The Secret History of a Hat

By Jenny Oyallon-Koloski - Carleton College News - Carleton, MN, U.S.A. Thursday, May 10, 2007

Carleton Professor to Lecture on Iranian Sufism on Tuesday, May 15

Shahzad Bashir, associate professor of religion, will present a lecture entitled “Pursuing the Secret History of a Hat: Visions and Discourses of a Sixteenth-Century Iranian Sufi” on Tuesday, May 15 at 7 p.m. at Carleton College’s Gould Library Athenaeum.

The event is free and open to the public.

Bashir will explore the religious history of Iran during the sixteenth century. The lecture will focus on a text that eulogizes a specific kind of hat that was worn at the time to discuss the political and religious legitimacy of the ruling elites in Iran.

Bashir’s talk is part of Carleton’s Mid-East connection series, a set of lectures that aim to raise the profile of Middle East studies on Carleton’s campus. Previous talks were given by Stacy Beckwith, associate professor of Hebrew, and Louis Fishman, visiting instructor in history.

The Mid-East connection series is sponsored by the Dean of the College.

At Carleton, Bashir teaches courses in Islamic studies and the comparative study of religions. Islamic studies is his main area of interest, with focuses on Sufism, Shi’ism, and the intellectual and social history of the Islamic East.

Professor Bashir is currently working on two books: “Bodies of God’s Friends: Corporeality and Sainthood in Sufi Islam” and “Baha’ad-Din Naqshband: Hagiographic Portraits of a Sufi Saint from Bukhara.”

For more information and disability accommodations, call the Carleton library at (507) 646-4260.