Robert Zayd KiaNouri-Zigmund

Project Associate

Robert Zayd KiaNouri-Zigmund serves as a Project Associate for the AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies, as well as an Editorial Associate for The Maydan. An emerging scholar of Islamic Studies, he graduated from Swarthmore College in 2022 and recently completed his M.A. In Islamic Studies and Shi'ism from George Washington University in 2024. His Masters' thesis, Path to the Wellspring, explores the religious and historical development of the Ja'fari school of law in Iran and its contemporary implications.

He specializes in Islamic law, ethics, theology, Shi'ism and human rights. His recent publication, God's Shadow on Earth appears in Critical Muslim Issue 52.

Current Research

I am presently researching the implications of the collapse of the Ottoman empire and the vacuum of power left by the absence of a major claim to the khilafa. My current research studies models of a "symbolic khilafa" that would act as a voice for the global Ummah, while not focusing on the minutiae of Islamic law. Drawing on the work of Sayed Fadlallah, Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, and Khaled Abou El Fadl, I am attempting to identify a synthesis of ideas that would allow for an institutional global moral and ethical leadership for the Muslim community, one without interest in political or military power, that both Sunni and Shi'a communities would be able to identify with.

This study is particularly relevant in current context in the Islamic world, which is perhaps best represented by the fact that Saudi Arabia, while claiming to be in a position of authority over the global Muslim community, has allowed and even supported the Israeli genocide in Gaza as well as the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Selected Publications

God's Shadow on Earth, Critical Muslim 52, https://hurstpublishers.com/book/critical-muslim-52/

Education

B.A. Peace and Conflict Studies, Swarthmore College 2022

M.A. Islamic Studies (Concentration in Shi'a Studies), George Washington University, 2024