Destiny, Martyrdom and Predestination in Islam

My current research project ‘Rethinking the Syrian revolution and migrations through the prism of predestination’ (https://labexhastec.ephe.psl.eu/wp-content/uploads/hastec-projet-de-recherche-c-al-khalili-postdoc-2021-2022.pdf) that is based at the CéSor (EHESS) and supported by a LaBex HaStec fellowship (EPHE-PSL) focuses on the understanding of the Syrian revolution and migrations through the Sunni concept of predestination. This research will focus on material, visual and scriptural accounts of predestination in the Syrian context focusing particularly on the figure of the martyr and expanding the individual interpretation to a collective and historical one, following my interlocutors’ interpretation of their revolution’s defeat and mass migration through predestination. 

Moreover, in the forthcoming article ‘Destiny in Time of Revolution: Urgent Actions and Imminent Ending’ I focus on the idea(l) and practice of self-sacrifice in relation to political engagement and I show the different imaginations of the Afterlife and various temporalities that are at play in the conception of predestination as a theory of political action.