Texts & Traditions

The Imāmī tradition rests on a vast textual inheritance: ḥadīth collections, supplications, ziyārāt, biographical and bibliographical works, much of which is still little studied in modern critical scholarship. This stream studies those sources: how they were compiled, how they were transmitted, and what can responsibly be concluded from them.

This is the stream most visible in the Centre’s publications. Work in Al-Qalam has examined the authenticity of Duʿāʾ ʿArafa and Duʿāʾ al-Tawassul, the final passage of Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ, the textual history of the Rajab supplications, and the composition of early Twelver biographical compendia, alongside review essays on the reconstruction of lost source texts in contemporary Iranian scholarship.

The stream also supports translation, bringing Persian and Arabic scholarship into English where it has had little previous circulation.