Deputy Head of the Department of Academic Research and Publications at The Institute of Ismaili Studies, Professor Eric Ormsby has held positions with several university libraries and collections in North America including: Director of Libraries at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. from 1983-86; Director of Libraries at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and Associate Professor in McGill's Institute of Islamic Studies from 1983-86; and from 1996 to 2005, full Professor and Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University.

Professor Ormsby received his B.A. summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania where he majored in Oriental Studies (Arabic and Turkish). He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University with a specialisation in Islamic theology and philosophy. He also studied Islamic theology and philosophy and Semitic philology at the University of Tubingen, Germany, with Professors Josef van Ess and Manfred Ullmann. In 1978, he received a Masters of Library Science from Rutgers University while working as Bibliographer and later, as Curator of the Near East Collections at the Princeton University Library.

He has published widely on the topic of Islamic thought. His published books include Theodicy in Islamic Thought (Princeton University Press, 1984), Handlist of Arabic Manuscripts (New Series) in the Princeton University Library (1987), and Moses Maimonides and His Time (Washington, D.C., 1987). In addition to publishing many articles and reviews on different aspects of medieval Islamic theology and mysticism, Professor Ormsby has published widely as a poet in such magazines as The New Yorker and The Paris Review and has authored five collections of poems as well as a book of essays on poetry and literature, including Arabic literature.   His translation of Al-Ghazali's Ihya' 'ulum al-din The Book of Love, Longing, Intimacy and Contentment is forthcoming with the Islamic Text Society, and his translation of Nasir Khusraw's Jami al-Hikmatayn; "Twin Wisdoms Reconciled" has been published under the title Between Reason and Revelation : Twin Wisdoms Reconciled in 2012 on I.B. Tauris in association with the IIS.

                      MAJOR TRENDS AND THINKERS IN THE SHĪۛ‘ITE TRADITION

    The object of the course is to provide a detailed overview of the principal tendencies, schools and thinkers in Shī‛ite tradition from its beginnings to recent times. This will be done within a historical context. Thus, the disputed succession to the Prophet Muhammad and the conflict that ensued will be followed by a discussion of the events leading up to, and including, the caliphate of ‛Alī ibn abī Tālib and the consequences that resulted. The rôle of the early “extremists” (the ghulāt) and their doctrines will be studied. There will be a consideration of the formulation of the doctrine of the Imamate and especially the contribution of such figures as that of the sixth Imam Ja‛far al-Sādiq. The establishment and formal elaboration of doctrine during the Buyid period, the so-called “Shī‛a Century of Islam”, will be considered at length, along with its major thinkers. The course will also deal with divergent traditions, such as the Ismā‛īlī, and its major thinkers, such as Nāsir-i Khusraw, in some detail. Theologians of the Alamut period, such as Nāsir al-Dīn al-Tūsī, will be included. Thinkers of the Safavid period, such as Mīr Dāmād and Mullā Sadrā, will be read, and certain of their works, in Arabic or English translation, will be analyzed. The course will continue into modern times, with particular attention given to such figures as al-Khumaynī and the theologian Murtadā al-Mutahharī, as well to contemporary Reformist theologians in present-day Iran. Finally, since this tradition cannot be understood purely on its own terms, it will be necessary to look too at such major early (and continuing) influences as the Mu‛tazilite school of theology. Opponents of the tradition, such as al-Ghazālī, will be discussed as well, and their writings examined.

--Eric Ormsby