Shiʿa and Ashurāʾ: The Mainstream Ithnā ʿashariyya traditions

Tuesday (8a)

Language performance and Ithanʿashar Islam in the central Shia domains (Iran, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Lebanon)

NOTE: The Shia ("Shiʽat Ali", the party of Ali)represent roughly 10-12% of the world's Muslims. Large Shia populations (> 1 million) can be found in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Yemen, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Lebanon. The following countries are predominantly (>50%) Shia: Iran, Azerbaijan, Iraq; Bahrain though small is also predominantly Shia.

Because a line of imams, connected to the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima, is central to all Shiʿa, and because there are occasionally disagreements over succession, a number of different subgroups have emerged over history, including:

1. the "Twelver" Muslims (Ithnaʿashar) who comprise around 85% of the total Shia population (this is the dominant group in both Iran and Iraq), after this branch became the religion of the Safavids who conquered Iran in 1501, as well as
2. the Zaidi ("fiver"; prevalent in Yemen) and
3. various Ismaili groups (Nizari, and several subgroups of Bohra) (Ismailis are also known as "seveners", a misnomer since they consider the chain of imams to continue to the present).

The Druze (now living primarily in the Levant: Syria, Lebanon and Israel, as well as in a global diaspora, including here in Edmonton) also stem from the Ismaili branch, though they do not consider themselves to be Muslim. The Bahais are similar - stemming from an Iranian Shia tradition, Babiyya ("Babism").

This family tree (perhaps this one is better, though with some implicit bias) clarifies the relationships among these many different groups, in some respects resembling the branching of Sufi groups as disagreements occur over succession, ultimately stemming from the importance of identifying a direct line of imamate descent from Ali, and ambiguity as imams father more than one son.

As Sufis (who may be Sunni or Shia) also focus on a line of descent (the silsila) tracing to the Prophet, there are many commonalities between Sufi and Shia schools of thought and practice, even when Sufis are nominally Sunni.

This week we'll focus on the mainstream Ithaʿashar or "Twelvers", primarily in Iran. Next week we'll look at some of the many other branches.

Note: This year Ashura' (the 10th day of the first month, Muharram) starts in the evening of Tue, Jul 16, 2024 – Wed, Jul 17, 2024

Due today

Read:

• Schimmel, Annemarie. Islam : An Introduction.; pp. 91-100 ("The Shia and Related Sects")
• Qureshi, Regula. "Islamic Music in an Indian Environment: The Shi'a Majlis". Ethnomusicology, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Jan., 1981), pp. 41-71, Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/850974. Skim the details; try to grasp the main genres and contexts, then listen to examples, below.
• Chelkowski, Peter J. Time Out of Memory: Ta'ziyeh, the Total Drama, TDR: The Drama Review, Volume 49, Number 4 (T 188), Winter 2005. (skim the text boxes)

Listen selectively: Listen to these genres from Regula Qureshi's field recordings; follow along with her article using the track listing.

Watch: “The Troupe.”, about a Taʿzieh performance. From Films On Demand, Films Media Group, 2002 (if you have trouble with the link visit Films on Demand and search for the title).

Browse: the Niamatullahi sufi order website: http://nimatullahi.org/ This Shia Sufi order was widespread among Iranian elites before the revolution in 1979. Today centers exist outside Iran throughout the world. Sufism is not a "sect" as sometimes described, but a mystical dimension present in both Sunni and Shia Islam.

Write and submit: One page, discussing the following in brief: Who are the Shia? what are the differences between Sunni and Shia branches of Islam? What are the various Shia branches and how do they differ from each other? In what countries are they found? What genres of language performance are distinctive to Shia Islam?

Note: Everyone pick one paper to read and present on Thursday (see below and email me your preference)

Class

Please try to catch up on your reviews. All that I've read so far are excellent. But they aren't all there. If you feel you're falling behind please come talk to me so we can work out a plan of action.

How are the paper proposals/outlines coming along? Outlines are due a week from Thursday (March 7). I will review and send you feedback.

1) Ethics and fieldwork (important for ethnomusicology and other disciplines incorporating ethnography, but especially for those who are adding a fieldwork dimension to their papers). Let's review the relevant documents so you'll understand the principles, and how to proceed in practice.

2) Ithna'ashar Shia practices and mysticism (majority in Iran, Iraq, and parts of Lebanon, as well as minority diasporas worldwide)

• The Shiʿi majlis in South Asia, drawing on local forms of music and poetry, like qawwali.
• Taʿzieh: sacred theatre? on the border of the Islamicate? Art vs ritual. Issues of music and singing. Performer intention, performance context.
• Islamic and Islamicate interactions: Language performance of Shia ritual (majlis or taʿzieh; see film 38:22) and in Persian classical music (the great Mohammed Shajarian): vocal timbre and the ethos of sadness.
• Another example from Iran: Zurkhaneh: the House of Strength, fusing spirituality, sport, and music. Now a global phenomenon, with competitions around the world. (cf: spiritual/athletic dimensions of martial arts)
• Discussion, questions. Art - transcendent or culturally/religiously rooted? Can we necessarily share our humanity and spirituality through art? How can this happen? Does sharing in the realm of performance arts transcend the discursive limitations of language? What are the limits of either modality in creating shared meaning? Or is it shared meaningfulness that is at stake?

Note: centrality of Ahl al-Bayt and several of the imams in generally Sunni Egypt: Imam al-Husayn, Ali Zayn al-Abidin[1][2], Muhammad Adel al-Askari performs inshad. Shiʿa thought is present, even if unselfconscious, in festivals (mawalid), shrine visitation (ziyara), and the concepts of baraka (blessing) and batiniyya (esoteric interpretations), and has occasionally flourished explicitly in small sectarian communities, some longstanding, and others stemming from the 1979 Iranian revolution. Egypt was ruled by the Shiʿa Fatimid dynasty for two centuries, though the majority of the population did not formally convert, this period (969-1171) is thought to have left a lasting impression.

Shiʿa communities and practices can also be found in Ghana.

Thursday (8b)

Due today

Reading and Discussions: Everyone pick one of the following papers to present; write a one-page summary and critique of the article. What is it about? What are its conclusions? What do you think of these conclusions - can you see any limits, hidden assumptions, in the author's analysis? Try to locate online media (youtube, etc.) relevant to this paper and include the URLs in your submission. Submit for today using http://bit.ly/mislam24a

Be ready to present, discuss, and critique your article in class; you can also add AV materials if you wish. If you can find any online media relevant to your reading, please bring the link and we can watch/listen together.

Here are your choices; if you email me your choice I will add your name so others can plan not to replicate....

1) "Embodiment and Ambivalence: Emotion in South Asian Muharram Drumming" Richard K. Wolf. Source: Yearbook for Traditional Music, Vol. 32 (2000), pp. 81-116. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3185244 . Eli (Example of matam)(Qawwali Example)(Trailer for Documentary on Muharram in Trinidad, "Hosay Trinidad")

Note: for Hosay see week 6; also the full documentary "Hosay Trinidad" is available online along with an associated book of the same name

2) Heidar G. Azodanloo (1993) "Performative elements of shi'ite ritual and mass mobilization: The case of Iran"[3], Critique: Journal of Critical Studies of Iran & the Middle East, 2:3, 35-54, DOI: 10.1080/10669929308720039 Jude [4]

3) "Shia Lamentation Rituals and Reinterpretations of the Doctrine of Intercession: Two Cases from Modern India" David Pinault Source: History of Religions, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Feb., 1999), pp. 285-305 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3176355

4) Formichi, Chiara. 2014. “Shaping Shi’a Identities in Contemporary Indonesia between Local Tradition and Foreign Orthodoxy.” Die Welt Des Islams 54 (2): 212–36. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24268922 Alanna [5][6]

5) Lewisohn, Leonard. 1997. “The Sacred Music of Islam: Samā’ in the Persian Sufi Tradition.” British Journal of Ethnomusicology 6: 1–33. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3060828 Ziyad [7][8]

6) Hemmasi, Farzaneh. 2013. “Intimating Dissent: Popular Song, Poetry, and Politics in Pre-Revolutionary Iran.” Ethnomusicology 57 (1): 57–87. https://doi.org/10.5406/ethnomusicology.57.1.0057. Tobin

Class

Student presentations, critiques, and discussions.

For each article consider first of all (definitive answers are not always possible!)

• Discipline and journal
• Date and era of scholarly discourse - and how the article enters that discourse
• Author, studies, degrees
• The particular study (following the lines of this proposal format
  • General topic
  • Research aim and value or significance (main questions or hypotheses)
  • Area and scope of this particular study (social, temporal, spatial coordinates - map)
  • Research paradigm or theoretical/conceptual framework
  • Methodology
  • Sources - literature, archival sources, fieldwork
  • Conclusions