The first 敁珗曄部 publication available in Portuguese, Breve Hist籀ria dos Ismaelitas, is a translation by Paulo Jorge de Sousa Pinto of Farhad DaftarysA Short History of the Ismailis. Published by the Centre for the Study of Portuguese-speaking Peoples and Cultures at the Catholic University of Portugal, the monograph, which forms the 8th volume in the Centres prestigious Studies and Documents series, is a seminal contribution to Islamic Studies in a language spoken by 214 million people worldwide.
Portuguese is the official language of eight countries: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bisseau, Mozambique, Portugal and San Tome and Principe. It is also spoken in the Indian province of Goa and Macao in China. The historical and cultural importance of Islam in the Iberian Peninsula has led to the development of Islamic Studies as an academic discipline in Portugal. Other lusophone countries such as Brazil, however, do not have a single Islamic Studies programme offered in its 73 universities, despite it being home to 1.7 million Muslims.
An important contribution to the field of Religious Studies more generally, Breve Hist籀ria dos Ismaelitas will go a long way to provide a more accurate portrayal of the history and doctrines of the second largest Shii community to Portuguese speakers.
As part of the Institutes efforts to make its scholarship and perspectives available to a wider audience, translations and transcriptions of its publicationsare now available in nine languages including Arabic, French, German, Hungarian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Tajik Cyrillic and Urdu. The Gujarati translation of A Short History of the IsmailisAdherents of a branch of Shi’i Islam that considers Ismail, the eldest son of the Shi’i Imam Ja尪far al-廜〢diq (d. 765), as his successor. is scheduled to be published later this year.
