Annual Ghadeer Conference 2026 to Be Held in New York

June 4–5, 2026 | Bronx & New York City

The Annual Ghadeer Conference 2026 will bring together leading scholars of Islamic history, Shi‘i studies, intellectual traditions, manuscript cultures, and religious thought for a two-day academic and community gathering in New York.

This year’s conference theme is:

Genealogies of Shiism: Political, Economic, and Intellectual Formations

13th–15th Centuries CE

The second Ghadeer Conference will explore the historical development of Shi‘i identities, institutions, and intellectual traditions during the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, with special focus on the period following the Mongol conquests.

The conference will examine how transformations in religious authority, communal identity, scholarly networks, economic exchange, and intellectual production shaped the development of Twelver Shi‘i thought and practice.

Conference Schedule

Opening Program

Date: Thursday, June 4, 2026
Time: 6:00 PM – 9:30 PM
Venue: Riverdale Yacht Club
Address: 800 W 254th St, Bronx, NY 10471

The evening program will include a keynote address, Manaqib-e-Mola Ali, and dinner.

Academic Conference

Date: Friday, June 5, 2026
Time: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Venue: Union Theological Seminary
Address: 3041 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, Room AD 30

The academic conference will include scholarly presentations and discussions, with a scheduled lunch break.

Conference Theme

The conference focuses on the historical processes through which Shi‘i identities, institutions, and intellectual traditions underwent transformation and renewed formation between the 13th and 15th centuries CE.

Special attention will be given to the aftermath of the Mongol conquests, a period that reshaped religious authority, communal belonging, scholarly mobility, and intellectual expression across the Muslim world.

As new economic and scholarly networks connected Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Central Asia, major shifts occurred in the circulation of scholars, texts, ideas, and patronage.

The conference will also highlight important intellectual figures such as Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī, Ibn Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī, and Seyed Ḥeydar Āmolī, whose contributions played a major role in the development of Twelver Shi‘i theology, jurisprudence, and religious practice.

By placing doctrinal developments within broader social, political, and cultural contexts, the conference presents Twelver Shiism not as a fixed identity, but as a historically evolving constellation of ideas, institutions, practices, and communities.

Featured Scholars

Asma Afsaruddin

Keynote Speaker
Professor; Class of 1950 Herman B. Wells Endowed Professor
Indiana University Bloomington

Sajjad Rizvi

Professor of Islamic Intellectual History
University of Exeter

Ali Karjoo-Ravary

Richard W. Bulliet Assistant Professor of Islamic History
Columbia University

Hadi Jorati

Assistant Professor of History & Near Eastern Studies
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Aun Hasan Ali

Associate Professor; Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies
University of Colorado Boulder

Tahira Naqvi

Clinical Professor, Urdu Language and Literature
Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
New York University

Jawad Qureshi

Associate Professor
Zaytuna College

Mahjabeen Dhala

Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies
Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California

Organizer

The conference is organized by Noor Zehra Zaidi, Inaugural Fellow at Imam Ali Research Center/HIU and Assistant Professor of History at the University of Maryland.

Registration

Participants are requested to register through the official registration link:

https://www.viewcy.com/event/annual_ghadeer_confer

The Annual Ghadeer Conference 2026 offers a meaningful academic platform for scholars, students, and community members interested in Islamic intellectual history, Shi‘i studies, and the evolving formations of religious identity and scholarship.