The 8th Annual Contemporary Fiqhī Issues Workshop, hosted online by the Al-Mahdi Institute, seeks to provide a forum for considering the regulations of im/purity (ṭahāra and najāsā) in Islam, in light of their wide-reaching practical, socio-ethical and theological implications.
The practical importance of regulations pertaining to purity (ṭahāra) and impurity (najāsā) in Islam are testified to, not only by the typical treatment of purity as the opening chapter within works of juristic rulings, but also by their immense relevance to the daily lives of Muslims. Jurisprudential discussion of impurities (najāsāt) – be they regarding essentially impure substances (najis al-ʿayn) or the different states of impurity – likewise are far from being merely theoretical. Such rulings inform the nature of Muslim communal life, social interactions with non-Muslims and are relevant to the financial regulation of permissible and impermissible trade and profit.
Many of these rulings are female-specific or female-centred, yet analysis of the gendered nature of these rulings, and their implications, is seriously underdeveloped. Furthermore, questioning the nature of regulations on im/purity – such as whether they are purely devotional (mawlawī) or simply instrumental (irshādī) – leads to further questioning the role of empirical knowledge and reason in understanding, and seeking to live in accordance with, divine intent.
| Presenter | Title of Paper | View Abstract |
| Professor Seyed Mohammad Ghari S Fatemi (Al-Mahdi Institute & Shahid Beheshti University)Ali Khaki (Al-Mahdi Institute) |
Apology for an inhumane division of humans! On the immorality of fiqhī approaches to the issue of purity/impurity | Click here |
| Dr. Ali Fanaei (Al-Mahdi Institute and Mofid University) |
Purity and Impurity from Mystical, Moral, epistemic and Legal perspectives | Click here |
| Dr. Stephen Burge (The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London) |
Purity and Piety: The Structure and Message of al-Kulayni’s Kitāb al-Ṭahāra | Click here |
| Dr. Javad Fakhkhar Toosi (Independent Scholar) | The Authority of the Wise in Determination of Impurity: The Negation of Impurity in the Case of Opposition in Al-Najāsa Al- Manṣūṣa | Click here |
| Professor Rob Gleave (University of Exeter)Dr. Shuruq Naguib (Lancaster University) |
Menstrual Questions: Purity and Gender in Islam | Click here |
| Dr. Krista Riley (Vanier College, Montreal) | Online Narratives of Menstruation, Public Conversations, and Relationships with Religious Law | Click here |
| Dr. Reza Pourmohammadi (Women’s’ Research Centre, Iran) | The Role of Purity (Ṭahāra) and Impurity (Najāsa) Regulation in Formation of Muslim’s Economy in Early Islamic Era | Click here |
| Shaykh Arif Abdulhussein (Al-Mahdi Institute, Birmingham) |
Reassessment of the Notion of Impurity (Najāsa) through the Lens of Form and Essence and its impact on Trade, Societal Relations and Devotions | Click here |
| Dr. Muhammad Hassan Movahedi Saveji (Mofid University) |
Ṭahāra (Ritual Purity) & Najāsa (Ritual Impurity); a conventional law or an objective fact? | Click here |
| Ayatollah Professor Sayyed Mohaghegh Damad (Shaheed Beheshti University) |
The “Asrar” of Purity and Impurity in Islamic Shariah | Click here |