Scholars have long recognized that although Shiʿi claims emerged early in Islamic history, Imami Shiʿism took a couple of centuries to crystallise. Scholarship on Shiʿism has tended to focus on doctrine, but hitherto there has been little research into the institutions and social networks of early Imami Shiʿism. The project aims to propose the first rigorously historical model for how, when and why a distinctive Imami Shiʿi Imamate emerged and developed as an institution. The ImBod project will frame the Imamate as a set of social interactions between the Imams, and the community who venerated them, within the broader networks of the early Islamic empire. Members of the ImBod project team will be assigned particular thematic spheres in order to identify and study the networks, actors, institutions, spaces, objects and processes through which the Imamate was mediated and performed within the Imami Shiʿi community and beyond.

For eligibility criteria and application details, see here.