Rate My Professor Shainool Jiwa

A specialist in Fatimid studies, Dr Jiwa's research focuses on Ismaili history and the Fatimid Caliphate within the medieval Mediterranean world, including a forthcoming monograph on the fifth Fatimid Imam-Caliph al-Aziz billah. She has authored The Fatimids: The Rise of a Muslim Empire (2018) and The Fatimids 2: The Rule from Egypt (2023), both published by I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute. She edited The Fatimid Caliphate: Diversity of Traditions (2017) and The Shi‘i World: Pathways in Tradition and Modernity (2015), translated medieval Arabic texts such as Towards a Shi‘i Mediterranean Empire: Fatimid Egypt and the Founding of Cairo (2009) and The Founder of Cairo (2013), and contributed numerous articles and chapters, including in Encyclopaedia of Islam Three and Al-Masaq. As Founding Series Editor of the World of Islam series and Living Ismaili Traditions series, her works have been translated into Gujarati, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Urdu. In teaching, she leads the module Prophet Muhammad and Imam Ali in Muslim Discourse in the Graduate Programme and directs short courses on Shi’i Islam: History, Thought & Practice and Walking in the Footsteps of the Fatimids. She directed the 2021 international conference on Fatimid Cosmopolitanism, delivered keynotes such as 'The Fatimids: A 10th–12th century Mediterranean Empire' (2025), and served on Institute committees including Jamati Programmes and Human Resources. She is listed in Who’s Who in Scotland since 2000.