• Redesigned homepage with clearer connections to different sections of the site reflecting areas of the Institute’s work;
• Redesigned research unit pages, clearly presenting the key people, publications and activities from each unit;
• Redesigned publication pages, making it easier to discover related titles by subject, author and series;
• Redesigned graduate studies pages, including a new eligibility survey form when applications are open.

Join us for this special event in-person at the Aga Khan Centre or online, celebrating the scholarship and academic achievements of our late esteemed colleague, Dr Janis Esots, and also marking the launch of his recent publication, Patterns of Wisdom in Safavid Iran: The Philosophical School of Isfahan and the Gnostic of Shiraz (London, 2021).

We are delighted to have Professor Sajjad Rizvi (University of Exeter) and Dr Mathieu Terrier (CNRS, France) participate in what promises to be an engaging and lively discussion of this book, moderated by Dr Fârès Gillon (IIS).

We will also have an opportunity to hear international colleagues and friends of Dr Esots sharing with us tributes to his generous friendship and wide knowledge.

Light refreshments will be available following the event. Please speak to staff if you have dietary requirements.

This lecture will discuss the contents and context of The Book of Interim Times and Planetary Conjunctions as well as the state of current scholarship on it. While engagement with astrology and other occult sciences was popular during the era of Fatimid flourishing, there are few surviving texts that document the Fatimid engagement with these philosophical trends. The Book of Interim Times and Planetary Conjunctions, popularly attributed to Ja‘far b. Mansur al-Yaman, represents one such confluence of the assertion of the necessity of the Fatimid imamate bolstered through engagement with the occult sciences. This engagement demonstrates both an awareness of the utility of the occult sciences as a political tool—as astrology was used by the Abbasid caliphate—and a creative re-interpretation of how the occult sciences could be appropriated into the existing metaphysics of Ismaili theology and philosophy. 

We are delighted to announce that IIS faculty will now have access to the Aga Khan University (AKU) Continuous Professional Development scheme accredited by Advanced HE.

The scheme is part of AKU's globally renowned Network of Teaching and Learning, which secured AKU the Zairi International Award for Excellence in Disruptive Education in March.