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sectionOutline - Forming the Present Through Husseiniyya Rituals [405bde26]

Part of master's thesis
  • Each center chapter follows a single character and tries to focus the lens around them, zooming out to describe the concept
  • Goal is to move towards a theory of a constructed present
  • Starts with the center of the ritual (radood and audience), goes to describing the institutions, then goes to describe how a "normal" person participates

1. Introduction

  • Thesis: rituals as a sight of constructing the present

  • Lead in: evoking the Imam as a nearhuman construction (Johnson - Automatic Religion)

    • Various rituals of approaching the shrine
  • One understudied area is the role of the radood
  • Main key is that the majlis with radood is a specific form ritual that binds individual and society, future and past

  • Main questions to answer:

    • How do ritual participants view themselves? Do they see rituals as subsuming the self?
    • What about the "violent" nature of specific rituals?
    • How are these rituals sustained?
  • Look to al-Wardi lamahat vol 2

2. Chapter 1 - Majilis Husseini/al-3aza Experience

  • Mainly enthographic chapter
  • Main character might be Mutathir the radood

  • Main questions to answer:

    • What is it like to be in a ritual? Radood audience interaction to draw in the audience

    • Where do the rituals happen? What contexts are they performed in?

      • What are the casual forms of difference (between Pakistani, Iraqi, Indian, etc)
    • What is invoked and evoked with the ritual? Is it saddness for Hussein (as some ritual participants have said), or is it something more?

    • Banal nature of the rituals, and how it is not necessarily different than music festivals

      • The banality of these rituals actually make it much more interesting, because it reveals how easily new views of the world are fashioned even without a clear sacred/profane distinction

    • Look to Geertz here, what symbols are floating around? For Sahlins, what kind of kinship is being produced in this moment? How are the symbols alive here (al-Shur?)

      • Also potentially useful to look at Tanya Luhrmann's work on Evanglicial Christian prayers and esoteric mental states of trance

3. Chapter 2 - Institutions of the Radoods and Mowkebs

  • Investigative chapter around what religious institutions sustain the radoods

  • Main character: Ali the radood school teacher

    • How does Ali engage by creating the institution of radoods
    • Who comes to school? What are their backgrounds?

  • Questions to answer

    • What seemingly non-religious work needs to be done to sustain this structure?
    • How is authority created? Who creates these authorities, and are they done by the "religious" or "secular"? Is that even an useful distinction to draw here?

4. Chapter 3 - Majilis as a pilgrimage

  • Main character: Fathal the security guard

    • Karbalaei native, but not particularly religious
    • Goal is to show how "regular" people engage with religion
  • Look to Asad here, what types of self is attempting to be molded by going to this pilgrimage?
  • How do pilgrims signal to each other about the status of their pilgrimage? How does the shrine institutions support this?
  • This chapter might be cut or revised, it's a little vague right now

5. Conclusion

  • Husseiniyya rituals draw in the audience and participants through N ways
  • This allows the audience to view themselves in a different way, constructing a different present
  • One underaddressed aspect within this study is the register of tragedy, which is potential for future work