Tahera Qutbuddin

[3] She also showed how the traditions of the Tayyibi Ismailis moved to Yemen and thereafter in India after the death of al-Shirāzī, where his poetry's influence on the Dawoodi Bohra community endures to present times.

She established that public preaching in the form of khutbah popular till today stemmed from pre-Islamic oratory, with texts available from decades before the founding of the faith.

The oratory depended much on visual imagery, but especially on rhythm and similar grammatical structure in every line, serving to reinforce the message in the listeners' minds.

Qutbuddin also found that women held important positions in early Islamic society but would be permitted to speak publicly only in times of acute troubles.

Ali is considered a master guide for life on earth and in heaven by both Sunnis and Shiites; his orations exemplary and beautiful, with ornate, difficult vocabulary.

[5] As of July 2023, she has been the AlBabtain Laudian Professor of Arabic in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford, and a Professorial Fellow of St John’s College.