Читать книгу Hosay Trinidad - Frank J. Korom - Страница 11

Chapter 3

The Passage of Rites to South Asia

Mir Athar Husain Zaidi … spent the whole year eating opium and preparing for Moharram. He had spent his whole life preparing for Moharram. The truth is that in those days the whole year was spent waiting for Moharram and the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Husain.… Moharram was nothing less than a spiritual celebration.

—Rahi Masoom Reza, The Feuding Families of Village Gangauli

Muḥarram in Comparative Perspective

Although muḥarram is observed throughout India and other countries of the subcontinent with the great anticipation pointed out by Reza above, the manner in which the observance is performed differs from place to place. The ritual performances take on the vernacular character of the regional environment within which they are practiced by building on the concerns of local interest groups. This is the result of a number of factors. Many centuries of Hindu/Muslim interaction has led to various degrees of cultural borrowing, resulting in great regional variation. The ethnographic data suggest that some of the major reasons are Hindu/Muslim ratios, urban versus rural practices, and Sunni/Shi‘i population distribution. Any of the above, or combinations of them, are major factors in the formation of variation in Muslim ritual practice on the popular level. A thorough comparative study of this phenomenon has yet to be undertaken in South Asia. Indeed, A. R. Saiyid suggests that it is a somewhat neglected field in Indological studies.¹

An exhaustive survey of the sort Saiyid envisions is not attempted here, because the secondary data available to me and my own observations can hardly do justice to the complexity of the rituals as practiced throughout the entire subcontinent. Rather, the second section of this chapter is based on a survey of the existing sources and my own occasional participation in muḥarram observances in northern India, with some parenthetical information provided from the south of India. I focus on the north because this is the area from which the largest number of Indians were uprooted and coerced to go to the Caribbean as indentured laborers from the mid-nineteenth century onward. The north Indian material is further supplemented by relevant literature about the event in other parts of South Asia in an attempt to offer a mosaic overview of the phenomenon that is the heart of this book. But my main aim in this chapter is to bring to light certain aspects of muḥarram that figure prominently—or, conversely, do not appear at all—in Trinidad, the geographic and ethnographic focus of the remaining chapters of this study.

I realize that the congeries of beliefs and practices that I present does not represent any specific tradition, thus making it difficult to study. But if we accept Jim Masselos’s proposition that rituals during the month of Muharram must be viewed in the plural, then presenting a composite can help us to flesh out some salient aspects of the phenomenon for comparative purposes. As he states, “Moharram is ambiguous, ambiguous in situation, in interpretation and practice. In its ambiguity lay its strength, popularity and its continuity.”² Before proceeding with my ambiguous survey, however, some general observations are in order.

There are some great differences concerning the manner in which muḥarram is observed in predominantly Muslim countries and in India. Perhaps the greatest and most significant difference between India and Muslim nations lies in the use of the word ta‘zi̅yeh. Whereas the term is used in Persian to refer to the ritual drama, it has a different connotation in South Asia. There it is the name given to the model cenotaphs, the focal point of the public processions that take place during the event in many parts of northern India. Such differences notwithstanding, the historical consciousness instilled in believers by the Muharram narratives continued to remain an integral part of the ritual complex as developed and practiced in India. Indeed, I believe I can reasonably argue that it is the historical narrative that has kept the tradition alive and vital in many parts of the world. According to oral legend, muḥarram was known in India as early as 1398 C.E., when the conqueror from Samarqand, Timur Lenk (1336–1405 C.E.), better known as Tamerlane in English, crossed the Indus to implant Islam firmly in the subcontinent and to establish political rule.³

Vernon Schubel provides an abbreviated account of the legend:

[W]hile in Iraq Timur converted to Shi‘ism and became so deeply and emotionally attached to the area around Karbala that he would not move his troops from that spot. In order to deal with this situation, the ‘ulama of the region built a replica of the tomb which he could take with him out of the dust and clay of that place. It is reported that nightly sounds of mourning and lamentation could be heard arising from the model. It was this ta‘zi̅yah which was brought to India by Timur during his invasion.⁴

Given that Timur visited Karbala only after his invasion of India, the historicity of the account is questionable. Nonetheless, it is a pious narrative still in circulation today that functions as an etiological justification for the ostentatious practice of building model tombs. These artistically rendered replicas of Husayn’s actual tomb at Karbala came to be known as ta‘zi̅yahs in Urdu and other north Indian languages. In South Asia, symbolic pilgrimage thus came to replace the arduous physical pilgrimage to Karbala.

Note that in India and elsewhere on the subcontinent the object of veneration is given the same name as the staged, dramatic renderings of Husayn’s passion in Iran. This interesting terminological shift suggests something pervasive about Indian public display events—the importance of external displays and processions during communal rituals. In this sense, these rituals share much in common with Hindu religious processions. The similarity between Hindu and South Asian Muslim processional rituals has not gone unnoticed. Garcin de Tassy, for example, wrote in 1831 that “Muslim festivals, … appear to read like those of the Hindus.” To illustrate, he compares muḥarram to the Durga pūjā: “Like the Durga Puja, the ta’zia is observed for ten days. On the final day the Hindus immerse the image of the goddess in a river amidst huge crowds and great pomp, while a thousand musical instruments are played. The same thing happened with the Muslim festival. Mourning is observed for ten days and the ta’zia, a replica of the tomb of Husain, is generally immersed in a river with the same pomp.”⁵ Juan Cole has pointed out more recently that Hindu participation in muḥarram has been fairly widespread for centuries. He also notes that Hindus introduced certain practices to the observance that were adopted by high-caste Muslims.⁶ The observances during Muharram were thus transcommunal from early on in the encounter between Muslims and Hindus, allowing for public occasions during which actors could negotiate radically different cultural and sectarian worldviews. But as Saiyid rightly points out, Hindu influence alone is not enough to explain muḥarram’s development in South Asia.⁷ In fact, even though rituals performed during the month of Muharram creatively adapted to Indian customs, very strong thematic ties to Iran remained.

In South Asia, the Iranian root concept of spatial separation between private and public aspects of the rite remained intact, even while localized rituals developed to express grief for Husayn by creatively incorporating indigenous customs (‘ādat). In South Asia, the ta‘zi̅yah procession (julūs) became the most popular display of public veneration or, alternatively, celebration during the month of Muharram, while the tradition of the majlis (mourning assembly) became a private expression of grief par excellence for the Shi‘ah. Although they remain separate, the interrelated nature of private and public forms of observance is a central theme in South Asia as it is in Iran.

Muḥarram as a regular observance did not become widely established in precolonial India until Mughal times (beginning in 1526 C.E.).⁸ But aside from Lucknow, the major Shi‘i center in India, where an elaborate muḥarram-centered ritual complex developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries under the royal patronage of the Navabs of Avadh, the observances never took a fixed form.⁹ This is in part because aside from the Navabi period (1720–1856 C.E.) of Lucknow, there was never a strong Shi‘i power base to facilitate fixed observance.¹⁰ Further, a canonical source for the standardization of observances does not, to my knowledge, exist in Shi‘i literature on jurisprudence produced in South Asia. This may be one reason why there is such a seemingly contradictory complex of practices associated with muḥarram in India, not to mention the fact that the Shi‘ah are a relatively small minority throughout South Asia. In colonial times, for example, they did not exceed 4% of the total population in any of the provinces of British India, with the largest concentration being found in the former United Provinces, where they comprised over 31% of the total Muslim population.¹¹

The numerical inferiority of the Indian Shi‘ah should suggest that while theology may have been relatively fixed, local custom was grafted onto central aspects of the Shi‘i observance to produce ritualistic forms not recognizable in Iran. Add to this the fact that Hindus and Sunnis also participate in various capacities, and we have an inevitable context for innovation, adaptation, and transformation. Nonetheless, a fairly strong core of motifs from the Shi‘i master narrative, kept vivid through mars̲i̅yah and other chanted traditions, has provided some continuity. The ritual traditions surrounding days seven through ten, the culmination of the observance marked with grand processions through the streets of cities, towns, and villages throughout South Asia, demonstrate the continuities quite well.

It is important to keep in mind that India was a religiously plural society during the Mughal period. The Muslim population in precolonial South Asia, though politically and economically powerful, was always a quantitative minority, and within this minority the Shi‘ah constituted only a small percentage of the total population. Muslims thus had to cope with the Hindu majority and its overwhelming culture. As a result, a number of Hindu influences crept into muḥarram. This is only natural because social encounter inevitably results in cultural mixing to create innovative hybrid forms of local practice. The same process already seems to have been occurring in ancient Persia, where an earlier generation of scholars attempted to locate the origins of the lamentations for Husayn in pre-Islamic rites of renewal and eulogized mourning for fallen heroes. The process of religious and cultural mixing continues in the Indian subcontinent but with a unique twist. The Shi‘ah of India had to cope with negotiating their forms of observance with Sunni varieties. Sunnis, it must be emphasized, also observe muḥarram, especially on the tenth, but do so for very different reasons. Ideological conflicts thus often erupt into physical violence between the numerous parties concerned.

To begin with, the concept of vicarious suffering, so prominent in Twelver Shi‘ism, has been somewhat alien to Hindu thought, even though the idea is present in Mahayana Buddhist texts concerning the bodhisattva ideal. Hindus also do not observe or commemorate religious occasions; rather, they celebrate and play them out in accordance with the doctrine of li̅lā (divine play). The disputed issue of celebration versus observance is a pervasive one in South Asia, but the debate is not solely an Indic innovation, because we have already seen that similar discourses periodically took place at the Shi‘i geographical core in Iran, as they do in many parts of the Muslim world. Concerning the proper way to observe and perform such rites, the eighth imām, however, provided very strict guidelines to observe ‘āshūrā’ with grief and weeping, which would be rewarded with a blissful eternity in paradise. Those who did not observe in this manner would join Yazid in the “deepest pit of fire.”¹²

Be that as it may, the idea of mourning as a measure of identification and devotion is not a major concept in the religious and philosophical speculations of the classical Hindu tradition. Nevertheless, on the level of devotional practice, female Hindu mourning groups are popularly found in south India, and cults of deified heroes and heroines are quite common on the folk level.¹³ Public pūjās (ritual worship) are, however, characteristically engulfed by melās (fairs) that allow for the merger of sacred and profane activities.¹⁴ It is indeed difficult to find any public religious service in South Asia being performed without the requisite merchants, vendors, acrobats, dancers, and performers. In this sense, the sacred and the profane are closely associated, if not inextricably enmeshed. It may not seem odd, therefore, to find elements of buffoonery, clowning, dancing, and sexual license associated with muḥarram observances in India. The clowning dimension is particularly true in the south, where the Muslim population is very much a minority even in so-called Muslim centers, which makes it difficult for it to exert control over external accretions to the rite. We must remember also that the Shi‘ah remain a minority within a minority. One observer has noted, for example, that muḥarram, as performed in the Deccan, “is the biggest carnival of the year; observed more by Sunnis than Shi‘as.”¹⁵ What this signifies is a gradual co-optation of the rite from the Shi‘ah, which is the unavoidable consequence of coexisting in a religiously plural country.

By and large, the comic portions of the event are limited primarily to the Sunni sector of the Muslim community. This is probably the case because most of the Sunnis in India do not mourn the death of Husayn. T. Vedantam explains it as follows: “According to many Sunnis the festival signifies the triumph of virtue and truth over evil and that there is no place for mourning.”¹⁶ Learned Indo-Shi‘i Muslims see comic behavior during Muharram as mockery, however, and such performances often lead to theological debates and physical clashes between Shi‘i and Sunni Muslims.¹⁷ But Sunnis make countercharges against the Shi‘ah. Consider the following personal memoir by the well-known Indian Sunni scholar Khuda Bukhsh Khan (1842–1908 C.E.), whose father would never allow his children to view the Muharram processions because he regarded them as a “mockery” and a “travesty.” Khan recalls how his father “thought it wicked to a degree to convert the anniversary of one of the greatest tragedies in the history of Islam into a day of carnival and festivity, instead of observing it scrupulously as one of veritable mourning.”¹⁸ Obviously, the learned ustād’s father was not aware of the private forms of worship held in the majlis.

For the Indian Shi‘ah, however, muḥarram is still a predominantly sober event conforming to the Persian theological paradigm of identification with the supreme martyr through subjective apprehension. The manifest differences between Iranian and Indian Shi‘i modes of observance are numerous nonetheless. First of all, in India there is very little staged reenactment of the historical events at Karbala, either privately or publicly.¹⁹ Reenactments are limited mostly to martial displays with swords and sticks. Rather, the reenactment occurs as a gradual process unfolding over a ten-day period within a larger symbolic space. The arena of performance, be it the house, the neighborhood, the village, or the city, becomes a microcosm of Karbala. This is most vivid on the tenth of Muharram when the Indian Shi‘ah symbolically “make a pilgrimage” (zi̅yārat karnā) to Karbala by visiting graveyards where the ta‘zi̅yahs are buried.²⁰

Instead of the ritual dramas, we find a greater emphasis on narrating the tragedy through the recitation of mars̲i̅yah (elegy), the singing of nauḥah (dirge), and other forms of chanted laments at numerous majalis. The majālis may be private or public gatherings for ritual mourning that are held both in homes and at specially constructed sites.²¹ The development of mars̲i̅yah composition and recitation in India is obviously an innovative continuation of the rauz̤eh khvāni̅ tradition of Iran. Even though Kashifi’s Persian classic was translated into South Asian languages, a separate and distinct poetic tradition emerged in the subcontinent. Based on their Perso-Arabic predecessors, new styles of elegy became prevalent in a number of Indian vernacular languages, and their recitation to induce weeping during mourning assemblies continued to preserve the memory of Husayn’s passion.²² The Indic tradition of mars̲i̅yah writing and recitation in Urdu goes back to sixteenth-century Golconda and Bijapur in the Deccan, and the tradition flourished in nineteenth-century Lucknow.²³

The majlis is the central focus of muḥarram observance in India, according to elite spokesmen of the Shi‘ah. Keith Hjortshoj, working in Lucknow, has noted that the public processional rituals, fire walking, and states of possession that I survey below are virtually meaningless without the majālis. This may well be the case, but we cannot disregard ostentatious public events completely, for we have already seen that the private and public have been closely interrelated in Iran. Clearly, learned exegesis serves as a guide for the normative behavior during the sacred month that is supposed to induce subjective apprehension of Imam Husayn’s suffering, but the variety of activities found on the streets during the processions cannot be ignored either. It is precisely in these public arenas that the non-Shi‘i sector of society participates most visibly and exuberantly, leading to cultural encounter and gradual transformation of the observance through an ongoing process of cultural creolization. It is also in this public sphere that muḥarram becomes a contested phenomenon that needs to be negotiated between the numerous parties involved: Shi‘ah, Sunni, and Hindu. But it is a sad truth that when the negotiating of ritual authority and practice fails on the peaceful level through what I call decreolization, violence ensues. Accounts from the colonial and modern period amply demonstrate this fact. Communal violence between the Sunni and the Shi‘ah or between Muslim and Hindu is often the case during Muharram. Some examples of this will be provided below, but to conclude this general discussion, let me return to the issue of the interaction between public and private as the central ingredient of the observances in India.

There is certainly a dialectical relationship between the private majlis and the public julūs that is not necessarily condoned by orthodoxy but is pragmatically maintained by the masses in popular practice. For example, during the ten days a participant may attend a number of majālis. While at a majlis, one may listen to the recitation of mars̲i̅yah corresponding to the historic events commemorated on that day. There will be intense ritualized weeping and mātam (breast-beating), followed by a period of silence. After the majlis disperses, the individual may participate in one of numerous public processions for a while and then attend yet other majālis. This pattern continues for the duration of the observance. There is no incongruity here. The individual can still experience the suffering of the martyr through participation in both types of events. The drama, in other words, is not acted out on a stage in India but is nevertheless reenacted and experienced through the varied actions of the community of believers, even if other public activities surrounding the event verge on the carnivalesque. The mars̲i̅yah recitations during the majālis and the communal processions that occur in varying degrees of intensity throughout the first ten days of Muharram are two central aspects of such performative action, and there is an oscillating tension between them.

Let us now move on to a brief survey of various muḥarram activities. By using specific ethnographic examples and travelers’ accounts, I wish to underscore the interaction of public and private domains of observance as well as the multisectarian nature of the phenomenon in India. The literature upon which I draw is both historical and modern, but I focus on accounts from the mid-nineteenth century to the third decade of the twentieth century because this is the period when Indian indentured laborers were uprooted to various islands under British control.

A South Asian Muḥarram Montage

Throughout most of the Indian subcontinent, the observances begin with the sighting of the new moon on the evening before the first of Muharram. In many areas they continue until the eighth of Rabi al-awwal, which is said to be the day when survivors of the carnage were released by Yazid.²⁴ Most of the important activities, however, occur during the first ten days of Muharram, on the twelfth of the month, and on the fortieth (cahallum), which falls on the twentieth of Safar.²⁵ There does not seem to be a set date to begin work on the ta‘zi̅yahs.²⁶ In some regions, work on them continues throughout the year, whereas those with inner bamboo frames that are reused year after year need only to have the outer wrapping replaced, which is normally made of layers of colored paper, mica, and tinsel. In the latter scenario, communities can afford to wait until the last days to complete their ta‘zi̅yahs. The length of time devoted to the construction depends on the complexity of design and the object’s size. It is believed that the spirits of Hasan and Husayn enter into the ta‘zi̅yahs as they are being built, infusing the structures with significant curative powers.²⁷ The spirits remain in the objects until the symbolic time of Husayn’s death, after which the spirits leave the objects. From this time onward, they are no longer considered sacred and “may be kicked about and anything done with them.”²⁸ In fact, in some areas, small coffins (tābūts) are placed inside of the ta‘zi̅yahs to symbolize the spirits, and in Baluchistan, Pakistan, women even make small effigies representing the two martyrs out of cloth to place inside the coffins.²⁹

The size and shape of the ta‘zi̅yahs vary from place to place, but they all consist of a wooden or bamboo base and frame, a tomb chamber, and in some places a central dome representing the one on Husayn’s actual tomb in Karbala. They are essentially three-tiered structures, but occasionally they can be as high as six tiers. John Hollister records one being twenty-seven feet tall.³⁰ I will provide fairly elaborate descriptions of the Trinidadian structures and the process of their construction in Chapter 5 but quote here from Ja’far Sharif’s 1920s account to give the reader a sense of their form and design: “It is usually covered with a network of paper neatly cut, and it is sometimes decorated on the back with plates of mica (talq). It is also ornamented with coloured paper formed into various devices and has tinsel fringes, the whole structure surmounted by a dome which is often contrived so as to move around at the slightest breath of air. Its beauty appears when lighted up within and without. In shape it is square, its sides varying in height.… Some instead of covering it with a paper network make strings of glass bangles (bangri̅), with white paper flowers, and behind they tie saffron-coloured cloth or paste red paper.”³¹

John Oman provides another impressionistic description from the Panjab in the following early twentieth-century account, in which he freely imposes his European aesthetic sensibilities Elaborating on the imaginary nature of the designs inspired by Husayn’s actual tomb, he states:

“[T]here were many of considerable size, others quite diminutive; but all bright and glittering with tinsel, mica, and coloured paper; some were quaint, some pretty, and some decidedly grotesque.… One of these tazias might be merely a tower of four or five stories built on a light bamboo framework. Another more elaborate and bizarre in form would have the appearance of a strange composite being, with a woman’s face and the body of a peacock, bearing a house on its back. Some tazias were supported upon winged horses with long ostrich-like necks, surmounted with human faces of feminine type. One was borne on the head of a winged angel, who, by means of a simple contrivance manipulated from behind, was made to beat his breast in a rather ridiculous fashion.³²

Obvious biases aside, Oman’s description gives us a flavor of the variety of structures built for this occasion. His description implies that the ta‘zi̅yahs are not identical replicas of Husayn’s tomb, but rather artistic renderings constructed in competition with other builders’ creations (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. A reverse mica painting (c. 1850–60) by an anonymous artist from Patna, Bihar, depicting a muḥarram procession with a variety of ta‘zi̅yahs, ‘alams, and sipars. By permission of the British Library. Add. Or. 401.

Since all Muslims observe the death of Husayn, both the Sunni and Shi‘ah construct cenotaphs in many parts of India, as in the city of Banaras. This is not to say that everyone agrees on the manners and methods to be employed in observing the occasion correctly. Nevertheless, even Hindus venerate the structures because of their healing powers, and some go so far as to view Husayn himself as a deva (deity).³³ There is even mention of Husayni Brahmins in the ethnographic record.³⁴ A difference, however, exists in the reasons why the Shi‘ah and the Sunni observe the death, as well as in the manner of observance. Many members of the Shi‘i community, for instance, hold that the Sunni are directly responsible for the murder, and it is common practice among them to curse (tabarra’) the first three caliphs ritually as an integral part of the observances. On the other hand, there is a popular Sunni belief that it was actually the Shi‘ah themselves who carried out the deed.³⁵ Thus, in many locations, Sunnis counter the curses by performing daily bayān (declaration) each evening from the first through the tenth, praising the good qualities of the first three caliphs in order to assert and justify the Sunni position on the interpretation of the historical events.

Other disagreements that are aired during khut̤bahs (sermons) conducted in both camps focus on the construction of ta‘zi̅yahs, the use of martial drumming, and the performance of mātam. Many Sunnis claim that the construction of ta’ziyahs borders on anthropomorphism, which is forbidden in Islam. With regard to drumming, they argue that the use of military instrumentation is appropriate to remind people that Husayn died for a religious cause. Lastly, on mātam, they claim that the practice was forbidden by the Prophet in one of his sayings (ḥadis̱). Shi‘i clerics, on the other hand, disagree on each of these points.³⁶ In consequence, both have their own reasons for participating in these rites. But such differences and disagreements are voiced mostly on the ideological level. Upon closer investigation we find that there is not a strict ritual division between the two factions in practice, even though there were times in the past when the rite was performed separately. There is, in reality, a certain degree of interaction and free play between the two sectarian groups on the public level today. Doctrine and practice thus coexist in creative tension with one another. Some Sunnis do, in fact, lament and bring out ta‘zi̅yahs, while some Shi‘ah use drum accompaniment during their processions.³⁷ Another example from Banaras based on my own inquiries is that people say the Sunni are supposed to wear green during the month of Muharram and that the Shi‘ah should wear black.³⁸ But during times of interaction between the two groups on the street, Sunnis could be found wearing black, and the Shi‘ah wearing green. While there are no absolute rules of behavior during Muharram, I will consider some of the salient differences in ritual observance below and then proceed in the next section to discuss the celebratory element in the public rites.

On the private level, however, the story is quite different. It is relatively rare for Sunnis to attend Shi‘i majālis, partly out of philosophical reasons and partly out of practical fear of physical retribution by fervent Shi‘ah who may hold them responsible for Husayn’s death. In Iran, for example, people have reported that the villainous characters in the dramas have often been attacked and, in some cases, even killed out of an emotional frenzy. This may be an urban legend, but Abedi reminisces that “Shemr would gallop into the center calling Husain to show himself, and announcing to the audience, ‘I’m not Shemr, nor is this the land of Karbala; I’m just playing a role.’ This formula was partly used to fend off the danger that onlookers would become so enraged at his killing of their beloved Imam that they would kill him.”³⁹ So, for reasons such as these, there are usually public prayers held in Sunni mosques, readings from the Qur’ān, and khut̤bahs acknowledging the Karbala tragedy as an unfortunate incident in which members of the Prophet’s family were killed, but nothing more.

Hindus and foreigners, on the other hand, are most welcome at the private gatherings organized by the Sh‘iah because the historical events are seen as universal tragedies and opportunities to convert those moved by the elegies.⁴⁰ Hindu intellectuals such as Jawaharlal Nehru are drawn to the observance precisely because of its universally tragic nature. As Nehru wrote in 1939, “sacrifice for a noble cause can never be in vain. And though we may sorrow for it, it is more fitting that we should derive inspiration from it. The fact that countless generations have been powerfully affected by the sacrifice and tragedy of Kerbala is in itself significant of its abiding value.… We shall have to forget our petty selves and minor complaints and think in terms of the larger good. That is the lesson of Kerbala and it is in this spirit that I hope all of us will pay homage to that sacrifice.”⁴¹

Essentially, the recitations in formal settings follow the historical events day by day and are relatively uniform across India because of a standard publication distributed by the All-India Shia Congress, in which canonical narratives for each specific day are printed.⁴² The two Indian census volumes on the observances in Lucknow and Delhi in the north and Hyderabad in the south both contain the following serialization of the daily narrative recitals for the Shi‘i majlis:

first day: demands by Yazid’s men for Husain to give allegiance to Yazid or to accept death

second day: departure of Husain for Karbala

third day: arrival of Husain in Karbala

fourth day: account of Hazrat al-Hurr

fifth day: account of Abad, one of the sons of Imam Husain who had fallen sick at Karbala

sixth day: account of the martyrdom of Hazrat Ali Akbar

seventh day: account of the martyrdom of Hazrat Qasim

eighth day: account of the martyrdom of Hazrat Abbas

ninth day: account of the martyrdom of Hazrat Ali Asghar

tenth day: account of the martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Husain⁴³

Each formal majlis also follows a standard pattern of observance and is led by a ẕākir (one who praises God). According to Regula Qureshi, the format progresses in a specific sequence. First, sauz (short lament) is performed to express “one emotion intensely and concisely,” followed by salām (salutation), which is often “reflective or didactic in character.” There then follows the mars̲i̅yah, “chanted usually by group in unison,” which “may be followed by a marsiyā poem in the style of formal oratory.” This is followed by nauḥah, which is a “dirge, simple, highly expressive and lyrical in character.” After nauḥah is complete, mātam is performed. In the assembly, this term stands for an expressive and passionate dirge as well as the breast-beating performed by the participants. The majlis closes with a “salutation of the martyrs and imams in Arabic, a type of litany chanted by the leader of the majlis,” which is referred to by the term zi̅yārat.⁴⁴ Perhaps this last practice alludes to a kind of internal or mental pilgrimage to the shrine of the martyr being eulogized on that particular day. Whatever the case may be, the formal majālis are complemented by private ones, which can be arranged by anyone with adequate financial means (see Figure 4). Due to gender segregation, women often conduct their own majālis. ⁴⁵

Regardless of how raucous muḥarram may become as the tenth approaches, many early accounts describe the solemnity of the first day of Muharram. Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, for example, refers to Lucknow on this occasion as “the Deserted Village.” She comments still further: “The profound quiet and solemn stillness of an extensively populated native city, contrasted with the incessant bustle usual at all other times, are too striking to Europeans to pass by unheeded.”⁴⁶ The first day’s solemnity is marked by ritual purification of the body and by cleaning the home and the place of worship. The pious cut their nails at this time, whitewash their homes, and clean sacred sites, while women untie their normally braided hair and break their glass bangles as a signal that the official period of mourning is starting. In rural areas of India, even in villages lacking a Shi‘i population, cauks (squares) are demarcated to serve as sacred space on which to place the model tombs. Nadeem Hasnain and Sheikh Abrar Husain suggest that in such non-Shi‘i villages “a large number of Sunni Muslims and a considerable section of Hindus … keep Tazias and observe mourning in one form or another” (see Figure 5).⁴⁷ When asked why Sunnis participate, an Indo-Shi‘ah responded to John Hollister that “the Sunnis recognize Hasan and Husain as grandsons of the Prophet whom he greatly loved, and that they were killed. Some too have found prayers answered, and so continue to pray.”⁴⁸

The first day is devoted to final arrangements for processions and for setting up platforms throughout Muslim sectors of the city. From these platforms the story of Husayn is transmitted in numerous but less formal ways than in the ritualized majlis liturgy. The most common form of transmission, however, is the mars̲i̅yah. At other times, there are exegetical lectures given by Shi‘i clerics pertaining to the event, which combine fervent piety and political content, as in Iran. Cole mentions that “Some notable-class Shi̅‘i̅s depicted the encroaching British as the evil Yazi̅d in the 1857–58 rebellion. Among laboring-class devotees of the Imam the tax collectors and police of the Shi̅‘i̅ government itself may have been seen at times as the real Yazi̅d.”⁴⁹

Figure 4. A watercolor by an anonymous Murshidabad artist (c. 1812) depicting a majlis in the royal imāmbāṛā of the Navab of Lucknow. By permission of the British Library. Add. Or. 2595.

Many groups of all religious persuasions engage in processions to indicate the inauguration of the rite. The Shi‘ah also set up sabi̅l tents and stands to distribute water or sherbet to travelers in memory of the thirst suffered by the martyrs. This day is also marked in some parts of India by a rite called koḍāli̅ mārnā (adze digging), during which the fātiḥah, the exordium of the Qur’ān, is read over sugar candy representing the martyrs. The neighborhood group then goes to a predetermined spot where the digging instrument is used to strike the ground and turn over one clod of dirt. A day or two later a fire pit (alāvā) is dug in which fires are lit every night. Each evening stick and sword dances are performed around the fire, and some people who have taken vows walk across the glowing embers barefoot or throw the coals into the air with their hands. This activity occurs in numerous neighborhoods in Banaras and other locations throughout India, and the alāvā is said to represent the fiery trench dug for protection by Husayn’s party on one side of their encampment at Karbala. In some places, the alāvā is dug in front of permanent or temporary imāmbāṛās.⁵⁰

Figure 5. A reverse mica painting (c. 1850–60) depicting an attendant fanning a ta‘zi̅yah with a fly flapper. The ta‘zi̅yah rests on a cauk. By permission of the British Library. Add. Or. 413.

Figure 6. A watercolor (c. 1795–1800) depicting the inside of an imāmbāṛā, with a ta‘zi̅yah in the foreground and a rauz̤eh khvān seated at the rear. By permission of the British Library. Add. Or. 938.

In Banaras, as throughout most of India, temporary shelters known as imāmbāṛās in the north are set up near masjids in many Muslim neighborhoods on this day.⁵¹ These serve as resting places for the ta‘zi̅yahs and other ritual objects, such as the special ‘alams (standards) relating to the character in the tragedy mourned that day (see Figure 6). Permanent imāmbāṛās containing nonephemeral ta‘zi̅yahs known as zari̅ḥ, which are made of precious metals and jewels, are also decorated throughout India from this day onward. The Muslim population of Banaras is not isolated to one area of the city. Sunni and Shi‘i muḥallās are often interspersed with Hindu residential areas, even though there are some large concentrations of Muslims scattered about in clusters. Some of the neighborhoods are not strictly segregated. One can find both Sunni and Shi‘i populations, as well as some Hindus on the periphery, living in a given area. A number of such neighborhoods are oriented around small masjids. Each muḥallā that can afford to have its own ta‘zi̅yah constructed does so. Others that are in close proximity to one another may combine efforts on the cenotaph construction. But in a number of places, especially in urban areas, many people purchase disposable ta‘zi̅yahs of various size, design, and execution, depending on their financial means, from professional builders who may be Hindu or Sunni.⁵² The imāmbāṛās also serve as gathering places for the ritual recitations of the day’s events at Karbala. Each imāmbāṛā is marked by another ‘alam, a three-sided flag hung from a banner staff that represents the one carried by Abbas, the standard bearer for Husayn’s party. The banner staffs are fastened into the ground on either the first, fourth, or fifth day (see Figure 7).⁵³ Participants and spectators believe that these flags are imbued with the power to bestow miracles during the month of Muharram.⁵⁴ Similar to Iranian custom, it is for this reason that barren women in the Panjab who take vows offer cloth for the standards (see Figure 8).⁵⁵ The power invested in this temporary sacred space is transferred to all objects within its precincts. Especially powerful is the ta‘zi̅yah itself. Because of the immense power within these sacred hot spots, the complete environment surrounding it must be kept ritually pure at all times. In other words, the imāmbāṛā, as well as the objects within it, are loci of barakat, the grace of God. It is a common sight during Muharram processions to see people touching the objects or passing underneath them to avail themselves of the healing power. An account from the early twentieth century makes note of the transactions that occur:

Figure 7. A reverse mica painting (c. 1850–60) from the Banaras region depicting a standard bearer. By permission of the British Library. Add. Or. 412.

Some were Hindu women, probably unfortunate mothers, who thus paid respect to these effigies of the martyrs’ tombs, in the fond hope that Imam Husain would graciously extend his protection to their surviving children and grant them long life.… From time to time some persons, for the most part women with babies in their arms, approached the tazias, and made trifling offerings of flowers, sweetmeats, and money, which gifts were formally accepted by the attendants, and some trifling return, generally a garland of small flowers, given in exchange by way of acknowledgement to the pious and now happy oblationer, who, beaming with satisfaction and hope, would place it without delay about her infant’s neck.⁵⁶

The following days are filled with prayer and mars̲i̅yah recitation both in private and in public gatherings. Once the ‘alams are posted in front of the imāmbāṛās, offerings of food are placed in their presence, censers for burning frankincense (lobān) are lit, and the fātiḥah is recited over them every night. After these evening prayers, the food placed in front of the banners is distributed to all in attendance. This special food, known as tabarruk, is considered to be a blessing and parallels the Hindu practice of distributing prasād. Hindus who observe muḥarram distribute mali̅dah, a cake made of pounded meal, butter, and sugar.⁵⁷ These social acts of prayer and commensality are followed nightly by verbal reenactments of episodes from the tragedy corresponding to that particular day.⁵⁸ They can take the form of poetry, song, lectures, and personal petitionary prayer (du’ā’). People from outside of the cities often visit the imāmbāṛās and ask Husayn, or the specific martyr being remembered on that given day, for favors and they frequently make vows (mannats). They may ask her or him to heal a sick kinsman, insure the wealth of the family, or to pray for the dead. In Banaras, devotees who have relatives living in the city will remain there until the tenth of Muharram, the climax of the observances. Others return to their respective villages feeling confident that Husayn will aid them in life as well as in death.

Figure 8. A Panjabi muḥarram ‘alam topped with a panjah being taken out in procession during the month of Muharram in 1973. Notice the various cloth offerings for vow fulfillment tied to the standard. Photograph by Richard Kurin. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution’s Folkways Archive.

Although muḥarram is intensely religious for the Shi‘ah, there is also a strong social dimension associated with it. Saiyid, for example, reports that residents of the Sunni-dominated town of Chanorba, Uttar Pradesh, who live and work elsewhere try to return home each year during the period to “celebrate” the holiday.⁵⁹ Sharif adds that in south Gujarat, merriment and masquerade replace grief from the fourth until the tenth.⁶⁰ Although marriages cannot be performed during the contiguous months of Muharram and Safar, this social occasion provides opportunities to make matches and arrange for future unions. The kind of celebratory atmosphere that the occasion encourages is an issue to which I will return below.

On the morning of the fifth, Shi‘i processions move throughout various sectors of the city.⁶¹ In Lucknow, the standard of Abbas is taken out for the first time in memory of his courageous action to bring water for camp members.⁶² This event marks the beginning of a series of processions that reach a peak on the tenth but continue sporadically until the eighth of Rabi al-Awwal. Each group begins its own procession at the neighborhood masjid or at the nearby imāmbāṛā. The ‘alams that mark the imāmbāṛās are disengaged from their places of rest to be carried in the procession. Hired low-caste Hindu drummers noted for their musical expertise playing tāsās (clay kettledrums), ḍhols (wooden cylinder drums), and often cymbals, sometimes coming from as far away as Calcutta, walk at the front of the crowd (see Figures 9 and 10).⁶³ Drummers are also sometimes recruited from the Sunni community, and less frequently they may be Shi‘ah. The musicians pound out a rhythm to which all Shi‘i men respond by beating their chests with an open or closed fist. This first procession is done in verbal silence.