Over the last few decades, there has been a significant surge in the digitization of Islamic texts, including narratives about the Prophet Muhammad (called hadith). The unique structure, sheer number of hadiths, and a voluminous literature analyzing the people involved in documenting them make them particularly well-suited for digital analysis.
The University of Texas Libraries and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies welcome Mairaj Syed, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Director, Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program, University of California, Davis.
Syed's lecture explores three types of such analysis: 1) Basic statistical analysis that integrates isnad and biographical data to map hadith transmission activity across cities and years. 2) Social network analysis that extracts relationships from individual isnads, filling gaps in biographical dictionaries. 3) Machine learning techniques that annotate isnad data, enabling the development of NLP tools that expedite research by automatically identifying narrators.
Location: Perry-Castañeda Library, Learning Lab 2
