The Mourning of History and the History of Mourning: The Evolutionof Ritual Commemoration of the Battle of Karbala

Hussain, Ali J.

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Volume25, Number 1, 2005, pp. 78-88 (Article)

Published by Duke University Press

For additional information about this article

Access provided by Soedertoerns Hoegskola (2 Apr 2013 09:53 GMT)

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cst/summary/v025/25.1hussain.html

MO

UR

NIN

GA

ND

ME

MO

RY

Compar

ative

Studie

s of

South

Asia, A

frica a

nd

theMidd

le East

ADu

keUn

iversit

y Pres

s

Vol. 25

, No. 1

, 2005

TheMourning of Historyand the History of Mourning:The Evolution of Ritual Commemorationof the Battle of Karbala

Ali J. Hussain

S hi‘i commemorations exemplify a peculiar phenomenon among world religions: inShi‘i Islam, one of the most important annual religious holidays is not a joyful celebra-tion but a day of intense sorrow. During the holiest days of the year for a Shi‘i Muslim,

mourning rituals are used to commemorate the murder of the Prophet Muhammad’s grand-son and his companions. Substantial research on these holy days has been published, but mostof it focuses mainly on later developments in the evolution of the rituals,1 their central role inShi‘i communal identity,2 and the expressions of them in various communities in South Asia.3

In the following article I examine the evolution of these mourning rituals developmentally,focusing primarily on the earliest periods in Islamic history and on the central Islamic lands inthe vicinity of what is modern Iraq. I use classical Islamic literary sources to trace the historicalorigins of these mourning rituals, discover why they became so integral to the Shi‘i commu-nity’s belief system at such an early stage, and understand how these early developments setthe stage for later transformations.4

Just as the term Sunni has come to replace the more archaicSunnite in the field of Middle Eastern studies, this article usesthe proper Arabic relative adjective, Shi‘i, when referring to theadherents of Shi‘ism.

1. For an excellent overview of Shi‘ism, see Heinz Halm, Shi’aIslam: From Religion to Revolution (Princeton, NJ: MarkusWiener, 1997). For detailed studies on the later development ofShi‘i rituals, see Jean Calmard, “Les rituels Shi‘ites et le pou-voir: L’imposition du Shi‘ism safavide: Eulogies et maledictionscanoniques,” in Etudes Safavides, ed. Jean Calmard (Paris: Insti-tut Francais de Recherche en Iran, 1993), as well as his “Etudessur la commemoration du Drame de Karbala dans l’Iran pre-safavide” (PhD diss., University of Paris III, 1975).

2. See Mahmoud Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study

of the Devotional Aspects of Ashura in Twelver Shı’ism (TheHague: Mouton, 1978).

3. See David Pinault, The Shiites: Ritual and Popular Piety in a

Muslim Community (New York: St. Martin’s, 1992), as well as hisHorse of Karbala: Muslim Devotional Life in India (New York: St.Martin’s, 2000). For the role of South Asianwomen in these ritu-als, see Mary Elaine Hegeland, “The Power Paradox in Women’s

Majales: Northwest Pakistani Mourning Rituals as Sites of Con-testation over Religious Politics, Ethnicity, and Gender,” Signs:Journal of Women in Culture and Society 23 (1988): 391–428.

4. The following sources, listed chronologically by death dateof author/compiler, have been used in this article: Abu Ja’farMuhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari, Tarikh al-rusul wa al-muluk, vol.5, ed. Muhammad Abu Fadl Ibrahim (Cairo: Dar al-Ma’arif biMisr, 1968); Muhammad b. Ya’qub b. Ishaq al-Kulayni, Al-usulal-Kafi, vol. 1, ed. ‘Ali Akbar al-Ghifari (Tehran: Maktabat al-Saduq, 1961); al-Muwaffaq b. Ahmad al-Khwarazmi, Maqtal al-

Husayn, vol. 1, ed. Shaykh Muhammad al-Samawi (Qum: Mak-tabat al-Mufid, n.d.) and vol. 2 (Najaf: Matba’at al-Zahra’, 1948);‘Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir, Al-kamil fi al-tarikh, vol. 4, ed. Muham-mad Yusuf al-Daqqaq (Beirut: Dar Bayrut li al-Tiba’ah wa al-Nashr, 1965); ‘Ali b. Musa b. Muhammad Ibn Tawus, Al-luhuf fiqutla al-tufuf (Qum: Manshurat al-Maktabah al-Dawuri, n.d.);Taqi al-Din Ahmad b. ‘Ali al-Maqrizi, Kitab mawa‘iz al-i‘tibar bi

dhikr al-khitat wa al-athar (Baghdad: Maktabat al-Muthanna,1970); Isma’il b. ‘Umar Ibn Kathir, Al-bidayah wa al-nihiyah

(Beirut:Maktabat al-Ma’arif, 1990);Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi,Bihar al-anwar, vols. 44–45 (Tehran:Manshurat al-Maktabah al-Islamiyah, 1969).7 8

Mou

rningof

History

andtheHistory

ofMou

rning

AliJ.Hussain

7 9To understand why Shi‘is participate inthese rituals, one must first know what it isthat they are mourning. Historical sources allagree that in the year 61 AH/680 CE, Husaynb. ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, the grandson of the ProphetMuhammad, refused to give his allegiance toYazid b. Mu‘awiyah, who was appointed heir tothe caliphate by his father, Mu‘awiyah. Many atthe time believed this appointment to be ille-gitimate because none of the previous caliphssince the death of Muhammad were appointedby dynastic succession and all were at least nom-inally accepted by the majority of the Muslimpopulation. Yazid’s ascension represented thefirst instance of dynastic succession in Islamand established the Umayyad dynasty. Husaynand a small band of loyal followers protestedthis unprecedented and apparently un-Islamicclaim to leadership by refusing to give their al-legiance. As a result, Husayn, his seventy-twomale followers, and their women and childrenwere surrounded and besieged for three dayson the desert sands of Karbala, near the banksof the Euphrates River. Deprived of water dur-ing the siege, Husayn and his band were at-tacked by at least 10,000 (and in some accounts,as many as 100,000) Umayyad soldiers. On thetenth day of the month of Muharram (a day nowcommonly referred to as Ashura), Husayn andthe seventy-two men were dismembered and de-capitated, and the women and children weretaken prisoner. The battle was much more thanthe slaughter of a small band of pious loyalistsfaithful to the family of the Prophet by an over-whelming military force. It was also an ideo-logical battle between a group of principledindividuals and a militarily powerful politicaladministration, making Husayn the ultimatetragic hero figure. Moreover, the fact thatHusayn was already perceived to have been aholy figure and Yazid a corrupted and irreli-gious powermonger only adds to the battle’sreligio-political significance. Thus the events ofthe Battle of Karbala not only exemplify someof the most powerful and emotional aspects ofdrama and fiction, but their historicity only mul-

tiplies their significance for those Shi‘i Muslimswho identify themselves as Husayn’s followers.

The development of depictions of theBattle of Karbala in the classical historicalsources has already been studied in detail,5

but this article attempts to use the classical Is-lamic sources to trace the roots of an elab-orate range of mourning rituals that havedeveloped over the past fourteen centuries. Ma-jalis, rawzeh khwani, niyahah, latm,6 and ceremo-nial processions are but a few examples, all orsome of which are performed among differentShi‘i communities worldwide during the Kar-bala commemorations. The Muharram majalis(gatherings) occur every evening beginning onthe first night of the month of Muharram (thefirst month of the Islamic calendar) and last-ing until the tenth night. These always includerawzeh khwani (recitation of Karbala narratives),during which an often hagiographically embel-lished version of the historical accounts is re-cited in dramatic and deeply emotional style.The recitation is interrupted at emotional mo-ments by niyahah (recitation of rhythmic lamen-tation poetry), during which classical stanzasare recited or even wailed. The niyahah is ac-companied by latm (chest beating) and has arhythmic hypnotizing effect, until it itself is in-terrupted by the rawzeh khwan (reciter of thenarrative) before the participants beat them-selves too heavily. Narrative recitation then re-sumes, and the cycle between emotional peaksof narrative recitation and peaks of physical rap-ture continues intermittently throughout themajlis until the account of the killing and de-capitation of Husayn marks the narrative’s emo-tional climax. The crowd then participates inchest beating to the rhythmic lamentation po-etry late into the night. Although the rawzehkhwani is a ritual specific to the context of theMuharram majlis gathering, the niyahah andlatm are also practiced during the ceremonialmarch, which usually occurs on the tenth dayof Muharram, after the noon hour. The cere-monial march and accompanying chest beat-ing sometimes also occur during the arba‘in

5. Ali J. Hussain, “A Developmental Analysis of Depic-tions of the Events of Karbala in Early Islamic History”(PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2001).

6. Different Shi‘i communities have developed vary-ing terminology. For example, latm is the Arabic termfor chest beating, while in Persian it is referred toas sineh-zani, and ma’tam in Hindi-Urdu. The Per-sian terms rawzeh-khwani and rawzeh-khwan are, in

Arabic, qira’ah and qari’, respectively. This article usesthe terms most common in English-language litera-ture focusing on the Shi‘i communities of Iraq andIran.

8 0

Compar

ative

Studie

s of

South

Asia,

Africa

andthe

Middle E

ast

celebrations in Iraq and Iran, and at other Shi‘ireligious occasions among Shi‘is of South Asia.7

In fact, Shi‘i communities of South Asia haveelaborated on these rituals and developed newones altogether, and excellent studies on thesecommunities’ rituals have been published byDavid Pinault and others.8 Moreover, there aresome examples of regional rituals not universalto all Shi‘is, such as the use of the zanjir (swing-ing chains linked together at one end, used inIran), chest beating while holding razor bladesbetween the fingers (practiced among the Shi‘isof South Asia), and tatbir (striking the skull witha sword, found in Iraq and Lebanon).

Another ritual sometimes included in theceremonies is the ta‘ziyeh9 dramatic reenact-ment of some of the events of Karbala. Un-like the other rituals, this one is optional anddoes not require active communal participa-tion. Rather, it is a dramatic re-creation, of-ten entirely in verse, of selected scenes of theevents of Karbala viewed passively by the specta-tors. Interestingly enough, this performance issometimes excluded from the ceremonies alto-gether, while many of the other rituals are con-sidered an integral part of the Muharram com-memorations. It is peculiar that most Westernscholarship on Karbala and Husayn focuses onthe ta‘ziyeh performance, and rather than beingwritten by historians of Islam, most of the workis by historians of world drama, cultural an-thropologists, or sociologists intrigued by whatthey see as the (Shi‘i) Muslim equivalent of theChristian passion play. This has resulted in acorpus of literature focusing on a single rel-atively minor Karbala-related ritual. Moreover,the scholarship that does exist on the other ritu-als may examine their role in establishing or re-inforcing Shi‘i communal identity,10 but tendsnot to account for their historical developmentin significant detail, particularly in their earliestevolutionary phases.

The Earliest PhaseThe Umayyad period marks the first phase inthe historical development of these rituals. Al-though there are few extant literary sourcesfrom this period, the classical Islamic sourcesinclude accounts of reactions to the battle thatseem to represent the origins of Shi‘i rituals thatwere later to become integral to Karbala com-memoration ceremonies. Some sources men-tion that, on the return from Yazid’s court atDamascus back to Medina, the prisoners ofHusayn’s camp insisted on taking a route viaKarbala once again, in order to pay their re-spects at the grave of Husayn.11 They reportedlyreached Karbala forty days after the battle andwere surprised to see that people were alreadygathered there mourning Husayn. Husayn’s sis-ter, Zaynab, is then reported to have given aspeech in which she praised her brother, cursedhis killers, and recited such a moving orationthat she brought even the Umayyad troopsguarding the prisoners to tears. Whether Zay-nab’s oratory was real or a retrospective con-struction, these historical accounts appear torepresent the first reference in the literature toany type of group gathering to mourn Husayn’sdeath. It is quite clear that these accounts rep-resent the historical roots of the forty-day post-mortem commemoration ritual currently prac-ticed by Shi‘is and commonly referred to asthe arba‘in. Interestingly, at this early stage,no mention is made of poetry being recitedor any highly formalized chest-beating rituals.Nevertheless, although the accounts appear toexplain more than just the development ofthe forty-day arba‘in commemorations, a his-torical precedent was set for commemorationin general (the roots of majalis), and Zaynab’sspeech appears to have established the practiceof praising Husayn and vilifying his killer: theprimitive origins of what would later becomerawzeh khwani. Moreover, in the same sources

7. Whereas in the traditional Shi‘ism of Iraq the offi-cial ritual marches are restricted to the Ashura andthe arba‘in, in other communities these rituals some-times also occur at other times throughout the year.See Pinault, Horse of Karbala, chap. 9, on a LadakhiShi‘i ritual determined by the zodiacal calendar.

8. See Pinault, Shiites and Horse of Karbala; andHegeland, “Power Paradox in Women’sMajales.”

9. This word carries different meanings in differentlanguages. While in Arabic it denotes commemora-tive mourning, this article uses the word in its Per-sian meaning (referring to dramatic re-creations ofthe events of Karbala), as does most of the English-language scholarship on this topic.

10. SeeHalm, Shi’a Islam; andAyoub, Redemptive Suf-

fering in Islam.

11. Cf. Tabari, Tarikh al-rusul wa al-muluk, 470;Khwarazmi, Maqtal al-Husayn, 2:39; Ibn al-Athir, Al-kamil fi al-tarikh, 87, all of which indicate that thismourning occurred on the way to Kufah, as the pris-oners passedHusayn’s decapitated corpse. Ibn Tawus,Al-luhuf fi qutla al-tufuf, 55, mentions the above ac-count; another account on page 82 indicates the visi-tation of Husayn’s grave on the way back from Dam-ascus to Medina. This account also finds its way intoMajlisi, Bihar al-anwar, 45:146.

Mou

rningof

History

andtheHistory

ofMou

rning

AliJ.Hussain

8 1that describe the prisoners’ visitation of Hu-sayn’s grave site on their way home to Medina,references indicate that when the women sawthe grave on the sands of Karbala they beat theirchests and wailed.12 As with the first referencesto grave visitation by Husayn’s family, such re-actions of grief as identified in the sources ap-pear only natural and are even prevalent amongmourners of various cultures throughout the re-gion to this day. Although these accounts mayhave served as a nucleus for the later evolutionof the ritual, it is clear that the latm in such refer-ences was no more than natural emotional reac-tions to the loss of a loved one or to the sight ofthe grave of a deceased family member and a farcry from the highly ritualized rhythmic chest-beating rituals that would develop later.

As far as an annual commemoration ofHusayn’s death is concerned, however, the firstinstance in the historical sources appears to bethe accounts of the tawwabun (repenters).13 Ap-parently, a number of Kufans and other indi-viduals are portrayed as having regretted be-ing unable to support Husayn at Karbala. Thesetawwabun gathered at Husayn’s grave site onthe first anniversary of his death, mourned hisloss, regretted not fighting and dying along-side him, composed and recited poetry prais-ing Husayn and cursing his killers, and agreedto reunite at a future time in order to attackUmayyad forces. Several years later they report-edly met at Karbala again, and, after praying toGod and seeking forgiveness, four thousand ofthese tawwabun marched on to fight Umayyadtroops at ‘Ayn al-Wardah, on the Iraqi-Syrianborder. Thus, whereas the first arba‘in was thefirst historical instance of commemoration ofthe Battle of Karbala in general, these accountsof the tawwabun mark the earliest evidenceof any commemoration specifically on the an-niversary of Husayn’s death. Moreover, not onlydo the tawwabun appear to have set the histor-ical precedent for annual commemorations ofthe Battle of Karbala, but accounts of their com-position of poetry specific to the anniversaryalso seem to be the first such references to thebeginnings of the niyahah, or poetic lamenta-

tion rituals. In addition, examples such as thesereferences to mourners visiting Husayn’s gravesite seem to be the historical-literary roots ofwhat would later become a highly ritualizedaspect of the Muharram commemoration cer-emonies: the ziyarah (ritual grave visitation),which develops more fully in the Abbasid pe-riod.

Thus, accounts of the prisoners’ returnto Karbala appear to represent the historicalroots of majalis commemorations in general,with Zaynab’s speech being the first rawzehkhwani and the women’s slapping their ownfaces as being the first latm. In addition, ac-counts of the tawwabun appear to representthe historical roots of commemorations of theanniversary of Husayn’s death as in Muharrammajalis today, as well as the introduction of po-etic recitations specific to the occasion, as is theniyahah of today. Whereas the classical sourcesdepict the practice of latm as a feminine reac-tion and the niyahah as a masculine one, thetwo were blended at some point and resultedin the rhythmic chest-beating rituals of today,the rhythm of which follows the meter of thepoetry being recited. Interestingly, once estab-lished even in primitive form, these rituals ap-pear to have reinforced each other. In fact, thepreservation of the memory of Husayn and hisbattle during majalis commemorating the an-niversary seems to have been the very mediumthat allowed for the evolution of highly cere-monial mourning rituals in the centuries af-ter these initial primitive post-Karbala grievingrites.

In the early Umayyad period, such ma-jalis appear to have been relatively small andprivate affairs among the Shi‘i and ‘Alid com-munities and often convened in the home ofthe Shi‘i imam (religious leader) or another in-fluential local figure.14 Since the antagonisticand politically dominant Umayyads were eagerto sweep the whole affair from public memory,their sentiments against the commemorationof Husayn’s death seem to have prevented anypossibility of public commemorations without

12. Cf. Tabari, Tarikh al-rusul wa al-muluk, 470;Khwarazmi, Maqtal al-Husayn, 2:39; Ibn al-Athir, Al-kamil fi al-tarik, 87; Ibn Tawus, Al-luhuf fi qutla al-

tufuf, 55, 82; Majlisi, Bihar al-anwar, 45:146.

13. Tabari, Tarikh al-rusul wa al-muluk, 573–609.

14. Ibrahim al-Haydari, Trajidiya Karbala: Susyulujiyaal-khitab al-Shi‘i (London: Dar al-Saqi, 1999), 52.

8 2

Compar

ative

Studie

s of

South

Asia,

Africa

andthe

Middle E

ast

inciting a government purge. Moreover, thereappear to have been efforts on the part of theUmayyad dynasty to actually neutralize the com-memoration of Ashura by the Muslim popu-lace. Historical sources even indicate that dur-ing the reign of the Umayyad caliph ‘Abdal-Malik b. Marwan (r. 65–86/685–705), thegeneral al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf al-Thaqafi went sofar as to institute a special festive holiday onthe day of Ashura.15 It is quite likely that al-Hajjaj’s deliberate institution of a festive cele-bration on the exact anniversary of Husayn’sgruesome killing and decapitation only a fewyears earlier was a deliberate attempt to coun-teract what had by then become an increasinglydisturbing trend: annual gatherings mourningthe killing of Husayn and his family at thehands of the Umayyads. These annual gather-ings during Ashura appear to have kept thememory of Husayn alive not only in terms ofcommemorating the anniversary of his battleand subsequent death but also by perpetuat-ing the oral transmission of accounts of thebattle, the events leading up to it, and its af-termath. Considering the Umayyads’ antipathytoward any remembrance of Husayn and theUmayyads’ repression of ‘Alid movements, thelack of documented written accounts of thebattle in this period is completely understand-able. Moreover, that the few Umayyad histori-cal sources that do exist involve only the historyof the Prophet16 seems to indicate Umayyad at-tempts at self-legitimation, whereby Umayyadsreinforced their own piety by stressing the lifeof the Prophet and simultaneously averted fo-cus from the internecine confrontations thatoccurred after his death. The Umayyads’ re-pression of Karbala commemoration and theinability of interested parties to “publish” liter-ary accounts limited the narrators of those ac-counts to oral transmissions, and the ban onpublic commemorations of the anniversary ofHusayn’s death made small, private gatheringsthe ideal venue for such oral recitations. Iron-ically, while successfully excluding accounts ofthe battle from the literary corpus and prevent-

ing public commemorations, the Ummayyads’attempts to erase the memory of Husayn andhis battle may have actually encouraged theestablishment of both the annual majalis gath-erings and the oral recitation of the Karbalanarratives. Thus, Umayyad suppression of liter-ary accounts of Karbala and the development ofpublic rituals actually provided fertile groundfor the evolution of more private rituals suchas majalis gatherings and the associated ritualssuch as rawzeh khwani, niyahah, and latm.

The Popularization of Karbalaand the Development of Shi‘i RitualBy contrast, the Abbasids’ own promotion ofHusayn and Karbala in their anti-Umayyadpolemics during and after their revolution(132/750) against the Umayyad dynasty re-sulted not only in a plethora of literary accountsdocumenting the oral transmissions of the ear-lier period but also in a dramatic surge in theevolution of public rituals such as the ziyarah, orgrave visitation. The historical sources indicatethat Husayn’s grave site was by the third/ninthcentury so popular and, apparently, the com-memoration of his battle and death so movingto the masses of visitors that the Abbasid caliphal-Mutawakkil (r. 232–47/847–61) destroyedthe shrine of Husayn, razed Karbala, andbanned visitation of the site on pain of death.17

Though we have only a few textual referencesto this in the historical sources, the lack of elab-oration in Abbasid-era texts actually speaks vol-umes. This is particularly startling, since muchof the corpus of early Islamic sources was au-thored or compiled in third/ninth century Ab-basid Baghdad. As such, the significance of thisact on the part of the Abbasid caliph cannot beoverlooked. On one level, it shows the extent towhich ritual visitation of Husayn’s shrine at Kar-bala had developed by that time, a possible indi-cation that ziyarah was by then already fully de-veloped. On another level, it seems to indicatethe above-mentioned discrepancy that devel-oped in the different points of view between theAbbasids and the ‘Alids with regard to Karbala.

15. Al-Maqrizi notes that the Ayyubids reinstitutedthis festive practice in a deliberate attempt to replacethe Fatimid commemoration of Ashura as a day ofmourning; see al-Maqrizi, Kitab mawa‘iz al-i‘tibar,1:490.

16. Fred M. Donner, “The Problem of Early ArabicHistoriography in Syria,” in Proceedings of the Sec-

ond Symposium on the History of Bilad al-Sham, ed.Muhammad ‘Adnan Bakhit (Amman: n.p., 1987), 1–25.

17. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., s.v. “Karbala”; Ibnal-Athir, Al-kamil fi al-tarikh, 4:375.

Mou

rningof

History

andtheHistory

ofMou

rning

AliJ.Hussain

8 3Although the Abbasids interpreted Husayn’sbattle at Karbala as an anti-Umayyad battle, thedestruction of Husayn’s shrine and subsequentban on visitation indicate that the commemora-tion rituals had by then likely acquired rebel-lious antigovernment connotations that werejust as threatening to the new Abbasid dynastyas they were formerly to the Umayyads.

Also, on yet another level, such referencesto the Abbasid caliph’s destruction of Husayn’sshrine may also indicate the beginnings of ar-chitectural developments that can be tracedback to Karbala. Although the precise natureof the shrine’s architecture during the reignof al-Mutawakkil remains unclear, some sort ofstructure was there that he could destroy. Evenmore important, it seems that Husayn’s gravesite and the structure subsequently built therenaturally led to an eventual population of thearea, as with numerous historical examples ofshrine and city formation in the pre-Islamic andearly Islamic Near East. Evidence has shownthat visitation by pilgrims and various other eco-nomic and demographic factors often createsan environment that allows the shrine site, how-ever small, to develop into a small village andthen continue to expand until it becomes ashrine-city.18 Among the many such factors arethe wide array of products and services thatdevelop around a shrine to cater to the visit-ing pilgrims, including food service, lodging,transportation, souvenirs, and even loiteringbeggars hoping to capitalize on the piety of vis-iting pilgrims. Naturally, as the number of visi-tors grows, the economy revolving around theshrine likewise expands, and the rituals associ-ated with visiting the shrine also develop andevolve. The increased economic activity aroundthe shrine and the expansion of the shrine-cityas a whole also lead to an inevitable expan-sion of the shrine itself. The shrine site in-creases in grandeur and acquires numerous an-nexes, possibly including a madrassa (school),

library, musafirkhaneh (guesthouse for visitors),and sometimes even a hospital. This latter phe-nomenon of associating healing powers withthe saint of the shrine is among the most inter-esting factors deserving further study. It appearsto be related to the development of the con-cept of shafa’ah (intercession with God), whichwas often sought from Husayn by later Shi‘is.19

Moreover, aside from the antigovernment po-litical aspect of the rise of Karbala as an urbancenter, the rise of the city’s socioeconomic in-fluence may have also posed a threat to Mu-tawakkil’s new capital at Samarra’.20 Clearly, theevolution of Karbala as a shrine-city, the expan-sion of its pilgrimage economy, and the influx ofvisiting pilgrims are all factors that together pro-vide fertile ground for the evolution of highlyritualized grave visitation rites such as ziyarah.

Even aside from such architectural anddemographic developments at Karbala, the clas-sical sources clearly indicate that the simple actsof visitation initiated in the Umayyad periodand popularized in the early Abbasid periodhad by the later Abbasid period developed intosomething much more ritualized than mere vis-itation of a grave. This is corroborated by thetextual evidence in Kulayni’s (d. 329/941) al-Kafi (the earliest major work of Shi‘i hadith tra-ditions), which includes instructions for a muchmore formulaic ritual that involved the recita-tion of a specific, almost liturgical text, in aspecific manner, with highly ritualized motionsand sayings to be uttered at the entrance toHusayn’s shrine, then at the foot of his grave,and finally at the head of his grave. Thus visitingHusayn’s shrine had by Kulayni’s era developedinto an elaborate ritual of not only symbolicphysical movements but also a precisely definedoration to be recited exactly as prescribed. Thecombination of literal oration, physical posi-tioning in relation to Husayn’s grave, and thesymbolism of gestures and recitation show thatthe ritual had thus almost achieved the status

18. See J. R. Cole, “IndianMoney and the Shi‘ite ShrineCities of Iraq, 1786–1850,” Middle Eastern Studies 22(1986): 461–80; D.M. Donaldson, “The Shrine Collegesof Meshed,”Muslim World 16 (1926): 72–78; R. D. Mc-Chesney,Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in

the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480–1885 (Prince-ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).

19. See Majlisi’s section on shafa’ah, 8:29–63, as wellas David Pinault, “Shia Lamentation Rituals and Rein-terpretations of the Doctrine of Intercession,”Historyof Religions 38 (1999): 285–305; and Pinault, Horse ofKarbala, 132, 157–80.

20. See T. M. al-Amid, The ‘Abbasid Architecture of

Samarra’ in the Reigns of Both al-Mu’tasim and al-

Mutawakkil (Baghdad: n.p., 1973); Directorate Gen-eral of Antiquities, Bab al-Ghaybah (Door of Dis-

parition) at Samarra’ (Baghdad: Government Press,1940); J. M. Rogers, “Samarra’, A Study in MedievalTown Planning,” The Islamic City: A Colloquium, ed.A. Hourani and S. M. Stern (Oxford: Cassirer, 1970),119–56.

8 4

Compar

ative

Studie

s of

South

Asia,

Africa

andthe

Middle E

ast

of a liturgical prayer.21 In fact, the formaliza-tion and ritualization of the ziyarah visitation ac-tually seem to have allowed for the recitationof the text itself to evolve as a separate ritualaltogether. As a result, the recitation has de-veloped a high degree of ritualization, includ-ing certain aspects such as rising to an uprightstanding posture before reciting the text, facingin the direction of Karbala (as Mecca is facedin prayers), and bowing the head in humilitythroughout the recitation. Today, some of thosewho are physically or financially unable to per-form the actual pilgrimage view recitation of thetext as a satisfactory alternative for actual pres-ence at Karbala.

Other historical references to Shi‘i com-memoration rituals along with corroboratingevidence in the classical sources also indicatea shift in perceptions of Husayn and Karbala.Among these are the first historical referencesto public mourning ceremonies and commem-oration processions. Just as the early ‘Abbasidsused the Karbala narratives as part of theirrhetoric against the Umayyads, the heightenedlevel of honor and respect afforded Husaynamong both Shi‘i and Sunni communities easilyspread into mainstream Sunni literary sourcesof this period. In fact, the historical accountsof the events of the Battle of Karbala and itsaftermath are transmitted in the earliest Sunnisources by Sunni narrators whose viewpoints aremore than just mildly sympathetic to the plightof Husayn and his followers. They are prac-tically identical to the early Shi‘i perspectiveson the battle. However, despite the Sunni com-munity’s readiness to incorporate pro-‘Alid andpro-Husayn narrative accounts into the literarycorpus, the new public commemoration ritualsmarking Karbala as the central symbol of Shi‘iidentity were not so welcomed by the dominantSunni culture. The first historical reference toa public procession on the day of Ashura ap-pears in the entry for the year 352/963 in IbnKathir’s Al-bidayah wa al-nihayah. Ibn Kathir in-dicates that

on the tenth of Muharram of this year, Mu‘izzal-Dawlah Ibn Buyeh, may God disgrace him, or-dered that the markets be closed, and that thewomen should wear coarse woolen hair cloth,and that they should go into the markets withtheir faces uncovered and their hair disheveled,beating their faces and wailing over Husayn b.‘Ali b. Abi Talib. The people of the Sunnah couldnot prevent this spectacle because of the largenumbers of the Shi‘is and because of their in-creasing prominence, and because the Sultanwas on their side.22

For the next year Ibn Kathir includes an entrystating, “On the tenth of Muharram this yearthe Shi‘is celebrated the ‘aza’ (mourning) ofHusayn as they did the year before. The Shi‘isand Sunnis fought violently among each otheron this day, and much property was looted.”Over the next several years, similar entries forthe Muharram ceremonies appear, with the au-thor making note of increasing tensions andviolence until the end of the Buyid regimeand the rise of the Saljuqs. Ten years later,he includes a remarkable entry describing theMuharram procession for that year, which hedescribes as a “despicable innovation.” It seemsthat the religious symbolism of Karbala beganto have an effect on even the Sunnis of Bagh-dad, such that they began to adopt a set of reli-gious symbols of their own, resulting in a twistedhistorical re-creation of the early civil wars.In his entry for the year 363/973 Ibn Kathirstates,

In this year on Ashura, the despicable innova-tion was celebrated according to the custom ofthe Shi‘is. A great riot broke out between theSunnis and the Shi‘is, both parties being of littleintelligence. A group of Sunnis placed a womanon a camel and called her ‘A’ishah, and some-one took the name Talhah, and someone tookthe name Zubayr, and they said “We are goingout to fight the followers of ‘Ali!” Many peopleon both sides were killed.23

This is not only a remarkable historical refer-ence indicating the level to which the Ashuraprocession had developed under the Buyids

21. For details, see Kulayni’s chapter on ziyarah. 22. Ibn Kathir, Al-bidayah wa al-nihiyah, 11:243. 23. Ibid., 11:253. This is clearly a reference to the Bat-tle of the Camel (36/656), one of the civil wars inwhich ‘A’ishah, Talhah, and Zubayr led troops againstHusayn’s father, ‘Ali.

Mou

rningof

History

andtheHistory

ofMou

rning

AliJ.Hussain

8 5but also an indication of its use as a symbol ofthe Shi‘is’ communal identity as distinct fromthat of the Sunnis. Moreover, this particular ref-erence shows how such developments made theSunni community defensive of its own identityand also reveals an increasingly dangerous di-chotomy of symbolic representation with lethalconsequences.

Unlike the apparent mass appeal foundin references to the Shi‘i rituals in Iraq, theFatimids were not as successful in their in-troduction of Shi‘i commemoration rituals inCairo.24 Historical references indicate that inthe year 363/973 al-Mu‘izz li-Din Allah spon-sored a large procession, including some in-fantry and cavalry units that passed by theshrines of Kulthum and Nafisah reciting dirgesand mourning Husayn’s death. Their subse-quent march to the market, breaking articles ofmerchandise and cursing those who conductedbusiness on the day of Ashura, nearly led to ri-oting and bloodshed.25 Soon thereafter, Sunnigroups became violent toward the Shi‘is at thelocal shrines on Ashura. In the year 396/1005tensions in Cairo on that day were such that aShi‘i was physically attacked and decapitated.Afterward, the official Fatimid Ashura com-memorations in Cairo consisted of no morethan simply mourning and reciting poetry inthe mosques, which was more amenable toSunni participation.26 In both cases the major-ity Sunni community condoned and sometimeseven participated in honoring and mourningHusayn, but it did not participate in or even tol-erate the public rituals developed in commem-oration of Ashura and the symbolism of Shi‘icommunal identity that pervaded it.

Bloodshedding Rituals andOther Recent DevelopmentsThe Sunni community’s willingness, and eveneagerness, to incorporate Husayn and his battleinto its religious history and its simultaneous ab-horrence of the commemoration rituals associ-ated with Husayn appear to have led to the next

phase in the evolution of these rituals. The veryfact that the rituals had become central to Shi‘icommunal identity, combined with Husayn’s in-tegral role as the focus of the commemorationrituals, made the Sunni community’s adoptionof Husayn problematic for the dominant con-struction of Shi‘i identity. In an attempt to dis-tinguish themselves from the Sunnis that hadby the post-Buyid era adopted Husayn as oneof the closest and most respected companionsof the Prophet, the Shi‘i ulama (scholarly class)in the Safavid period adopted and endorsed anextremely hagiographic perception of Husaynin their literary sources. This is evident in Ma-jlisi’s Bihar al-anwar, not only in the referencesto Karbala, but throughout the source in itsnumerous hagiographic accounts of Husaynperforming miracles such as curing the sick,causing dismembered limbs to regrow, andcausing infant children to speak. Some are evenreminiscent of New Testament accounts of Je-sus, including curing the blind, healing lepers,and even reviving the dead.27 Such accounts inlater Shi‘i sources such as Majlisi’s point clearlyto the development of extremely hagiographicdepictions of Husayn aimed at “reclaiming” aHusayn who was appropriated by the Sunni ma-jority. In addition, a number of new commem-oration rituals both grew out of this new andimproved hagiographic depiction of Husayn inthe literary sources and also perpetuated andfostered it. One example of just such a ritualis the shabih, or ta‘ziyeh dramatic re-creation ofthe events of the Battle of Karbala. It is notonly a ritual for which a specific architecturalstructure had been developed,28 but it is alsoclearly a ritual completely unattested to in theearliest historical sources. The practice appearsto have originated in Safavid Iran, and it is aritual that had achieved, almost from its in-ception, tremendous mass appeal among thecommon classes, and that is perhaps why theSafavid dynasty and its ulama were so keen to en-courage it. Numerous European travelers havenoted this, including Sir Lewis Pelly, who noted

24. For general information, see Paula Sanders, Rit-ual, Politics, and the City in Fatimid Cairo (Albany:State University of New York Press, 1994), chap. 4, onthe New Year’s ceremony, and chap. 6, on the GhadirKhumm ceremonial.

25. Taqi al-Din, Kitab mawa‘iz al-i‘tibar, 1:429–30.

26. Ibid., 1:431.

27. Majlisi has devoted an entire chapter to thistheme. See Majlisi, Bihar al-anwar, 44:180–82, 184,198, 270.

28. S. R. Petersen, “The Ta‘ziyeh and Related Arts,”in Ta’ziyeh, Ritual, and Drama in Iran, ed. PeterChelkowski (New York: New York University Press,1979), 64–84; Mohammad A. Faique, A Complete

Study of Persian Drama: 1906–1995 (Delhi: NiceBooks, 1999).

8 6

Compar

ative

Studie

s of

South

Asia,

Africa

andthe

Middle E

ast

that “if the success of a drama is to be mea-sured by the effects which it produces uponthe people for whom it is composed, or uponthe audiences before whom it is presented, noplay has ever surpassed the tragedy known inthe Mussulman world as that of Hasan andHusain [sic].”29 Perhaps its origins and subse-quent popularity in Iran can be explained bythe literary and dramatic history of pre-IslamicIran. Ehsan Yarshater has identified several well-known tragedies in the Iranian dramatic tradi-tion that exhibit characteristics remarkably par-allel to the ta‘ziyeh dramatic performances. Oneis “The Memorial of Zarer,” a work that canbe traced back from Middle Persian throughthe Sassanian period to an ancient Parthianoriginal.30 A second is the famous ancient Per-sian legend of Siyavush.31 Yarshater indicatesquite clearly that

the ritual mourning festivals of the Ta‘ziyeh typehave clear precedents in pre-Islamic Persia. Thepassion of Siyavush bears too close a resem-blance to the Ta‘ziyeh of the Imam [Husayn] inritual, imagery, and emotive underpinnings tobe ignored in an explanation of the emergenceof the genre. Whereas Zarer’s elegiac epic maybe considered Zoroastrian in conception, the fu-nerary rites of Siyavush pre-date the Zoroastrianreform and belong, like many other old prac-tices and beliefs, to the pagan traditions of East-ern Iran.32

Not surprisingly, the practice was severely crit-icized by leading (non-Safavid) Shi‘i ulamascholars, citing the impropriety of personifica-tion of the Shi‘i imam Husayn, the indecencyof men dressing as women to perform the rolesof Husayn’s womenfolk, and the fact that theacting troupes were more popular among theaudience than the moral message of Karbalaitself. Nevertheless, the widespread popularityof the performances eventually led less power-

ful scholars to buckle under the pressure of thepopulace.33 More powerful scholars who mighthave had the credibility to enforce their rulingssaw the potential for such ritual commemora-tion performances in reinforcing the new Shi‘icommunal identity and manipulated it to suitwhat they saw as their own interests and the in-terests of a stronger, more popular Shi‘i com-munity defined and driven by powerful Karbalasymbolism and imagery.34

Other recently developed rituals similarto the shabih performances both in their lackof any precedent in the early historical sourcesand in the controversy among Shi‘i scholarsover their legality include the violent blood-shedding rituals of tatbir (repeatedly strikingone’s skull with a sharp sword) and zanjir (strik-ing one’s chest and back with swinging chains,with or without sharp blades attached). Al-though we have shown that latm has a his-torical basis for its later ritual development,nowhere in the early historical sources does self-inflicted bloodshed ever appear. Interestingly,despite the fact that Kulayni includes an entirechapter on ziyarah (grave visitation ritual), hedoes not even mention the chest-beating rituals,which indicates that the highly ritualized chestbeating must have been a later phenomenon.Based on this, the blood-shedding rituals alsomust have been developed later than Kulayni(d. 329/929). Even according to elder Shi‘ischolars of the modern era, the rituals of self-flagellation with swords, knives, and chains wereintroduced to the shrine-cities in the early nine-teenth century by non-Arab participants in theannual commemoration ceremonies, notablyPersians and Qizilbash Turks.35 As with the legalcontroversy over the dramatic theatrical person-ification of Husayn, notable Shi‘i scholars suchas Sayyid Muhsin al-Amin (d. 1371/1952) de-creed the illegality of inflicting bodily harm and

29. Sir Lewis Pelly, The Miracle Play of Hasan and

Husayn, vol. 1 (London: Allen, 1879), preface.

30. Ehsan Yarshater, “Ta‘ziyeh and Pre-IslamicMourn-ing Rites in Iran,” in Petersen, “Ta‘ziyeh and RelatedArts,” 89.

31. Petersen, “Ta‘ziyeh and Related Arts,” 93.

32. Ibid.

33. Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi‘is of Iraq (Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 1996), 156–57.

34. Modern analyses of the ta‘ziyeh plays sup-ports this view. William Beeman, in his “CulturalDimensions of Performance Conventions in IranianTa‘ziyeh,” indicates that the plays had no other pur-pose than to “strengthen the faith of the peopleby condensing and intensifying religious events insuch a manner that the heart-rending juices of theplay are extracted and trickled drop by drop onto

the palates of the expectant spectators” (Petersen,“Ta‘ziyeh and Related Arts,” 23). Also, because there isno new information presented at the performancesand because the audience is already familiar withthe plot, it is clear that the performances are not de-signed to do anything but “reinforce for themembersof the audience in a particularly effective manner theimportant aspects of their cultural, ideological, andreligious tradition” (ibid., 29).

35. Nakash, Shi‘is of Iraq, 148.

Mou

rningof

History

andtheHistory

ofMou

rning

AliJ.Hussain

8 7shedding one’s own blood in Husayn’s name.To support that position he noted the late intro-duction of the blood-shedding rituals to the an-nual commemoration ceremonies in the shrine-cities and quoted great ayatollahs of the past,such as Muhammad Hasan Shirazi (d. 1312–13/1895), who decreed that the ritual was asin. Muhsin al-Amin himself was quoted as say-ing, “Only laymen observed the ritual, impos-ing their will on the ulama who were too weakto prevent the spread of the practice.”36 Aswith other unconventional and legally contro-versial innovated rituals, powerful members ofthe ulama class who saw the opportunity to re-inforce the memory and symbolism of Husayn’sblood and to gain popular support for the newShi‘ism legalized the innovated blood-sheddingrituals and encouraged them in the interests oftheir own religiopolitical agenda.37

Another similar example of such an inno-vated ritual encouraged and perpetuated by theSafavid-era Shi‘i ulama is the ritual of corpsetransport and the subsequent traffic in corpsesthat had a major economic impact on both theOttoman and the Safavid empires.38 At somepoint in the early period Shi‘is began transport-ing the corpses of their dead for burial at Najaf,Karbala, and other shrine-cities. An explosionof corpse trafficking reached levels unprece-dented in history after the mass conversion ofIranians to Shi‘ism in the sixteenth century, andthe traffic peaked “in the late nineteenth cen-tury and became an integral part of a wholeset of rituals, visitations, and religious practicesthat helped ensure the welfare of Najaf and Kar-bala, as well as their ties with their hinterlandand other parts of the Shi‘i world.”39 In fact,the shrine-cities of ‘Ali b. Abi Talib and his sonHusayn were so popular and so many corpseswere transferred there that “much of the re-cently built areas of the two cities were on old

cemeteries that sank with time.”40 As with pre-vious examples of scholarly opposition to ritu-als with no historical basis, Shi‘i scholars such asHibat al-Din Shahristani (d. 1386/1967) criti-cized corpse transport to Karbala, charging thatit was a newly innovated ritual with no basis ofsupport among the practices of the Shi‘i imamsand that its proponents relied on weak tradi-tions and ignored the many stipulations and re-strictions specified in their own sources.41 Simi-lar to previous examples of scholarly oppositionby an isolated minority of intellectuals, massivepopular support for the innovated ritual andmanipulation of popular sentiments by politi-cally savvy members of the ulama class led to theperpetuation and continuation of the newly in-troduced rituals. As Catherine Bell has noted inher work on rituals,

Ritualized activities can be taken as traditionalwithin a very short time; they can also be veryflexibly appropriated; they may be practicedmore or less faithfully despite strong reserva-tions about every aspect of them. . . . Effec-tive ritual need not be uncontested or invul-nerable to political manipulation and trendycommercialization.42

Thus, despite the lack of historical evidencesupporting such newly popularized rituals suchas the dramatic re-creation of the events of theBattle of Karbala, the blood-shedding rituals,and the corpse transport ritual, and despitethe historical, intellectual, and legal argumentsagainst them, proponents of these rituals appar-ently saw the potential of perpetuating the cen-trality of the symbolism of rituals commemorat-ing the battle, the shedding of Husayn’s blood,and the visitation of his corpse, in propagatingand perpetuating a new Shi‘i identity. Further-more, once these popular rituals achieved reli-gious legitimacy by way of support from amongthe ulama class, they entered annual Shi‘i

36. Ibid., 156.

37. More recently, the spiritual leader of the IslamicRepublic of Iran has issued a fatwa (decree) againstthe public performance of these blood-shedding rit-uals. See Sayyid ‘Ali Khamenei, ‘Ashura bayyinat-i

rahbar-i mu’azzam-i inqilab-i islami wa istifta’at-

iayyat-i ‘uzam piramun ‘azadari-yi ‘ashura (Qum:Daftar-I Tablighat-I Islami-yi Hawzah-yi ‘Ilmiyah,1944), p. 22.

38. The popularity of this ritual resulted in the imposi-tion of corpse import taxes, duties, tariffs, and licenseand other service charges by the Ottomans, who con-trolled the shrine cities, and similar export taxes, li-censes, and other fees levied by the Safavids. Also,once the Safavids saw the economic potential of theIraqi shrine cities, they began vigorously promotingthe shrine of the sixth Shi‘i imam, Rida, at Mashhad(Iran), in an attempt to prevent the drain of finan-cial resources out of the empire and into the handsof their archenemies, the Ottomans.

39. Nakash, Shi‘is of Iraq, 187.

40. Ibid., 188.

41. Ibid., 194.

42. Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimen-

sions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 252.

8 8

Compar

ative

Studie

s of

South

Asia,

Africa

andthe

Middle E

ast

practice and literally became tradition. Such ex-amples make clear the illusory nature of cer-tain traditions because “rituals tend to presentthemselves as unchanging, time-honored cus-toms of an enduring community. Even when nosuch claims are explicitly made within or out-side the rite, a variety of cultural dynamics tendto make us take it for granted that rituals are oldin some way.”43 This illusion only served thesemembers of the Shi‘i ulama class even further,for once they actively supported and legitimizedthe newly introduced rituals, they had becomepart of Shi‘i identity. To reject them was to rejectthe entire faith, and, indeed, to this day, they,along with the other Karbala commemorationrituals, are the essential medium by which Shi‘iself-definition (via the Karbala folk narrative) istransmitted intergenerationally.

ConclusionMy examination of the classical Islamic sourceshas revealed that these commemoration ritualshave evolved in several distinct stages. Duringthe Umayyad period immediately following theBattle of Karbala, the dominant Umayyad gov-ernment’s antipathy toward commemoratingthe event prevented both public gatherings and“publication” of the oral accounts in the writtenrecord. The memory of the battle was kept alivein private or semiprivate circles largely throughoral recitations recounting the battle. Althoughthese annual gatherings themselves became rit-ual, there is no evidence that the chest or facebeating at this early stage was anything morethan a natural expression of intense grief. Thenext stage in the development of these ritualsis marked by the Abbasids’ use of the Karbalatheme as part of the political platform legit-imizing their revolution against the Umayyads,which allowed the commemoration of Husayn’sdeath at Karbala to be popularized among themainstream Sunni community. This populariza-tion allowed the accounts formerly restricted tooral transmission to be incorporated into theliterary corpus, resulting in the incorporationof these largely Shi‘i and ‘Alid accounts intoa plethora of mainstream Sunni literary andhistorical sources. Post-Abbasid popularization

also allowed for the primitive expressions ofgrief to evolve into more ritualized ceremoniesand for the formerly private gatherings to de-velop into public marches and ritualized vis-itation of Husayn’s shrine at Karbala. By thisperiod, public rituals such as the ziyarah gravevisitations developed a high degree of formal-ization, and the recitation of the ziyarah textachieved almost liturgical status. It is also quitelikely that the evolution of formalized chest-beating rituals to the rhythm of recited poetrycan also be traced to this period. Then, theadoption of Husayn by the early Sunni commu-nity eventually led Shi‘i scholars to develop rad-ically hagiographic characterizations of Husaynand Karbala in their literary sources, while someof the already formalized rituals developed intomore extreme versions involving self-inflictedbloodshed, and new rituals such as the ta‘ziyehdramatic performance were developed. Theseliterary depictions, blood shedding, and otherrituals, firmly entrenched in the Shi‘i commu-nity by the Safavid period, were consideredheretical by the majority Sunni community, re-sulting in the polarization of the two communi-ties even to this day.

43. Ibid., 210.