Abstract:

First paragraph: Hossein Modarressi is one of the most unique professors in Islamic studies in Western academia. Trained as a traditional Shīʿī mujtahid in Qum and Najaf, and who became established as an interesting edi-tor of texts and intellectual historian in the 1970s (many of those texts having been recently re-published from the Marʿashī Library in Qum and in the USA), he wrote a dissertation on Islamic law at Ox-ford and soon after was appointed at Princeton where he has be-come a leading specialist on Islamic law, especially Shīʿī law, as well as on the Shīʿī tradition, and trained generations of students in law and philosophy who are a credit to him. This festschrift comprises offerings by a number of his best students and colleagues at Prince-ton and beyond. The articles are divided into five parts that reflect his output and his interests. The first is on source studies – complmenting his work on texts that he edited such as al-Jishumī’s Risālat al-Iblīs. Part two is on the Shīʿī tradition on which he has contributed major studies on attitudes to the Qurʾān, on tradition, an influential bio-bibliography of the classical period, his controversial study of the occultation and his forthcoming definitive volume of his vision for Shīʿism. Part three takes up his interests in Islamic law for which he is perhaps best known. Part four takes up his philosophical interests expressed in his supervision of students and which came from his studies in the Shīʿī seminary. The final part on historical traditions takes up his interests on the histories of Qum and similar studies. A final part lists his bibliography and includes a short summary of the significance of his Persian works (recently reprinted) by Hossein Kamaly. Modarressi’s output has been significant and his works have had a major impact in the field – such a festschrift is a wonderful testament to his contribution and the role that he has played through his students in forming the current field of Islamic studies.

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