Lecturer:  Payam Mohseni, Director of the Project on Shi’ism & Global Affairs, Harvard Divinity School (affiliation at the date recorded) Duration: 1 hour 40 minutes Date Recorded: August 2023 Subject: How can we understand the centrality of the person of the Imam, and particularly the importance of Imam Hussain in Shi’a thought? This talk focuses on the philosophy of the Imam—i.e., Imamology—in Shi’a Islam and why the medium of the human form and the concept of leadership forms the foundation of centuries of Shi’a thought and organization up until the present. An Islamic Shi’a understanding of epistemology (the ilm and methodology of how to acquire knowledge) cannot be understood without the Imam; therefore, Imamology as epistemology is at the center of the worldview of Shi’a Islam.