The religious studies department is hosting its first ever “Religion at the Crossroads” colloquium this month to explore the intersections between disciplines within the study of religion and between religious studies and other academic fields.
Date: Thursday, April 24, 2008
Time: 6 p.m.
Location: Spence Pavilion room 201
Presentation title: “From the Throne of Moses to the Chair of Ali: Intersections of Jewish Christianity and Islam in Late Antique Iraq.”
Professor Annette Yoshiko Reed (University of Pennsylvania) and Professor Michael Pregill (Elon) will discuss intersections between late antique “Jewish Christianity” and early Islam in 7th-century Iraq. According to Islamic history, during a period of intense civil war that consumed the Umayyad Caliphate in the 680s, an early Shi’ite group known to history as the Kaysaniyya venerated a chair that belonged to Ali bin Abi Talib, the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, and the first Imam of the Shi’ites.
Claiming that this chair was like the Ark of the Covenant, the Kaysaniyya marched into battle behind it and demolished a Syrian army in the year 686. Previously, scholars have offered different explanations for this movement’s veneration of the Chair, but Reed and Pregill will attempt to give a new interpretation of the movement and the significance of the Chair based on their research on survivals of so-called “Jewish Christianity” in Late Antiquity.
Conversation and refreshments will follow.
The event is supported by a grant from the Elon College of Arts and Sciences.