Dr Kumail Rajani is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Islamic Studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, where he completed his doctoral thesis. He is currently working on the Law, Authority and Learning in Shiite Islam project (http://www.lawalisi.eu/) with Professor Robert Gleave; the 5-year project, funded by the European Research Council, examines the emergence, development and operation of the Shiite legal system. Though primarily focused on the origins and development of Shiʿi hadith, his research includes Qurʾanic exegesis, Islamic law and legal theory, Ismaili studies, and Shiʿi studies more broadly. He has published both in Persian and English. His entry on ‘Hadith: Shiʿi’ is published in the online Oxford Bibliography of Islamic Studies and he has two forthcoming articles on Shiʿi hadith criticism and ʿilm al-rijāl which he co-authored for The Oxford Handbook of Ḥadīṭh Studies. He is also the founder of Shiʿi Dates Project (www.shiidates.net).

Dr Kumail Rajani has undertaken seminary studies in Qum for over 17 years during which he attended the lectures of Ayatullah Sayyid Ahmad Madadi al-Musawi for 7 years and Ayatullah Shubayri Zanjani and Ayatullah Wahid Khurasani for 3 years. Whilst in Iran, he taught modules on hadith studies, comparative religion, history, Islamic law and legal theory at the Al-Mustafa International University and other educational and research institutions. Alongside teaching, he supervised and advised on several BA and MA dissertations in English, Persian and Urdu. He has also taught Islamic Law and Society at the University of Exeter, and Islamic History at Al-Mahdi Institute.