Members-only oddcast episode

Mushegh Asatryan on the Many (Re)Incarnations of Ghulāt Belief

We could talk to Mushegh Asatryan all day, and luckily he was up for continuing our conversation about the ghulāt and their beliefs in various directions which we didn’t get to in the main interview. Topics covered include:

• The problems with studying ghulāt texts from within Islām in today’s sectarian environment (as opposed to throughout pre-colonial Islamicate history, when there really wasn’t a problem in the same way),
• An alternate model of tanasukh laid out in one outlying ghulāt text, in which a kind of reciprocal action/reaction dynamic governs reincarnation,
• The rôle played by the figure of Ja‘far al-Ṣadiq as dialogic interlocutor in most ghulāt texts,
• And much more.

Interview Bio:

Mushegh Asatryan is Associate Professor of History at the University of Calgary. He writes on the construction of ‘heresy’ and ‘orthodoxy’ in medieval Islam, early Islamic sectarianism, on ‘Abbāsid intellectuals, heretics, and rebels, and related things. He has an abiding interest in the history and doctrines of the ghulāt, on whom he has published quite a bit (including Controversies in Formative Shi‘i Islam, which is open access). His edited volume, Early Islamic Sectarianism in Context: The Ghulat Between Late Antiquity and Modernity will be out soon. You can read and download his earlier writings on the ghulāt and related things here.

Bibliographies to Follow