Alterumma - Creating an Alternative umma: Clerical Authority and Religio-political Mobilisation in Transnational Shii Islam

AlterUmma is a five-year interdisciplinary project investigating the transformation of Shii Islam in the Middle East and Europe since the 1950s. It will use research in key archives, intellectual and oral history, ethnographic research and cultural studies approaches to examine the formation of modern Shii communal identities and the role Shii clerical authorities and their transnational networks have played in religio-political mobilisation.
Within the various denominations of Shii Islam, Twelver Shiis are the majority, due to Iran and Iraq also other minority group in the region. Despite Shii Muslims in the Middle East often being seen as marginalised minorities in different national contexts, they actually constitute up to half of the population in the entire region. Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 have shifted the region’s sectarian power dynamics and translated the demographic strength of Shii communities into geopolitical power.

This project receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 724557)