattle), Meiji (Tokyo), Tehran, Chicago and at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton.

Within the University of Exeter, as well being Director of the International Institute for Cultural Enquiry and Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam, he has also been: Associate Dean of the College for Social Science and International Studies 2015-16 and Principal Investigator on the University of Exeter ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (ESRC-IAA) from 2014 to 2018. 

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Research

My primary research interests include:

  • Hermeneutics and Scriptural Exegesis in Islam
  • Islamic Law, in particular works of Islamic legal theory (usul al-fiqh)
  • Violence and its justification in Islamic thought
  • Shi'ism, in particular Shi'i legal and political theory

My past major funded projects include:

They include:

Understanding Shari’a: Past Present Imperfect Present; this two-year project (2016-2018) was funded by the Humanities in the European Research Area consortium as part of the “Uses of the Past” programme. It was a collaboration between the universities of Exeter, Gottingen, Bergen and Leiden, with a team of lead researchers and postdoctoral fellows in each centre. The project examines the ways in which the notion of a “perfect past” informs programmes of reform of the “imperfect present” in Islamic legal thinking. The Exeter-based postdoctoral research fellows on this project were Dr Omar Anchassi, and Dr Sejad Mekic.

Islamic Reformulations: Belief, Governance, Violence, a 3-year project (2013-16) funded by the Economic and Social Research Council as part of the PACCS programme. Islamic Reformulations examined questions around the reformulation of notions of belief, governance and their relationship to violence in contemporary Islamic thought. The research fellows on this project were Drs Sarah Elibiary and Mustafa Baig.

Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Islamic Thought (www.livitproject.net) was a 3-year programme (2010-2013) funded by the ESRC as part of the Global Uncertainties Programme.  The project examned how violence has been justified in the intellectual history of Islam, and has produced the series of the same name, publiced by Edinburgh University Press.  The research fellow on this prpoject was Dr Istvan Kristo-Nagy.

British Imams Going Green, funded by the ESRC Exeter Impact Acceleration Account, this two-year project examines how challenging climate change can be integrated into Muslim faith practice in the UK.  The Postdoctoral Research Fellow on this project is Dr Davide Pettinato.

Islam and water management in a changing climate: building ‘faith-based evidence’ – a six-month project, funded by the GCRF Facilitation Fund, examining religious engagement with climate change in the Muslim world, with a focus on Tunisia, and in collaboration with  Institut des Régions Arides (Tunis) and the  Centre for Water Systems (Exeter).  The postdoctoral research fellow on this project is Dr Davide Pettinato.

GW4 Accelerator Award: Understanding Religion and Law: Fatwas, Muftis and Law in British Islam (www.britishfatwas.co.uk) was a two-year (2015-2017) collaboration of the universities of Exeter, Bristol, Cardiff and Bath. The project established a network of researchers on religion an law between the 4 universities, focussing on the role of the mufti and the importance of the fatwa in the British Muslim community. The research fellow on this project was Dr Tayyeb Mimouni.

NWO-AHRC Netherlands-UK (Leiden-Exeter) collaborative grant: The Sharia Project (2011-2013) – working with Leiden University in the Netherlands, holding a series of joint seminars on cutting edge research in Islamic legal studies, with accompanying master-classes by Professors Baudouin Dupret, Kecia Ali and Wael Hallaq.

The Hawza Project: Shiite Seminaries in Iraq and Iran, (2009-2013) funded by the British Academy under the auspices of the British Institute for Persian Studies, this project examined the history and operation of the Shi’ite seminary system (the Hawza) focussing on the seminaries in Qum (Iran) and Najaf (Iraq).

The UK Network of Practitioners and Researchers in Islamic Law; a two year project (2007-2009), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to increase contact and collaboration between academic experts and legal practitioners working in Islamic law.

Since 2005, he has managed international research projects with budgets totalling over £5 million.

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Projects

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Supervision

Postgraduate research topics I have supervised include:

  • Debating al-Ḥākimiyyah and Takfīr in Salafism
  • A critical approach to the origins and evolution of Usūl al-Fiqh and the methodologies of interpretation and inference, with a case of hijāb
  • Understanding the Salafi Doctrine of al-Walāʾ wal-Barāʾa
  • The Conceptualisation of Power in the thought of Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍalallāh
  • The Theory of Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa in Shīʿī jurisprudence: Muḥammad Taqī al-Mudarrisī as a Model
  • al-Qawāʾid al-Fiqhiyya in Contemporary Islamic Law
  • A study on Muḍārabah in Islamic law and its application in Malaysian Islamic banks
  • Necessity (ḍarūra) in Islamic law : a study with special reference to the Harm Reduction programme in Malaysia
  • A critical edition of Qawāʾid al-Taṣawwuf by Aḥmad Zarrūq (d. 899/1493) with an introduction

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2023 | 2022 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1994 |

2023

  • Rajani K, Gleave R. (2023) Shi?ite Legal Theory Sources and Commentaries, EUP.

2022

2020

2019

2018

  • Ahmed AQ, Gleave R. (2018) Rationalist Disciplines and Postclassical Islamic Legal Theories, Oriens, volume 46, no. 1-2, pages 1-5, DOI:10.1163/18778372-04601001.
  • Gleave R. (2018) “Modern Shiʿite Legal Theory and the Classical Tradition.”, Reclaiming Islamic Tradition Modern Interpretations of the Classical Heritage, EUP, 12-32.
  • Gleave R. (2018) Violence in Islamic Thought from the Mongols to European Imperialism, EUP.

2017

2016

  • Gleave R. (2016) Modern Shiʻite legal theory and the classical traditio, Reclaiming Islamic tradition : modern interpretations of the classical heritage, EUP, 12-32. [PDF]
  • Gleave RM. (2016) Conceptions of the literal sense(ẓāhir,ḥaqīqa)in Muslim interpretive thought, Interpreting Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Overlapping Inquiries, 183-203, DOI:10.1017/CBO9781107588554.009.
  • Baig M, Gleave R. (2016) ‘Customary Law’ (with Robert Gleave) in Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. [PDF]

2015

  • Gleave RM, kristo-nagy. (2015) Introduction, Violence in Islamic Thought from the Qurʾān to the Mongols, EUP, 1-27.
  • Gleave R. (2015) Early Shiite hermeneutics and the dating ofKitāb Sulaym ibn Qays, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, volume 78, no. 1, pages 83-103, DOI:10.1017/s0041977x15000038. [PDF]
  • Kristó-Nagy IT, Gleave R. (2015) Introduction, 1-23.

2014

  • Gleave R. (2014) The Legal Efficacy of taqiyya Acts in Imāmī Jurisprudence: ‛Alī al-Karakī ’s al-Risāla fi l-taqiyya, Al-Qanṭara, volume 34, no. 2, pages 415-438, DOI:10.3989/alqantara.2013.015.
  • Gleave RM. (2014) Introduction: Books and Bibliophiles, Books and Bibliophiles: Studies in honour of Paul Auchterlonie on the Bio-Bibliography of the Muslim World, Oxbow, 1-3.
  • Gleave. (2014) Books and Bibliophiles: Studies in honour of Paul Auchterlonie on the Bio-Bibliography of the Muslim World, Oxbow.
  • . (2014) Islamic Law in Theory Studies on Jurisprudence in Honor of Bernard Weiss, BRILL.
  • Gleave RM. (2014) Literal Meaning and Interpretation in Early Imāmī Law, Islamic Law in Theory: Studies on Jurisprudence in Honor of Bernard Weiss, Brill, 231-255.
  • Gleave RM. (2014) Deriving Rules of Law, The Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law, Ashgate, 57-72.

2013

2012

  • Gleave RM. (2012) Early Shi'i Hermeneutics: Some Exegetical Techniques Attributed to the Shi'i Imams, The Development of Method in Islamic Exegesis, Oxford University Press.
  • Gleave RM. (2012) Literal Meaning and Interpretation in Early Imami Law, The Spirit of Islamic Law: Studies in Honour of Bernard Weiss, Brill.
  • Gleave R. (2012) Islam and Literalism: Literal Meaning and Interpretation in Islamic Legal Theory, EUP.

2011

  • Gleave RM. (2011) Compromise and Conciliation in the Akhbari –Usuli Dispute: Yusuf al-Bahrani’s Assessment of 'Abd Allah al-Samahiji’s Munyat al-Mumarisin, Fortresses of the Intellect: Ismaili and Other Islamic Studies in Honour of Farhad Daftary, I. B. Tauris, 491-520. [PDF]

2010

  • Gleave R. (2010) Personal Piety, The Cambridge Companion to Muhammad, 103-123.
  • Gleave R. (2010) Afterword: Scholarly Priorities and Islamic Studies: The Reviews of Norman Calder, Islamic Jurisprudence in the Classical Era, Cambridge Univ Pr, 201-222.
  • Gleave R. (2010) Introduction, Islamic Jurisprudence in the Classical Era, Cambridge Univ Pr, 1-21.

2009

  • Gleave R. (2009) Recent Research into the History of Early Shi'ism, History Compass, volume 7, no. 6, pages 1593-1605, article no. 14, DOI:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00625.x. [PDF]
  • Gleave RM. (2009) Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, Routledge. [PDF]
  • Gleave RM. (2009) Mīrzā Muḥammad al-Akhbārī’s Kitāb al-Jihād, Le Shi'isme Imamite Quarante Ans Apres - Hommage a Etan Kohlberg, BREPOLS, 209-224. [PDF]
  • Gleave RM. (2009) Public Violence, State Legitimacy: The Iqamat al-hudud and the Sacred State, Public Violence in Islamic Societies: Power, Discipline, and the Construction of the Public Sphere, 7th-19th Centuries CE, Edinburgh University Press, 256-275.
  • Gleave RM. (2009) The Ritual Life of the Shrines, Shah 'Abbas: The Remaking of Iran. [PDF]
  • Gleave RM. (2009) The ‘Future’ of Islamic Studies: A Clutch of Conferences, Journal of Quranic Studies, volume 10, no. 1, pages 153-157, DOI:10.3366/E1465359109000308. [PDF]

2008

  • Gleave RM. (2008) Sunni Law, The Islamic World, Routledge, 167-178.

2007

  • Gleave R. (2007) Questions and Answers in Akhbari jurisprudence, Studies in Islamic law, Oxford University Press, 73-122.
  • Gleave RM. (2007) Scripturalist Islam: The History and Doctrines of the Akhbari School of Shii Thought, Brill.
  • Gleave RM. (2007) Conceptions of Authority in Iraqi Shiism: Baqir al-Hakim, Ha’iri and Sistani on Ijtihad, Taqlid and Marja’iyya, Theory, Culture and Society, volume 24, no. 2, pages 59-78, DOI:10.1177/0263276407074996.
  • Gleave RM. (2007) Crimes and against God and violent Punishment in al-Fatawa al-Alamgiriyya, Religion and Violence in South Asia, Routledge, 83-106.
  • Gleave A, Christmann A. (2007) Studies in Islamic law: a Festschrift for Colin Imber, Oxford University Press. [PDF]
  • Gleave RM. (2007) The Qadi and the Mufti in Akhbari Shi'i Jurisprudence, The Law Applied: Contextualizing the Islamic Shari’a, Studies in Honor of Frank Vogel, London: I.B.Tauris, 235-258.
  • Gleave RM. (2007) Scripturalist Sufism and Scripturalist Anti-Sufism: Theology and Mysticism amongst the Shi’i Akhbariyya, Sufism and Theology, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 158-176.

2006

  • Gleave RM. (2006) Intra-madhhab Ikhtilaf in Late Classical Imami Shi'i Law, The Islamic School: Evolution, Devolution and Progress, Harvard University Press.
  • Gleave RM. (2006) Patronate in Early Shi’ite Law, Patronate And Patronage in Early And Classical Islam, Leiden: Brill, 134-166.

2005

  • Gleave RM. (2005) The ‘Ulama’ and the British in the Early Qajar Period, Anglo-Iranian Relations, London: Royal Asiatic Society/Routledge, 36-54.
  • Gleave RM. (2005) Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, Routledge Curzon.
  • Gleave RM. (2005) Shi’ism, Blackwells Companion to the History of the Middle East, DOI:10.1111/b.9781405106818.2005.x.

2004

  • Gleave RM. (2004) Jihad and Religious Legitimacy in the Early Qajar State, Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, London: Routledge, 41-70.

2003

  • Gleave RM. (2003) Khumayni and Khu’i on ijtihad and qada', Shaping the current Islamic Reformation, London: Cass.

2002

2001

  • Gleave R, Kermeli E. (2001) Islamic law, I. B. Tauris.
  • Gleave RM. (2001) Between Hadith and Fiqh: Early Imami Collections of Akhbar, Islamic Law and Society, volume 8, no. 3, pages 350-382, DOI:10.1163/156851901317230620.
  • Gleave RM. (2001) Two Classical Shi’i Theories of qada', Studies in Islamic and Middle Eastern Texts and Traditions in Memory of Norman Calder, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 105-121.
  • Gleave RM. (2001) The ‘First Source’ of Islamic Law: Classical Muslim Legal Exegesis of the Qur’an, Religion and Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 145-161.

2000

  • Gleave R. (2000) Inevitable doubt: Two Theories of Shi'i Jurisprudence, Brill Academic Pub.

1999

  • Gleave R. (1999) Biography and Hagiography in Tunukabuni’s Qisas al-'Ulama', Proceedings of the third European Conference of Iranian Studies, Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 237-255.
  • Gleave R. (1999) Elements of Religious Discrimination in Europe: the position of Muslim Minorities, A people's Europe, Ashgate Pub Ltd, 95-107.

1998

  • Gleave R. (1998) Shi'ite Exegesis and the Interpretation of Qur'an 4:24, University lectures in Islamic studies, 79-112.
  • Gleave R. (1998) Jihad, Khums and Legitimacy in Pre-Qajar Iran, Proceedings Association des Chercheurs Iraniens 1998, ACI.
  • Gleave R. (1998) Elements of Religious Discrimination in Europe: the position of Muslim Minorities”, Encounters, no. ii, pages 169-180.

1997

  • Gleave R. (1997) Akhbari Shi'i Usul al-fiqh and the Juristic theory of Yusuf b. Ahmad al-Bahrani, Islamic law: Theory and Practice, I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 24-45.
  • Gleave R, Kermeli E. (1997) Islamic law, I B Tauris & Co Ltd.

1994

  • Gleave R. (1994) The Akhbari-Usuli Dispute in Tabaqat Literature: an analysis of the biographies of Yusuf al-Bahrani and Muhammad Baqir al-Bihbihani, Jusur: UCLA Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, pages 79-109.
  • Gleave R. (1994) The ijaza from Yusuf al-Bahrani (d.1186/1772) to Muhammad Mahdi ‘Bahr al-'Ulum’ (d.1212/1797-8), Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, volume 1994, pages 115-123.

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Teaching

Modules taught

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More information

Rob Gleave serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals and is sub-editor of Islamic Law and Society and the Journal of Abbasid Studies.  Amongst his appointments, he has been Executive Director of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, Secretary and President of the British Institute of Persian Studies, and President and Secretary of the International Society for Islamic Legal Studies.  He was also chair of the Steering Group for Islamic Studies, 2008-2011, a precursor to the British Association for Islamic Studies (BRAIS).

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