and analyze experience in common for those who draw on it together.”5 Indeed, every aspect of the pious Shi‘i Muslim’s life revolves around this anecdotal paradigm and is ordered by it. Moreover, it serves as a model for appropriate human behavior and as a rhetorical force to oppose tyrannical rulers.6 But as we will see, the expression of the Karbala paradigm varies through time and space to make sense of contemporary sociopolitical realities. Variation in meaning and interpretation can best be gauged through a survey of the annual cultural performances that commemorate the martyrdom of Husayn.
During the first ten days of Muharram, Shi‘i Muslims, regardless of where they reside, commonly observe Husayn’s sacred commemoration. The tragic circumstances surrounding his redemptive suffering and vicarious death resonate throughout the Shi‘i world, providing a central paradigm for a Shi‘i theological emphasis on personal suffering as a method for the achievement of salvation. Indeed, there is great merit associated with weeping for Husayn, and even just remembering the event can absolve sin.7 As Mahmoud Ayoub states in his richly detailed study of Shi‘i redemptive suffering, “in the ritualistic moment, serial time becomes the bridge connecting primordial time and its special history with the timeless eternity of the future. This eternal fulfillment of time becomes the goal of human time and history.”8 Thus the Karbala event is enacted in numerous local ways wherever the Shi‘ah reside in order to reap its soteriological benefits and often to bring about sociopolitical change. For this reason, the period of mourning during the month of Muharram is paramount, rewarding the pious participant with the benefits of Paradise. In the words of Elias Canetti, the suffering of Husayn and its commemoration become the essence of Shi‘ism, which is “a religion of lament more concentrated and more extreme than any to be found elsewhere…. No faith has ever laid greater emphasis on lament. It is the highest religious duty, and many times more meritorious than any other good work.”9
Muḥarram’s metahistoricity provides an apt vehicle for what I wish to term “subjective apprehension.”10 Subjective apprehension is not an experience bound by time and space during the observance, for the implications of the seventh-century armed conflict between the imām and his foes are brought to bear on contemporary experience through ritual performance. As has been pointed out by one astute observer, “this places the passion of Imam Ḥusayn at Karbala’ at a time which is no time and in a space which is no space.”11 Again in the words of Ayoub, “all things are integrated into the drama of martyrdom and endowed with feelings and personality not very different from human feelings and emotions. Here we see myth attaining the highest expression, where men and inanimate things play an active role in a universal drama which transcends all limitations of time, space and human imagination.”12
Because of the observance’s timeless quality, the Shi‘ah are able to measure continuously their own actions against the paradigmatic ones of Husayn. This is especially true whenever the community of believers regards itself as oppressed, a key theme we will find not only in Iran but in India and Trinidad as well. During the Iranian Islamic Revolution (1978–79), the slogans publicly chanted, painted on walls, or inscribed on headbands were in general variants of the following: “Every day is ‘āshūrā’; every place is Karbala; every month is Muharram.”13 Similar slogans were propagated in the media and displayed on posters during Iran’s protracted war against Iraq (1980–88). Hans Kippenberg goes so far as to argue that “the traditional mourning rites and especially the Muharram-processions came to be powerful political manifestations against the Shah regime.”14 He further argues that people who died fighting against the Shah (and also later against Iraq) were considered martyrs similar to those in Husayn’s camp who fell at Karbala in the seventh century. Everyday action thus takes on a ritual and performative dimension in the sense that participants in political street protests and processions conceive of their acts as part of a passion play (ta‘zi̅yeh) linking them to the paradigmatic acts of the Karbala martyrs. The Iranian war maneuvers against Iraq in the Persian Gulf exemplify how the battle of Karbala still influences Iranians today. The military offensives were labeled Karbala-1, Karbala-2, and so forth, and the combined land and sea operations of August 1987 appropriately were termed “operation martyrdom.”15
Such symbols, metaphors, and paradigms are transnational, ideologically connecting Shi‘i adherents living in different parts of a loosely knit global community of worshippers stretching from Iran to Indonesia. Thus, much of what I have said so far is universally applicable to the observances throughout the world. But if we go beyond generalizations, we find that the event is a complicated and polysemic affair. In actuality, the student of the ritual complex in context is confronted with a plethora of regional and local symbols; hence we find a variety of observances unique to given locales.16 We shall see that realizing subjective apprehension and identification with Husayn’s passion is catalyzed through new and vital forms of practice in Iran, India, and Trinidad, even while remaining faithful to the Karbala paradigm.
Reenactments of Husayn’s tragic death have been performed for centuries in what is today southern Iraq, the place of the martyr’s violent death. They eventually extended far beyond their points of origin and moved via Iran, where they received official state sanction in the sixteenth century under the Safavids, to the Indian subcontinent and from there to the Caribbean basin. Even today, more than 1,300 years after Husayn’s death, the rituals devoted to his sacrifice have not lost their potency. On the contrary, they seem to have become even more powerful. In some countries, the power of rituals performed during the month of Muharram has been channeled into the political arena and has been used as a psychological mechanism for mobilizing the masses against injustice and oppression. In other places, they provide more subtle “hidden transcripts,” to invoke James Scott’s term, that serve as methods of resistance to defy the hegemonic forces of the majority group.17 Moreover, the rituals have often been used to subvert the authority of the ruling class, even if only symbolically at times.
As a general rule, the farther the rituals moved from their place of origin, the greater the influence of other cultures, religions, and customs on them became. Such changes may be regarded as the “declensions” of the paradigm. This notwithstanding, there are also remarkable continuities that we find in greatly separated areas of the world. Continuities as well as changes in ritual practice will be pointed out in due course as my study unfolds. For the moment, one example should suffice to make this point clear. Although the lament for the death of Husayn in the form of public self-mortification by ritual participants is prevalent in Iran, Iraq, and India, this aspect is not particularly visible at the two extreme ends of the ritual spectrum. In Trinidad and Indonesia, for instance, other forms of experiential remembering have replaced bodily punishment and pain. Nevertheless, the sacred period surrounding Husayn’s annual death observance is still a ritual highly charged with unusual emotions in the Caribbean rim. Irrespective of the geopolitical arena in which the ritual complex takes shape, Husayn remains a spiritual and political redeemer, as well as a role model for participants.
Iran, more than any other country, has been influential in the expansion, diversification, and diffusion of Husayn’s rituals into other geographical areas, especially in medieval times. Even earlier, when Persians began converting to Islam from the eighth century onward, strong pro-Shi‘i sentiments were noticeable in the country. A sympathetic attitude toward the Shi‘ah allowed the region to become a haven for many descendants of the Shi‘i imāms who took refuge in the region to escape persecution by the Sunni majorities in other countries. It was not, however, until the sixteenth century—when they received royal patronage—that we observe the phenomenal growth of the rituals for Husayn. This aided, in turn, the spread of Shi‘i doctrines across the Iranian plateau.
As noted above, the Muharram processions are especially powerful devices for conveying sociopolitical information and opinions, as they did during the massive demonstrations in Tehran and other Iranian cities during the 1978–79 revolutionary upheavals. The mixing of mourning slogans with political ones has been an old Muharram tradition, which allowed the designers of the revolution to draw upon the paradigm and present their claims in accordance with
