Call for Papers: Special Issue on “Marja‘iyya and Society”

 Guest Editor: Cameron Zargar, University of Exeter

The Journal of the Contemporary Study of Islam  invites articles for a special issue  related to the theme of “Marja‘iyya and Society.” We encourage submissions that engage with how the marāji‘’s fatwas help shape and are shaped by Twelver Shī‘ī communities. This includes: the marāji‘’s consideration of the cultural, temporal, and spatial context in deriving legal opinions; the dissemination, reception and the degree to which these opinions are applied in real cases; the marāji‘’s efforts to acknowledge and embrace the leanings of their followers as individuals or as members of a larger culture, nation-state, or organization; the elements in Twelver Shī‘ī societies that result from, produce, or perpetuate a culture of taqlīd; and how the marāji‘ collectively do or do not function as a body in order to fulfil the legal and spiritual needs of the Twelver Shī‘ī faithful.

The special issue is edited by Cameron Zargar of the University of Exeter. For more information, please contact the Guest Editor at c.zargar@exeter.ac.uk.

Deadline: Submission should be made before the 15th of August 2020.

How to make Submissions:

Interested scholars are invited to submit their articles for consideration using the online submission system at:   https://contemporarystudyofislam.org/index.php/jcsi/about/submissions

Please state in your submission that the article is for the special issue.

Manuscripts will undergo a process of double-blind peer review. Author guidelines are available at:        https://contemporarystudyofislam.org/index.php/jcsi/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Potential topics for the special issue include:

• The methodological tools the marāji‘ adopt that enable them to accommodate changing circumstances: legal hermeneutics (uṣūl al-fiqh), legal maxims (al-qawā‘id al-fiqhiyya), custom and convention (‘urf), and the greater good (maṣlaḥa).
• The impact of societal values, culture, location, and politics on the opinions of the marāji‘: the effects of humanism, liberalism, feminism, modernism, and regional customs on the production of law; the impact of sectarianism and the perceived need to assert a Twelver Shī‘ī identity; and the role foreign intervention plays in determining a marja‘’s political activism.
• The inner-workings of the offices of the marāji‘: the responsibilities of their representatives (wukalā’), the hierarchies of scholars who answer questions, the reliance upon the marja‘ himself in new cases or those of great significance, the collection and distribution of khums.
• The nature of the interaction between the marāji‘ and their followers: the reception and implementation of legal opinions; symbolism and imagery of the marāji‘ in Twelver Shī‘ī communities; the marāji‘ as spiritual role models; and the role financial and popular support of particular jurists play in their marja‘iyya, including the backing of organizations like the World Federation of KSIMC.
• Taqlīd as culture: the presence of cultural scripts, schemas, mottos, and aphorisms related to taqlīd, the sources - whether from the Qur’an, hadith, or religious culture - upon which muqallids draw in creating and perpetuating a culture of taqlīd, and the marāji‘’s engagement with and reproduction of this culture.
• Coordination - or lack thereof - between the marāji‘: acknowledgement of the legitimacy of other marāji‘, permitting the publication of works that compile the opinions of various marāji‘, rivalries, Qom vs. Najaf, philosophy-inclined jurists vs. those who are not so inclined, supporters of wilāyat al-faqīh al-muṭlaqa those who do not support it, etc.

About the journal: JCSI is a peer-reviewed journal published quarterly. Each issue includes new scholarly work as well as a book review section. We also accept short responses to articles published in the journal. Typescripts must be in English and new scholarly works should be between 8,000 and 12,000 words.

JCSI was launched by the Institute for the Contemporary Study of Islam, based in the UK, to promote and disseminate research related to Islam and Muslims in the contemporary world. Although we may consider any submissions that fall within the scope of JCSI, we are keen to publish research articles that deal with some of the most pressing issues that Muslims face in the contemporary world, such as new approaches to Islamic law, new religious trends in the Muslim world (e.g. new atheism, deism, and agnosticism), Islam and politics, sectarianism in the Muslim world, Islam and social change, Islam and human rights, Islamophobia, Muslim-Christian relations, new methodological developments in Quranic studies, and hadith studies.

JCSI aims to reach a wider readership beyond academia, and thus we suggest authors use accessible language in their submissions. The journal is open-access, free of cost for authors and readers alike, and provides unrestricted online access to its readers.

JCSI is a member of Crossref, an independent membership association for building shared technologies. Crossref was launched in early 2000 as a cooperative effort among publishers to enable citation linking in journals using the Digital Object Identifier, or DOI. Our DOI prefix is 10.37264 and our ISSN is 2633-7282 (online). We are in the process of applying for membership to the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and CLOCKSS archival service.  

JCSI has a prestigious advisory board and will be covered by the leading relevant indexing services.