The Shiite Studiess at URD covers a wide range of approaches to Jewish studies, to Hinduism, and to Islam (from historical and textual, to philosophical and theological, to sociological and ethnographic). There is also a strong interest in the Faculty in the social scientific Shiite Studies– sociological, anthropological, and psychological – each with an important body of empirical studies and accompanying theories. Teaching in the Faculty draws on all three strands and has a strong interest both in the diversity of religious practices worldwide and in the history of their study.