On 14th January 2026, AMI welcomed Dr Hassan Abbas to deliver a research seminar based on his forthcoming book project that seeks to retell the story of Islam not through empires, doctrines, or scholarly commentaries, but through the lived faith of ordinary believers across centuries and continents. Drawing from his extensive travels to major pilgrimage sites worldwide, Dr Abbas invited us to encounter Islam as witnessed on prayer rugs, in the company of mystics, and along the paths of pilgrimage. From Fez to Baku, Konya to Lahore, Karbala to Makkah, each city holds a chapter in what he terms a “people’s history,” a narrative shaped by selfless mystics, poets, pilgrims, and at times rebels who defied power in pursuit of something higher.
Key Findings
Beyond Official Histories: Giving Voice to the Ordinary
Dr Abbas began by interrogating the dominant narratives through which Islamic history is typically conveyed. Standard historiography, he observed, tells the story of victors, empires, and courts, producing chronicles funded by monarchs eager to portray themselves as the greatest figures of their age. Yet the lived history, he argued, is written by ordinary people and transmitted largely through oral tradition rather than official chronicles. His own journey toward this realisation began with the shrine of Bibi Pakdaman in Lahore, traditionally associated with a member of the Prophet’s family who arrived in South Asia after Karbala. This discovery compelled him to reconsider the conventional narrative that Islam came to South Asia solely through Muhammad bin Qasim’s military conquest, revealing instead a more complex story of sanctuary and migration. The revisionist impulse here is not to reject scholarly tradition but to supplement it with voices and experiences that mainstream historiography has often overlooked.
The Mystic Dimension: Opening Windows Beyond the Visible
Central to Dr Abbas’s methodological approach is the role of mystics in transmitting and embodying Islamic spirituality. He shared how his own understanding was transformed through a twenty-five year relationship with a mystic in Lahore who demonstrated knowledge that transcended ordinary perception. This experience opened him to a dimension of Islam that exists alongside, rather than in opposition to, the juridical tradition, yet offers access to realities that formal religious instruction alone cannot convey. His travels reinforced this insight considerably. In Konya, standing before Rumi’s grave, he discovered the names of the twelve Imams inscribed above, a testament to spiritual currents that flow beneath sectarian boundaries. In Turkmenistan, he encountered “Ali Town,” a pilgrimage site maintained by Hanafi Sunnis who preserve detailed traditions about Imam Ali’s presence there, traditions absent from any mainstream historical account. These discoveries suggest that the mystic stream carries truths that official histories have either ignored or proven unable to capture.
Bridging Divides: Scholarship, Accessibility, and Sectarian Boundaries
Dr Abbas was candid about the challenges of his project, both methodological and practical. He seeks to write for ordinary readers rather than solely for academics, which requires navigating the difficult terrain between trade publishing and scholarly rigour. Books that academics produce, he noted, rarely reach mainstream bookstores, whilst accessible works often lack scholarly depth. His aim is a work that a Muslim/non-Muslim Western reader might engage with and through which they might encounter Islam beyond the distorting lens of Islamophobia or the reductive association with extremism. Equally significant is his desire to transcend Shia-Sunni divisions without erasing them entirely. He observed that Western publications on Islam typically present Sunni perspectives as normative “Islam” whilst Shia perspectives are invariably marked as sectarian. His own work on Imam Ali sought to challenge this framing, presenting the first Imam not as a sectarian figure but as central to Islamic history itself. A pertinent question posed during discussion concerning whether romanticising mysticism might inadvertently diminish the juridical tradition prompted Dr Abbas to affirm his commitment to presenting mystics who follow proper Sharia, rather than those who instrumentalise Sufism to escape religious obligation.
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About the Speaker
Dr Hassan Abbas is a Distinguished Professor of International Relations based in Washington, DC and serves as a Senior Advisor at the Project on Shi’ism and Global Affairs at Harvard University. His research centres on countering political and religious extremism and advancing rule of law reform in developing states. He has held fellowships at Harvard Law School, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, the Asia Society, and the New America Foundation. Dr Abbas is the author of several widely cited works including The Prophet’s Heir: The Life of Ali ibn Abi Talib (Yale University Press), The Return of the Taliban: Afghanistan after the Americans Left, and Pakistan’s Nuclear Story: Defiance, Deterrence and Deviance. He is currently developing a new book proposal for Yale University Press titled The Daughter of the Prophet: The Life of Fatima Zahra. He is a regular contributor to international media and leading academic publications.
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