Nothing but beauty: Noor Zaidi leads an international interfaith team digitizing the history of one of the few shrines to a woman in Islam

In her new book, Traces of Zainab: Ritual, Memory, and Place in Shi'a Islam, Noor Zaidi, assistant professor of history, studies the woman who became a symbol of resistance for Shi‘i Muslims worldwide. Now Zaidi is leading an international interfaith team to preserve, restore, and digitize the shrine's archives. With the support of Father Columba Stewart of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) in Minnesota, the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik in Lebanon, and the Mourtada family from Damascus, who have been the custodians of the shrine for over 800 years, the world will learn about one of the very few shrines to a woman in Islam and the community that has preserved it with love.