This one-day workshop will compare the role and function of saints in Christianity and Islam, and explore the very different realities that could lie behind the concept of a ‘saint’. It will explore the similarities and differences within sainthood as it developed in different parts of the Islamic and Christian worlds. This will include such issues as: relations with political power; the use of relics; the emergence of specific types of cult; the function of shrines and pilgrimage thereto; the place of intercession by saints; and their role as exemplars.

Speakers:
Bryan Ward-Perkins (Oxford), ‘The early development of Christian sainthood’
Simon Yarrow (Birmingham), ‘The Cult of Saints in Latin Christendom: New Developments, c.800-1500’
Monica White (Nottingham), ‘Models of Sainthood and Veneration in the Eastern Christian World, 900-1200’
Roderick Grierson (Rumi Institute), ‘Friends of God’: Turkish Sufism and the Conversion of Anatolia’
Azfar Moin (Austin, Texas), ‘Saint Shrines as Objects of Imperial Veneration and Desecration in the Post-Mongol Empires’
Sarah Ansari (RHUL), ‘‘A way of life rather than an ideology?’: Sufi saints and the politics of identity in Sindh’
Moin Nizami (OXCIS), ‘The Sufi-‘Alim Nexus: Muslim Mystic Trends in 18-19th c. Northern India’
Miranda Williams (Oxford), ‘Christian and Muslim shared shrines in the Manar al-Athar photo-archive’
Closing remarks: Francis Robinson (RHUL)