Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: Exchanges: A Cambridge UP Podcast
Episode: Shivan Mahendrarajah, "The Sufi Saint of Jam: History, Religion and Politics of a Sunni Shrine in Shi'i Iran" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
Description: Shivan Mahendrarajah’s book, The Sufi Saint of Jam: History, Religion, and Politics of a Sunni Shrine in Shi‘i Iran (Cambridge UP, 2021), which explores the history and politics of Ahmad-i-Jam’s shrine, which is located in Iran. The shrine is of particular interest and importance today given that Ahmad of Jam (d. 1141 C.E.) was a Sunni-Sufi, while contemporary Iran is majority Shia, and the shrine has lasted and even thrived for 900 years; the renaissance of the shrine in Iran is also of particular relevance given prevailing assumptions about Iran’s alleged sectarian and intolerant Shi‘i theocracy.Complet...