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Dr Kumail Rajani

Research Fellow

Kumail Rajani is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Islamic Studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. He works on the Law, Authority and Learning in Shiite Islam project, an advanced award (no. 695245) funded by European Research Council. Though primarily focused on the origins and development of hadith corpora, his research includes Islamic law, legal theory, and Shiʿi studies more broadly. He recently published an article entitled “Between Qum and Qayrawān: Unearthing early Shii ḥadīth sources” (BSOAS  84/3, 2021). He also edited The Sound Traditions: Studies in Ismaili Texts and Thought (Brill, 2021) and co-edited Shiʿite Legal Theory: Sources and Commentaries (forthcoming, 2022). He is currently working on converting his PhD (Making Sense of Ismaili Traditions: The Modes and Meanings of the Transmission of Ḥadīth in the Works of al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974), Exeter) into a monograph, among other pursuits. Rajani spent a number of years in Shiʿite seminary (Ḥawza) of Qum studying and teaching classical Islamic texts of ḥadīth, fiqh and Islamic legal theory. Rajani is the recipient of Post Doctoral Writing Fellowship from British Institute for Libyan and Northern African Studies for one year (2022) as well as British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship for 3 years (2023-2025).

Research group links

Research interests

Though primarily focused on the origins and development of Shiʿi hadith, his research includes Qurʾanic exegesis, Islamic law and legal theory, South Asian studies, Ismaili studies, and Shiʿi studies more broadly.  His current research focuses on Shiʿi legal maxims (al-qawāʿid al-fiqhiyya).

 

Rajani, Kumail. “Between Qum and Qayrawān: Unearthing Early Shiʿi Hadith Sources,” BSOAS 84/3 (2021). 

 

Poonawala, Ismail K. The Sound Traditions: Studies in Ismaili Texts and Thought, ed. Kumail Rajani (Leiden: Brill, 2021).

 

Rajani, Kumail; Gleave, Rob. Shiʿite Legal Theory: Sources and Commentaries, edited by K. Rajani and R. Gleave (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press/Gibbs Memorial Trust, 2022) [forthcoming].

 

Rajani, Kumail. “Why Early Muslims Divided into Sects?: A Chapter  from the Mukhtaṣar al-uṣūl of ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. al-Walīd (d. 612/1215),” in Shiʿite Legal Theory: Sources and Commentaries, edited by K. Rajani and R. Gleave (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press/Gibbs Memorial Trust, 2022) [forthcoming].

 

Rajani, Kumail; Husayn, Nebil. “Is ‘Door to Knowledge Closed’?: A Chapter from the Fatḥ al-bāb ilā l-ḥaqq wa-l-ṣawāb of al-Akhbārī (d. 1232/1817),” in Shiʿite Legal Theory: Sources and Commentaries, edited by K. Rajani and R. Gleave (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press/Gibbs Memorial Trust, 2022) [forthcoming].

 

Gleave, Rob; Rajani, Kumail. "The Role of Consensus in Legal Hermeneutics: A Chapter from the Qanṭarat al-wuṣūl ilā ʿilm al-uṣūl of al-Muʾayyadī (d c. 1044/1634),” in Shiʿite Legal Theory: Sources and Commentaries, edited by K. Rajani and R. Gleave (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press/Gibbs Memorial Trust, 2022) [forthcoming].

 

Rajani, Kumail; Rizvi, Sajjad. “Classical and Medieval Biographical Works: Twelver Shīʿī Scholarship on Rijāl,” in The Oxford Handbook of Ḥadīth Studies, ed. Mustafa Shah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022) [forthcoming].

 

Rajani, Kumail; Rizvi, Sajjad. “Shīʿite and Zaydite Approaches to Ḥadīth Criticism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Ḥadīth Studies, ed. Mustafa Shah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022) [forthcoming]

 

Rajani, Kumail; Muʾaddab, Sayyid Riḍā. “Barrasī Taḥlīlī-i Ḥadīth ‘Innamā yaʿrifu al-Qurʾān man khūṭiba bihi’,” Kitāb-i Qayyim 18 (1397sh/2018), 339-65. (Persian)

 

Rajani, Kumail. “Hadith: Shiʿi,” in Oxford Bibliographies in Islamic Studies,

http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195390155/obo-9780195390155-0235.xml (accessed 16-Apr-2017)

 

Rajani, Kumail. “Bohreha dar Bastar e Tārīkh wa Andīshe,” Pazuhishnama-i Ḥikmat wa Falsafe-i Islāmī, 30 (1388sh/2010), 65-90. (Persian)

 

Rajani, Kumail. Bohreha dar Bastar e Tārīkh wa Andīshe: Jamāʿatī az Shīʿayān i Ismāʿīliyye i Ṭayyibiyye iHind (Bohras in the Scrolls of History and Ideas: A Shīʿī Ṭayyibī-Ismāʿīlī Community of India), Qom: Al-Mustafa International Publication Center, 1393sh/2014. (Persian)

§  Second print: 1394sh/2015 (Persian)

§  Third print: 1394sh/2015 (Persian)

§  Fourth print:  1397sh/2018 (Persian)

 

E-publications:

·     Rajani, Kumail. Shii Dates Project: http://shiidates.net/

·     Rajani, Kumail. A Pioneering Workshop on Legal Maxims: Origins, Development and Intersection of the Genre of Legal Maxims (al-qawāʿid al-fiqhiyya) in the Shīʿī, Ibāḍī and four Sunni legal madhāhib, Islamic Law Blog. 

https://islamiclaw.blog/2020/02/11/pioneering-workshop-legal-maxims/

 

Research supervision

 ARA3106 Dissertation

Biography

 

Kumail Rajani is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Islamic Studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. He works on the Law, Authority and Learning in Shiite Islam project, an advanced award (no. 695245) funded by European Research Council. Though primarily focused on the origins and development of hadith corpora, his research includes Islamic law, legal theory, and Shiʿi studies more broadly. He recently published an article entitled “Between Qum and Qayrawān: Unearthing early Shii ḥadīth sources” (BSOAS  84/3, 2021). He also edited The Sound Traditions: Studies in Ismaili Texts and Thought (Brill, 2021) and co-edited Shiʿi Legal Theory: Texts and Commentaries (forthcoming, 2022). He is currently working on converting his PhD (Making Sense of Ismaili Traditions: The Modes and Meanings of the Transmission of Ḥadīth in the Works of al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974), Exeter) into a monograph, among other pursuits. Rajani spent a number of years in Shiʿi seminary (Ḥawza) of Qum studying and teaching classical Islamic texts of ḥadīth, fiqh and Islamic legal theory. 

 

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