91福利社

Skip to main content

91福利社 religious studies professor says Twelver Shi鈥檌sm is open to discourse

91福利社 religious studies professor says Twelver Shi鈥檌sm is open to discourse

Associate Professor Aun Hasan Ali鈥檚 book about Islam鈥檚 School of Hillah explores the dynamics and formation of Twelver Shi鈥檌sm, arguing that the faith was open to diverse intellectual traditions


, the largest branch of Shi鈥檌te Islam, tends to be viewed as fundamentally authoritarian, particularly as seen through the lens of the ideology of the Iranian government.

Aun Hasan Ali, associate professor in the 91福利社听Department of Religious Studies whose area of focus is on Islamic intellectual history, particularly pre-modern Twelver Shi鈥檌 traditions, says he believes that modern perceptions of the faith have been colored by the听

鈥淚t was an unprecedented moment in a lot of ways, because for the first time in听 the history of Shi鈥檌sm, you had a theory of government where the jurist was the head of the state,鈥 he says. 鈥淭raditionally, there was always a kind of separation between those two spheres.鈥

portrait of Aun Hasan Ali

Aun Hasan Ali, 91福利社 associate professor of religious studies, argues that modern perceptions of Twelver Shi'ism have been colored by the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

As a result, Ali says the idea took root among some in the West and also in the听 that Shi鈥檌 clerics were free to make whatever political or religious decisions they pleased, because they were not bound by the history of tradition. However, that鈥檚 not an accurate portrayal of how jurists and other followers come to decisions in Twelver Shi鈥檌 religious tradition, he adds.

Instead, Ali makes the case that Twelver Shi鈥檌sm is better understood as a 鈥渄iscursive tradition,鈥 which, as defined by noted cultural anthropologist听, involves researching foundational Islamic texts, such as the Quran and the writings of exemplary historical Shi鈥檌 religious figures, for context. Ali says his own definition of discursive tradition is tied less to foundational texts and more to how noted Shi鈥檌 religious figures interpreted those texts, as that is how most followers of the faith first engage on religious topics.

鈥淚n the same way that someone addressing ethics in contemporary philosophy needs to address (Immanuel) Kant, for instance, I view that as a parameter of the conversation,鈥 he explains. 鈥淪imilarly, when it comes to Islamic tradition, there are important figures that one needs to address. So, in the simplest terms, a discursive tradition should be thought of as a conversation across time and space among experts.鈥

In contrast to the idea that scholars make decisions based solely upon their authority, Ali contends that thinking of the Twelver Shi鈥檌 faith as a discursive tradition means the faith continually remains open to discussion, debate, mediation and modification.

Ali鈥檚 ideas on discursive tradition were shaped in part by his PhD dissertation on the School of Hillah, a center of religious learning that played a major role in preserving and promoting Twelver Shi鈥檌 Islamic religious traditions, while also being open to integrating diverse intellectual traditions, during its formative years, from the 12th to 14th centuries. Ali鈥檚 revised dissertation was published in 2023 by I.B. Taurus as the book, The School of Hillah and the Formation of Twelver Shi鈥檌 Islamic Tradition, which is being translated into Arabic for wider distribution.

Recently, Ali spoke with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine about the importance of the School of Hillah in the formation of Twelver Shi鈥檌sm and its profound effect on the Shi鈥檌 faith today. His answers have been lightly edited and condensed for space considerations.

Question: Why does the School of Hillah take root in what is now southern Iraq?

Ali: Hillah becomes a center of scholarship for two reasons. One is that you have a (regional) Shi鈥檌 dynasty come to power that patronizes these scholars. The second reason is that you have the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, which pushes a lot of people looking to escape that devastation southward.

So, you end up with a concentration of scholars who are sought-after in the region. People travel to Hillah from the Levant, from Bahrain and from Iran. They travel there because they were seeking expert education, and the major figures of Hillah were the undisputed experts. (Students) came there to receive that kind of education in the same way that today somebody might come to CU seeking a world-class program in astrophysics. The same thing was happening in Hillah; they came there to learn from these masters.

With the Mongol invasion, sure, there鈥檚 devastation, but there are also opportunities. There are trade routes that enrich particular families in the area, and, as we all know, education requires money, so the influx of wealth also becomes a reason why they鈥檙e able to offer patronage to those scholars.

Book cover of The School of Hillah and the Formation of Twelver Shi’i Islamic Tradition

In The School of Hillah and the Formation of Twelver Shi鈥檌 Islamic Tradition, which is being translated into Arabic for wider distribution, author Aun Hasan Ali explores the School of Hillah, a center of religious learning that played a major role in preserving and promoting Twelver Shi鈥檌 Islamic religious traditions.

Question: Is the School of Hillah equivalent to what we would think of today as a university or maybe a seminary?

Ali:听Certainly, it鈥檚 different in the sense that it鈥檚 not primarily organized in brick-and-mortar institutions. It鈥檚 more unstructured. Classes took place in the home of an individual, a prominent scholar.

It鈥檚 similar in the sense of curriculum. What I mean is that certain texts come to be understood as definitive of a tradition. And that鈥檚 part of the reason why Hillah is so important. A lot of the texts that we think of today as being definitive of Shi鈥檌 tradition were written in Hillah and continue to be studied today, so we can think of it in terms of there is, not uniformity, but an expectation that anybody who masters this tradition would read these texts.In that sense, it鈥檚 similar.

It鈥檚 also similar in the sense of structures of authority. Just as someone wishing to put forth a view in, let鈥檚 say, American jurisprudence, has to engage particular jurists; similarly, somebody wishing to put forward a view in Shi鈥檌 theology has to engage with the views of particular jurists. So, structures of authority can be similar in that way. The idea of a curriculum can be similar in that way, but it鈥檚 not organized as a single space in primarily brick-and-mortar institutions.

That was actually one of the points in the book. The organizing principle of the School of Hillah is these large families in which particular types of expertise is concentrated. So, one family may have an expertise in genealogy; another family may have an expertise in philosophy; while another family may have an expertise in law. These large families (in the community) structure the School of Hillah. And, of course, people intermarry between these families, so it becomes a network of intellectuals.

Question: For the students who completed their studies at Hillah, did they generally go on to become clerics and religious scholars?

Ali:听If we look at the contemporary Twelver Shi鈥檌 tradition, it runs the full gamut. Before you have modern schools, people learn basic numeracy and literacy in religious institutions, which is the same as it was in the West.

Some of those people, after getting basic literacy and numeracy, go on to become merchants or preachers, for example. A smaller group will become teachers within the institution, and then a (small percentage) of those will become the next generation of masters of the tradition. Most people don鈥檛 reach that level, because it takes a long time鈥攚e鈥檙e talking maybe 20 years or more鈥攖o be considered competent within that tradition. It鈥檚 a very grueling process, and most people leave before they finish the entire process.

Question: Can you talk about how your idea of discursive tradition contrasts with the idea of jurists having the authority to make whatever decisions they want?

Ali: That鈥檚 exactly the idea I was pushing back against in the book鈥攖his kind of free-for-all idea about authority. That鈥檚 not to say authority isn鈥檛 important, or that jurists don鈥檛 exercise that kind of authority. But again, they do it within the horizons of possibility that are shaped by discursive tradition, as a conversation across space and time.

And yes, there鈥檚 a kind of push and pull where a really important figure can push a conversation forward, can expand at the horizons of possibility, but it鈥檚 not an arbitrary process. It鈥檚 a process that鈥檚 linked to the past at the same time that it looks ahead.

Question: Were there any major developments or contributions that came out of the School of Hillah that made a profound impact on Islam today?

Ali: Philosophy becoming integrated into theology is something that we can look to Hillah for, within the Shi鈥檌 world. That development takes place earlier within the Sunni world, but in the Shi鈥檌 world,听, or Avicenna鈥檚 metaphysics, comes to be integrated into Shi鈥檌 theology. In that time period, the integration of mysticism into Shi鈥檌sm is also something that happens in Hillah.

"There鈥檚 a kind of push and pull where a really important figure can push a conversation forward, can expand at the horizons of possibility, but it鈥檚 not an arbitrary process. It鈥檚 a process that鈥檚 linked to the past at the same time that it looks ahead."

When we think of (Islamic) law, that鈥檚 really one of the most important contributions that happens at Hillah, and you see the integration of advanced mathematics and advanced science into law. For example, in Islamic law, figuring out the direction of prayer from a distance, given the curvature of the earth is also a complicated thing, which leads to advanced discussions of science and mathematics integrated into the chapter on ritual prayer, for instance. Those would be a few examples.

At Hillah, you also have the production of these kinds of biographical dictionaries. So, when Muslims evaluate a piece of information, part of the way they evaluate it is by looking at who communicated that information. You can imagine that it would be very useful to have a kind of a biographical dictionary, where you could look up a particular individual and see what they were like. Were they known to be somebody who had scholarly expertise? Were they known to be somebody who was an upright person? Or were they known to be unscrupulous in the way that they narrated information? These kinds of biographical dictionaries, which facilitate legal discussions and conversations, were produced at Hillah.

Question: Despite the School of Hillah鈥檚 contributions to Islamic thought, you say there is not much scholarship about it. Why do you think that is?

Ali:听I believe a lot of it has to do with the history of Islamic studies in the West鈥攁nd that only in recent years has Shi鈥檌sm gotten the attention it deserved. Previously, scholars who studied Islam largely dealt with Sunni sources. And so, even when they talked about Shi鈥檌sm, they were talking about it through the lens of Sunni authors and Sunni sources.

This is despite the fact that Shi鈥檌tes鈥攚hile making up somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of the (Muslim) population鈥攖heir contributions, intellectually, to Islamic tradition has been disproportionate.

Things started to change in the 1980s and 1990s, but even among scholars focused on Shi鈥檌sm, they have tended to focus on its origins, or trying to explain how the Iranian Revolution happened, so in both of those ways Hillah was ignored.

Question: Do you have any particular hopes for your book?

Ali:听In general, the book has been received well. I think that people (in Islamic studies) recognize this was a crucial period in Shi鈥檌 religious history that hadn鈥檛 really been sketched out the way I did in the book.

In terms of contributing to a broader discussion, my hope is the book brings together theoretical conversations in religious studies with meticulous historical scholarship. In Islamic studies, it鈥檚 sometimes separated by people who do theoretically rigorous projects and people who do meticulous historical scholarship. I tried to do both, and I hope that the book contributes to bridging the gap between these two different approaches within Islamic studies.


Did you enjoy this article?听听Passionate about religious studies?听Show your support.