Uzair Ibrahim

About me:

I am currently a second-year PhD candidate in Arab and Islamic Studies. My research intersects engagement with the occult/esoteric/metaphysical, commemoration of the event of Karbala, and Shii intellectual and ritual history from the so-called early modern to the modern period. I employ tools from anthropology, history, philosophy, and the critical study of religion to investigate the life of a jinni named Zafar, who is the protagonist of my study.

I am a Farhad Daftary Doctoral Scholar at the University of Exeter. Before joining Exeter, I completed an MA with distinction in South Asian Studies at SOAS, University of London, where I wrote a dissertation on engagement with the ghayb and the world of the jinn in nineteenth-century Urdu marsya and how that demands that we rethink and expand our conventionally held notions of time and history.

My MA at SOAS was funded by The Institute of Ismaili Studies, as part of their flagship, fully-funded Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities, which I completed in 2020. I arrived at the IIS from Habib University, Pakistan, whence I obtained a BSc (Honors) in Social Development and Policy in 2018.

I hail from an Ismaili Shii background, and I tweet @uzairibrahim_

Research Unit:
Centre for the Study of Islam; Exeter South Asia Centre
Research Project:

In my doctoral dissertation, in which I buld upon my MA, I aim to ask and hopefully, inshaAllah, answer the following questions: how and why did the narrative of Zafar flourish in the Urdu marsya tradition in the nineteenth century? What were its sources? Given that the narrative is still circulated, how do those who come into contact with the narrative make sense of it? What might the genealogy of the narrative of Zafar vis-à-vis commemoration of Karbala in South Asia tell us about the epistemological orientation(s) behind the engagement of believers with the ghayb? And, finally, how can the ghayb be taken seriously in the academic study of Islam without anachronistically coursing to (somehow) secularising it?

Research Supervisory team:

I am supervised by Professors Sajjad Rizvi and William Gallois.

Professional/research experience:

October 2021 December 2021

The Institute of Ismaili Studies

Research Assistant, South Asian Studies Unit

Education:

January 2020 January 2021

SOAS, University of London

MA (with distinction) in South Asian Studies

January 2018 January 2020

The Institute of Ismaili Studies

Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities

January 2014 January 2018

Habib University

BSc (Honors) in Social Development and Policy