Ginān Studies Conference, AKC

The Association for the Study of Ginans is pleased to organise the inaugural Ginān Studies Conference in collaboration with the South Asian Studies Unit at the Institute of Ismaili Studies and the School of History, Religions and Philosophies at SOAS, University of London.

The gināns are sacred/religious lyrical texts (songs) that have been preserved by Satpanth Ismaili communities for nearly seven centuries. Historically, these compositions have played a crucial role in the spread of Shi’i Ismaili ideas across the western regions of the Indian subcontinent—leading, eventually, to the adoption of the Islamic faith by groups belonging to diverse ethnocultural communities associated with the Satpanth traditions. The gināns continue to be recited by Indo-Ismaili Muslim communities, both within South Asia and around the world. 

Of the nearly one thousand compositions that constitute the corpus of Ismaili ginān lyrics, only a handful have been the primary topic of scholarly analysis in academic…