In this episode of History Speaks, Dr. Roshan Iqbal is joined by Dr. Akif Tahieev to explore a topic that rarely appears in mainstream scholarship: Shia Muslim communities in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. Together, they discuss who these communities are, how they live and practice their faith, and why their stories have been overlooked in both Islamic studies and European studies. From questions of identity and conversion to the impact of recent conflicts, this conversation opens a window onto a world many listeners may not know exists.
Dr. Akif Tahiiev is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Previously, he served as a research and teaching assistant in the Department of Human Rights and Legal Methodology at Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University (Kharkiv, Ukraine), and held research positions at the the Max Planck Institute for the Study of
Religious and Ethnic Diversity (Göttingen, Germany), the University of Vienna, and the IWM (Vienna, Austria). He holds a PhD from Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University with an award-winning thesis on Shia Islamic Law and its contemporary application. His wider research interests include Shia Islam, Digital Religion, Islam in Europe (especially Eastern), Minorities, and Islamic Law.
Dr. Roshan Iqbal hails from a small hamlet of 20 million–Karachi, Pakistan. She received her PhD in Islamic Studies from Georgetown University. Prior to this she read for her MPhil at the University of Cambridge. She has studied in Pakistan, the US, Morocco, Egypt, Jordon, the UK, and Iran. Her research interests include gender and sexuality in the Qur’an, Islamic Law, Film and Me
dia Studies, and modern Muslim intellectuals. Her recent book is titled, ‘Marital and Sexual Ethics in Islamic Law: Rethinking Temporary Marriage.’ As an associate professor at Agnes Scott College, she teaches classes in the Religious Studies department and also classes that are cross-listed with Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Film Studies. When she is not working, she loves talking to her family and friends on the phone (thank you, unlimited plans), tracking fashion (sartorial flourishes are such fun), watching films (love! love! love!), reading novels (never enough), painting watercolors (less and less poorly), and cooking new dishes (sometimes successfully).