Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

“O, Zaria! You Have Become Just Like Karbala” : Race, Redemptive Suffering, and Affect in Shi‘i Devotional Liturgy

Marei, Fouad Gehad LU orcid (2022) AVACGIS Conference on Race and Islam p.1-8
Abstract
This article examines a Farsi-/Arabic-language Shi‘i ritual lamentation poem commemorating the Zaria Massacre of 2015, which saw hundreds of members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) led by Shaykh Ibrahim Zakzaky killed in clashes with the Nigerian army in the northern Nigerian city of Zaria, Kaduna Province. In addition to comparing the suffering of early-Muslim hagiographic figures with the persecution of modern-day Shi’is, the poem is significant in its focus on Blackness as an essential and defining characteristic of Nigerian Shi'is. I probe the role of Blackness and 12racial identity as tropes in the construction of a collective memory and an affective bond around narratives of redemptive suffering. I posit that purveyors of... (More)
This article examines a Farsi-/Arabic-language Shi‘i ritual lamentation poem commemorating the Zaria Massacre of 2015, which saw hundreds of members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) led by Shaykh Ibrahim Zakzaky killed in clashes with the Nigerian army in the northern Nigerian city of Zaria, Kaduna Province. In addition to comparing the suffering of early-Muslim hagiographic figures with the persecution of modern-day Shi’is, the poem is significant in its focus on Blackness as an essential and defining characteristic of Nigerian Shi'is. I probe the role of Blackness and 12racial identity as tropes in the construction of a collective memory and an affective bond around narratives of redemptive suffering. I posit that purveyors of this lamentation poem invoke Blackness to construct a narrative that is both global and local, universal and particular. In so doing, they expand membership in the imagined ‘Ummah of Karbala’ beyond its traditional Middle Eastern and South Asian heartlands and invite converts from Sunni to Shi‘i Islam to become constitutive members of this Ummah. Finally by contextualizing the poem in relation to the socio-political history of the IMN and Shi‘ism in Nigeria, I argue that this racialized narrative is not a radical pro-Black shift in Shi‘i thinking but a manifestation of Sunni-Shi‘i geopolitics and the hyper-politicization of sectarian identities. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to conference
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Blackness, Islam, Islamic Movement in Nigeria, liturgical poetry, Nigeria, race, rituals, sectarianism, Shia Islam
pages
8 pages
conference name
AVACGIS Conference on Race and Islam
conference location
Washington D.C., United States
conference dates
2022-03-23 - 2022-03-26
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Title discrepancy between paper title and the title of the contribution in conference abstract booklet. Change of paper title was made post conference booklet. Title of the contribution in conference booklet: "Shabīh-i Joon (or, Nigeria, Where Bilal meets Husayn): Blackness, Redemption and Sectarianism in Shi‘i Ritual Cultures".
id
dcdb799a-8e44-442a-a158-d99e1a1590c5
date added to LUP
2022-06-15 11:44:19
date last changed
2022-06-22 09:43:43
@misc{dcdb799a-8e44-442a-a158-d99e1a1590c5,
  abstract     = {{This article examines a Farsi-/Arabic-language Shi‘i ritual lamentation poem commemorating the Zaria Massacre of 2015, which saw hundreds of members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) led by Shaykh Ibrahim Zakzaky killed in clashes with the Nigerian army in the northern Nigerian city of Zaria, Kaduna Province. In addition to comparing the suffering of early-Muslim hagiographic figures with the persecution of modern-day Shi’is, the poem is significant in its focus on Blackness as an essential and defining characteristic of Nigerian Shi'is. I probe the role of Blackness and 12racial identity as tropes in the construction of a collective memory and an affective bond around narratives of redemptive suffering. I posit that purveyors of this lamentation poem invoke Blackness to construct a narrative that is both global and local, universal and particular. In so doing, they expand membership in the imagined ‘Ummah of Karbala’ beyond its traditional Middle Eastern and South Asian heartlands and invite converts from Sunni to Shi‘i Islam to become constitutive members of this Ummah. Finally by contextualizing the poem in relation to the socio-political history of the IMN and Shi‘ism in Nigeria, I argue that this racialized narrative is not a radical pro-Black shift in Shi‘i thinking but a manifestation of Sunni-Shi‘i geopolitics and the hyper-politicization of sectarian identities.}},
  author       = {{Marei, Fouad Gehad}},
  keywords     = {{Blackness; Islam; Islamic Movement in Nigeria; liturgical poetry; Nigeria; race; rituals; sectarianism; Shia Islam}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{1--8}},
  title        = {{“O, Zaria! You Have Become Just Like Karbala” : Race, Redemptive Suffering, and Affect in Shi‘i Devotional Liturgy}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}