Recent works have raised interest in the #Shia of #SouthAsia especially the intellectual history of the elites - a thread on the #Shii religious establishment and elites in #SouthAsia 1/

For a long time the best and more comprehensive account was that of the Indian scholar based in Australia Saiyad Athar Abbas Rizvi (d. 1986) a two volume work 2/

But what is very helpful to understand the development of the religious establishment and its politics have been recent publications coming out of #Qum and #Najaf 3/

The best that was available before were these three tazkiras one from the late colonial period and two from the 1970s and afternoon 4/

I wrote a series of blogposts on the recent publications starting with this text of the early 20thC Sayyid Ahmad Hindi http://mullasadra.blogspot.com/2014/05/sources-on-north-indian-shii-hierocracy.html?m=1 5/

This text along with the famous Nujum al-sama does a good job of interpreting the ‘ulema of #SouthAsia into the networks of the shrine cities in #Iraq and #Iran http://mullasadra.blogspot.com/2016/11/sources-on-north-indian-shii-hierocracy.html?m=1 6/

This text of Mufti Muhammad ‘Abbas Shushtari (d. 1889) has been published a few times in recent decades but this is the best edition http://mullasadra.blogspot.com/2016/11/sources-on-north-indian-shii-hierocracy_30.html?m=1 7/

Studies of the #Shii hierocracy in #SouthAsia are dominated by the so-called #khandan_e_ijtihad established by Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali (d. 1820) on whom http://mullasadra.blogspot.com/2017/06/sources-on-north-indian-shii-hierocracy.html?m=1 8/

This important 19th century source that linked the #Lucknow ‘ulema to the wider #NorthIndian networks http://mullasadra.blogspot.com/2017/07/sources-on-north-indian-shii-hierocracy.html?m=1 9/

And finally this work by Sayyid ‘Ali Naqi Naqvi (d. 1988) from his time in Najaf in the 1920s http://mullasadra.blogspot.com/2019/07/sources-on-north-indian-shii-hierocracy.html?m=1 10/