Reliving Karbala

Reliving Karbala
Courtesy www.pdfbooksfree.pk
This page intentionally left blank
Reliving Karbala
Martyrdom in South Asian Memory
syed akbar hyder
1
2006
1
Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further
Oxford University’s objective of excellence
in research, scholarship, and education.
Oxford New York

Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Copyright 䉷 2006 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
www.oup.com
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hyder, Syed Akbar.

Reliving Karbala : martyrdom in South Asian memory / Syed Akbar Hyder.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-537302-8
1. Shia—India. 2. Karbala, Battle of, Karbala, Iraq, 680. 3. Shia—Customs
and practices. 4. Martyrdom. I. Title.
BP192.7.I4H95 2006
297.8'2'0954—dc22 2005015099
Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper
To the memory of Ammi and Pappa
For Puneet, Hussain, and Raza
Preface
Merı̄ tamı̄r meñ muzfi mar hai ik sfi ūrat kfi harābı̄ kı̄

hayūlā barq-e kfi hirman kā hai kfi hūn-e garm dahqāñ kā
Hidden in my construction is an expression of ruin—
The source of the harvest-destroying lightning is the
farmer’s hot blood
Mirza Ghalib
Karbala is not only a part of my academic heritage; it is also part of

my personal world. I am a product of a milieu in which the remem-
brance of Karbala, the seventh-century battle between the younger
grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, Husain, and the political au-
thority of that time, Yazid, consoled mourners during funerals and
brought sobriety to weddings, buoyed arguments of socioreligious
reform during heated discussions, and loomed large in the literary,
visual, and aural aesthetics to which my family subscribed. While
holding the status of the master narrative of martyrdom, its invoca-
tions also appeared in a potpourri of forms that fulfilled mundane
needs and desires that had no seeming relationship with spirituality
or metaphysics. Like many others who grow up in a world where
Karbala holds similar currency, I too had my favorite characters
from the Karbala story. One of them was Hurr, a general from Ya-
zid’s army who defected to Husain’s camp just hours before the ac-
tual battle began. Out of all the stock characters from the Karbala
story, Hurr seemed to be the most realistic: his faith wavered and he
made mistakes; he pondered his actions in terms of gains and
losses in this life and in the hereafter; he broke forth from the
power structures of his time. In keeping with the spirit of his
name, he was “free” and liberated in an existential sense. So fascinated
viii preface
was I with Hurr that I decided to take him up when embarking on my graduate
studies. I sought to gauge Hurr’s legacy by tracing it through various cultural
traditions of the Near Eastern and South Asian worlds, concentrating especially
on the genre of Urdu elegies. However, after beginning my doctoral studies at
Harvard, I was convinced by the late Annemarie Schimmel to broaden my
research project from a study of Hurr to a larger study of Karbala’s legacy, not
just for Muslims but also for non-Muslims.
When I started working on this project a decade ago, few Westerners out-
side academic circles knew what Karbala meant. Since then, however, fueled
by the United States’ military involvement in Iraq, the mass media have duly
propelled Karbala into headlines that are often marred by reductive assump-
tions, without appreciating its presence not just in Iraq, but in other parts of
Asia and Africa as well. So when thousands of people in South Asia demon-
strated against the United States’ military campaigns in areas surrounding
Karbala and Najaf, many people in the West missed the symbolic significance
of these cities to regions beyond the Middle East.
This book, among other objectives, seeks to engage the strait-jacketed man-
ner in which Muslim societies are represented in the western world, not just
through the mass media and government propaganda but also with the assis-
tance of many institutions of higher education. In the aftermath of the attacks
of September 11, 2001, in the United States and July 7, 2005, in London, the
reified image of the Islam-martyrdom-violence nexus has gained more cur-
rency than ever before; and such images do not augur well for any thoughtful
or honest assessment of the cosmopolitan cultures and histories of Muslim
peoples’, nor have these images propelled discussions regarding power rela-
tions, alienation, and disenfranchisement forward. Moreover, a discussion of
Islam in the West is disproportionately shaped by the assumption that the
Middle East (with fewer than 40 percent of the total Muslim population) is an
exclusively representative sample of Islam. I break decisively from the ranks
of those who imagine the location of Muslim societies along a single “perim-
eter,”1 and refute any unified readings of Islam by exploring the multifaceted
developments and readings of Karbala and its symbolic status vis-á-vis the idea
of martyrdom. Rather than locating my discussion exclusively at the node of
the trite mantra of “Islam has many faces,” I emphasize moments of tension
and fissures, along with instances of collaboration and appropriation. Osten-
sibly about Karbala and martyrdom, this book makes a broad appeal to those
who wish to explore how religions, like human beings, live their lives through
temporal and contextual changes, doubts and certainties, concords and aporias.
It is my hope that this study, by setting forth a paradigm for reading an event
from seventh-century Iraq, will help students and scholars of religion, culture,
and literature open a window on some of the dynamic interpretive strategies
that shape the social milieus in which more than a billion people live.
The formal research for parts of this book began in May 1993 and drew
to a close in March 2005. During this time, I had the good fortune of benefiting
from innumerable consultants, critics, friends, family members, and teachers
based in India, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the
preface ix
United Kingdom, and the United States. One of the most difficult tasks in
conducting this study was selecting the material that I would include in the
book. Many whom I consulted wanted me to write a book that would alter the
state of the Muslim community for the better; they felt that I should not ex-
amine popular and controversial aspects of religion when writing about Kar-
bala. Rather, they envisioned my study as a work that might be considered
authoritative among the well-read practioners of Islam. In fact, a religious au-
thority told me that I should not even mention a certain South Asian Muslim
neighborhood, lest I embarrass Muslims around the world: “What they do is
not true Islam; that is not what the Quran says; that is not what Karbala is all
about. You know, Islam is the best religion with the worst followers, even
George Bernard Shaw said this. Even if you talk about those un-Islamic things,
you should categorically say what those people do is not Islam.” The religious
and literary authorities who spoke with me had little appreciation for the man-
ner in which Karbala is perceived by laypeople. They wanted me to concentrate
exclusively on written texts of history, philosophy, and aesthetics. While they
did not hesitate to blame and criticize others for depicting Islam as an invari-
ably violent and intolerant force, ironically, they rejected readings of Islam
which were at odds with their own understanding. Many of their discourses
were more exclusivist than pluralistic. Although it is obvious to me that such
attitudes are an expression of concern that Islam has been misunderstood in
the West for a very long time, and a belief that a singularly neat reading of this
religion would vindicate its worth, I could not do justice to this project without
mentioning those “embarrassing” moments of history and cultural practices
that afford us telling insights into how religions manifest themselves in flesh,
beyond their scripted existence. Moreover, I could not assign thousands of
people the role of stray or insignificant devotees, simply because they live re-
ligion that is not rooted in authoritative texts. Regardless of whether or not I
heeded advice and warnings, I am most indebted to all those who allowed me
entry into their worlds of devotion, mysticism, criticism, and humor.
Previous incarnations of parts of this book have appeared in Cultural Dy-
namics (“Iqbal and Karbala: Re-Reading the Episteme of Martyrdom for a Po-
etics of Appropriation”), Volume 13, no. 3, pp. 339–362, Sage Publications,
2001; Sufi Illuminations (“Revisiting Wine and the Goblet in South Asian
Martyrdom and Mysticism”), Volume 3, no. 1, pp. 14–33; The Women of Karbala:
Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses in Modern Shi’i Islam (“Sayyadeh
Zaynab: The Conqueror of Damascus and Beyond”), ed. Kamran Scot Aghaie,
2005, Austin: University of Texas Press; and A Wilderness of Possibilities (“To
You Your Cremation, To Me My Burial: The Ideals of Inter-Communal Har-
mony in Premchand’s Karbala”), eds. Kathryn Hansen and David Lelyveld,
2005, Delhi: Oxford University Press. I thank all these publishers and editors
for granting me permission to publish revised versions of these articles here.
I am also grateful to M. F. Husain and Arun Vadehra for allowing me to use
Mr. Husain’s painting Karbala.
The council of several individuals has been essential to this project; these
people, in many ways, are responsible for helping bring this book to fruition.
x preface
Professor Patrick Olivelle, as an exemplary scholar, mentor, and friend, pro-

vided generous resources and wise guidance to me for the past five years.
Simply put, this book would not have come into existence without his encour-
agement. My thanks are due to Professors Ali Asani, Diana Eck, Ayesha Jalal,
Roy Mottahedeh, and Wheeler Thackston, for their incisive remarks during
the initial stages of this study. Professor Asani especially made my graduate
school experience delightful by providing me with ample opportunities to
teach, research, and explore life in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He so gener-
ously offered his time and guidance, whether at Iruña or at the Barker Center,
that I shall forever remember and appreciate the very personal dimension of
academia. I would be remiss if I failed to mention the late Professor Annemarie
Schimmel, whose erudition has inspired so many from my generation. My
thanks also go to Professors Mahdavi Damaghani, William Granara, William
Chittick, Wolfhart Heinrichs, Alma Giese, Sugata Bose, and Cornel West for
their advice and support during my days at Harvard. Professor Gail Minault
of the University of Texas at Austin initiated me into the world of South Asian
studies and has remained an invaluable advisor for more than a decade.
I want to record my unbounded appreciation for the support I have re-
ceived from the following people who are, unfortunately, not with us today. I
was fortunate enough to be blessed by the company of Ali Sardar Jafri and
Saeed Shahidi Saeed, two savant-poets who shared with me anecdotes, poetry,
history, philosophy and the ideals of justice to which they subscribed. Their
wisdom, along with the insights of Akbar Ali Baig, Vahid Akhtar, Taqi Hasan
Wafa, Sadatullah Khan “Nazir,” and Syed Ali Murtuza defy captivity in words.
The qawwals from Delhi (Meraj Ahmed in particular), Fatehpur Sikri, Gulbarga,
Hyderabad, Lahore, and Sewan Sharif spoke to me for hours on the authority
of their experiences. A few of my consultants requested that they remain anon-
ymous for various reasons.
My sincerest thanks are due to Valerie Turner, Shafique Virani, Kamala
Visweswaran, Martha Selby, and Manu Bhagavan, whose vast knowledge of
the domains of literature, history, and religion has been a tremendous asset to
this work. All five of them, from their own unique vantage points, have read
my writing with painstaking care and enthusiastically offered advice and guid-
ance. My profound gratitude is to Frances Pritchett (Columbia University),
Tony Stewart (North Carolina State University), two scholars who have en-
hanced my understanding of South Asian literatures and cultures. Frances
Pritchett never hesitated in providing astute constructive criticism; Tony Stew-
art’s stimulating critique of my work at various points has only enriched it.
This book also benefited from the insights of Akeel Bilgrami, Judith Kroll,
Denise Spellberg, Herman van Olphen, Amy Bard, Andy Yung, Ahmed Ali
Khan, Nilufer Shaikh, Nargis Virani, Danielle Widmann-Abraham, Faisal
Devji, Munir Jiwa, Sunil Sharma, Houchang Chehabi, Christian Novetzke,
Himmet Taskomur, Cemil Aydin, Rahim Acar, Lata Parwani, Hussein Rashid,
Eric Beverley, Philip Nikolayev, Sharmila Sen, Geeta Patel, Bazat Tahera Qut-
buddin, Kathryn Hansen, Carla Petievich, Janice Leoshko, Omar Khalidi, Sak-
oon Kaur Chhabra, Veena Naregal, Veena Oldenberg, Monika Mehta, Mub-
preface xi
bashir Rizvi, Jay Shah, Shehnaz Hassan, Ibn-e Hassan, Evan Carton, and
Kamran Aghaie. To my colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin’s Asian
Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Studies, and the Humanities Re-
search Center, I owe a large measure of thanks. I am grateful to Cynthia Read,
Theo Calderara, Gwen Colvin, and Julia TerMatt at Oxford New York for sup-
porting this project.
To my parents, siblings, and their families, I am beholden for their support
for a somewhat wayward family member. To them I owe what words cannot
express. I have never thought of the family of my mother’s sister as a separate
unit for I was nurtured in their loving embrace. Likewise, my father’s siblings
and their family members shared with me their lives and Karbala-related mem-
ories. My uncles, Syed Abul Hasan Asif and Syed Mohammad Zaki, through
anecdotes provided me with refreshing knowledge that is beyond the written
word. The latter exemplifies the mystical spirit that is often uncomfortable with
orthodoxies of any stripe. I must, in good conscience, single out the Naqi
family, especially Amina apa and Zulfi, for being present in times of need.
Naaz baaba, in his uniquely graceful way, contributed to this project more than
perhaps he realizes by asking me questions that I have attempted to answer
here. I offer my deepest gratitude to the Kohli family for all their love and
support. My goddaughters Sarah and Salma brightened up my life, whether
through e-mails, telephone conversations, or meal meetings.
This work is dedicated to the memory of Mir Mujtaba Hussain (Pappa)
and Bashirunnisa Begum (Ammi), my maternal grandparents, whose love and
memories have sustained me; and to Puneet Kohli, Ali Hussain Mir, and Raza
Mir, three people who have been critical to my growth and brought joy into
my life by sharing with me their worlds and panels.
Contents
Notes on Transliteration, xv
Introduction, 3
1. Visions and Re-visions of Karbala, 13
2. Mourning in Migrant Spaces, 61
3. Commemorative Politics and Poetics, 73
4. Lyrical Martyrdom, 105
5. Iqbal and Karbala, 137
6. From Communal to Ecumenical, 161
Conclusion, 203
Glossary, 211
Notes, 217
Bibliography, 239
Index, 251
Notes on Transliteration
For simplicity’s sake, personal names, place names, and natural-

ized English words are not transliterated. Although I have pre-
sented most poetry only in translation, I have provided original
verses when the verses are especially poignant and their transla-
tion cannot capture the complete significance of the original. I
hope that the Persian and Urdu-Hindi communities will appreci-
ate the presence of the originals in these cases. Persian words are
transliterated as they are pronounced in Urdu. Technical terms
and concepts are transliterated at their first occurrence. When cit-
ing other transliterated texts, I have modified transliterations for
consistency and clarity (for example, Husayn has been changed to
Husain). Shii is used as an adjective and Shia as a noun. A list of
prominent persons in the Karbala story and technical terms and
concepts appears in a glossary at the end of the book.
alif: a, i, u, ā
b p t fit ṡ
j ch hfi kfi h d
dfi ż r rfi z
zh s sh fis zfi
3t 3z c ġh f
q k g l m
n
vāo: v, ū, o, au
h ı̄
barfiı̄ ye: y, e, ai
nūn ġhunnah: ñ
hamza:
izfi āfat: -e
Reliving Karbala
Introduction
Do not think of those who are slain in God’s way as dead.

Nay! They are alive and receive their sustenance from their Lord.
Quran, 3:169
In 680 c.e., Husain b. Ali, the younger grandson of the Prophet

Muhammad, was martyred on the plains of Karbala, Iraq. The mar-
tyrdom of this scion of the Prophet’s lineage, who was slain together
with his closest family members and followers, has held an existen-
tial importance in a wide variety of cultural spheres in which Mus-
lims participate. As the single most significant historic event in the
lives of millions of Muslims, Karbala has left an indelible symbolic
mark on devotional practices, on the transmissions of Islamic his-
tory, and on subsequent developments in aesthetics, mysticism, and
reform movements throughout the Muslim world. Just as Muslims
see their Prophet Muhammad as uswa hfi asana, the beautiful model
of conduct, for many of them, Husain also looms large on the hori-
zon as sayyid al-shuhadā’, the prince/lord of martyrs, who offered his
life and possessions during the righteous struggle (jihād) in God’s
cause. Apart from its significance for Muslims, the event of Karbala
continues to appeal to those from secular and non-Muslim
traditions. By surveying the configurations of Karbala within multiple
contexts, I explore the meaning of this event as it varies with shift-
ing locales, ideologies, and memories and the way in which the lan-
guage of religion is negotiated through intertwined and conflicting
idioms. Such a project challenges the ease with which we absolutize
concepts such as “religious,” “secular,” “Islamist,” and “fictional.”
This study has two main objectives: to provide an insight into
the multiple, interdependent lives of Karbala as they furnish a sense
4 reliving karbala
of interlocking communal, religious, and literary identities; and to offer an

ethnographic prism through which the lived contexts and spirited memories
of many Muslims and non-Muslims can be refracted over the expanses of time
and space. In pursuit of these objectives, I have examined the aesthetic con-
siderations, established conventions, narrative licenses, epistemological ori-
entations, patronage patterns, and larger ideological forces that shape the nar-
ratives of Karbala. Although such an exploration positions my work at several
temporal and contextual interfaces, I focus on South Asia, a region of the world
with the largest population of Muslims, and also many non-Muslims who
speak in the language of Islamic historical and cultural idioms. I attend to
Karbala’s significance in religiously cosmopolitan settings—settings in which
particular readings of Islam are inflected by other religious and cultural
traditions. Since cultural institutions and discourses stemming from South
Asia extend beyond historically porous national and regional borders to dias-
poric communities and (via mass communication) even beyond them, I will
also consider the interaction of South Asian Karbala-related discourses with
other regional discourses pertaining to Karbala.
The Event of Karbala
zinda Islām ko kiyā tū ne
hfi aqq o bāt3il dikhā diyā tū ne
jı̄ ke marnā to sab ko ātā hai
mar ke jı̄na sikhā diyā tū ne1
You resurrected Islam
You showed us truth and falsehood
Everyone knows how to die after living
But you taught the world how to live after dying
With these words, a twentieth-century devotee endorses the actions of Hu-
sain b. Ali, who is often hailed as the preeminent embodiment of martyrdom.
The word that most commonly signifies martyrdom in the Islamic cultural
lexicon is shahādat (witnessing); the word for martyr is shahı̄d (witness). Far
from connoting death, these words thrive on their dynamic semantic synergy.2
Husain’s martyrdom, attained in the scorching heat of Karbala, bears witness
to truth, justice, love, devotion, faith, and endurance; and this act is forever
etched into the historical memories of his devotees. Devotional lore has it that
until their last breath, Husain and his small band of followers fought valiantly
against the forces of Yazid b. Muawiya, the reigning political authority (caliph),
whose rule they felt is an affront to true Islam. Although Islam can boast of
many martyrs and struggles, the standing of Husain and Karbala within the
pantheon of these “witnesses” and struggles is unique.
Before embarking upon a discussion of Karbala’s lasting imprint upon
various cultural contexts, this event must be situated within the contentious
setting of early Islamic history. As long as the Prophet Muhammad received
divine revelations in the form of the Quran (from 610–632 c.e.), the Muslim
community was bound together in the belief that the omnipotent God of Adam,
introduction 5
Abraham, Moses, and Jesus had chosen Muhammad as a messenger through

whom divine tenets and precepts could be transmitted. The Prophet Muham-
mad, his community believes, served ideally in his capacity as God’s messen-
ger (rasūl Allāh), a Muslim (one who submits to God), a husband, a father, a
trusted friend, a just arbiter, and a compassionate community leader. After
being subjected to persecution in his native city of Mecca, the Prophet migrated
to Yathrib (later renamed Madı̄nat al-Nabı̄, or the City of the Prophet, and
usually referred to in its shortened form, Medina), thus marking the formal
beginning of the Islamic calendar. In Medina, the Prophet established the
Muslim community as a sociopolitical unit, acted as the head of this com-
munity, and maintained his status as the Messenger of God. He was both the
spiritual guide of his people and their temporal ruler. As long as he lived, he
attempted to unite many disparate tribal and ideological groups under the aegis
of Islam. But this unity, to whatever degree it existed under Muhammad, did
not outlive him. His death precipitated bitter divisions within his community
over the issue of Islam’s future leadership: Who was qualified to lead the
Prophet’s community, and more importantly, how should such a leader be
determined?3
Even though the process of prophecy came to an end with the Prophet,
the relationship of most Muslims with Islam was affected by their allegiances
to particular post-Muhammadan discourses and leaders. For one group of Mus-
lims, subsequently identified as Sunnis, the Prophet’s appropriate successor
was his father-in-law and one of the first converts to Islam, Abu Bakr; for
another group of Muslims, identified as Shias, the rightful successor of the
Prophet was Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, and also one of the
earliest to embrace Islam. In Shii opinion, Ali had been explicitly appointed
by the Prophet according to God’s command. The Sunnis consider themselves
to be people who followed the customs of the Prophet (sunnah) and received
legitimacy through consensus (ijma ) of the Muslim community, hence secur-
ing for themselves the longer designation ahl al-sunnah wal-jama, or the People
of the customs [of the Prophet] and consensus. While such claims might have
provided the illusion of religious consensus, neither consensus nor conformity
existed after the Prophet. The Shias were the most prominent of those who
resisted the Sunni claims. The designation Shı̄a is derived from the Arabic
word for “party,” since the Shias claim allegiance to the party of Ali (shı̄at
Alı̄) and his designated descendants. These descendants they called the imāms,
or the righteous leaders. In spite of the differences that have existed and still,
to varying extents, exist between the Sunnis and the Shias, especially over
questions of legitimate leadership, we should not allow these differences to
outweigh the many common beliefs and practices that these communities
share.
Although we can speak today of the Sunni and Shii sects within Islam,
any discussion of these divisions should be marked by one caveat: These two
groups gained their modern standings as self-identifying sects many years after
the Prophet’s death, as a result of long-drawn-out debates, confrontations, and
other historical experiences. Under the rubric of each label, a number of sub-
6 reliving karbala
sects and divisions exist. Moreover, even within a subsect, all members do not
subscribe to a fixed reading of religion. When discussing Shii-Sunni differ-
ences, we should also remember that Islam did not unfold exclusively under
the impact of polarized sects.
Muslim peoples’ belief systems were also governed by more nuanced mys-
tical readings of Islam that presented a hermeneutic vision in which true Islam
transcended the Sunni-Shii divide, beyond the visible and the empirical. Such
readings often triumphed over the exclusivist claims that were made by Islamic
religious orthodoxies of all stripes. Islam was formulated in these mystical
circles either in terms of a direct relationship with God, or in terms of inter-
action with God through a spiritual guide, who could be either the Prophet,
one of his descendants, or a learned teacher. Music and prolonged solitary
meditation, modes of devotion shunned within many Shii and Sunni circles,
became the modus operandi for a number of these mystics, many of whom
came to be known as “Sufis.” Within particular geographical and temporal
contexts, Shii and Sunni influences impinged upon Islamic mysticism, and
vice versa.
As the consolidation of Islam took place along and beyond these divisions
and allegiances, the nascent religious community began to spread to the far-
flung corners of Asia, Africa, and Europe: By 639 c.e., Jerusalem was under
Muslim control; by 653 c.e., the Muslim realm had moved eastward to the
River Oxus; in 711 c.e., Muslim administrative and political control took hold
in the South Asian region of Sindh; by 756 c.e., a Muslim dynasty had estab-
lished its rule in Spain. Of course we must always bear in mind that identities
other than those grounded in religion—such as the local, linguistic, profes-
sional ones—often tended to outweigh the religious ones. They did so in the
past, as they do in the present.
As Muslim merchants, scholars, travelers, exiles, and warriors inhabited
lands farther from the Arabia of the Prophet, they had to reckon with cultural
assimilations, inflections, and collusions. Some Muslims bemoaned the con-
quest of lands in the name of Islam as a dilution of pristine Islam. Others
attempted to gain insights into the extra-Islamic belief systems they encoun-
tered by adopting aspects of these systems into their own familiar doctrines.
Within Muslim communities, at many points in time and space, the power of
religious leaders, political authorities, and seemingly hegemonic ideologies
was diffused and contested. Views that were considered recondite and repellent
in one place at one time became commonplace and acceptable in other places.
For example, music and visual images of the Prophet and his household re-
main vital components of several South Asian Muslim devotional traditions,
while holding at best a limited currency in parts of the Arab lands. Many
norms, taboos, and beliefs of people living hundreds of miles away from the
Prophet’s Arabia were shaped more by their local environs than they were by
the customs of the Prophet or the first Muslim community. Historical under-
standings, whether of larger social institutions or pivotal religious events, be-
came as much a product of local politics as of historic texts and literary imag-
ination. When charting the course of history or expounding Islamic doctrines,
introduction 7
the interventions and complicities of the present, and the power structures that
patronized and censured words, could scarcely be avoided.
I have attended to the wide-ranging panorama of Islamic history and cul-
tures in order to ascribe contexts to the event of Karbala as it is transmitted
and received. In the (transnational and transregional) worlds of Islam and the
worlds touched by Islamic culture, domains that the historian Marshall Hodg-
son has described as Islamicate,4 the contours of Karbala have been mapped
and remapped in innumerable colors by succeeding generations of chroniclers,
poets, mystics, reformers, and devotees. From the Tartars of modern-day Azer-
baijan to Tunisian playwrights like Muhammad Aziza, from Musa al-Sadr in
Lebanon to the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran,5 from the first English poetry
anthology of Pakistani writers in the diaspora to the festive Muharram proces-
sions of Trinidad, Karbala and its heroes have been envisaged and invoked,
commemorated and celebrated, enacted and emulated time and again, al-
though not always with apparent consensus. The longevity of this event’s legacy
is tied to its malleability, which itself inheres in its symbolic resilience.
In this book, I tell a story without seizing exclusively upon a single nar-
rative mode; I unite an eclectic array of sources into a cohesive narrative. The
sources that are brought within the realm of this narrative range from the
classical works of Islamic history and Perso-Indian literature to the oral Shii,
Sufi, and Marxist discourses of the twentieth century, as well as South Asian
nationalist and antinationalist theatrical and fictional imaginaries. When
choosing these sources, I have considered both the aesthetically-acclaimed and
the popularly-invoked ones. Mir Anis, Mirza Dabir, Rashid Turabi, Nusrat Fa-
teh Ali Khan, Muhammad Iqbal, Muhammad Ali Jauhar, Munshi Premchand,
Mahatma Gandhi, Ali Sardar Jafri, Sadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai, and
Parvin Shakir—all feature as prominent South Asians whose engagement with
Karbala has not been previously studied in a systematic or an analytical man-
ner. I have also interviewed and gained insight from many laypeople whose
authority vis-á-vis Karbala rests solely on devotional and perceptive experience.
This judicious mix of sources has far-reaching implications for Shii, Sufi, and
Sunni reformist as well as Marxist spheres within South Asia, because it chal-
lenges the assumptions that have shaped previous readings of Karbala, mar-
tyrdom, and Islam.
Inspired by the tales of Shahrazad—that ultimate narrator of The Thousand
and One Nights, whose life hinged upon her words—this story of Karbala is
told through many other stories that show the folly of claims to exclusive le-
gitimacy. The world of a story is constituted by absences and omissions (some
conscious, others not-so-conscious) as much as it is constituted by emphases
and elaborations. Most of all, this narrative world must content itself as it is,
circumscribed by time and space. Still, it must be welcoming enough to ac-
commodate the multiple claimants who continually aspire to bring it to frui-
tion. In many ways, stories are like the banyan trees described by the Indian
writer and poet Rabindranath Tagore: “To study a banyan tree, you not only
must know its main stem in its own soil, but also must trace the growth of its
greatness in the further soil, for then you can know the true nature of its
8 reliving karbala
vitality.”6 Like banyan trees, stories grow from each other’s trunks and roots.
In order to assess a story, one must remember that like a banyan tree it over-
grows its spatial origins in manifold modes, and outlives its original temporal
framework. Devotion and imagination can sprout around a banyan tree, as
they can around a story. Such devotion and imagination are frequently suffused
with a poetic sensibility, with a versified evocation of feeling.
Poetry, Poetics, and Karbala
Islamicate poetry has been embraced by discourses ranging from politics to

devotion. Gail Minault, a historian of Islamicate societies, elaborates on the
cultural authority of poetry in the South Asian subcontinent:
It is very difficult for someone from a different culture to grasp the

importance and power of Urdu poetry in Indo-Muslim culture.
Whether religious, historical, or lyric, the prevalent form of literary
expression in India, as in most of the Muslim world, was poetry.
The ability to compose poetry extemporaneously and to drop cou-
plets at appropriate points in a conversation were the marks of a
truly cultivated individual. One of the favorite forms of social gather-
ing among gentlemen was the mushāira or poetic recitation. Paral-
leling this elitist tradition of public recitation was the popular tradi-
tion of singing devotional poetry at religious festivals and pilgrimage
sites. Lyric poetry was thus accessible to the illiterate many as well
as to the lettered few. As poetic recitations became part of political
mass meetings as well, poetry became a means of communicating
between the politicized elite and the throngs in their audiences. It is
virtually impossible to estimate the impact of political poetry on the
popular mind in terms of actual ideas conveyed or numbers swayed.
Poetry, however, was a form of literary expression that spoke to the
emotions. As such, it was an ideal medium for reaching the hearts
of many Muslims who remained unmoved by political discussion.7
Poetry employs its own apparatus—an apparatus constituted by particular

idioms, tropes, and symbols. This apparatus is constituted by language,
through the aesthetic and devotional maneuvering of words, through the in-
corporation of other texts, and so on—in ways that take advantage of their
multivalence. When speaking of “texts,” I mean both oral and written expres-
sions. The study at hand is concerned with the multiple levels of texts generated
by the Karbala event. How does one text bear the influence of another, and
how does one text shape and refashion another? This interaction among texts
is what I, following many other literary critics, call “intertextuality.” When dis-
cussing Karbala, I will be using such intertextual interactions as one of my
chief objects of investigation. Roland Barthes, a well-known proponent of this
approach, explains intertextuality: “Any text is a new tissue of past citations.
introduction 9
Bits of code, formulae, rhythmic models, fragments of social languages, etc.

pass into the text and are redistributed within it, for there is always language
before and around the text.”8 Since no work of literature is historically un-
conditioned or free of foundation, when one text leaves its lexical/semantic
traces in another one, either directly or obliquely, harmoniously or adversely,
the relationship is intertextual. Of course, in determining intertextual rela-
tions, it is not always possible to cite the author or the original moment of
a text.
Through intertextuality, one text can avail itself of another by alluding to
it, reinscribing it, disavowing it, encroaching on it, or even undermining it. In
essence, texts are in an interplay with not only their predecessors but also with
their future counterparts.9 Through intertextuality we recognize the impor-
tance of interdependent communication. As befits students of literature in any
language, we must elaborate on those trends, traces, aspirations, and inspira-
tions that have constituted the literary terrain of that language. We can never
attain a nuanced, culturally grounded understanding of texts without a foray
into this intertextual world, or without the consideration of the contexts in
which, and for which, texts are produced.
Indeed, we must never forget that the signification of events and symbols
is tied to the context of their signification. This context is not an inert back-
ground against which various readings of Karbala emerge, but the very fabric
of life from which no writer/reciter could escape. Thus, when I speak of “con-
text” I am, in effect, speaking of what Stanley Fish calls “interpretive com-
munities.”10 Three complementary significations in which I read the event of
Karbala are taken as corresponding to broadly recognizable contexts, or inter-
pretive communities, in which Karbala is construed; though such divisions can
and often do overlap. The three contexts are: (1) the commemorative Shii con-
text; (2) the celebratory Sufi context; and (3) the socioreligious reformist con-
text.
Part I: Commemoration of Karbala
For the majority of Shii Muslims,11Karbala is the cornerstone of institutional-

ized devotion and mourning (azā dārı̄ ), since it is a substantive component of
their historical memory, theological understanding, and religious identity. Kar-
bala’s tale of martyrdom and suffering is vividly recounted in the Shii com-
memorative assemblies (sing. majlis, plur. majālis)12 during the first two
months of the Islamic calendar, Muharram and Safar (also known as ayyām-e
azā, or the days of mourning),13 and throughout the year in various other
contexts, such as when personal losses are mourned. Karbala bestows on Shi-
ism a sense of legitimacy; it provides a language of martyrdom and suffering,
while bolstering the argument that the succession of the Prophet should have
remained within his family.14 One of the primary purposes of the majlis gath-
erings is to express condolences to the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima, who is
believed to be present in the assembly. All the textual and oral discourses at
10 reliving karbala
these gatherings are meant to move the participants to tears by recounting the
tragic events in the most vivid details.
In the three chapters of this section, I examine the institution of Shii
commemoration. In the first chapter, I orient the readers toward the texts and
contexts of the majlis by reflecting on Shii commemorations. I discuss the
aesthetics of the majlis by focusing on Karbala’s contribution to Urdu literature
and poetics. This discussion entwines itself around issues of shifting cultural
and regional codes, that in turn facilitate a localization of Karbala in South
Asia. I also draw attention to the ways in which Karbala is invoked to mediate
the personal sorrows of the devotees. The second chapter takes us from South
Asian accounts to an appraisal of the Shii commemorations of Texas. Thus,
we see the reflection of Karbala’s legacy across temporal and geographical sites,
interweaving memories of home and migrancy. In the third chapter, I explore
the ways in which majlises serve to historicize Karbala and bring to the fore a
variety of social concerns. Since the issue of the succession to the Prophet has
its repercussions on the way many Shias read Karbala, by recalling the Karbala
event, these Shias emphasize an alternative and resistive reading of Islamic
history. It is through such a discourse of resistance that a sectarian Shii identity
is reinforced. A significant part of this chapter is reserved for a discussion of
gender dynamics that shape the narratives of femininity through the elabora-
tion of the role of Husain’s sister, Zainab. One of the first appraisals of Karbala
is presented from Zainab—who had accompanied Husain to Karbala and was
her brother’s comrade in spirit. Thus traditions of devotion and resistance are
ascribed to her.
Part II: Celebration of Karbala
Sufism also supplies us with discourses of resistance, although this resistance

does not usually apply itself to issues of the succession to the Prophet. Rather,
the resistance struggles against impediments to spirituality and piety. Many
Sufis have praised Husain and his companions as ideal lovers, who annihi-
lated themselves in the Divine (fanā fi’llāh) in order to attain subsistence in
God (baqā bi’llāh) by receiving God’s promised sustenance for the martyrs.
Within this discourse, the emphasis on the tragic and sorrowful elements of
the Karbala narrative is lessened. Thus, the martyred Imam Husain and his
followers are given a new life after Karbala. In the context of qawwālı̄, Sufi
songs and musical assemblies of South Asia, such sentiments are frequently
voiced. Husain and his followers are not resigned to martyrdom, but instead
rejoice in martyrdom. Martyrdom signifies the death of the “ego” self and its
resurrection in eternity. In this section of the book, I discuss the larger context
of Sufism, and then delve into images of martyrdom, often improvised
through arbitrary versified insertions, and the manner in which these images
seek to sublimate the base self into the higher, loving self of God’s creation.
Karbala in qawwalis appears in a panorama of poetic citations that are con-
introduction 11
jured up at the discretion of the performer(s), and often also according to the
stipulation of the patron.
Part III: Emulation of Karbala
The martyrs of Karbala and their surviving family members have remained
archetypal heroes for Muslim, as well as non-Muslim socioreligious reformers
of the twentieth century, who sought to transform their communities in a
positive manner. For nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Asian sociore-
ligious reformers, Karbala is often the medium by which ideal reformist con-
duct, nation-building endeavors, and class consciousness are shaped and de-
fined. This reformist ideology permeates the Karbala image and revivifies it.
This part of the book consists of two chapters. The first one analyzes the role
played by Muhammad Iqbal, the most prominent twentieth-century exponent
of pan-Islamic socioreligious reform, in marginalizing a Shii-coded reading of
Karbala in favor of a more transsectarian one. Iqbal, a Sunni, brings to a re-
formist fruition the discourse of martyrdom cultivated by Sufis. The second of
the two chapters in this section deals primarily with Urdu Progressive Litera-
ture, and shows how this important twentieth-century literary movement, in
spite of its claims to secularism, frames Karbala as an unavoidable ecumenical
corollary to both transsectarian and transnational revolutionary struggles. This
chapter also provides the reader with an understanding of how the symbol of
Karbala became transcommunal during the heyday of Indian nationalism, and
how its invocation played an important part in the discourses of non-Muslim
reformer-writers like Munshi Premchand and Mahatma Gandhi. The Progres-
sive and nationalist contexts foreclose an exclusively religious or localized read-
ing of the Karbala event, instead making it a present- and future-oriented ec-
umenical project that is an outlet for ideas of universal justice, resistance to
colonial and postcolonial categories, and the building of transnational solidar-
ities. Many of these writers find themselves in the paradoxical position of re-
jecting religion for Marxist reasons, while at the same time laboring to use
language redolent with religious connotations.
Although the Shii commemorative dimension of Karbala in South Asia
has been the subject of a spate of anthropological works, more serious attention
needs to be given to the expansive freedom with which this event/symbol has
been deployed. Also, few works in English discuss how Karbala has stimulated
South Asian, and more particularly Urdu-related literary and artistic sensibil-
ities. An impediment to studying the image of Karbala in its fullness has been
that certain genres of literature, like the Sufi qawwali, have been neglected or
marginalized (even in Urdu scholarly traditions) because they are not recited
in the Shii mourning gatherings that have been seen as the normative forum
for invoking the Karbala event. The notion that the Karbala motif is the exclu-
sive property of a group of Shias and can only be recited in religiously sanc-
tioned gatherings has deflected attention from the tremendous influence this
12 reliving karbala
image has exercised on the overall cultural and literary landscape of South
Asia, at times quite independently from the idiom of formulaic devotional
literature. The attention to self-flagellation and to the icons linked to Muharram
has eclipsed the premium that is put on this event outside the Muharram
gatherings.
In understanding Karbala through a varied assortment of sources such as
elegiac texts, mystical performances, and Marxist poetry, I hope to not only
enlarge and diversify the symbolic frame of reference for this event, but to also
open up spaces in which we can appraise other symbols, images, and events
grounded in Islam. Karbala opens a window on religion, history, idealism, and
a number of dynamic interpretive strategies and politics. By situating the dis-
cussion of the symbol and images of Karbala within the South Asian context
in general, and the idiom of Urdu-Hindi language in particular, I intend to
convey not only the rich and varied trajectory of this symbol, but also the idea
that the multiple readings of Karbala highlighted in this study are not as wildly
random as they may seem on first perusal. These readings are enabled by
particular historical moments, aesthetic inclinations, and political expedien-
cies. In bringing out the dynamic relationship between this religious symbol
and its creators, readers, proponents, detractors, and listeners, I also discuss
tensions generated among the various deployments of Karbala and the manner
in which these tensions are at times resolved and at other times left unresolved.
1
Visions and Re-visions
of Karbala
Hai kahāñ tamannā kā dūsrā qadam yā rab

ham ne dasht-e imkāñ ko ek naqsh-e pā pāyā
Where is the second step of longing, oh Lord?
We found the desert of possibility to be one footprint
Mirza Ghalib
In my view, history as a discipline is in bad shape today because it

has lost sight of its origins in the literary imagination. In the inter-
est of appearing scientific and objective, it has repressed and denied
to itself its own greatest source of strength and renewal.
Hayden White
This book began, and for the most part is written, in the third per-
son. I considered the idea of including my own experiences with
Karbala, but foregrounding these with readings of age-old texts, pro-
lific and profound poets, scholars, and performers seemed presump-
tuous to say the least. Yet, omitting my experiences, simply because
they are my own—a subjective, first person narrative—is a violation
of my commitment to relay the polyvocal life of this event. So, in
this chapter and the next, albeit with great hesitation and reserva-
tions, I have composed a narrative from several sources: my memo-
ries of growing up with Karbala in a Shii household; conversations
with members of the Shii community living in South Asia and
North America; popular Shii texts used in the Shii commemorative
gatherings; and secondary sources that shed theoretical light on
many aspects of these narratives. The styles of Shii mourning, the
texts and formats of the commemorative gatherings, and the general
discourse surrounding Karbala vary over time and space, and what
14 reliving karbala
appears in this chapter are just a few reflections of Shii commemorations. This
chapter lends itself to my overall arguments by bringing to light the imaginative
aesthetic and devotional frameworks within which Karbala and martyrdom are
articulated, re-articulated, and localized within Shii contexts; and by exposing
the intertextual manner in which various genres of literature foreshadow the
idioms in which Karbala is couched. A necessary historical and cultural back-
ground—with its fault lines and fissures—provides the larger framework
within which my arguments are placed.
The Beginning—A Vision of the Crescent
ibtidā-e azā hai vāvailā

māh-e ġham rūnumā hai vāvailā1
Alas! Mourning has begun
Alas! The moon of grief has shown her face
The appearance of the crescent moon during the last days of the twelfth Islamic
month signals the beginning of the month of Muharram. I vividly remember
the significance of this portentous event for Shii households in Hyderabad,
India, where I spent my childhood. Days before the crescent moon came into
view, families would begin preparations for the ayyam-e aza, the days of mourn-
ing, by whitewashing the walls and roof of the room that would house the
Muharram activities, and by warming up their vocal cords to recite pain-ridden
elegies. As soon as the crescent could be seen by the naked eye, more solemn
elegies would resonate in Shii houses as standards (alams) representing the
martyrs of Karbala were erected. Shii men and women donned black for the
first commemorative assembly (majlis) of the year, as they would for many
more majlises over the next two months. The Shii new year begins with mourn-
ing; it is a much anticipated event. For two months and eight days, joyous
occasions, whether weddings or birthdays, were not celebrated in Shii houses
of Hyderabad.
As children, we never felt excluded from the mourning process. Not only
did we lend a hand setting up of the alams on wooden spears (nēza), but we
also participated in the recitation of elegies. My grandmother had a silver alam
built in the name of each of her children and grandchildren. These alams were
erected to honor the members of the Prophet’s family, who had suffered at
Karbala. So, along with the alam honoring the Imam Husain, our house had
alams in honor of the Imam’s brother Abbas, his two sons Ali Akbar and Ali
Asghar, his nephew Qasim b. Hasan, his sisters Zainab and Kulsum, and his
daughter Sakina. Many of these names conjured up images and stories for us
as children: The Imam Husain was an omnipotent hero determined to save
Islam from the teeth of Yazid, who, we imagined resembled the stray neigh-
borhood dog that was called Yazid by a few adolescent cousins. The Imam’s
illustrious pedigree stretched back to his grandfather, the Prophet of Islam,
visions and re-visions of karbala 15
and included his parents—Imam Ali, the doughty warrior of Shiism, and Fat-
ima, the purest and noblest of women. Husain was assisted by his loyal and
courageous brother Abbas, a tiger-like figure, who was very dear to the Imam’s
four-year-old daughter Sakina. Sakina’s sleeping abode was the Imam’s chest
and she was Husain’s favorite. Husain was also fond of his eighteen-year-old
son Ali Akbar, who bore a striking resemblance to the Prophet Muhammad
and was raised by Husain’s dear sister Zainab. The most poignant moments
for the Imam were those when his six-month-old son, Ali Asghar, was struck
by an arrow shot by Yazid’s forces while the Imam held the baby in his em-
brace. The only respite in Karbala’s tragic narrative was constituted by the
wedding of the Imam’s nephew, Qasim, to the Imam’s daughter Fatima Kubra,
just moments before Qasim, along with most of his family members, became
a martyr. These heroes of Karbala, the Shii devotees were continually reminded,
would intercede on behalf of their devout Shii community on the Day of Judg-
ment in the court of God, in exchange for the tears that flowed from their
devotees’ eyes.
My grandmother would consecrate a red thread by touching it to the alams
representing those martyrs who had confronted Yazid head-on, and then tie it
around our wrists, occasioning our rite of passage into the court of the Karbala
martyrs, as well as providing us with a talisman against evil. She told us that
for the rest of the year we were under the protection (zfi amānat) of these martyrs.
The red thread around our wrists was supposed to protect us, not unlike the
protection of the threads around the wrists of some of our Hindu friends. Of
course my grandmother showed her disapproval by facial expressions when-
ever an uncle, lax in religion, playfully suggested the comparison between the
Shii red thread and the sacred Hindu thread: the Shii images in the forms of
alams and the Hindu images in the forms of “idols,” or the Shias who flocked
to the alams for ziyārat (religious visitation) and the Hindus who desired dar-
shan (vision) of their divine images in a similar manner. Deeply disturbed by
the uncle’s comments, she would say: “Unlike the Hindus, we do not worship
the alams. The alams remind us that the banners that the Imam’s side carried
still live on, in spite of the fact that the Imam Husain is not with us.”
On the seventh day of Muharram, I, along with other cousins, would play
the faqı̄r, or beggar, in the cause of the martyrs. Around our necks would be
placed the mendicant’s green pouch containing sugar-coated nuts (nuqqal) and
a few coins that we were free to spend at our own discretion. We were told
that all the grace and blessings that we would receive for the rest of the year
would have the Prophet’s household as its source. Some adult relatives prayed
on this occasion: “May God not make us beg from anybody except from Him-
self and from the Prophet’s martyred family.” For a young child who did not
receive regular “pocket money,” the immediate rewards of being a beggar in
the path of the martyrs were not only obvious, but much appreciated. It was
only after many years that I understood that the concept of faqr (poverty) and
the practitioners of this poverty (faqirs) were inextricably linked to the Prophet
Muhammad and his family, who, according to their devotees, had joyfully em-
16 reliving karbala
braced a life of poverty in order to feed and clothe the less fortunate in their
world. The ritual of the red thread was thus a ratification of the Prophet’s
sentiment: “Poverty is my pride.”2
Muharram was also a time when we traveled around the city more than
usual. Since we lived in the newer part of Hyderabad (where only about 25
percent of Hyderabad’s 150,000 or so Shias lived), it was customary for us not
only to attend the majlises at the houses of relatives living in the old city, but
also to visit the various sacred Shii sites of commemoration (āshūrkfi hānas)
located in that part of Hyderabad. The ashurkhanas of Hyderabad and in other
parts of South Asia are also referred to as alāvas, dargāh, and imāmbārfias. Some
of the Hyderabadi ashurkhanas constitute the city’s architectural landmarks,
built by Golconda’s Qutb Shahi Shii dynasty (r. 1518–1687 c.e.), which oversaw
the planning and establishment of the city of Hyderabad.
All the ashurkhanas were enlivened during the days of mourning by the
raised alams (see figure 1.1) and the throngs of devotees, both Shias and non-
Shias, who came to visit them. My fondest memories of Muharram drift back
to me with the silent scent of roses, aloe wood, and the burning intoxicating
scent of mastānah agarbattı̄, incense sticks that wafted across the ashurkhanas
to welcome us. Also lacing the alleyways were flower vendors eagerly remind-
ing the pilgrims to buy their products as offerings for the alams. All these
scents moved the mourners into a liminal, twilight state in which the ashurk-
hana blended into an extension of the bridal chamber, thereby blurring the
divide between sorrow and joy. While breathing the commemorations of Mu-
harram in Hyderabadi ashurkhanas, many of the devotees of the Imam Husain
hoped that fate would grant them the opportunity to visit the most sacred earth
of Karbala.
Indeed, throughout their lives, Shias, during the performance of their de-
votions, prostrate time and again on the clay tablets fashioned from this holy
earth.3 That a pilgrimage (ziyarat) to the place of martyrdom of Imam Husain
would secure for his devotees rewards far more promising than even the an-
nual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca (hfi ajj) was never doubted. Many of us were
captivated by the visual images of Karbala that hung in so many Shii houses
and by the detailed accounts from the mouths of the pilgrims (zāirı̄n) who
came back from Karbala. For example, we heard that the Shah of Iran had
bestowed expensive Persian carpets on the Imam’s shrine, but had asked the
caretakers (kfi huddāms) to remove these carpets during the high season of pil-
grimage, to prevent them from being soiled by the thousands of people who
would walk on them carelessly. That same night, one of the khuddams had a
dream in which the Imam Husain told him to remove the carpets permanently
if keeping them meant any restriction was imposed on the pilgrims. That the
Imam loved his devotees, in whatever shape or form they might visit him,
much more than he loved a king’s lavish gift, was borne out in this anecdote.
My grandfather, who was never able to visit Karbala in his lifetime, willed
that his corpse be sent there; indeed, within eleven months of his death his
remains were flown across the Arabian Sea. We were assured by those con-
soling us that burial in Karbala would guarantee my grandfather’s salvation,
figure 1.1 Alams at Badshahi Ashurkhana, Hyderabad, India.
18 reliving karbala
as it would guarantee the salvation of any true believer buried there. To verify
such a guarantee, one could flip through the pages of the tome of the greatest
Shii scholar of the subcontinent and judge in the court of the Mughal
emperor Akbar, Qazi Nurullah Shustari, popularly known as Shahı̄d-e Ṡāliṡ
(1549–1610 c.e.):
Never is the one who rests at Karbala debased
No matter his state, though he be reduced to dust
For he shall be taken up and fashioned into a rosary
A rosary, worn about pious hands4
Tasbı̄hfi s (rosary-like prayer beads) are common gifts that pilgrims from Karbala
bring back for friends and family. Many of these tasbihs are fashioned from
Karbala’s clay. In the verses cited above, the poet commends the corpses in-
terred in Karbala for their cherished survival on earth in spite of being buried
under it. Fancying such a fate for their loved ones, and in spite of a relatively
heavy financial cost, hundreds of Shias used to send the bodies of their de-
ceased relatives to Karbala for burial—before Saddam Hussein restricted such
practices in the late 1970s.5 Although Karbala remains the ideal destination
for Shias, in life and in death, the pilgrimage to this city is not a prerequisite
for salvation. Ubiquitous on Shii epitaphs is the widespread eschatological
belief: “One who dies in the love of the Prophet’s family, dies a martyr.” (See
figure 1.2.) Doesn’t such a belief make martyrs out of all those who love the
Prophet’s family? Martyrdom from such a perspective does not necessarily
concern physical combat or armed confrontation; it relates to the love for the
Prophet and his progeny. The best way to prove this love, many Shias would
say, is by holding majlises.
It is important to remember that the majlises are not limited to the mourn-
ing months of Muharram and Safar—although they are held more frequently
in these months. Majlises are held in commemoration of deaths or as me-
morial services for family members and friends, as well as in remembrance of
the Shii Imams. In fact, majlises in many Shii households are held every
Thursday evening (a time considered special because it marks the beginning
of Friday, the most auspicious day of the week for Muslims). In a number of
families, happier occasions of life, such as weddings and housewarmings, be-
gin with a majlis; the justification for this is that even in times of joy, the
suffering that the Imam Husain and his family endured for the cause of Islam
cannot be forgotten. As far as the gendered make-up of the majlis is concerned,
in many household majlises, men and women mourn together. When the
majlis is public, however, it is divided along gender lines. Children, of course,
move freely between the gendered domains. Although much of what I say
about the majlis tradition holds true for women’s majlises as well, my obser-
vations and analyses in this chapter, by and large, concern unisex majlises and
men’s majlises.
figure 1.2 An epitaph on a Shii grave reads, “One who dies in the love of the
Prophet’s family, dies a martyr.” The names of Allah, Muhammad, Ali, Fatima,
Hasan, and Husain are also engraved on this tombstone, along with the poetry of
this deceased poet, Hilmi Afandi.
Antecedents of the Hyderabadi Majlis
To many Shias, the precedent of mourning the martyrs of Karbala predates the
event of Karbala and was set by Adam himself. Adam, as a prophet, had fore-
knowledge of Karbala, and he mourned for his descendants (through the blood-
line of the Prophet Muhammad) as much as he mourned for himself, after
being expelled from Paradise. The shedding of tears and acts of mourning are
hence integrated into the very essence of the human self. From this perspective,
Adam’s progeny is fated to carry not his “sin” but rather his tears. Husain is
not only Adam’s progeny, but a divine light that emanates from God. God
foretold the cosmic proportions of the Karbala tragedy to all the pious prophets
and saints who worship Him. Karbala was to be the ultimate battle between
the believers and the infidels—a battle that Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ismail,
Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad fought on various levels. Husain was the des-
ignated final warrior for this battle, and through his sacrifice the legacy of all
the prophets would receive perpetual assurance of safety.6 Husain, to his dev-
otees, constitutes the “merciful cloud” that nurtures the communities of all
the prophets through the virtue of his sacrifices for the righteous cause.7 The
prophets, in turn, salute Husain in gratitude through their tears.
The Shii community believes that the Prophet Muhammad himself as-
20 reliving karbala
sured the perpetuity of the commemorative gatherings for Husain. According

to one source, when the Prophet received foreknowledge about Husain’s mar-
tyrdom, he wept until the archangel Gabriel came to console him. Through
Gabriel, God had revealed the “most beautiful” of the Quranic stories, a per-
ennially cherished motif of Islamic literature, Sūrat Yūsuf.8 This tale of temp-
tations, including a married woman pining for a man other than her husband,
was revealed to amuse Allah’s beloved messenger by momentarily deflecting
his attention from the agonies that would eventually befall his daughter’s
household. Thus, the aesthetically privileged chapter of God’s eternal Word
becomes an intertext of Karbala, rendering it an interface that accommodates
martyrdom, sorrow, beauty, consolation, and most of all, permanence. Karbala
is a text authored by God Himself. Its significance is further underscored in
that it is revealed to God’s messenger along with the most beautiful words of
God, ensconced in Surat Yusuf. The Prophet conveyed to Fatima the seminal
importance of Karbala, reminding his daughter that Husain’s sacrifice would
be the greatest in the cause of Islam and remembered till the end of time: “Till
the Day of Judgment there will always be groups of men and women among
my followers who will weep for him and hold meetings to commemorate his
slaughter.”9
Such commemorative majlises, when they became a reality, did not always
take place in the most congenial of settings. Those who wanted to suffer for
Husain were made to suffer further by being forbidden to suffer. Certain au-
thorities of the Umayyad dynasty (r. 661–749 c.e.) and the subsequent Abbasid
dynasty (r. 749–1258 c.e.) saw the Shii majlises as explicitly political, because
they affirmed the claims of Ali’s progeny to the legitimate leadership of the
community. Hence the Abbasid caliph, al-Mutawakkil (d. 861 c.e.) not only
proscribed gatherings commemorating Shii martyrs but also demolished the
shrine of Husain at Karbala.10 Lest there be another uprising like that of Kar-
bala, the imams after Husain remained under the surveillance of the Umayyad
and Abbasid governments, at times imprisoned, tortured, or killed.11 One
group of Shias (the Twelvers) believes that in 870 c.e. the twelfth Imam went
into occultation; he will emerge before the end of time to avenge the wrongs
done to Islam, most notably at Karbala.
With the emergence of the Shii Buyid dynasty (r. 934–1062 c.e.) in Bagh-
dad, the mourning gatherings received state patronage. The day-to-day affairs
of the state ceased on āshūra, the day of Husain’s martyrdom, Buyid rulers,
such as Muizz al-Dawlah, themselves walked in the mourning procession for
the martyrs of Karbala. Numerous aspects of present-day Muharram commem-
orations can be traced back to the tenth century. These include buildings that
were explicitly constructed for the mourning gatherings, H fi usainiyyāt; profes-
sional mourners, who traveled from place to place to recite the Karbala story
and induce sympathy for the martyrs; women loosening their hair and rending
their garments; and the works of narrative literature (maqātil) that recounted
the tragedy in all its pensive details.12 The Buyids acquired for themselves an
illustrious reputation in the annals of Shii history, not only for their patronage
of Muharram rituals, but also for overseeing the burgeoning Shii scholarship
of Nasir al-Din Tusi (d. 1067 c.e.), Shaykh al-Mufid (d. 1022 c.e.), and others.13
Mourning processions have also been documented from this time in the neigh-
boring Hamdanid state of Syria and in Fatimid Egypt,14 both Shii in orienta-
tion.
Many a historic majlis witnessed both the Shii and the Sunni presence.
We would do well to recall that Muhammad b. Idris al-Shafii, the founder of
one of the four major Sunni schools of law, lavished extensive praise upon the
martyrs of Karbala in his elegies (still quoted in the subcontinent)15 and de-
fended his love for the Prophet’s family.16 Historic accounts testify to Sunni
participation in mourning assemblies in the Iranian regions of Rayy and Ham-
adan. A number of these participants were manāqib kfi hwāns (popular eulogizers
of the early heroes of Islam),17 who traveled from place to place reciting events
related to the tragedy of Karbala. In fact, the Persian text most responsible for
shaping the future narratives and imagery of Karbala in the Persian-speaking
world and the South Asian subcontinent was composed by Husain Waiz Kash-
ifi (d. 1504 c.e.).
Rawzfi at al-Shuhadā
No other text has dominated the popular perceptions of Karbala in South Asia
more than Rawzfi at al-Shuhadā, or The Garden of the Martyrs. That its author
was possibly a Sunni never attenuated its importance within the Shii world,
and the fealty of later narrators to Kashifi can hardly be exaggerated. Soon after
this work was produced, the Safavid dynasty mounted an effort to convert
Persia to Shiism; within a century, Shiism became a pivotal religious force for
the Persians. Sections of the Rawzfi at al-Shuhadā were recited in commemo-
rative gatherings which themselves derived their names, rawzfi a kfi hwānı̄, from
Kashifi’s work. This book constitutes a comprehensive romantic treatment not
only of the martyrs of Karbala but of many prophets as well. It refigures cre-
ation by placing it in the context of Karbala. By alternating between prose and
verse, Kashifi blends disparate incidents into his text, continually transgressing
boundaries among genres. He works into the Karbala narrative symbols and
images distilled from the most popular poetic genre of his time, the ġhazal
(love lyric). The monorhymed, multithemed ghazal is one of the most prized
genres of literature in many parts of the Islamicate world, and has been for
the past millennium. Usually written from the perspective of a forlorn lover
acutely sensitive to the various modes of suffering that have become his lot,
the ghazal dons the garb of rhetorical and prosodic finery to manifest itself as
a tapestry of playfulness, pride, sorrow, and love. Mostly due to the cherished
veneer of ambiguity that characterizes good lyrics, the ghazal can mediate the
world of religion just as it does the profane world. The metaphors and images
that have come to constitute the ghazal universe also struck the creative chords
of those who wrote explicitly religious poetry or historical narratives. Kashifi
is one of the many chroniclers of Karbala who brought the ghazal universe to
bear upon his narrative.
22 reliving karbala
Take for instance the quatrain recited by Fatima Kubra, Husain’s daughter,
who was wed to Qasim as he departed for the battlefront on the tenth of Mu-
harram:
O laughing rose, I am left behind.
From my sight, why do you go?
I am torn like a rose thrown on a skirt, why do you go?
You are a cypress, where is your place save near the stream?
So from the stream flowing from my weeping eyes, why do you go?18
The identity of the beloved springs from the metaphors of the rose and the
cypress tree—he laughs like a rose and stands gracefully like a cypress tree.
Kashifi thus fittingly describes Qasim as a cypress tree in the garden of the
martyrs. As we will see in our discussion of the Urdu elegy, subsequent writers
in the subcontinent made powerful use of such imagery.
The reverberations of Rawzfi at al-Shuhadā have been felt from Turkey to
the Deccan region of South Asia. Subsequent elaborations of the Karbala nar-
rative, whether in the genre of marṡiya or in illustrated paintings narrating this
event, not only in Iran but in other Islamicate cultures, owe a tremendous debt
to this early sixteenth-century text. The eminent Turkish poet Mehmed b. Su-
leyman Fuzuli (d. 1556 c.e.) rendered this work into Turkish as H fi adı̄qat al-
Suada, or The Garden of the Blessed. One of the main reasons that Fuzuli gives
for his rendition is that he did not want the Turkish people to be deprived of
the Karbala narrative.19 In 1596 c.e., this work was illustrated under the pa-
tronage of the Ottoman Sultan Murad III.20 Kashifi’s martyrology was also
recited widely in the subcontinent, where there was a strong proclivity towards
Shiism among the ruling families of Bijapur and Golconda (the region of South
India referred to as the Deccan).
When discussing the Karbala event in Urdu discourses, we must note from
the outset that it developed with major thematic alterations. One of the earliest
works of Deccani Urdu, Ashraf Biyabani’s monorhymed linear narrative,
Maṡnavı̄-e Nausarhār, (written in the sixteenth century) states that the raison
d’etre for the battle of Karbala was not community leadership. Rather, it was
Yazid’s desire to marry a certain woman, her refusal and choice of the Imam
Husain over Yazid.21 This work is more preoccupied with describing a woman’s
beauty than it is with concrete political or theological issues of Islamic history.
That Karbala was placed firmly within the unfolding struggle over a woman’s
love in Nausarhār should tell us something about the ease with which narrative
license was exercised in fashioning this symbol. Although many Shias take
umbrage at the thought that Karbala was actually a battle over a woman, the
liberal narrative licenses that finesse discussions of Karbala in works like the
Nausarhār also shape the discourses of the Shii majlis, to which I now turn.
Before parsing the majlis context, which manifests itself in diversified
modes throughout South Asia, it is helpul to highlight the formative stages
through which the majlis audiences pass. The audience usually sits on the
floor during the first part of the majlis and remains standing during the second
part. The first part begins with a call for blessings upon the Prophet Muham-
mad and his progeny, then the majlis proceeds to a short elegiac recitation
called soz, then to a longer nonlinear monorhymed narrative called the salām,
which leads the majlis attendees to a much longer linear narrative, the marsiya.
The first part comes to a close with the only prose narrative of the Karbala
tragedy, the żikr, also known as bayān or hfi adı̄ṡ. The second part begins with
the attendees rhythmically beating their breasts as a sign of lamentation, while
they hear more versified recitations in the dirge (nauhfi a) form of the calamities
that befell the Prophet’s family. The second part draws to a close with a reci-
tation of the ziyarat, a blessing in which the right index finger is used in
“salutation” or tribute to the martyrs of Karbala, the Shii Imams, and other
members of the Prophet’s family. With this summary of the stages of the majlis
outlined, I move on to discuss the structure and content in more detail.
Sfi alavāt: The Introduction to the Majlis
The majlis begins with a sfialavāt, or durūd, a call for blessings upon Muhammad
and the progeny of Muhammad: “O God, bless Muhammad and the progeny
of Muhammad.” The epistemological claim for such a pronouncement is
rooted in the Quran and the Prophetic tradition, or hadis. The Quran (33:56)
commands believing Muslims to send their salutations upon the Prophet Mu-
hammad, since God and all of God’s angels do the same.22 In addition to being
the invocation with which all the majlises begin and end, these words are
invoked, at times by way of praise, whenever the merits (fazfi āil) of the Prophet’s
household are recounted. This invocation at the beginning of the majlis re-
mains, in many ways, the creed of the majlis for it evokes devotion in the
audiences for the duration of the commemorative gathering.
Segment 1 of the Majlis: The Soz
Having set the mood by tapping into the devotional energy of the audience,
the salavat reciter can move on to the soz, literally “burning,” a type of lam-
entation poetry without stringent or consistent rules of content or form. The
soz is recited23 in a melodic tune (lahfi n). It usually comprises the recitation of
a rubāı̄ (quatrain), a mukfi hammas (a five-line stanza), or a musaddas (a six-line
stanza) that concisely expresses one of the topics of the majlis:
The Kaba testifies, faith’s direction of worship is Husain
The Quran that the Prophet committed to memory was none other
than Husain
Husain, the remedy for every cureless pain
Husain, the resplendent star in the constellation of nobility
His manifestation illuminates both heaven and earth
His light created from the light of the Creator24
24 reliving karbala
The author expresses Husain’s position in this soz: The Kaba, that holiest
of Muslim sanctuaries in Mecca, which is also the qiblah (direction of worship)
for a billion Muslims, testifies that its own significance is synonymous to that
of Husain. Furthermore, the Word of God revealed to the Prophet in the form
of the Quran, and the spirit which the Prophet understood best, is also naught
but Husain. The reference to the Quran is particularly significant in this con-
text; it is more than the concrete, written text that is sold in stores and kept on
bookshelves. It is said that at the Battle of Siffin, when Muawiya, Yazid’s father
and the archenemy of Husain’s father, Ali, commanded his forces to raise
leaves of the Quran on their lances,25 Ali commanded his troops to keep fight-
ing, declaring, “I am the speaking Quran.”26 As Ali’s son and successor as
Imam, Husain had equal claim to be “the speaking Quran,” equal claim to
formulate a hermeneutics (tāwı̄l) that transcends the written word and accom-
modates the allegorical and the metaphysical. After all, the Prophet himself
had declared in a famous tradition that the two legacies he leaves behind, the
Quran and his progeny, would never be separated until they met him in Par-
adise at the fountain of Kawṡar, a much-coveted spot in heaven.27
In addition, the poet tells his audience that two of the most sacred religious
symbols for Muslims, the Kaba and the Quran, are defined by Husain. With
such attributes, Husain becomes the antidote for all maladies. He not only
dwells on God’s earth in the form of the Quran and the Kaba, but is also the
best of luminaries in heaven. His light holds sway over the heavens and the
earth, for he is a part of the divine light. This soz lays down the Shii ontology
of Husain, who is first and foremost an Imam. Imams within this tradition
are created from the divine light. Immune from sin (masfiūm), they are suffer-
ers, oppressed, wronged (maz3lūm). All good flows from them, and they are
untouched by evil. Along with these qualities, Husain, for his devotees, is also
surrounded by a halo of miraculous lore. For example, at Husain’s birth, God
is said to have sent a band of angels to congratulate the Prophet. While soaring
through the skies, these angels saw the angel, Futrus, who had fallen from
God’s favor and was expelled from Paradise. Futrus desired to accompany these
angels to the Prophet’s house, and the other angels agreed. Upon arriving at
the cradle of the young Imam Husain, Futrus touched the infant so as to be
blessed by him. Consequently, the angel’s wings, which had fallen off as a sign
of God’s curse, were miraculously restored, as was his angelic status. Such
stories, wherein God’s angels, as well as prophets, are devotees of the Imam
Husain, abound in Shii traditions.28 When such supernatural attributions to
Husain and other Shii Imams first emerged, however, is still hotly debated
among scholars. While some historians of Shiism encourage the idea that such
attributions were present in Shii lore from the very beginning of this move-
ment,29 other scholars question this and contend that only later developments
(almost two centuries after the event of Karbala) within and around Shiism
produced such traditions about the Imams’ supernatural powers.30
In the South Asian majlis context, however, the battle of Karbala is, first
and foremost, the righteous struggle (jihad) of the most perfect of God’s cre-
ation, the object of veneration for angels and prophets, the Imam Husain. In
this context, as the above soz indicated, Husain is the manifestation of all
perfections and virtues, the protagonist-hero of Karbala.31 As far as the afflic-
tions that befell him, Husain could have easily averted them, but refrained
from such an action, lest the childhood promise (ahd-e 3iflı̄)
t he made to the
Prophet would be violated: The promise that Husain and his family would
suffer in order to save the religion of Muhammad and set an example for
subsequent generations of Muslims. Karbala, in this sense, becomes the ful-
fillment of a promise (ı̄fā-e ahad.)32 Usually one person recites the soz and a
few others provide its droning baseline.
Segment 2 of the Majlis: The Salam
The soz is followed by a salam (salutation/benediction), a lyrical elegy wherein

scattered descriptions of the Karbala event are strung together with random
thoughts about life, death, and pilgrimage. Each couplet of the salam is self-
sufficient; it contains a complete idea and does not rely on the couplet preced-
ing or following it. The only unifying factor in the salam, as in the ghazal, is
the monorhymed scheme (aa, ba, ca . . . ). In many salams, structural aspects
of the ghazal stand out, as do the intertextual proliferation of ghazal imagery—
the imagery that echoes through classical works of martyrology, such as the
Rawzfi at al-Shuhadā:
The thread of love is extremely delicate
So why do those who realize this drag me into it?
The rose that the nightingale once protected even from the wind
Now endures the cruelty of autumn
In order to lighten the load of the grandfather’s community,
He [Husain] pulls a heavy burden in old age33
The first couplet from this salam, composed by one of the finest elegy writers
of nineteenth-century India, Mir Anis, could pass for couplets of a ghazal in
its notions of love and the playful language through which the lover complains
of being pulled into the fragile bonds of the beloved’s affections. Following a
similar theme—although it is not required to do so—the second couplet brings
out the twists and turns of fate that prove deadly for the beloved rose, ever
protected and loved by its faithful nightingale.34 In the ghazal world, the rose
frequently stands for the beloved and the nightingale symbolizes the lover.
The third couplet clearly draws out the connection between the Imam
Husain in Karbala (fighting to preserve the integrity of his grandfather’s com-
munity) and the rose protected by its nightingale (the Prophet). This ability of
the salam to intertextually accommodate a number of themes makes it one of
the most popular genres through which devotees of the Imam Husain, whether
Shia, Sunni, or even non-Muslim, pay tribute to the martyred Imam and his
companions. In fact, one of the most popular salams recited in Hyderabad is
the one written by the sixth Asif Jahi ruler, a Sunni, Mehboob Ali Khan (d.
1911), who used the pen name “Asif ”:
26 reliving karbala
Greetings to he whose name is Husain

May I be his ransom!
My helper, my master, my Imam Husain
The zephyr carries my prayers to his shrine
Oh God! May Husain accept my greetings
Alas! Not a single stone-hearted fiend heard
The plea that was made a hundred thousand times
“I am the Prophet’s grandson, my name is Husain!”
I have but one desire, O Asif
That I may become the slave of Husain.35
A ruler desiring the privilege of serving Husain—this has also been a common
trope in the poetry that honors the Prophet (nat). Moreover, within the nat
tradition, as within the salam tradition, the sfiabā, that gentle breeze (zephyr)
blowing from the east, is accorded the status of a messenger carrying the
heartfelt devotion and prayers of the devotees living far away in the subconti-
nent. How could these devotees forget Uwais al-Qarani, a Yemeni contempo-
rary of the Prophet, whose luck did not bear the fruit of the Prophet’s vision
but who nevertheless conveyed his affection to the Messenger of God through
the breeze saba? The Prophet, without meeting Uwais in person, communi-
cated with his Yemeni devotee, just as Mehboob Ali Khan hopes the Imam
Husain will communicate with him. A salam can be recited as a solo, or by a
chorus; or a solo line can be followed by a line in which the chorus joins.
Segment 3 of the Majlis: The Marsiya
While the salam situates Karbala in the broader context of life, the marsiya,
usually recited in the majlis after the salam, is a more tightly woven, more
linear, and longer elegy. The marsiya deals with a specific topic, either the death
of a particular character from the Imam’s side or a specific sorrowful event,
like the parting conversation between the Imam Husain and his young daugh-
ter Sakina:
In the event that I do not return at eventide
It is because I have had to go far away
If you love me, do not cry little one
Tonight you will experience the first moments of separation from
your father
Lay your head meekly on mother’s breast and go to sleep
The days of contentment have passed
How the season has changed!
Now you will have to live as an orphan
Thirsty, her tiny hands folded, she asked
“Tell me, what is an orphan?”
Weeping tears of blood, the Imam said
By evening you will know all about this pain and sorrow
Hush little one, ask not, for this is a mighty calamity

An orphan is a child whose father has died36
In these lines we see the avowedly human side of the Imam highlighted by his
paternal words. It is as though the human aspect of the Imam is deeply em-
bedded in his superhuman self. The more abstract ideals of Karbala are, at
least for a moment, subsumed in a talk between a father and his daughter.
Even when Husain emerges as the loftiest of God’s creation because of his
strength to defend Islam, he is still the most caring of fathers, the most loving
of brothers, the most conscientious of husbands, and the most forgiving of
believers. Aesthetically, there is also a beautiful tajnı̄s (word play) at work: The
word shām, translated here as “evening,” also means “Syria” and thus predicts
the terrible suffering that the Imam’s little daughter will have to undergo upon
reaching the tyrant Yazid’s capital in that land.
In one of his marsiyas, Mirza Dabir (d. 1875) reflects upon the forgiving
side of the Imam by recounting an incident that took place during the time of
the caliphate of Husain’s father, Ali b. Abi Talib. At that time Shimr, who
eventually cut off Husain’s head in Karbala, was imprisoned in Kufa, Ali’s
capital, for commiting a crime. As Husain passed by the prison, Shimr called
out to Husain. He asked Husain to intercede on his behalf for Ali’s forgiveness,
and assure his freedom. Husain first asked Shimr if he had substantial food,
water, light, and air in the prison. Upon being reassured by Shimr of the
relative comfort that the latter had in prison, Husain then asked his father to
forgive Shimr. Ali, as the Imam of the time, had foreknowledge about Shimr’s
forthcoming crimes against Husain. The following marsiya stanzas are a ver-
sified account of the conversation between Ali and Husain:
Ali said, “This prisoner will be your murderer!”
Husain replied, “If this be fated by God, then we have no say in it
Though he may be my murderer, I approve his release
I’ll act as is my nature
Neither do I begrudge an enemy, nor do I despise a murderer
My heart is like a clean mirror to all.”
Ali said, “That he will abuse you is certain.”
Husain replied, “So let him.”
Ali said, “He’ll stab you in the heart.”
Ali said, “He will make you mourn for Ali Akbar.”
Weeping, Ali said, “He’ll burn this house down.”
Ali said, “Since the beginning of time, oppression has been his lot.”
Husain responded, “[But] Mercy and forgiveness have been ours.”37
Husain proceeds to defend the merits of such grace and mercy, in spite
of his father’s admonitions that releasing Shimr would cause Husain and his
family great suffering in the future:
28 reliving karbala
An ocean washes away blackness

The people of mercy are those who forgive sins38
Within the text of this marsiya, Shimr is released, and all of Husain’s followers
are reassured of the oppressed Imam’s intercession on their behalf on the Day
of Judgment. If Husain treated his enemies with such goodwill, then surely
he would plead for the forgiveness of his devotees. Flowing from many mar-
siyas are the ethics (akfi hlāq) of forgiveness and the etiquette (adab) of compas-
sion. Also, words of reverence for Husain’s noble ancestry and panegyrics for
his piety almost always lace these texts. Although the marsiya is usually recited
in tune, at times it is also read as tahfi t al-lafz3, without melodic tunes. Many of
the marsiyas are, like the sozes, set to classical Indian melodies, or rāgās thus
creating an aesthetic fusion of music and poetry written in the martyrs’ honor.39
In the marsiya tradition, we also see how social and political contexts, with
their prodigious capacity to generate insightful and creative imaginations, fur-
nish a number of elaborations that depict the event of Karbala in indigenous
South Asian imagery. Perhaps the major theme that emerges from such de-
pictions is a validation and ratification of life-affirming rituals, established so-
cial norms, and rites of passage. By ascribing the rituals of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century India to the seventh-century heroes of Karbala, the marsiya
writers demarcate India and its culture as morally legitimate. At times, these
poets use amusing anachronisms in their attempts to show the Islamic basis
of certain rituals. The finest panegyrist and satirist ever to write in Urdu, Mirza
Muhammad Rafi Sauda (d. 1780 c.e.), left a mark upon the genre of marsiya
by saturating it with local ceremonial and cultural idioms. When reading
Sauda’s marsiyas, it is difficult to conceive that the stories concern Arabs or
Islamic theology; they are more like family dramas that capture the mundane
elements of marriage and death rites, never daring to wish away social hier-
archies of eighteenth-century North Indian elite lives.
It is the wedding of Husain’s daughter, Fatima Kubra, and Hasan’s son,
Qasim, moments before the battle of Karbala, that gave the tragedy character-
istics of an ill-fated romance in Sauda’s marsiyas. Even though this wedding
narrative most likely did not appear in Arabic or Persian sources prior to Kash-
ifi’s rendering of it in Rawzfi at al-Shuhadā (almost eight centuries after the event
of Karbala), in South Asia, Qasim’s wedding holds tremendous popular cur-
rency. Sauda embellishes his marsiyas by depicting the wedding of Qasim in
terms of North Indian weddings. The texts of the wedding scene and rituals
are all incorporated into the Karbala narrative. These rituals include the sehra
(the veil of flowers that the groom and the bride wear on their wedding day),
the ārsı̄ musfihfi af (the ritual of the “mirror and book” through which the bride
and the groom cast glances at each other through a mirror placed on the
Quran),40 and the demand for nēg (money given by the groom to his sister
before he approaches his bride). Furthermore, Sauda’s use of lagan (the bronze
or copper pan used for cooking sweet rice before a wedding), naubat (the music
played during cheerful ceremonies), lighting of the houses, traditional color-
play prior to a wedding, and the sāchaq (the ceremony before a wedding
wherein the groom’s family brings gifts, including the wedding garments, for
the bride) give the seventh-century wedding of Karbala a subcontinental flavor.
Sauda also incorporates the beliefs and superstitions prevalent in his day
about widowhood:
The mother of [Qasim’s] bride would lament and say:

The gossip of our acquaintances is even harder to bear
Than my daughter’s widowhood
They claim the bride’s feet were inauspicious for the groom . . .
“The bride’s countenance turned out to be inauspicious for the groom
The vision of her face, in arsi mushaf set his destiny for heaven . . . ”
Some will say “So strange is the bride’s fortune
She was called a widow as soon as she got married”
How can I look the groom’s mother in the face
When this wedding has taken the apple of her eye?41
Sauda discusses the mother of Qasim’s bride as if she were a North Indian
woman, overpowered by pangs of remorse, concerned with the reputation of
her family after the doomed wedding of her daughter, and embarrassed to be
culpable for her son-in-law’s death.
Sauda wrote in a literary milieu in which the liberal Urdu rendition of
Rawzfi at al-Shuhadā, Fazal Ali Fazli’s Karbal Kathā, which was one of the earliest
prose works of North Indian Urdu (compiled around 1756 c.e.), privileges the
pain and suffering of Muslim widowhood over Hindu widowhood.
Widows who commit sati burn to death on the pyre

but this is falsehood, not truth—indeed, it is infidelity!
truth is that by which we are burned42
In Fazli’s verses, Muslim women endured far greater hardships leading a

widow’s life than did many of their Hindu counterparts whose life simply came
to an end.43 The practice of sati, or widow-burning, as Lata Mani states, was a
“predominantly upper-caste Hindu practice” that was by no means the fate of
all Hindu widows. The scriptural basis for this practice was and still is open
to debate. The position from which Fazli assesses the institution of sati, how-
ever, is that of a Muslim man, who sees sati as a badge of honor for a reified/
idealized Hindu woman. By throwing herself on her husband’s funeral pyre,
this Hindu woman lives up to the highest ideals of a self-sacrificing wife. Since
sati is not a practice endorsed by Islam, how is the Muslim widow to show
fidelity to her husband? She must prove to the world that she can endure as
much suffering in life as a Hindu woman endures in the process of ending
her life. But what does Fazli conclude of the Hindu woman who does not go
through sati? Is her suffering, and the abuses to which she is frequently sub-
jected in the Indian subcontinent, any different from those of her Muslim
counterpart? Although we do not have an answer from Fazli, as Lata Mani has
pointed out in her excellent work dealing with this practice, the voices of wid-
30 reliving karbala
ows/women are not heard in this discourse of honor and sacrifice. These dis-
courses give men the advantage of capturing the sacrificial moral high ground
for their women, at the expense of any real concern for those who live the lives
of widows or those who are fated to die as its consequence.
The stigma attached to widowhood and widow remarriage in parts of India
was much greater than in the Arab world. The Prophet himself married several
widows and early Islamic discourses reflect no protest whatsoever against such
a practice. But in Sauda’s Karbala narrative, as in Fazli’s, South Asian norms
and taboos hold the literary field. Although Urdu literature has, historically,
shown extensive kinship with its Persian and Arabic counterparts, when we
look at the works of the likes of Fazli and Sauda, we are also bound to acknowl-
edge their somewhat maverick use of symbols as influenced by their environs
on the subcontinent. Such usages were especially encouraged by the rulers of
the North Indian state of Awadh.
Awadh and the Evolution of the Marsiya Tradition
With the advent of the eighteenth century, Mughal rule became increasingly
weak and decentralized, and there emerged a number of successor states that
quickly gained considerable autonomy. For our purposes, the successor state
of Awadh and its power center, the city of Lucknow, are the most important
for it was here that the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century marsiya genre blos-
somed in its finest forms. The rulers of Awadh, from Burhanul Mulk (d. 1739
c.e.) onwards, energetically advocated the privileged position of Ali and his
progeny in Islamic culture. Shii luminaries from Iran gravitated to this region.
The rule of the Iranian Safavid dynasty was at an end, and its scholars and
artists had migrated in search of patronage. As with the Iranian influx into the
Deccan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the arrival of these Iranians,
too, was facilitated by an aristocratic attitude that ennobled the newly-arrived
Iranians. That Burhanul Mulk (the first semi-autonomous ruler of Awadh) was
himself ethnically Iranian only helped in legitimizing the privileged status of
these people.44 Two of the finest marsiya writers who received patronage from
the Awadh rulers, and without mention of whom the history of Urdu literature
simply cannot be written, are Mirza Dabir and Mir Anis.
Mirza Dabir
Mirza Dabir (1803–1875) was born in Delhi, then moved to Lucknow.45 His
teacher Mir Zamir was, according to many Urdu critics, the inventor of the
modern marsiya, in that he extended the length of the marsiyas from its orig-
inal 50 stanzas, to 58–72 stanzas.46 It was around the time of Dabir that the
marsiya developed those desirable components that enhanced its artistic status
and lent it an epic-like aura.47 The ideal marsiya opens with a chehrā, the section
that leads the reader/listener into the subject of that particular marsiya through
a verbal sketch of the description of a particular time of the day, the difficulties
of traveling in a desert, or the praise of Allah (hfi amd), Muhammad (nat), or Ali
and the Imams (manqabat). This section is followed by a mājara, an incident
that introduces the virtues of the main character of the marsiya. The sarāpā, a
vivid head-to-toe description of the main character, follows the majara. After
this description comes the narration regarding the hero’s farewell, or rukfi hsfiat,
to his relatives. Then comes the āmad, or the arrival of the hero on the battle-
field. At times, this section contains elaborate descriptions of the hero’s horse
or sword. After arriving on the battlefield, the hero himself resorts to vigorous
battle poetry (rajaz) in order to defend his valor, ancestry, and (most of all) his
reasons for the confrontation. The battle (jañg) component of the marsiya be-
gins with such a challenge. In this section the traits of the hero and his adver-
saries are polarized so as to describe the hero as a god-fearing man of courage
and his enemies as mere cowards. The heroes of the marsiyas end up killing
scores of their enemies before they themselves attain martyrdom. The hero
only “falls” at the command of Allah; for if it were left to him, he would finish
off all his adversaries. The death of the hero generates the next marsiya com-
ponent, the most heart-rending laments (bain) of the survivors, especially the
women, whom the hero left behind. After these laments, the poet ends the
marsiya with a prayer (duā) for this life (dunyā) and the hereafter (āqibat), or
for the chance to visit the shrines of the imams (ziyarat). Although many mar-
siyas share this structure, it is not essential; often, all the components up to
the bain are bypassed, if time is short. The pathos-laden (mubkı̄) components
of the marsiya are more frequently recited in the popular majlis setting than
are the epic-like elements drawn from the sarapa or rajaz.
One of Dabir’s earliest marsiyas48 explores this mubki component by un-
derscoring the psychological aspect of a character.49 The plot of this marsiya is
based on an imaginative incident in which Husain’s wife and Ali Asghar’s
mother, Shahr Bano, suffers the pangs of sorrow after the death of her six-
month-old son. As the reader/listener is lead into the marsiya, a vivid picture
of the mourning mother is painted:
Bano weeps for Asghar as night draws to a close

All God’s creatures slumber, she alone remains vigilant
She beats her head and loses all hope
What a strange sorrow this is! Can it not be consoled?
Beating her head, she swoons
As cries of “Ali Asghar! Ali Asghar!” are heard
Sometimes, she sits in a corner, covering her mouth to stifle her sobs
Sometimes she comes out into the courtyard, terrified
Clutching her womb she roams hither and thither
She searches, but where is Asghar?
Her body trembles, her face is pale
Her heart writhes in agony and pain fills her breast
Sometimes she says, “Darkness has engulfed my home
Separation from Ali Asghar has killed me
32 reliving karbala
Alas! I am at home while my dear child is in the jungle

If only death had pity there would be liberation from all of this
How long can my nights be spent in lamentation and weeping?
Oh God! May Ali Asghar remember me now”
With arms outstretched, sometimes she says, “Come my dear one!”
My soul is restive, come, O Ali Asghar, come
My heart writhes in agony, come to my embrace
For the sake of Fatima, come! For the sake of Haidar, come!
You lost your life for want of a drop of water . . .
Come embrace me my son
Extinguish the fire in my burning heart
Let your dry lips touch mine
Let me see that moon-like face of yours just one more time
Off then to heaven
Your mother will never call you back
I won’t delay you for more than a moment
I used to sing lullabies to you, O precious one
You used to lie in the cradle and laugh
You used to toddle along
Holding your shirt, I would be there for you
Alas! Fate has snatched you from your parents
It has put you to sleep in a desolated jungle50
Shahr Bano is reminded of every movement of her beloved child. She recalls
this innocent martyr’s virtues and then complains to him that he has forgotten
the one who nurtured him. However, she reminds herself that she fell short
in serving her son. She neither celebrated his birthday, nor saw him grow
beyond infancy.
Even today this is one of the most common elegies recited throughout the
Muharram season. The images it evokes of a helpless mother’s laments in the
wake of her tender son’s death are ideal for any commemorative gathering
held for the purpose of weeping. At the same time, such an elegy reflects the
degree to which the marsiya writers use their own imaginative license to evoke
various events associated with Karbala. That the Imam’s infant child was mur-
dered mercilessly in the arms of the father is a story passed down for centuries.
It is the elegy writer’s prerogative to imaginatively render the mother’s suffer-
ing into verse. The poignancy of martyrdom within these verses is not couched
in sophisticated theological language; it is expressed by evoking the toil and
tears of those left behind, through lullabies that become nemeses.
Dabir did this masterfully, and his virtuosity is mainly reflected in the way
he conveys human emotions. Such a deployment of language and emotions,
however, was not always favorably received. For example, Muhammad Sadiq,
a much-quoted historian-critic of Urdu literature, claims that the marsiyas of
Dabir and his ilk abrogate the lofty status of the Prophet’s family, while inflict-
ing on the reader-listener unrealistic, unfair, and contrived language:
By assigning such a large place to pathos the poets as well as their

readers and listeners appear to have overlooked a very important
fact, namely, that if the characters are made to wallow in distress,
they will come perilously close to losing their dignity, and therefore
forfeit the readers’ respect.51
Far from “forfeiting the readers’ respect,” the admiration that devotees of the
Imam Husain and many students of Urdu literature have for Dabir’s poetry
undermines Sadiq’s assessment of the Urdu marsiya. The marsiya cited above,
like the elegiac verses of Sauda, participates in the cultural currents of
nineteenth-century South Asia that in turn play their part in creating a partic-
ular aesthetic—one that deliberately undermines the Hindu-Muslim divisions
within society. This genre helped to secure a transcommunal, religiously cos-
mopolitan spirit by downplaying the Muslimness/Shiiness of the Karbala he-
roes. The pliable marsiya narratives of nineteenth-century North India are by
and large about topics to which all members of the city, Hindu or Muslim, can
relate. Marsiyas were crafted to convey an aura of devotion that accommodates
the human, as well as the superhuman, side of the martyrs of Karbala, much
as Hindu devotional traditions (bhakti) include popularly-crafted loving verses
for Krishna, a manifestation of the Divine. It was for this reason, perhaps, that
many Hindus, too, were drawn to marsiya writing. In fact, Mirza Dabir pro-
vided guidance in marsiya writing to several Hindu students of this art, and
Dabir’s contemporary and rival Mir Anis applauded two verses of a certain
Hindu writer as equal to his own entire poetic corpus.52 The religiously cos-
mopolitan culture of Dabir’s larger world is reflected by the fine historian of
Lucknow, Juan Cole: “Syncretism and cultural intermediaries, such as readers
of elegiac poetry, helped create a Shii tinged traditional culture in a society
where, among the popular classes, religious communal identity was still weak
or at least not exclusivist in tone.”53
Mir Anis
Any discussion of Dabir in South Asia is usually accompanied by comparisons

between him and his chief rival, Mir Anis. Mir Anis’s masterfully crafted ele-
gies earned the marsiya Graham Bailie’s accolade as “the highest form of Urdu
poetry.”54 Anis came from an artistic family recognized for its sophisticated
use of the language. Anis first entered the world of poetry by composing gha-
zals.55 Although we have too few samples to pass judgment on his ghazals,
they do contain couplets that show an acute sensibility to diction and nāzuk
kfi hayālı̄, or the “delicacy of thought:”
miṡāl-e māhı̄-e be āb mauj tarfipā kı̄
hfi abāb phūtfi ke roe jo tum nahā ke chale
The waves writhed like a fish out of water
And the droplets burst into tears
When you left after bathing
34 reliving karbala
Not the least of the virtuosity of this couplet is that it conveys the imagery of
separation through nuanced water imagery. The writhing of a fish pulled out
of water is compared to the restless, fluttering oceanic waves that also seem to
have been separated from their source—in the same way that water droplets
“burst into tears” as the body is dried after a bath. This couplet is a good
example of the much-favored rhetorical device in Perso-Urdu poetry, the hfi usn-
e ta lı̄l, or “poetical etiology,” through which the poet provides a fantastic cause
for an otherwise routine event.56 These techniques of ghazal delicacy that Anis
mastered early in his life undoubtedly helped him in his later marsiya writings.
Here Anis describes the arrival of the Imam’s horse, with the most innovative
metaphors:
āmad faras kı̄ thı̄ dulhan ātı̄ hai jis 3tarahfi
tham tham ke nakhat-e chaman ātı̄ hai jis 3arah t fi
tasfi vı̄r-e āhū-e kfi hutan ātı̄ hai jis 3tarahfi
yā shama sū-e anjuman ātı̄ hai jis 3tarahfi
bāham 3ayūr
t kahte the kabk-e darı̄ hai yeh
ghorfie chiraġh pā the ke beshak parı̄ hai yeh57
The mount’s advent resembled that of a bride in all her splendor
Like the gentle blowing of the garden’s fragrant breeze
Like the portrait of the gazelle of Cathay
Or perhaps like the candle as it moves towards the assembly
In unison the birds twitter, “Certainly, this is the graceful Greek
partridge”
And the horses rear back, neighing, “Doubtless, this is a fairy!”
Lest there be any doubt regarding the prowess of such a horse on the battlefield,
Anis amplifies the majesty of the horse through a new set of metaphors in
another marsiya:
haiñ yāl ke bāl aise ke sharmiñda ho sañbul
hamsar na ho kākul se kabhı̄ hfi ūr kı̄ kākul
asvār hai is kā pisar-e sfi āhfi ib-e duldul
kahı̄e jo malak is ko nahı̄ñ jāe taāmmul
hai dosh-e Muhfi ammad kā makı̄ñ kfi hāna-e zı̄ñ par
is nāz se rakhta nahı̄ñ hai pāoñ zamı̄ñ par58
Its mane is such that the fragrant hyacinth would be ashamed
The houris tresses would never compare
Mounted by the son [Husain] of the Lord of Duldul [the Prophet
Muhammad]
No confusion would there be, were it said, he is an angel
Upon the saddle is he who mounted the Prophet’s back
Blessed with such an honor, the horse’s hooves scarce touch the
ground!
The horse, in all its majesty and grace, is compared to the heavenly houri
promised to pious Muslim men in the afterlife. The mane of the Imam’s horse
is similar to the fragrant plant, sanbul, to which the beloved of the ghazal is
frequently compared. The overall beauty of the horse’s mane is such that even
the houris’ tresses cannot rival it.
Does the horse not also have the privilege of being ridden by Husain, who
had the honor of riding on the shoulders of the Prophet? Anis is alluding to
the origins of one of the Imam Husain’s very common epithets, rākib-e dosh-
e nabı̄, or the Rider of the Prophet’s Shoulders. Tradition has it that the Imam
Husain, as a small child, used to ride on the Prophet’s back. One time he even
climbed the Prophet’s back while the Prophet was prostrate in prayer. The
Prophet so loved Husain that he did not rise from his position as long as
Husain stayed on his back. The Prophet also pretended to be a camel so that
both his grandsons could ride on him. He moved on his hands and knees, as
the boys not only rode on his back but also insisted that he give them the reins.
The Prophet lovingly provided his hair on demand, and even made the sounds
of a camel.59 Devotional poets frequently edify their audiences by referring to
Husain as the son of the Lord of Duldul—Duldul being the name of the mule
that the Prophet Muhammad rode when confronting Islam’s adversaries.
Hence it is not surprising that Husain’s horse is so proud that it does not want
to step on the lowly earth. Ultimately, Anis explains the horse’s swiftness not
through any of its own virtues, but because its rider has raised it to heights
beyond imagination. In addition to the various rhetorical devices and aesthetic
accoutrements, such as the istiāra (metaphor), tashbı̄h (simile), and madhfi -e
muwajja, or implied praise (praising the horse and by implication praising its
rider), the stanzas have an amazing ravānı̄ (flow), and rabt3 (internal harmony
of diction) that render them euphonious.60
The two stanzas describing the virtues of the Imam’s horse provide us
with a good example of the ever-new elaboration of a single topic. Mir Anis
himself acknowledges his mastery in presenting incidents and tropes in in-
numerable ways:
tarı̄f meñ chashme ko samañdar se milā dūñ
qat3re ko jo dūñ āb to gauhar se milā dūñ
żarre kı̄ chamak mahr-e munavvar se milā dūñ
kfi hāroñ ko nazākat meñ gul-e tar se milā dūñ
guldasta-e manı̄ ko nae dfi hañg se bāñdhūñ
ik phūl kā mazfi mūn ho to sau rañg se bāñdhūñ61
My praise of a fountain would cause an ocean of meaning to spring
from it
I shall honor a dewdrop such that it overflows with pearls
Such shall I make an atom shine that the radiant sun rises from it
I shall bestow such delicacy upon the thorn that the rose will seek
refuge in it
In ever new styles shall I arrange the bouquet of meanings
If the subject is a flower, I would paint it a hundred hues!
Such imagery might seem irrelevant to a discussion of the marsiya, yet, it is
important because of the degree to which the ghazal imagery figures into
36 reliving karbala
Anis’ and Dabir’s elegiac poetry and colors the Karbala narrative that they
present.62
In addition to the ghazal imagery, the marsiyas of Anis and Dabir also tap
the literary energy of their times that flowed through the popular Persian epic
tradition, most notably through Abul Qasim Firdawsi’s Shāhnāma, or, Book of
Kings. The Shāhnāma, which was completed in 1010 c.e., had a strong cultural
influence both in Iran and in those regions that have been influenced by Per-
sian cultural traditions. The story of larger-than-life kings and heroes of Persia,
most notable of whom is Rustam, is told against the background of the leg-
endary Iranian-Turanian conflict. When versifying the battle of Karbala, ref-
erences to the heroes and other characters of the Shāhnāma were ubiquitous
in North India. For example, the name that the marsiya poets give to the horse
of the Imam Husain’s son (Ali Akbar) is the name of Rustam’s horse—Rakhsh,
meaning lightning or rainbow.63 As Shibli Numani has shown in his monu-
mental study of the marsiya tradition, when reading about the heroes and
battles of (seventh-century) Karbala, a reader familiar with the Shāhnāma can-
not miss the allusions to, and influence of, the eleventh-century Perisan epic.64
The Urdu marsiya writers were heir to Persian literary traditions; and these
traditions, whether in the ghazal mode or in their epic form, provided ever-
new aspects to the images of Karbala that were projected in the nineteenth
century.
Anis and Dabir: Two of a Kind
Anis and Dabir not only used the tropes, similes, and rhetorical devices of the
ghazal, qasfiı̄da, and various other popular genres of the time, but also engaged
in an agon-like contest wherein each vied to surpass the other in the art of the
marsiya. With the late nineteenth-century canon formation of Urdu literary
history, which was heavily influenced by Muhammad Husain Azad’s Āb-e
Hfi ayāt (Water of Life, first published in 1880), a discussion of the Anis-Dabir
rivalry became commonplace in most histories and criticism of the Urdu mar-
siya. The invocation of this rivalry is a paean to the fertile and pluralistic literary
landscape of Lucknow that nurtured commemorations of Karbala, and to the
narratives of Karbala that proceed along diverse trajectories. Many historians
of Urdu literature see the versification of Karbala during this period as a prod-
uct of the Anis-Dabir competitive spirit. These historians tell us that both Anis
and Dabir desired recognition as marsiya writers in their own right and su-
perior to the other. Dabir was an established marsiya writer in Lucknow before
Anis. The competitive rivalry, also discussed with much delight in Shii literary
circles, began when Anis moved to Lucknow from Faizabad, once the cultural
center and capital of the rulers of Awadh. The entire city was split into two
camps: the party of Anis, or the Anı̄siye and the party of Dabir, or the Dabı̄riye.
Each master wrote in response to the other. For example, they envisioned the
last sentiments, humility, and prayers of the Imam Husain in different ways.
Mirza Dabir voices one of the sections of the Imam’s prayers:
peshkash lāsha-e Asfi ġhar hı̄ bhalā lāe H fi usain

hāth kfi hālı̄ tere darbār meñ kyā āe H
fi usain
How can Husain bring only Asghar’s corpse as a gift?
Yet how can Husain enter Your court empty-handed?
Anis echoes similar sentiments with different inflections:
koı̄ hadı̄ya tere lāiq nahı̄ñ pātā hai Hfi usain
hāth kfi hālı̄ tere darbār meñ ātā hai Hfi usain65
Husain finds no gift worthy of You
Thus he enters Your court empty-handed
Both poets describe the humility with which the Imam approaches the court
of the Almighty through martyrdom. According to Dabir, even the Imam’s
most painful sacrifice, that of his six-month-old son Ali Asghar, is reluctantly
presented by the Imam to Allah just so that he does not have to enter the court
of the king of both worlds empty-handed. But Anis’s Husain is unable to find
a single suitable gift. In spite of his numerous sacrifices, the Imam feels so
indebted to Allah that he cannot conceive of an appropriate gift for the Lord.
The Husain of Anis competes with the Husain of Dabir, vying to find the most
appropriate gift for the Almighty. This example shows us how elegy composers
availed themselves of not only the ghazal vocabulary but also of principles such
as intertextual theme creation and refashioning (mazfi mūn āfirı̄nı̄ ), a cherished
aesthetic convention that enriches the ghazal universe.66 Although the themes
(mazfi mūns) of both couplets cited above are similar (gift-giving and humility),
the two poets tread the poetic landscape with different styles. Whereas Dabir’s
couplet serves to underscore the insignificance/smallness of the gift with
which Husain enters the Divine court, thereby demonstrating the Imam’s mag-
nanimity, Anis’s couplet marvels at Husain’s graciousness even further.
When reading such verses, one must take into account how the discourses
of Karbala were modeled on and sustained by Indian court rituals that required
those entering the ruler’s court as official guests or visitors to present a gift,
nażar, for the ruler.67 One might also speculate that such religiously-charged
descriptions of the court rituals, or the courtly descriptions of religious events,
served to legitimize the ruling authority of the rulers/patrons and, by extension,
legitimized the authority of God. The agon between Dabir and Anis, far from
concerning the merits of the Imam Husain or the rulership of God, must also
be viewed as a ritual that affirmed the courtly status quo.
Literary and popular lore has it that there were also occasions when the
literary agon between Anis and Dabir degenerated into poetic duels wherein
the subject was no longer the Imam or Karbala but sirqah, or plagiarism. Dabir
proclaims his own undisputed authority:
Don’t decree that the thieves of topics be forbidden to go about their
jobs
You are the mujtahid of poetry
It is their duty to emulate you68
38 reliving karbala
Many Shias believe that the guidance of a high religious authority (mujtahid)
is essential in spiritual and worldly matters; Dabir considers himself worthy
of the same authority in the realm of poetry and playfully ennobles the imi-
tators of his poetry by calling them his followers. Anis, too, complains against
the thieves of his poetry:
Has the wealth of talent ever been safe from thieves?

When they can escape watchful eyes they take it and flee
Deliverance from thieves of topics is impossible
It’s true! Has sugar ever been safe from flies?69
This rivalry only helped in the advancement of the marsiya genre, since it
forced both Anis and Dabir not only to respond to each other poetically, but
also to try their hands at superseding each other’s craft of language. As Masud
Hasan Rizvi writes in his Urdu critical work:
These literary fields of battle, day in and day out, only enhanced the
knowledge of the people by lifting their poetic sensibilities and
awakening their critical consciousness. The literary expanse of Luck-
now was never so lofty as it was during the time of Anis and Da-
bir.70
The Art of Marsiya Recitation
The tremendous duo of Mir Anis and Mirza Dabir built their legacy on the
strength of their compositions, though we must not underestimate their appeal
as orators. As Naiyar Masud illustrates so well in his book Marṡiya Kfi hwānı̄ kā
Fan (The Art of Marsiya Recitation), the delivery of a marsiya is almost as im-
portant as its writing. Once Anis asked his young grandson if he wanted to be
a marsiya reciter; when the grandson replied in the affirmative, Anis told him
that he would have to learn the language of women and animals to be an
effective marsiya reciter.71 The marsiya reciters of this time had to take on the
persona of the different characters present in the marsiya. They had to effec-
tively play the roles of these characters, and thus in some ways partake in the
Karbala tragedy, while not completely effacing their own personality.72 This was
a delicate balance to maintain. It was as though the marsiya reciters had to act
without becoming “actors.” While actors dress and act the parts of their char-
acters, the marsiya reciters perform using only changes in mannerisms, facial
expressions, and bodily gestures. A male marsiya reciter cannot, for example,
produce a feminine voice or don a woman’s garb when narrating a woman’s
lines, lest he become a jester.73
Naiyar Masud also points out that at times, in order to understand all the
nuances of a marsiya, it is not enough to read or hear it; rather, one must
actually see the marsiya reciter performing. Once Mir Anis recited this quatrain
from the pulpit:
pı̄rı̄ āı̄ iżār be nūr hūe

yārān-e shabāb pās se dūr hūe
lāzim hai kafan kı̄ yād har vaqt Anı̄s
jo mushk se bāl the kāfūr hūe74
old age has arrived, the countenance has lost its glow
the friends of youth, once close, have departed
Anis! Remembering the shroud is incumbent at every moment
hair that was black as musk has turned white as camphor
This of course is a meditative quatrain announcing the advent of old age and
the departure of youth. A layperson might interpret the second line to mean
that with the passage of time, many a friend of youth has been lost to death.
However, when Anis recited this line, he pointed to his teeth. Since the teeth
also become victims of old age, and in keeping with his physical imagery, we
understand that Anis is describing the teeth through the metaphor of “friends
of youth” from whom the poet/reciter has been parted.75 With this example,
Masud explains that there are images used by Mir Anis and others like him that
can no longer be retrieved, for they were contingent not upon the literary/writ-
ten aspect of the work but on its presentation in the marsiya performance. It
is helpful to see the written narratives of Karbala as part of a dialogic relation-
ship with the performative elements, since many of the written texts became
effective through the performance. In view of the significance of dramatic and
theatrical traditions in Lucknow under the patronage of the ruling authorities
of the time, we can even see a continuum between the marsiya tradition and
the theater culture: Marsiyas at times constituted the visualized evocation of
Karbala—perhaps in a way similar to that of the taziyeh (passion play) in Iran.
Although it is close in spirit to the Iranian taziyeh, unlike the Iranian Muhar-
ram plays, in which Husain’s devotees act out events from the Karbala story
using props and sets, marsiya reciters in the subcontinent perform Karbala us-
ing hand gestures and voice intonations. Since many Muslims in the subcon-
tinent perceived theater as trivial entertainment, they exercised a certain cau-
tion to ensure that the majlis did not become ‘merely’ a theatrical performance.
During the 1850s, the British annexed the region of Awadh, and the Shii
ruling powers that had promoted particular aesthetics tied to the event of Kar-
bala collapsed. Patronage of marsiya writers and reciters declined as Urdu itself
became distinctly tied to the Muslim community.76 With the nineteenth cen-
tury drawing to a close, the marsiya tradition was also burdened by an increas-
ingly rigid religious exclusivism; the Shii majlis ceased to provide an adequate
forum for shared cultural discourses. The practical effect of this exclusivism
was the stronger identification of the marsiya tradition with the Shii commu-
nity. The Shii community felt that its Islamic credentials were on the defensive
because of its minority status (not even 5 percent of the total population of
Lucknow in the mid-1800s)77 and the challenges of the Sunni religious au-
thorities. Consequently, Shias acclimatized the majlis gatherings to the emerg-
ing polemical altercations, most of them against Sunnis. (This issue will be dis-
40 reliving karbala
cussed in more detail in chapter 3.) The tradition of żākirı̄ (sermonizing) in

the majlis gatherings developed within this context of minority identity politics
and polemics. And although the tradition of zakiri often involves prose nar-
rations of Karbala, the marsiyas of Anis and Dabir stand at the heart of it.
Rashid Turabi mastered this tradition better than any other Urdu zākir. In fact,
some of his admirers considered him naṡr ke Anı̄s, or the Anis of prose.78 A
good zakir, apart from rhetorically mastering the polemical Shii worldview, had
to abide by the parameters of the marsiya reciter. Thus it is only natural that
Rashid Turabi relied heavily upon the aesthetically cherished poetry of Mir Anis
and the performative marsiya tradition in order to be more effective.
Segment 4 of the Majlis: The Zikr
The marsiya is usually followed by zikr, or recollection—also frequently re-

ferred to as bayan, hadis, or just majlis—this is usually the only prose narrative
(although often adorned with quotations of poetry) in the ritual of majlis. The
zikr, like the marsiya, has a specific underlying moral that is conveyed by one
or two illustrations. It is divided roughly into two parts: (1) the virtues and
merits (fazail) of the Prophet’s family, including an account of why Shias, who
privilege the Prophet’s progeny through Ali and Fatima over all others, are a
legitimate sect within Islam, and (2) a narration of the hardships (masfiāib) that
afflicted the Prophet’s family members when they were safeguarding Islam.
Let us look briefly at a zikr by the late zakir Rashid Turabi. Born in 1908
in Hyderabad, Deccan, Turabi studied philosophy and Islam in Allahabad and
Lucknow in the 1930s. After returning to Hyderabad, which was one of the
largest Indian princely states, he became involved in politics grounded in the
concerns of the Muslims of the region. Turabi was of the opinion that Indian
Muslims needed their own state—a state that would guarantee protection to
those who wanted to practice Islam. When such a state was created in 1947,
after much bloodshed, Turabi decided to leave the princely state of Hyderabad
(which soon became part of India) and migrate to Pakistan. In Pakistan, Turabi
rapidly gained popularity as one of its foremost orators. His speeches were
broadcast on Radio Pakistan, once the medium became widespread in the
1960s. Such is his fame even today that a popular wall calendar published in
Hyderabad marks his death anniversary along with the death anniversaries of
other prominent members of the Prophet’s family—no one else in the past
millennium has received this honor.
Let me now turn to a zikr by Rashid Turabi. This zikr, recorded in the early
1970s from Radio Pakistan, is still listened to fondly by Urdu-speaking Shias
around the world.79 Turabi begins with the introduction (sarnāmah),80 usually
a verse from the Quran that sets the tone for the zikr by announcing its theme.
In the zikr we are discussing, the introduction is drawn from the nineteenth
sūra of the Quran (Sūrat Maryam), named after Mary, Jesus’ mother:
These are they on whom God bestowed [His] bounties, from among
the prophets of the posterity of Adam; and of those whom We did
bare with Noah, and of the posterity of Abraham and Israel, and of
those whom We did guide and We did choose; When the signs of
the Beneficent (God) were rehearsed unto them, they fell down pros-
trating and weeping.81
The rest of the zikr expands on this introduction by praising those who pros-
trated in the most exemplary manner, and lauding the sufferings they under-
went to safeguard God’s path. The topic of this zikr is thus sajda (prostration).
Turabi proceeds to his explication of the Quranic verse by attributing pros-
tration to the noblest of God’s creation: the prophets, the saints, and the gnos-
tics. The audiences are reminded that the word sajda appears in the Quran 64
times; he quotes a few of these instances. Then he articulates the philosophy
behind the prostration: it is the highest expression of worship, an act by which
the human essence is annihilated and subsistence in a higher entity is sought.
Prostration grants the human being success and victory, providing courage
that cannot be obtained otherwise. In order to strengthen his argument, Turabi
reminds his audience of a Quranic incident in which Moses is confronted by
Pharaoh’s magicians. Moses’s rod swallows all the magicians’ snakes; having
witnessed this, the magicians fall prostrate in front of the Almighty. It is the
strength of their prostration that sustains them in the face of Pharaoh. Those
who do not prostrate, within this discourse, are diabolical. After all, it was Iblis
(Satan) who refused to prostrate to Adam at God’s command, and was thrown
out of heaven as a consequence.
Turabi asserts that since Islam considers itself to be the perfection of all
other previously revealed traditions, it is up to Islam to provide the example
for prostration. This example is discussed through the verses of two prominent
poets of Urdu, Muhammad Iqbal (1873–1938) and Mir Taqi Mir (d. 1810). Both
emphasize the importance of prostration by alluding admiringly to “the one
who prostrated under the sword.” Muhammad Iqbal glorifies Husain in the
following Persian verse:
He who granted faith to the faithless

He, at whose prostrations the earth trembled
Mir Taqi Mir pays his tribute to genuine prostration in the context of the ghazal,
by distinguishing it from ritualistic prostration:
Lounging around the H fi aram [Kaba], the Shaykh prays twice the
normal time,
But were he capable of prostrating under the shadow of that sword
even once,
I would salute him82
Turabi clarifies his reason for invoking these couplets: not all prostrations are
equal. The many prostrations of a shaykh, a religious leader, for hours in the
holy shrine of Mecca are insignificant compared to that one prostration per-
formed under the sword—the latter prostration moves up from a ritual act to
42 reliving karbala
bold action. So strong is this prostration that not only does it bestow faith upon
the faithless (through example), but the very earth begins to quake in awe of
it. Turabi invokes a ghazal couplet that makes no references to Karbala in its
original context, yet conveys the historical significance of Husain’s prostration.
Thus, with Husain, we transcend a simple ritualized prostration and enter
the realm of the most demanding of prostrations—that which is performed
under the sword. Now that the virtues (fazail) of the Imam have been firmly
established by attributing to him the ideal prostration, Rashid Turabi moves
on to lament the calamities (masaib) that befell the Imam as he sought to
preserve the essence of the true prostration for eternity.
Having sustained numerous injuries, Husain fought on for his grandfa-
ther’s religion. His battle for the righteous cause was witnessed by none other
than the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima, who, in agony over her son’s suffering,
had abandoned her heavenly abode. Husain then fell into prostration and never
lifted his head again. He perfected the tradition of prostration for all eternity.
The zikr constitutes a site where Islam’s ideals are established. These zikrs are
frequently interjected with dād (praise) such as subhfi an Allāh (all praise is due
to God), beshak (no doubt), kya kehne (well said), and the most frequent one,
salavat, which generates an Allāhumma sfialli alā Muhfi ammadin wa āli Muhfi am-
mad (O God, bless Muhammad and the progeny of Muhammad).
In mourning assemblies exclusively for women, the role of the majlis re-
citer is usually reserved for a woman. These women reciters (żākiras) rely on
the conventions of liberal narrative license just as much as the male zakirs do.
The zikrs themselves, when performed by zakirs or zakiras, are mostly for-
mulaic in their linear narrative, but can be profoundly creative in their mode
of narration. Just as a ghazal poet may refashion old tropes and metaphors to
suit new rhymes, rhythms, and topics, the zakir/zakira can also underscore
particular aspects of the Karbala narrative by invoking cherished poetry (often
with no connection to Karbala or martyrdom), and using verbal dexterity. Most
Shias who attend these gatherings know by a very young age the basic frame
narratives pertaining to the tragedy of Karbala. Thus, the attendees hardly ex-
pect to learn something new about the basic Karbala narratives from the majlis.
In fact, one can argue that the majlis narratives conform to many character-
istics and roles that the Russian literary theorist Vladimir Propp associates
with folklore and fairy tales that derive their structural components from a
transregional folk register. Like a fairy tale, the Karbala story, in its various
versions, has its share of villains and heroes, helpers and dispatchers, prin-
cesses, their fathers, and false heroes.83 Like fairy tales, these narratives come
alive not so much because of what they contain but how they are told. The
majlis audiences judge the zakir/zakira by the manner in which s/he aesthet-
ically weaves stock characters and narratives into other discourses, such as that
of educating or reforming the community, or simply reinforcing the commu-
nity’s sense of its own superiority. This weaving of discourses is often dictated
by the assumptions about an “interpretive community,” the targeted audience.
Even when speaking of the Quran, some of its earliest commentators discussed
this revelation as having different levels of meanings for different people.84 The
mode in which the Quran speaks to lay members of the Muslim community
might not be the mode in which it has an appeal to God’s chosen prophets,
who would presumably read it in the light of their wisdom, knowledge, and
privileged status. When the prophets received their revelations, they commu-
nicated to their followers the spirit and philosophy behind these revelations,
according to the spiritual acumen of their followers. Similarly, the zakirs/zak-
iras must also have a good understanding of the audience: their level of edu-
cation, their socioeconomic status, their expectations from the majlis, and so
on. At times this can be a difficult undertaking.
When a well-known zakir and scholarly authority of Shiism recounted a
tradition, according to which, water (though not clean enough to drink) was
available to the Imam Husain until the morning of ashura, his audience was
outraged. The majority of Shias of the subcontinent believe that the Imam and
his companions were prevented from fetching water from the Euphrates from
the seventh of Muharram onwards. Although the aforementioned authority
discussed this tradition in passing and in the context of the Imam’s ablution,
many members of the audience were furious that the Imam’s thirst was some-
how questioned by such a reference. This mention of water was promptly
ejected from the subsequent reprints of his work.85
Another novice zakir’s words backfired when he suggested in passing that
the Imam’s brother, Abbas, leaned for support on a few shrubs in the course
of the Karbala battle. Although some audience members felt that the zakir
meant to highlight Abbas’s strategic skills, others were offended by this nar-
ration. The latter group had never heard the shrub story and felt that the zakir
was implying that the Imam’s brother was a coward—he relied on shrubs in
order to overpower his enemies. This incident gained much notoriety and
became the touchstone to challenge the zakir’s mastery of history. When I
asked a self-identified observant Shia why the shrub story mattered so much,
he replied: “The answer is simple. Bollywood [a reference to India’s Mumbai-
based film industry] heroes shape religious images in India, whether it is of
Rama or of Husain—can you imagine Amitabh or Dharmendra [two macho
Hindi film actors] receiving assistance from shrubs when fighting their enemy?
We don’t want to hear about realistic military strategies; we want to hear the
romantic and the exotic ones.” A popular source of history for the zakirs sug-
gests that the Imam Husain had more strength than 400,000 able-bodied
men. Needless to say, not even the most hyperbolic Bollywood films have been
able to depict such a character.
The reverberation between Karbala and Bollywood is also revealed through
elegies modeled on popular film songs. The books in which these elegies ap-
pear suggest to the readers that particular elegies be recited according to the
tunes of a particular film’s songs or qawwalis.86 In such works, Karbala is
inserted into a pre-existing matrix of popular culture. Such insertions precip-
itate dismay in many Shii circles, where Indian films are seen as distorted and
vulgar representations of life. However, a number of young Shii women and
men with whom I discussed this issue actually found the Bollywood element
in elegies helpful; it made the elegies more mnemonic. Furthermore, with the
44 reliving karbala
number of students in the subcontinent studying the classical marsiyas of Anis

and Dabir shrinking (Urdu lost a substantial amount of state patronage in India
after 1947), an appreciative comprehension of the nineteenth-century marsiya
is rapidly eroding. If nineteenth-century teenagers identified the Karbala char-
acters with the epic characters to whom they were exposed, centainly twenty-
first-century teenagers can appreciate Karbala through Bollywood’s lenses.
But, the line between speaking of Karbala martyrs as though they are
Bollywood heroes and exaggerating their prowess so as to make them appear
farcical is a fine one. If the zakir is perceived by the audience to excessively
exaggerate the pain and suffering of the Prophet’s household, then he can also
become the object of lasting mockery and skepticism. When a popular zakir
of Hyderabad recited details of suffering to which the audience had not been
hitherto exposed, the zakir was tauntingly referred to as “Triple M—Masaib
[Afflictions] Manufacturing Machine.”87
While such a “manufacturing” can be valorized through the discourse of
narrative license and intertextuality on one level, it can bear the serious stigma
of tahfi rı̄f (distortion/falsification) on another. It is incumbent upon many zakirs
to separate narrative liberty (the narration of Karbala through ever-new couplets
and ideological outlooks) from tahrif (presenting Karbala in a way that makes
it more fantastic than real), this is particularly true after the Islamic revolution
of Iran. The notion of tahrif has rapidly gained negative currency in Iran since
the 1970s, when high-ranking Shii scholars like Murtada Mutahhari privileged
a “realistic” reading of Karbala over a “romantic” one. The anti-tahrif discourse
entails a deep distrust of the autonomous imagination and its poetic license.
Scholars like Mutahhari have even tried to alter the reception of historic texts
such as Rawzfi at al-Shuhadā by branding them “a pack of lies.”88 A few attempts
have been made, with varying degrees of success, to fix a more realistic version
of the Karbala narrative, so that human beings can actually identify with the
struggle of the Imam Husain and not dismiss it as a “superhuman” event. In
the Iran of the 1970s, the anti-Shah forces deployed the “Karbala paradigm”
in the majlis setting as a model for a revolutionary struggle. In the subconti-
nent, although a realistic narration of Karbala is welcomed in circles that are
sympathetic to the Iranian revolution and value the instructive tone of the
majlis, it is usually ignored in circles that conceive of the majlis as more de-
votional than instructional. Moreover, the definition of “realism” varies so
much across the majlis audiences that it is impossible to speak of it as a fixed
category. The reciters of Karbala are continually positioned along a spectrum
that ranges from Karbala the real to Karbala the romantic.
In such a situation, it is apposite to point out that while elegy reciters89
and even zakirs have great leeway in how much time they spend on recitation
and what exactly they include in or omit from their narration, this leeway is
only within the bounds of what the audience will find acceptable. When time
is short, the soz is often left out; or, from the salam and marsiya, only the
mubki verses are recited. The zikr can be as long as three hours, or as short
as ten minutes; or, if a zakir is not readily available, it, too, can be omitted.
Now, in the age of modern technology, a radio or a cassette-player is a possible
substitute for the zakir. The respect accorded to many zakirs and zakiras by
and large flows from their status as narrators in the context of the majlis, and
does not always reflect any personal reverence. In fact, in many Shii circles,
the first people who are blamed for distorting Islam, Shiism, and the signifi-
cance of Karbala are the zakirs. These Shii critics insist that the zakirs should
be viewed as professional employees of the majlis, whose job it is to make
people cry. They proceed to argue that just because the zakirs and zakiras are
narrating the events of Karbala does not mean that they are scholars (ulamā)
of religion in any sense.
Segment 5 of the Majlis: The Nauha
The zikr is followed by the nauha, a dirge or threnody that can have various
poetical structures, recited in tune. Many of these nauhas, like their salam and
marsiya counterparts, use the present progressive tense to give the devotees of
the Imam a sense that they, too, are willing to suffer for the Imam’s cause.
Such a tense ritualistically reinforces the immediacy and relevance of the event
of Karbala for majlis audiences. For example, the nauha below vividly describes
a plundered caravan going through the desert after its leader, the Imam Hu-
sain, has been martyred:
Someone’s looted caravan weaves its way through the wastelands of
Arabia
This sorrow clearly shows that someone’s house has been wiped out
Were the bride to raise her downcast eyes, she would see her
groom’s head on a lance
Modestly she closes her eyes
As though the flame of someone’s heart has been extinguished
The expressions on the faces of each and every one say, “we too had
friends and helpers”
But now uncovered heads say, “no longer can we turn to anyone for
refuge.”
O my God! Did the children fight as well? I see a tiny head.
His neatly combed hair shows that someone loved him very much
Some heads are raised aloft on spears—all suns, moons and stars
Someone’s hair is drenched in blood
Someone’s mouth is open in thirst
Some women ride as well, but without saddle or canopy
Some have swooned from weakness
Some are exhausted with drawn faces
Ghayur! Ride forth and find out who heaves these cold sighs
Certainly someone’s young son must have been among these victims
of sorrow90
That not a single name of any martyr, or even Karbala, is explicitly mentioned
in the above nauha adds to its innovative, pathos-laden aspect. It is obvious to
46 reliving karbala
the listeners who is described in each instance: the bride with her downcast
eyes—Imam Husain’s newly-married daughter whose husband of one night,
Qasim bin Hasan, became a martyr in Karbala; the tiny, neatly-combed head
of a child—Imam Husain’s six-month-old son, Ali Asghar; the women riding
without saddle or canopy—the women of the Prophet’s household, such as
Zainab, Kulsum, and Shahr Bano. What this nauha implies is that such was
the magnitude of the Karbala tragedy that names cannot be mentioned lest it
overwhelm the listeners. The nauha also gives a liberal interpretive license to
the imagination of the readers/listeners. Like its structural counterparts, the
ghazal and the salam, the nauha also closes with a couplet that incorporates
the poet’s pen name, in this case, Ghayur (Abid Ali Ghayur, d. 1953). The poet
imagines himself as a participant within the unfolding tragedy of Karbala, a
bridge between his own time and history, through the medium of his art.
Nauhas, like salams or marsiyas, can be recited solo or in a chorus. How-
ever, unlike other genres, they are usually accompanied by rhythmic chest
beating (mātam or sı̄na zanı̄ ), another sign of mourning. It is with the recitation
of nauhas in the background that the alams are usually raised. When nauhas
are recited on the day of ashura, as the alams are being raised, it is a recreation
of the departure of Imam Husain and his companions from their family mem-
bers. The alams are at times accompanied by the replicas of the mausoleums
of the Imams and can be considered yet another iconic means through which
the devotees reach out to their objects of devotion. For most people these alams
symbolize the resilience of the Imam’s cause. These mementos can be seen
either as a way to take the devotees back in time, or as a way to bring the
incident of Karbala forward in time. It is as though by raising the banners of
the Imam’s cause, the community travels back in time to seventh-century Kar-
bala to join the Imam’s forces. At the same time, the alams are a reminder
that the cause that was espoused on the sands of Karbala more than thirteen
hundred years ago lives on with the same vitality. Other noteworthy icons that
play a part in the majlis setting include the cradle of Imam Husain’s six-month-
old, Ali Asghar, and the one-of-a-kind horse that the Imam rode in Karbala,
Zuljinah. Although in Hyderabad, Zuljinah is not a common Muharram icon,
in cities like Lahore, this mount is the pivot of the ashura procession.
In addition to such icons, families also have mementos that they trace back
to the lifetime of the Imams. A Shii family in Hyderabad claims to possess a
garment worn by the Imam Husain’s son, the fourth Shii Imam, Zain al-
Abedin. Devotees can still go and pay their respects to it. The family cites as
evidence of this shirt’s power an incident when the entire house burned down,
but not a spark touched the container that held the shirt. The fourth Imam is
remembered as the one who was kept chained in prison for a considerable
period of time. To pay tribute to his suffering, symbolic fetters are put on
devotees during Muharram; thus people identify their cause with that of the
Imam.
After the recitation of nauhas, the majlis culminates with the recitation of
the ziyarat, or salutations upon not only the martyrs of Karbala but all the
Imams and their followers. Depending upon the preferences of those con-
ducting the majlis, various types of consecrated food and juices (tabarruk) are
served in the name of the martyrs. Some majlises are more popular than oth-
ers. The majlises that are held on the ninth and tenth of Muharram attract
thousands of Shias in Hyderabad, since these two days are perhaps the most
solemn days of the Shii calendar. In most houses, the standards affixed to seat-
like wooden platforms are raised on the ninth of Muharram to commemorate
the Imam Husain’s final moments. It is as though the dearest family members
of all Shias are about to depart for the battlefield. Most people remain awake
the entire night—some emulating the prayers the martyrs themselves prayed
that night, others lamenting the imminent martyrdom of the Prophet’s family.
The Day of Ashura
The break of dawn on the tenth of Muharram reminds many devotees of the
call to prayer of the eighteen-year-old son of the Imam Husain, Ali Akbar. Such
a call is once again made, usually by an eighteen-year-old youth, amidst the
sobs of the prayer congregations. The rest of the day belongs to Husain. Some
Shias sit on the prayer carpet all day long repeating the last prayers of the
Imam while weeping intensely. Others go to witness or participate in Hyder-
abad’s largest Muslim procession, in which the most sacred of Hyderabad’s
standards, the bı̄bı̄ kā alam, is paraded (see figure 1.3). Legend has it that within
the golden crest of this alam is a piece of wood from the platform on which
Ali b. Abi Talib had performed the last rites of his wife, Fatima.91 This standard,
accompanied by a procession of thousands of male Shii mourners, is the object
of veneration on ashura. The procession is preceded by drums, as though to
announce the arrival of a medieval king. The procession of the bibi ka alam,
the devotees believe, signifies several articles of truth: (1) Husain was Fatima’s
son and the Prophet’s grandson, hence through this martyr one can draw closer
to the Prophet and God. (2) Fatima herself came down from heaven mourning
for her son; even though Husain had lost his worldly life on the plains of
Karbala, his banner survives and it is behind this banner that the community
walks. (3) And ultimate authority within Islam resides with the martyrs and
saints of God like Husain, not with worldly rulers like Yazid. The standard,
while evoking sorrow for the suffering of the Imam Husain, reaffirms the
Imam’s cause and realigns the mourners with this cause.
As children, we watched the procession from a dilapidated old house that
had stood for at least a hundred years. Someone from our family had lived
there a long time ago, but for the past sixty years it existed only to provide a
spiderweb-festooned roof over peoples’ heads—once a year, and that, too, for
only a few hours. One of the house’s columns also functioned as a clock tower
in Hyderabad’s old city, and several family members never ceased to marvel at
this clock because it had never stopped: “After all it was imported from
nineteenth-century Europe.” Those grandmothers who had seen the house in
its heyday reminisced about the glories of the British Raj and the reign of the
Asif Jahi rulers, who ruled the large Hyderabad Princely State (after the Qutb
figure 1.3 Bibi ka alam procession, Hyderabad, India; the bibi ka alam.
Shahis) for almost two centuries. The house had several sections but the traffic
between these sections was minimal because recurring inter-family conflicts
over inheritance, parental favoritism, and marriage decisions left bitter mem-
ories for most sides. So while the tenth of Muharram was meant as a day to
meditate upon the events of Karbala, at least in our family, it also became an
occasion to resurrect familial bickering over lost inheritance and to shed tears
at the plight of postcolonial India as symbolized by the family’s pitiful old
house. Although all the members assembled in the house put on long faces
and black clothes that marked them as a community of pensive devotees of
Husain, it was obvious, from their unwillingness to mingle with the “other”
side, that more mundane matters shaped their loyalties and identities, even on
the most solemn of days.
While mourning the demise of a culture, and by extension, the family
house, many family members commented on the “carnival atmosphere” that
had come to characterize the tenth of Muharram. On this day, the streets of
old city teemed with thousands of mourners in black attire and scores of people
in hot pink clothes that unambiguously marked them as non-Shias. These non-
Shias had come to see the tamāshā (spectacle) of the Shii chest-beating that
accompanied the bibi ka alam. If one desires to witness the cross-section of
Hyderabad life (beggars, flower vendors, expensive cars, camels, elephants,
horses, and mules), there is no better occasion than the day of ashura in Hy-
derabad’s old city. What many Shii and non-Shii children share on this day is
a desire to purchase toys and junk food from the vendors who set up their
booths along the bibi ka alam procession route. While a few grandmothers
gave us a rupee or two to buy a small toy, one great-grandmother would severely
reproach us for joining the unbelievers in making light of this day.
Amidst the elders’ monologues concerning family feuds, unbelievers, and
martyrdom, the bibi ka alam would arrive, with much anticipation, on an el-
ephant. The younger family members tried to touch some part of the animal
in order to secure the standard’s blessings. A few bolder devotees would ac-
tually bend down and pass under the elephant’s stomach. It was usually 3:00
pm by the time the standard passed our house. A majlis would be held soon
afterwards, and then the family would eat its first meal of the day—a vegetarian
meal, since many Shias avoided meat during Muharram because of its asso-
ciation with joyous times. The meal on the tenth of Muharram consists of
khichrfiı̄ (rice cooked with lentils), khatfifita (tamarind soup), and buttı̄ (yoghurt
rice); butti, although a staple in many South Indian households, is eaten in
most Shii Hyderabadi household only during this Muharram meal. Most Shias
are hungry and thirsty all day long on the tenth of Muharram. This act of self-
deprivation demonstrates solidarity with the Imam’s hunger and thirst that
marked his suffering for three days before he was martyred. We were cautioned
not to call this day of hunger and thirst a fast (roza) since that was the desig-
nation given to it by those other Muslims, the Sunnis. The signifier roza would
give the day auspicious connotations and it would be just like the days of
Ramadan for all Muslims, and how could mourning Shias then consider this
50 reliving karbala
day auspicious? We instead called this a day of fāqa, a day of poverty and
hunger.
Defending Sorrow and Questioning Mourning
Muharram is undoubtedly the time of the year when Shias become most
conscious of their sectarian religious identity. While many Sunnis (who are a
majority of the Hyderabadi Muslim community) in Hyderabad commemo-
rated Muharram by fasting, holding tributary assemblies for the martyrs of
Karbala and consecrating food in their honor, some of my Sunni childhood
friends viewed the Shii engagement (especially the ritual of breast-beating)
with Muharram with humor or bafflement. It was common for Shii children
to hear that the Shias were the ones who killed Husain and our gatherings
of mourning were acts of repentance. When I related incidents such as this
to my grandmother, she told me never to broach the topic of religion in
school, since as a minority community we lacked protection. She said that it
was a popular, albeit grossly mistaken, Sunni notion that implicated Shias in
Husain’s murder. She restated the reasons for commemoration once again:
(1) Husain was martyred in order to safeguard the ideals of Islam; he and his
family suffered immensely so that their followers could inherit a better
world, a world free of Yazid. (2) Mourning was the least a community could
do for its beloved leader. (3) The Prophet’s daughter herself had ratified this
tradition, and it would continue until the end of time. By mourning, whether
through wailing or reciting elegies, we were expressing our solidarity with
the Imam’s cause—we were saying that had we been in Karbala with Hu-
sain, we, too, would have fought for him.
My grandmother also frequently asked us children to recite elegies. She
had been apprenticed to Urdu poetry at an early age; when she read verses out
of the Urdu elegy book, we had to repeat after her. This changed by the time
I was eight, for then I could read the Urdu elegies myself, albeit with a less-
than-ideal voice. Not only did I recite elegies in the gatherings of the elders,
but we children, my cousins and I, would have our very own majlis. It was
called bachchoñ kı̄ majlis (the children’s majlis) and it was not different from
the elders’ majlises, except in one respect: We children could never cry and
wail as our elders did. At times when we tried our very best to cry, our theatrical
sobs gave way to gales of laughter, much to our elders’ dismay. That sorrow
comes with age is self-evident to young Shias!
Mourning in the context of the majlis is obviously different from any other
type of personal mourning. The mourners in a majlis never receive consolation
from other mourners. Even when the majlis comes to a close, a few people
continue to weep intensely for some time. Perhaps the most consolation they
can expect is a glass of water. The practical merits of such weeping were often
recounted by my grandmother: Fatima the Radiant, the Princess of both worlds,
collects these tears and transforms them into pearls; these pearls are used for
the construction of palaces in Paradise, so as to provide accommodation for

the mourners in the hereafter. The story that my grandmother repeatedly told
was that her own grandmother had willed that she be buried with only two
possessions: the soil from Karbala (kfi hāk-e shafā) and the handkerchief she had
used year after year to wipe her tears during the majlis. The moral of the story
was clear: These are the possessions that last in the hereafter, and shedding
tears for the martyrs is surely not in vain. We had a running joke in the family
that my grandfather’s sister, when hosting her own majlis, routinely urged the
leading zakira of Hyderabad, Latifunnisa Begum, to continue her oration until
women began to faint and she could no longer project her voice in the wail-
laden majlis. Before making people cry, the host of the majlis stipulated that
the zakira repeat the merits of weeping for the cause of the Karbala martyrs.
So instead of counting on the spontaneous generation of tears, the zakira at
times induced them, by bribing the devotees with appealing visions of heaven.
All the wailing then returned a reward of much anticipated tabarruk, the con-
secrated food given to the majlis attendees: mouth-watering goat kabobs and
yoghurt salad over a large piece of bread.
Although the depictions of heaven as well as the merits of weeping seemed
to flow from an endless ocean, and every imaginable reward was forthcoming
for the shedding of tears, in our family the interpretation of Karbala was never
rigid. That my great-grandfather (my grandmother’s father), in spite of his Shii
roots, played the piano on the tenth day of Muharram, in what amounted to
an act of jubilation, was always a story that his daughter would recount with a
smile, perhaps even with pride. The logic of such an act was concisely laid
down: Husain was a brave soldier, who fought to save the religion from the
hands of Yazid and ultimately won the war. This victory calls for rejoicing, not
mourning. Mourning reflects loss and why should Husain’s martyrdom be
considered a loss?
One of my uncles, well-versed in Islamic mysticism and perpetually la-
menting the departure of the British from India, echoed similar sentiments.
While the grandmothers, through their playful smiles, pretended to dismiss
him, he criticized what he considered an undue emphasis on mourning, es-
pecially manifested in chest-beating, while untreated sewage raised a powerful
stench in the neighborhood. He lashed out at the religious leaders (maulvı̄s),
and professional narrators of the Karbala event (zakirs) at every available op-
portunity: “They have ruined this religion. They themselves never beat their
chests so violently, but they encourage their followers to do so. They will be
the first ones who will face the fire of hell.” He would then recite the harsh
versified attack on the Shii sermon-givers by one of the great Urdu poets of
the subcontinent, Josh Malihabadi:
ālam-e akfi hlāq ko zer o zabar kartā hai tū
kfi hūn-e ahl-e bait meñ luqme ko tar kartā hai tū92
You turn the world of ethics topsy-turvy
You soak your bread in the blood of the Prophet’s household.
52 reliving karbala
Debates Regarding Matam and Majlis
The larger debate about the issue of matam still continues to engage the com-
munity, and often polarize it. Matam in South Asia is the most significant and
sensitive Shii identity marker. Even if Sunnis wore black clothes and attended
Shii majlises, what reveals them as non-Shias is that they stand with folded
hands while Shias beat their breasts. Matam is the ritual practice much criti-
cized by Sunnis, many of whom believe that the Prophet Muhammad explicitly
forbade such acts of mourning. Shias of course disagree, and some go to great
lengths to justify this action. Most majlises end with matam, whereby the
intensity of mourning is symbolically and physically expressed by beating one’s
chest with bare hands. A nauha is recited, and the matam rhythmically cor-
responds to the beat of this dirge. In addition to such dirges, the names of the
prominent martyrs are invoked; each name evokes a few rounds of chest beat-
ing as if to honor their sacrifice. The matam, according to Shias who participate
in it, creates a powerful continuity of suffering in which the community mem-
bers feel that they have demonstrated their willingness to suffer for the Imam’s
cause by inflicting pain on their own bodies. Shii men, women, and children
all participate in the kind of matam in which only the palm is used to strike
one’s chest. The criticism leveled at this practice, at times even within the Shii
community, is aimed at another kind of matam, the instrumental matam, in
which Shii men use chains, knives, and blades to express their sorrow.
In the instrumental type of matam, the male upper body becomes a bat-
tleground, as if to proclaim that the devotees would have spilled their blood
had they been in Karbala. Most of my friends and I were discouraged from
participation in such matam. In fact, no one from my immediate family looked
favorably upon this sort of devotion. Implicit in the attack on such matam is
the belief that it is not only unnecessary, but also outright unlawful: The blood
from open wounds renders the body impure for ritual prayers, so that many
of these men, at the very least, were missing one of their five obligatory prayers
(namāz) by participating in this matam. The most intense matam takes place
on the tenth of Muharram, during the third prescribed prayer for Muslims,
asfir, since this was the prayer during which the Imam Husain’s head was
severed from his body. Criticism of the instrumental matam extends back into
history, with some prominent Shii authorities of the nineteenth century going
so far as to label this practice a “sin.”93 Many Shias feel that the best way to
honor the legacy of the Imam Husain is through emulating his prayers, not
through participating in actions that nullify the ritual ablution required for
obligatory prayers. This discourse is also anchored to these critics’ larger con-
cerns: If the Shii community wants to defend itself against those who accuse
Shiism of being fanatical, bloody, and unconcerned with issues of cleanliness/
purity, then it must call for alternative modes of devotion that do not play into
these stereotypes.
According to the elderly teacher (maulvı̄ sfiāhfi ab) who taught us Quranic
recitation and Islamic studies (dı̄niyāt) once a week, the obligatory prayers are
much more important than any other Islamic practice, and any matam that
interfered with namaz should be questioned. Every year, before the beginning
of Muharram, the maulvi sahab would ask us to recite the fundamental prin-
ciples (usfiūl-e dı̄n) of Shii faith: tawhfi ı̄d (absolute monotheism), adl (God’s just
nature), nubuwwat (the prophethood of the Prophet Muhammad), imāmat (the
belief in twelve sinless, infallible successors of the Prophet, from Ali to the
Mahdi, the last one being alive but in occultation till the end of time), and
qiyāmat (resurrection and judgment day). In addition to these five principles,
the maulvi sahab repeatedly reminded us that ten duties are expected from
practicing Shias: five prescribed ritual prayers (namaz); fasting in the month
of Ramadan (roza); pilgrimage to Mecca when health and finances permit
(hajj); two forms of almsgiving determined by assets, on profit and income
(zakāt and kfi hums); righteous struggle against vice (jihad); enjoining others to
do good (amr bi’l marūf ); forbidding others from doing evil (nahı̄an al-
munkar); loving the Prophet’s family and emulating their deeds (tawallā); and
condemning the enemies of the Prophet’s family (tabarrā). The maulvi sahab
told us that only after knowing these basics of Shii Islam and performing every
single prescribed ritual prayer, can one legitimately identify with Shiism and
build solidarity with the Prophet’s family through acts of mourning, such as
chest-beating. To the maulvi sahab, Karbala was a battle over the preservation
and integrity of the obligatory prayers. To underscore this point, he would recite
a nineteenth-century Urdu couplet that compared obligatory prayers to the
greatest struggle (jihad) in the cause of Islam:
namāz ahl-e yaqı̄ñ kı̄ jihād-e akbar hai
wazfi u ke vaqt charfihāte haiñ āstı̄noñ ko
The greatest jihad, the battle mightiest of them all,
is constituted by the prayers offered by the true believers, the People
of Certitude—
[They gird themselves for battle], rolling up their sleeves when
performing ablutions
The struggle to forsake the material world and all its accoutrements and to
marshal one’s higher self in the service of God in namaz is here identified as
the “greatest jihad.” The affirmative gesture that precedes this jihad is rolling
up one’s sleeves during the required ablutions, the act of purification that
symbolically evokes the preparation for this struggle. (Such a reading of jihad
defies the media-propelled reductionist discourse commonplace in today’s
western world that imagines jihad as an exclusively violent confrontation.)
Through the obligatory prayers, the maulvi sahab told us, Husain’s devotees
re-enact the devotion of the Imam, and participate in a struggle to defeat their
own vices. When these devotees opt for self-flagellation in lieu of prayers, they
compromise the highest ideal for which Husain fought: the preservation of
Allah’s authority and the destruction of Yazid’s rule.
A few of my friends—a small but committed community of flagellants—
who participated in the blade-chain instrumental matam, felt that such senti-
ments might be valid on any day other than ashura. They proceeded to defend
54 reliving karbala
their matam vigorously: “The Imam sacrificed his entire family for the cause
of the community. Can’t the community members shed a few drops of blood
in his remembrance?” Usually appended to such a justification was the account
of the miraculous recovery of the performers of such matam within hours: “A
small wound takes a few days to heal. But in spite of so many scars from
chains, knives and blades, no pain is felt; nor do the wounds fester.” The very
denial of pain lends authority to the performer’s body that at once becomes
historic, communal, and individual: Historic because it shares its wounds with
the martyrs of Karbala; communal since it shares its devotional marks with a
strong community that keeps this practice alive; and individual because it
brings the individual body into focus as a devotional body that prefigures, what
Slavoj Zizek would call, “defiance of the flesh,”94 as a response to those ideol-
ogies that condemn instrumental flagellation.95 Anyone who has studied the
Muharram activities of South Asia, as well as the Perso-Arab worlds of Iran,
Iraq, and Lebanon would acknowledge that for many non-Shias, Shii self-
flagellation is the most striking signifier of Shii Islam. It was from the context
of South Asian Muharram self-flagellations that the famed 1886 Orientalist
dictionary of Anglo-Indian words and idioms, Hobson-Jobson, acquired its
name. Hobson-Jobson was the corruption or mishearing of Hasan-Husain, a
frequent invocation in parts of the subcontinent that would mourn not only
Husain but also his brother Hasan, who many believe was killed at the insti-
gation of Muawiya, Yazid’s father. Although the processions of Muharram self-
flagellation aroused both the curiosity and the ire of Orientalists, as well as
many South Asian Muslims, who feel that Muharram makes a spectacle out
of Islam, the use of the devotee’s body as a site upon which specific religious
events are re-enacted is unique neither to Shii Muslims nor to South Asia. As
Roy Mottahedeh points out:
Self-mutilation in emulation of the “passion” of heroes who are hu-
man yet divine is no stranger to the West: flagellants who whipped
themselves both in penance and in remembrance of the scourging
and crucifixion of Jesus appeared in almost every western European
country in the Middle Ages, sometimes with the disapproval of the
church. Sometimes, like the group of flagellants who at the opening
of the fifteenth century followed Saint Vincent Ferrer on his journey
to preach the need of repentance and the coming of the Judgment,
they were at the very heart of what conscientious churchmen most
admired. Flagellation survives in Spain and in many parts of the
Hispanic world. It survives, in fact, in the United States in New
Mexico, where, in spite of a century of horrified disapproval by Prot-
estants and non-Hispanic Catholics, the brotherhood of Penitents
commemorate the passion of Jesus by flagellation, the carrying of
heavy wooden crosses, and many other forms of discipline, physical
and spiritual.96
In fact, some Hindus in South Asia not only practice self-flagellation dur-
ing Muharram but are also drawn to the related practice of fire-walking with
the alam in their hands. The fire-walking ceremony held on the sixth day of
Muharram in Lucknow’s magnificent Bara Imambara marks this city’s Mu-
harram commemorations. Organized as a display of Husain’s devotees’ deter-
mination to even walk on fire in order to prove their commitment to the mar-
tyred Imam, Lucknow’s fire-walking attracts hundreds of non-Muslims, a good
number of whom are prominent political leaders of North India. While the
practice, according to the account of those Shias who organize this event, was
imported from Burma (when Indians fighting in Burma returned after the
Second World War) and South India, it has become an identity-affirmation rit-
ual for devotees of Husain, both Shias and non-Shias. Just like the matam, fire-
walking is a spectacle in which individual men show off the strength and resil-
ience of their bodies in the face of real or imagined threats to their devotion and
to their community’s existence. By highlighting the participation of Hindus,
many Shias imagine a community of Husain’s devotees that transcends exo-
teric Shiism. The celebration of such a community also comes at the expense of
rebuking those elements of the Sunni community that criticize Shii mourning
rituals. But fire-walking and the matam also meet the censure of those Shias
who feel that their religion is being reduced to a sham and a spectacle rather
than a meaningful and somber reflection on the event of Karbala.
As is the case with fire-walking and the matam, particular types of majlises
also earn disapproval from certain Shias for catapulting their community into
regressive behavior and inspiring negative stereotypes. For example, since the
late 1990s, the caretakers of a popular shrine in Hyderabad have sponsored a
majlis that recreates Qasim’s wedding. One alam dressed in red brocade stands
for Qasim and another one, behind a bridal veil, stands for his newly-wed wife.
All the food and accoutrements that are associated with a Hyderabadi Muslim
wedding are placed in front of the alams and the grief-stricken devotees who
attend this assembly are compelled to cry out and recite verses that mourn the
death of the groom as he is about to be united with his bride. This majlis was,
apparently, organized after one of the daughters of the shrine’s caretakers had
a dream in which she was told by Fatima, Husain’s mother, to organize a majlis
in this particular manner. The girl’s family took her dream to heart and orga-
nized a majlis that re-enacts a typical Hyderabadi wedding with all its trap-
pings.97 The parallels between this majlis and the Iranian taziyeh, or “passion
plays,” wherein the events of Karbala are given concrete and immediate afterlife
through actors who play the roles of various Karbala characters, are striking.
The difference, however, is that whereas in many parts of Iran, humans play
the role of Karbala heroes and villains, in this and other majlises like it, alams
stand as icons in place of humans. But just as the Iranian taziyehs are viewed
with disdain in particular Shii circles for reducing Karbala to a spectacle, maj-
lises like the one mentioned above, in spite of having oneiric legitimacy in
some Shii circles, are vehemently criticized by other Shias not only for making
light of Karbala but also for predicating themselves upon idolatrous practices
that are forbidden in Islam.
Particular majlises that are governed by the etiquette of weddings and
other social events (like birthday celebrations) have also come under fire for
56 reliving karbala
being more concerned with displaying the wealth and social status of the
majlis-holder than with sincere devotion. Shii critics categorize these majlises
as gatherings held on an “invitation only” basis: The highest echelons of society
converge to gossip and consume exquisite food in the name of tabarruk. “How
ironic is this,” said a Shii critic of such majlises who worked for a philanthropic
organization: “Imam Husain was deprived of food and water for three days
before he was martyred. He fought the armies of Yazid so as to assure that
God’s creation doesn’t go hungry. And now his so-called followers, in the tra-
dition of the debauched Yazid, eat their fill as an honor to his legend, while
beggars in their neighborhood are deprived of a single morsel.” I remember a
handful of Shias who refused to attend majlises and paid tribute to the martyrs
of Karbala in the privacy of their homes. They would rebut the claims that a
majlis was an ideal forum for remembering Karbala by pointing out how these
gatherings reinforce rather than dissolve social hierarchies. Far from under-
mining the existing hegemonic structures or acting as agents of ideal social
transformations, the majlises keep household servants and other disempow-
ered groups in their usual socially inferior position, just as they leave the social
status of the master/mistress of the house intact. In a similar vein as anthro-
pologist Clifford Geertz’s critique of rituals,98 the Shii critics of the majlis say
that the people who have controlling shares in Shiism are those who read
Karbala not as an economic struggle, but simply as an event that has given
them an opportunity, for hundreds of years, to uphold injustice, poverty, and
subjugation in the very setting of the majlis ritual. The majlis, to these Shii
critics, reflects a conflictual site marred by gross hypocrisy. Josh Malihabadi
agrees:
You gain nothing from the spirit of the martyr of Karbala
Tresses of cowardice form a noose on your shoulder
How strange, bereavement-loving professional mourner
That in the chest of the Lion’s [Ali’s] follower beats the heart of a
sheep!
What a shameful account for the warriors
Don’t mourn for the Martyr of Karbala in this manner99
The discussion of the majlis, and by extension Karbala, in such contexts is thus
embedded in a larger social and economic critique.
Although certain types of majlises come under attack for the reasons cited
above, Shii defenders of the majlis institution point out that the months of
mourning also bring out the generosity of their community. In certain parts
of cities like Hyderabad, India, or Karachi, Pakistan, many privately-sponsored
majlises keep their doors open to anyone who wishes to attend these gather-
ings. Regardless of a person’s economic stature, or even religion, s/he is pro-
vided with food, water, juice, milk, or just sugar. A lower-class person living in
Hyderabad’s old city told me that she did not have to worry about food for the
duration of the two months and eight days of mourning: “Imam Husain him-
self had assured that his devotees won’t go hungry when mourning for him.”
This consolation circulates in many circles of Shias and non-Shias, who also
benefit from the food distributed after majlises. The institution of the majlis
is thus hailed by many of its supporters because it has a much broader purpose
than just the commemoration of Husain’s martyrdom. Such a utilitarian de-
fense of the majlis also accords with the discourse that celebrates grand ar-
chitectural monuments in the form of ashurkhanas and imambaras because
they serve causes other than those solely linked to devotion. For example, many
Shias in and around Lucknow boast of the decorous construction of the
eighteenth-century Bara Imambara (see figure 1.4) as a monumental under-
taking designed to employ the poor; thus suggesting that the minority Shii
rulers of this region were attentive to questions of the larger well-being of their
region’s population and not just to their own ambition to attain architectural
immortality. Defending the grandness of an imambara by linking it to a gov-
ernment’s assistance to the city’s population during a famine is a means of
understanding Karbala apart from reducing it to an exclusively Shii event and
Shii rulers apart from their exclusive concern with their own religious com-
munity.
Shias also defend the institution of the majlis for the emotional relief it
brings them in their personal hardships. Memories of Karbala evoked during
majlises provide catharses for Shii families at the death and death anniversaries
of their family members and friends. During these majlises, the Prophet’s
family is asked to intercede on behalf of the deceased in the court of the Al-
mighty, and the family’s sorrow is also put into a broader perspective. This
perspective renders the suffering of the devotees of the Prophet’s family rela-
tively insignificant compared to that of the martyrs of Karbala, or, for that
figure 1.4 Bara Imambara; Lucknow, India.
58 reliving karbala
figure 1.5 Chota Imambara; Lucknow, India.
matter, to the suffering of any of the Imams or of Fatima. Even poets such as
Mir Anis helped their patrons conceptualize personal losses by speaking of
these losses as pale in comparison to what the Prophet’s family underwent in
Karbala.100
Such personalized implications of the majlis, in which victims and suffer-
ers locate themselves in the role of Karbala characters, can even be seen in
Benazir Bhutto’s autobiography. She is a prominent Pakistani politician whose
father, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was hanged by General Zia; her
brothers were murdered as well:
In every generation, Shiite Muslims believe, there is a Karbala, a

reenactment of the tragedy that befell the family of the Prophet Mo-
hammed . . . Many in Pakistan have come to believe that the victimi-
zation of the Bhutto family and our supporters was the Karbala of
our generation.101
Considering the corruption and criminal charges that mar the Bhutto family’s
reputation in Pakistan, many Shias would be repelled by such a comparison.
However, the fact remains that Benazir Bhutto felt it was her prerogative to
read her own life through the lens of the ultimate suffering that took place in
Karbala. A cinematic corollary of Bhutto’s Karbala-laden suffering narrative is
Anwar Jamal’s award-winning 2002 Hindi film, Swaraj (Self-Government), in
which he aptly compares societal oppression of women to the struggle of the

Imam Husain and his companions. Harnessing the energy of Karbala’s thirsty
martyrs, women in this film struggle for water rights and empowerment in
rural India, while the high-caste, male-dominated society never tires of creating
roadblocks for those who hold socially inferior positions.
2
Mourning in Migrant Spaces
Kas az ahl-e vat3an ġhamkfi hwār-e man nı̄st

marā dar dahr pindāre vat3an nı̄st
Not a soul from my homeland sympathizes with me,
It’s as though I have no homeland in this world
Mirza Ghalib
Just as the spaces of India travel with the migrant, India too has no
vocabulary for separating the migrant from India.
Amitav Ghosh
On March 2, 2004, violence flared up in Iraq and Pakistan, killing

nearly two hundred people in the former country and nearly fifty in
the latter. Most of the victims of the bomb blasts in the Iraqi cities
of Baghdad and Karbala and the Pakistani city of Quetta were Shii
Muslims participating in commemorative ashura processions. In
Houston, Texas, more than seven thousand miles away from Iraq
and Pakistan, a number of black-clad Shii Muslims had assembled
to mourn Husain’s martyrdom, when they heard about the devasta-
tion wreaked on their coreligionists in the Middle East and South
Asia. Since this was the first Muharram after two decades of Sad-
dam Hussein’s repressive measures against Shii practices had come
to an end, many Shias had looked forward to commemorating Hu-
sain’s martyrdom in a non-threatening political environment. In-
stead, the live news stories relayed from Iraq and Pakistan found a
place alongside tragic narrations from age-old tomes of history and
poignant verses of Urdu elegies. With 680 c.e. juxtaposed to 2004,
history seemed to unfold in painful circularity as the past overtook
the present with an eerie heavy-handedness. The ashura commemo-
62 reliving karbala
rative assemblies of 2004 acquired a doubly-charged, inter-linked tragic sig-

nificance: More than thirteen hundred years ago, Husain, in order to restore
the integrity of Islam, underwent tremendous pain and suffering fighting the
tyrannical political authority of his time; and in the world of 2004, devoted
followers of Husain, who had gathered in Iraq and Pakistan to commemorate
his suffering, continued to suffer in spite of being more than a millennium
removed from 680 c.e. To outsiders, perhaps, 680 c.e. Iraq and 2004 Houston
will seem discrete and isolated from one another; but to the many Shias who
gathered in Texas for the commemorative assemblies, the past had acquired
solidarity with the present. History furnished a template for reading the pres-
ent just as the present became a template to reinforce the importance of history.
The relationship between history and the present was mediated by live news
reports, “expert” commentaries, and human wreckage filtered through televi-
sion monitors, presumably at the discretion of news editors. No one voice
prevailed as, in dismay, the Shii mourners grasped at a slew of conjectural
explanations and conspiracy theories in an attempt to make sense of the crises
in Iraq and Pakistan. A self-identified Shia sighed heavily and equated the
significance of the past with that of the present: “Every Day is Ashura; every
land is Karbala.” With this sentiment, the year 680 embraced the year 2004
more tightly and the geography of Iraq was naturalized in global terms—South
Asia, the Middle East, and North America met at a common site, a site con-
stituted by the legacy of Karbala.
Lively discussions and debates, whether about the virtues of matam or
about the relevance of Karbala in the United States, occupy Shias of the dias-
pora. After moving to the United States at fifteen, many of my family members
and other Shii families continued to preserve the Hyderabadi Muharram. In
spite of being transplanted from Hyderabad to College Station, Texas, the pat-
terns and texts of the majlis remained the same. In addition to cooking deli-
cious foods traditionally eaten during Muharram, and many of them only dur-
ing Muharram, my mother and aunts ensure that no important day of
mourning is overlooked. To many of these women, Karbala and the majlises
tied to it are literally part of their inheritance, traditions bequeathed by their
mothers and mothers-in-law in South Asia. Along with clothes and jewelry,
one generation leaves its legacy for the other in the form of the majlis com-
memorations. To further validate this inheritance, many women in our family
recite the elegies that are, in a sense, family treasures and have been for gen-
erations. While these elegies bring the Hyderabadi Muharram to the United
States for many Urdu speakers, the translation sessions that follow for the
benefit of those who do not comprehend poetic Urdu can be quite alienating
to those accustomed to the Hyderabadi Muharram.
Even though the size of the majlis gathering in College Station (from
twenty to thirty people at most) is a fraction the size of those in Hyderabad,
the themes and rituals of mourning have changed little. In America, most men
and women in the majlis weep just as they did in India. The alams that my
family brought from India are set up in American houses just as they had been
in India. My brother-in-law built a remarkable wooden replica of the frame on
mourning in migrant spaces 63
which the standards are set. My father shows his love for the poetry of the
great nineteenth-century elegists, Anis and Dabir, by constantly repeating it.
My uncle enlivens the postmajlis family gatherings by recounting traditions
tied to Muharram that have gradually waned in Hyderabad itself: During the
first ten days of Muharram, it was customary for women to break their bangles
and remove the black-beaded necklace that symbolized their matrimonial ties.
It was as though their most cherished and honorable commitment receded
into insignificance while the Prophet’s grandson suffered in Karbala. Newly-
weds abstained from conjugal relations during the first twelve days of Muhar-
ram. As a century-old reaction to this practice, my uncle quotes the droll verses
that my great-grandfather penned when his bride, abiding by the custom of
the time, went away to her parents’ house for the first twelve days of Muharram
so as to abstain from conjugal pleasures:
jā ke kuch roz jo voh mahfi fil-e mātam meñ rahe

mere armān siyāhposh Muhfi arram meñ rahe
When she departed for some days to participate in the assembly of
mourning
My desires donned the black raiment of bereavement during the
month of Muharram
The first few Muharrams in America brought with them a sense of nos-
talgia for the faraway city of Hyderabad, at least for those of us old enough to
remember the Hyderabadi majlises and the grand elephant processions.1 My
first Muharram in the United States, my first majlis in America, brought to
life a verse from Boney M’s pop hymn-psalm, “By the rivers of Babylon,” prob-
ably the most popular English song during my years of secondary school in
Hyderabad: “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” But unlike
the Jewish community of ancient Babylon that felt such pain singing the
“Lord’s song” in captivity, Shias are continually reminded of the saying of the
great-grandson of the Imam Husain that downplays the temporal and geo-
graphic containment of Karbala. Furthermore, why should Karbala and its
commemorations seem more displaced in College Station than they did in
Hyderabad, a city that is also many miles away from Iraq?
Over time, Hyderabad did not even seem far away, thanks to the cassette
player, the VCR, and the internet—media through which we not only hear the
elegies recited by our Hyderabadi relatives with gifted voices, but also hear one
of the essential components of the majlis: the zikr. The person whose narra-
tions my family hears so fondly is Rashid Turabi. We hear Rashid Turabi con-
sistently throughout the months of Muharram and Safar. The one set of tapes
we have has been played repeatedly, year after year. Every time it is played, it
is as if the audience has never heard it before—it generates afresh the same
intense lamentation. Our family has become so used to Rashid Turabi that
even when zakirs come from India and Pakistan to the nearby city of Houston,
most of us prefer to stay home and listen to Rashid Turabi—paradoxically alive
in his death, as are the martyrs about whom he so lovingly spoke.
64 reliving karbala
The Shii community of Houston, from the 1970s onwards, has invited
zakirs from India and Pakistan for Muharram. The Houston community grew
from a few hundred South Asian Shias in the early 1980s to several thousand
in the 1990s.2 The main difference between the Shii gatherings of Houston
and the gatherings of Hyderabad is the ethnic make up—the Shii majlis au-
dience is much broader in the United States. This broad composition of the
majlis necessitates a reformulation of the rituals, languages, and sentiments
that are tied to the particular places from which the immigrants migrate. In
spite of cultural differences, Shii leaders in America seek to project a unified
community. These attempts thrive on the parabilization of Karbala: Husain’s
struggle illustrates the moral lesson that a righteous minority, even if beset by
prejudices and repression, can have positive and enduring effects if it remains
committed to its foundational principles. Many Shias stress that Karbala should
be commemorated publicly to bear on individual and communal lives in order
to tell the world that the Shii community is convinced about its ideals and
proud of its minority status. No ritual contributes more to this agenda than
the julūs, or procession, that Shias take part in, in Houston and in other Eu-
ropean and American cities during Muharram. In many of these processions,
men, women, and children, clad in black clothes, parade outside their marked
religious spaces, carrying banners that say “Live Like Ali, Die Like Husain.”
More mellow than the Hyderabadi Muharram processions, these marches in
North America and Europe doubly serve the community: They honor the legacy
of Karbala in public and celebrate the community constituted by devotion to
the martyrs of Karbala.
As multiple linguistic and ethnic groups come together in the United
States, some religious leaders have presented ideas of pan-Shiism and pan-
Islamism that blur nationalist divides. Although many Hyderabadi families
cling to the Hyderabadi style of mourning, in many other Hyderabadi-
American households the special traditions that once signified Muharram in
Hyderabad have eroded. In the pan-religious spirit of the Muslim sociorelig-
ious reformers of nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Asia and the Middle
East, many immigrants also feel that rituals are encroaching upon the “true
faith.” What constitutes “true faith,” how exactly should a “ritual” be defined,
and what precisely does this encroachment mean—these are issues on which
the Shii community does not agree.
Within the discourses of the relevance of the majlises conducted in the
United States, one issue that constantly seems to frame the benefits of this
institution is that of the instructional value of the Karbala narrative to those
Shias not born and raised in the subcontinent or the Middle East: How should
Karbala be conveyed to people who are unable to understand poetic and the-
ological idioms in Urdu, Arabic, or Persian? To many Shias, the majlis in its
realistic mode is more appealing for a younger audience than the majlis in its
poetic mode. These Shias would say that it is much more important for the
majlis to be educational than it is for it to be poetic.
At a 2004 Muharram commemorative gathering in Houston, with more
than fifteen hundred participants, florid metaphors from the ghazal universe
gave way to the jargon of cyberspace, with the proper placement of dots in a
web address being compared to an accurate interpretation of the Shii ideals:
Just as a misplaced dot can prevent web surfers from reaching their destination,
so misjudging the importance of Ali can seriously impair the spirituality of
those who do not realize the Imam Ali’s true stature.
Within such contexts, Karbala is not about stimulating Urdu literary sen-
sibilities. Rather, it is about shaping the Shii community’s present and future.
It is unclear whether the community of ghazal aesthetes has considerably di-
minished in the United States, or whether the aesthetic adjudicators and pa-
trons of majlises simply prefer electronic technology. Without poetry, what will
imagination amount to? What will become of history and poetry? Only time
will tell.
When offering my retrospect on the Hyderabadi majlis tradition as it com-
pares to the majlises held in Texas, it is clear that the education of Shias from
my parents’ and grandparents’ generation informed them with a dialogics and
polyphony that posited one understanding of religion along with another (often
conflictual) one. Much like Mikhail Bakhtin’s readings of Dostoevsky’s novels,
nonconformist discourses existed side by side with those that were hege-
monic.3 So the Shii majlis and Josh Malihabadi’s critique of it could be ele-
ments of the same conversation. While people took great delight in telling
stories of Ghalib’s love for wine, Ghalib could also be invoked by the likes of
Rashid Turabi to legitimize their praise of Karbala martyrs. One may also infer
these dialogics in Awadh’s crowning literary achievement, the Urdu marsiya,
which was not only a genre of mixed cultural pedigree, but its rich poetic
insights and flexible versions of a single event provided counterweights to each
other. The presence of this multiplicity in the very narrative of Karbala deflects
readers and listeners from a single reading of history.
But these dialogics that mediated relationships among devotees of various
persuasions, and made the understanding of religion less reified, are easily
lost in migrancy, mainly because of the fear that children will hear challenges
to the religious practices and principles of their parents and will not appreciate
religion. Such a loss can be felt acutely when speaking to those Muslim mi-
grants who adhere to and impart a rigid reading of Islam. Ironically, while
countering the singular readings of their faith by the likes of Daniel Pipes and
the FOX channel in the United States, many Muslims also lose sight of plu-
ralism by showing an aversion to voices with whom they disagree by branding
these voices as un-Islamic. Although it is not an issue unique to Muslim
students, many academics who teach Islamic studies at North American uni-
versities can also relate to the experience of dealing with undergraduate stu-
dents who become uncomfortable when any perspective, other than the one
they had been taught at their religious institutions, is discussed matter-of-
factly.
The result is what C. M. Naim, a professor of Urdu who has lived in the
United States since 1957, tentatively calls a “hyper-masculinized” reading of
Islam that is mainly imparted in settings outside of one’s home, away from
one’s grandmothers. Recalling the role that Muslim women played in the re-
66 reliving karbala
ligious upbringing of their children in the first half of twentieth-century South

Asia, Naim bemoans the erosion of women-dominated spaces in the Muslim
communities of present-day North America:
The diminution of the women’s role has removed the poetry, ambi-
guity, and humility that my generation commonly experienced from
the religious experience of my young students. Let me reiterate po-
etry and ambiguity, for much of the wisdom in the zanana
[women’s section of a house] consisted of poetry, proverbs, and oral
traditions; they contained elements of ambiguity and allowed for
contestation of one set of verses or proverbs by another set. Whereas
the adult men who exemplify religion for the young Muslim men
and women in the United States are seemingly feeding them a
scriptural Islam that is exclusionary—filled with sectarian self-
righteousness—and, far from being inspired by humility, is aggres-
sively focused on having power and holding on to it. And its insis-
tence on its own certainties are breathtaking, both metaphorically
and literally.4
As many Shias living in the West decline to appreciate the culture of poetry,
proverbs, and ambiguity in their present religious domains, they have also
endeavored to embark on a broader course of purification that would presum-
ably cleanse the religion of perceived innovations and accretions. One instance
of this can be seen when considering shabı̄hs, the visual depictions of Karbala.
When growing up in Hyderabad, I remember that for many Shias, the Karbala
narrative derived largely from the visual representations of this event that hung
in many ashurkhanas: the Imam Husain burying his infant son, the Imam’s
tents set on fire after his martyrdom, the Prophet’s family in Yazid’s prison,
and the pictures of the Prophet Muhammad and Ali. This mode of devotional
expression made Karbala more accessible, at least to us children. They were
also concrete displays of different modes of devotional expressions: While one
image of the Imam Husain reflected his veiled face burying his slain son (see
figure 2.1), another image captured the Imam as a bearded figure carrying his
son as an offering to Allah (see figure 2.2). The veiled sentiments happily
coexisted with the unveiled, as many of these visual images conformed to the
poetic perspectives that resonate in marsiyas. Some of the artists who drew
these images were gifted elegy writers themselves. Baqar Amanat Khani, for
example, not only achieved an imaginative literary rapport with the heroes of
Karbala, but also painted a visual rapport with his poetry. But in the past twenty
years, the importance of these visual images has receded in many parts of the
Shii world. The caretakers of one of Hyderabad’s Shii shrines, where Baqar
Amanat Khani’s visual images still hang, talked to me about how the visual
representations that have hung in the shrine for decades are now criticized by
Shias from the United Kingdom and the United States for being un-Islamic.
In fact, some of the artists who visually rendered Karbala into shabihs have
forsaken their vocation since it is now considered an un-Islamic indulgence.
More and more, these images are accumulating dust, shoved off into storage
figure 2.1 Imam Husain burying his son, Asghar. This shabih retains the
theme of Husain’s suffering and sorrow.
in the aftermath of Iran’s Islamic revolution, which is critical of visual repre-

sentations. Even though these representations are still popular in the devo-
tional culture of Iran, the mullahs and their followers frequently repudiate
some of these visual traditions, calling them excessive. The local Karbala visual
aesthetics, in this case of Hyderabad, must now defer to a global aesthetic,
carried in part by the Shias who emigrated from Hyderabad to the West and
now return to the city with an Iranian-inflected purification impulse.
Perhaps not to the satisfaction of many community leaders, discussions
about Karbala in the United States have broadened to embrace not only the
immediate crises that American Muslims face but also the larger politics of
Kashmir, Palestine, and especially Iran.5 Many Shias feel that the anti-Shah
struggle in Iran testified to Karbala’s power to generate a renaissance of Islam.
That the Shah had the backing of the most powerful country in the world, the
United States; that he had a well-trained army and a shrewd secret service; and
that he was immensely wealthy and well-connected, did not matter. His op-
ponents realized that the memory of Karbala could be concretized to counter
the Pahlavi tyranny, thereby releasing Iranians from years of suffering and
providing for them the Karbala “paradigm”6 as a liberatory blueprint. Armed
with the example of Iran, energized by the rhetoric of pan-Muslim unity that
the Ayatollah Khomeini (the leader of Iran’s anti-Shah revolution) stressed so
often, many Shias are reinscribing Karbala in a diasporic space within the
majlis context as a symbol of a just struggle linked to anti-imperialism and
anti-colonialism.
figure 2.2 Imam Husain bringing his son to the battlefield. This wall hanging
shabih at Hyderabad’s Abbas shrine reinforces Husain’s image as a gallant warrior
and the bearer of innocence, majestic yet humble.
During the Iran-Iraq war (in which Iraqi President Saddam Hussein re-
ceived support from the United States) not only did the symbol of Karbala
frame the discourses of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism in many maj-
lises but the lack of access to this sacred Iraqi city prompted many Shias to
speak of the Iraqi president as a modern incarnation of Yazid. That the United
States was assisting Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi Sunni, while he brutally sup-
pressed the political claims of the Iraqi Shias (killing them in the thousands)
and placed severe restrictions on the mourning ceremonies in Karbala, was
not lost upon the sentiments of Shias around the world. It was for this reason
that many Shias in the United States, although relieved that Hussein no longer
ruled Iraq, are skeptical of the US motivations in overthrowing the Iraqi re-
gime.
Muharram commemorations in the United States have also become oc-
casions when Shias feel that they must defend their sectarian orientation. In
a manner reminiscent of conflicts in South Asia, many Shias in the United
States feel that their Islamic identity is questioned and doubted by other Mus-
lim groups. A handful of non-Shii groups, including some segments of the
Saudi-backed Wahhabis or Salafis, label Muharram commemorations as bida,
unlawful accretions to Islam condemned by the Prophet; to these groups,
alams reflect Shii polytheism (shirk). Elements of such groups also control
numerous Muslim Student Associations at institutions of higher education
around North America. Bent upon reading Islam in the most exclusive terms,
these Muslims refuse to accord respect to Shii devotional traditions and sen-
timents. It was the ideology espoused by such groups that drove anti-Shii forces
in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Arabia to destroy Muslim shrines, in-
cluding those of particular significance to the Shia (such as that of the Prophet’s
daughter Fatima), on the grounds that these shrines could easily become ob-
jects of worship in themselves, and thereby compromise Islam’s monotheism.
The Taliban’s massacre of Shias in Afghanistan was the logical unfolding
of this kind of intolerance, for many extremist Saudi Arabian elements pro-
vided substantial financial and ideological ammunition to the Taliban. Perhaps
one of the reasons why Karbala does not appeal to the Taliban and others like
them is that it (and all the pageantry surrounding it) is exclusively associated
with Shiism, an orientation that is not considered legitimate in any way. The
animosity between Shias and these extremist anti-Shii groups at times spills
over in the majlis forum. Many Shias reductively use the designation of Wah-
habi to mean any Muslim perceived to be a detractor of Shii religious practice.
At times, in South Asia and beyond, Shias who have questioned certain Mu-
harram practices/rituals have even been branded “Shii Wahhabis.”7
Many other Shias take offence when majlises are used as venues for socio-
religious reforms tied to particular national agendas or ideological orientations.
For example, the Shii community in Houston was horrified in 1991, when an
Iraqi religious authority decided to give a lecture on proper sexual practices
and child-rearing etiquette in Islam on the ninth of Muharram. Hundreds of
people had come to this gathering to hear about the tragic events of Karbala,
hopeful that their children growing up in the United States would appreciate
70 reliving karbala
the sacrifices of the Prophet’s family. They sat aghast as the religious authority
casually discussed human anatomical terms and the ideal positions and times
for legitimate sexual relations. Since some Muslims believe that Islam must
have its say in all aspects of human life, sexuality might be a logical choice of
topic. While many Iraqis and Iranians with whom I spoke did not mind the
sexual pedagogy in the context of Karbala, most South Asians discreetly shied
away from broaching this topic, saying that such majlises digress from the
message of Karbala. They simply refused to listen to this man again; embroiled
in other controversies as well, he was soon ejected from the religious center
where he was a regular.
While South Asian Urdu-speaking Shias do not always have a comfortable
recourse to Arabian or Persian aesthetics and the etiquette of Muharram, the
same can be said about the Arabic-speaking and Persian-speaking Shias and
their relationships to the South Asian Karbala invocations. Michael Fischer
and Mehdi Abedi recount a Houston Muharram incident involving South
Asians and Iranians that reinforces this point:
Iranians were invited to their [South Asian friends’] Āshūra ses-

sions, but that generated mutual irritation too: the Iranians found
the Urdu recitations of the [Karbala] story outlandish and funny,
rather than tragic. The deep emotional tones of mourning simply
could not be produced for them in the up and down cadence of the
Urdu language. And so in the midst of one of these sessions, when
the Iranians retired to another room to do one of the namaz prayers,
they were accused [by South Asians] of being disrespectful to the
martyr Husain.8
The succinct observations that Fischer and Abedi make about Iran and Iranians
in the United States are applicable not only to Shias coming from other parts
of the world, but to immigrant communities in general:
Iran and Iranian habitations abroad are both “crazy” hybridized

spaces: at times fertile and comic, at times sterile and painful; in ei-
ther case, hard to image, hard to project into a future that gives the
present significance. The two settings, Iran and Iranian habitations
abroad, mirror each other at acute or oblique angles, mutually affect-
ing each other’s representations, setting off mutating variations.9
However, many Shias, whether originally from South Asia, the Middle
East, Europe or North America, are, like many Sunnis, Hindus, and Christians,
wary of the celebrations of hybridity or fluctuating values; in the midst of the
discourses of cross-fertilization is an attempt to rescue, retrieve, or invent sta-
bility—stability which at times fails to take account of transforming personal
identities and flexibility in the language of religion.
This chapter and the previous one are not exclusively auto-ethnographical
nor are they a historical study of Shiism in the United States or South Asia.
But by beginning such a study with a reflection of and on my own subjectivity,
I hope to unsettle any assumption of the essential fixity of Shiism, the context
of majlis, or the readings of Karbala within the majlis, thereby demonstrating
that Shiism in its practice is extremely broad. The majlis context has historically
constituted a network of overarching, albeit disparate, themes that wind their
way through the grids of the Karbala event. It is vitally important to remember
that different modes of Shii-Karbala commemorations exist side by side dia-
logically at times and discordantly at other times, as is true of the larger his-
torical paradigm of Islam in general. Any singular interpretation of Islam, as
of Karbala, is overridden by linguistic, regional, and broader contextual dis-
courses. The event of Karbala, like Islam itself, appears in a wide-ranging pan-
orama of devotion, contradiction, conciliation, aesthetic maneuvering, and ma-
nipulation. Such is the scope of improvisation inhering within this
seventh-century event on the banks of the Euphrates that its charted realms
can matter-of-factly extend from the South Asian subcontinent to the United
States.
3
Commemorative Politics
and Poetics
My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.

Agha Shahid Ali
Kahte kahte kuch zabān-e be zabānı̄ rah gaı̄

tı̄r khā ke so gae Asfi ġhar kahānı̄ rah gai
Whilst telling a tale, a bit of the language of silence remained
unspoken.
Lulled to sleep by an arrow, Asghar fell asleep—
his bedtime story remained untold
Pyare Sahab Rashid
While I was pursuing my fieldwork for this book in Hyderabad, In-

dia, one of my uncles and interlocutors, an observant Shia and an
anecdotalist of considerable merit, often narrated an incident
wherein a religious authority (ālim), during a particular majlis, was
made to swear that he would only narrate “factual” events pertaining
to the Karbala incident. The authority climbed the pulpit (miñbar)
and uttered but one sentence: “On the tenth of Muharram, 61 hijri
[Islamic calendar date, corresponding to October 10, 680 c.e.], Hu-
sain b. Ali was martyred at Karbala.” The alim then excused himself,
saying that beyond this proposition, all other elaborations of this in-
cident are subjective and their truth value is contingent upon the be-
lief system of and the informal pact between the narrators and their
audiences. Resorting to a play on the dual meaning of tārı̄kfi h in
Urdu, which simultaneously means date and history, the alim said
that the only constant in history (tarikh) is the date (tarikh).1 Al-
though by no means a reflection of the general attitude of the Mus-
74 reliving karbala
lim community to the incident of Karbala, nor a commonplace assertion of

religious authorities and historians, this anecdote affords us space to recognize
the multiple readings of Karbala within the context of Shiism itself. It also
reminds us that historical narratives are locked into those of power, resistance,
and devotion.
This chapter deals with popular interpretations and understandings of Shii
history, and calls attention to the role of women through the invocation of the
Imam Husain’s sister, Zainab. In bringing to light the Shii readings of Islamic
history, I discuss various texts that are recited within the context of the majlis—
from the different subgenres within the Urdu elegy to the sermons from the
pulpit by zakirs. This chapter concerns itself centrally with how the majlis,
through the invocations of Karbala, produces and reproduces a counterdis-
course to the hegemonic readings of Islamic history. The frame narrative of
Karbala has been widened over time and space, thereby allowing space for
intertextuality not only within particular genres but also between the genres
and, of course, between the past and the present.
Thus, in the context of the majlis, any historical interpretation of Karbala
needs to be continually supplemented with a literary recasting in light of the
readers’/listeners’ (interpretive community’s) situational hermeneutics, the in-
terpretive strategies of the particular communities that sponsor the majlises.
These literary configurations, constituted as “historical” works, remain impor-
tant media for the articulation of history, because it is in these works that the
domains of the historian and the poet, the real and the imagined, are creatively
elided. Within the majlis, the historian invokes poetry to configure Karbala,
just as the poets adorn their language with historical allusions. All of these
invocations and configurations make Karbala the preserve of an ever-changing
narrative landscape. This landscape is Karbala’s historic legacy. To illustrate
this point, we could compare Shii historical records penned prior to the tenth
century in Iraq with those from Iran of the seventeenth century, and discern
the accretions of new Karbala-related incidents as well as new characters whose
names were not mentioned as present in Karbala during the battle, even in the
earliest accounts of Karbala. As Ali Hussain’s work on this subject points out,
these accretions were not constituted by newly-discovered historical material
that complements or refutes older material. Rather, these accretions under-
score how competitive ethnic and religious groups, attentive to issues of their
own religious and social legitimacy, want to insert themselves into a significant
historical matrix. With the advent of the Safavid rule in sixteenth-century Iran,
for example, Karbala narratives become more fantastical; this served to differ-
entiate the Shii Safavids from their Sunni Ottoman and Mughal neighbors.
Since a reverence for the Prophet’s family also marked Sunni devotionalism,
the Safavids distinguished themselves by taking this reverence one step further
and fashioned Karbala heroes as superhuman, able to control cosmic forces.2
Because of the flow of ideas and people between various parts of the sub-
continent and Safavid Iran, it is the Safavid readings of Karbala, more than
any other Perso-Arabic discourses, that shape the Karbala narratives in South
Asia.
commemorative politics and poetics 75
The Majlis as a Forum for Alternative Islamic History
The commemoration of Karbala in the South Asian Shii majlis is inextricably

bound to the Shii community’s collective memory, to the community’s sense
of history.3 By “history” I mean the accounts that a community gives of its own
past. These accounts can only be accessed through their subsequent narrations,
and such narrations are hardly monolithic. The narrative possibilities and his-
torical sensibilities for Shias are constituted by disagreements/disputes with
Sunnis over such seemingly basic issues as the Prophet’s birthday and death
date and the precise number of children that he had. Whereas most Sunni
historical accounts and even some Shii scholars suggest that the Prophet had
four daughters,4 most South Asian Shias with whom I spoke refused to believe
that the Prophet had three daughters other than Fatima. Some Shias dismissed
the importance of this matter by simply calling these other daughters
“adopted.” An informed Shia with whom I spoke about this matter said that
the other daughters do not receive the same degree of importance for three
reasons: (1) They did not produce children to carry the Prophet’s bloodline into
the next generation. (2) Fatima was the Prophet’s favorite daughter, hence it is
useless to speak of other daughters. (3) Those who speak about these other
daughters do so to dilute the importance of Fatima and her family. Shias have
thus ascribed a place of importance to Fatima in a manner that occludes the
existence of the Prophet’s three other daughters.
A matter far more serious to Shias than the number of the Prophet’s
daughters is Aisha’s status in many Sunni sources as the Prophet’s “favorite
wife.” The Shii discourses linked to Aisha are underpinned by scathing polem-
ics that go so far as to blame her for feeding the Prophet something that
eventually caused his death. Many Shias conceive of Aisha as a manipulative
shrew more concerned with securing the caliphate for her father, Abu Bakr,
than with transmitting the teachings of Islam in the Muhammadan spirit.5
When discussing Aisha’s designation (among many Sunnis) as the Prophet’s
“favorite” wife, a Shii scholar from Hyderabad argues:
If a man has more than one wife, Allah in the Quran commands
such a man to treat all his wives equally. When the Prophet was
married to Aisha, he had several other wives. So how could Aisha be
his favorite? If there was a wife that the Prophet was very fond of,
after the death of Khadija, then that was Umm Salma. Aisha was
given the “favorite” status by those who wanted to undermine Fat-
ima’s importance in the Prophet’s life.
And Fatima’s adversaries, according to this Shii scholar, were the very ones
responsible for the tragedy of Karbala. With all these sentiments taken into
account, the ritual of the majlis redresses Shii grievances by vividly recounting
the Karbala tale complete with Shii polemics.
Paul Connerton, in How Societies Remember, underscores the importance
of rituals: by replaying historical events, they channel historical knowledge and
76 reliving karbala
thereby usher the past into the present.6 The history of Karbala, as articulated
in the majlis setting, whether through raising alams or the zikr, is not only the
history of the Imam Husain and his followers as they are remembered, but
also of the origins and development of Shii Islam before Husain’s martyrdom.
The majlises afford no way to speak of Karbala without also alluding to the
incidents that led to this event. The goal of these accounts is to show that at
least from the death of the Prophet onward, dissent existed within the Muslim
community and Fatima’s family in particular underwent unparalleled suffering
after the Prophet’s passing.
Such a view legitimates the sectarian (Shii) orientation of the majlis and
takes the origins of Karbala back in time, creating an alternative history. The
term “alternative history” is of course a relatively “objective” construct; to the
community itself, this is not an “alternative history” but rather “true” history,
history as it really happened. I use the term “alternative” in the sense that this
history, as articulated in the majlis context, interrogates and disrupts dominant
historical understandings within the larger (Sunni) Muslim community. Of
course the discourse of these “dominant” understandings should not efface
the multifaceted nature of Islamic history and the multiple understandings of
this history, nor should it repress the contradictions within these understand-
ings. In other words, a unified, undifferentiated referent that can be signified
as “Islamic history,” or “dominant historical understanding,” does not exist.
Thus the dominant other (Sunni) history that the zakir alludes to in the majlis,
and which is presumably at odds with the Shii history, is as essentialist as its
alterity. Just as communal/sectarian subjectivities and identities are fluid, so
are historical narratives and imaginative historical reconstructions. Before dis-
cussing Shii historical reconstructions, I offer a brief account of early Islamic
history from the popular Sunni viewpoint; this will enable us to clearly under-
stand what the Shias contest.
Sunni Readings of Early Islam
Toward the end of his life, too ill to lead his community during the prescribed
prayers, the Prophet Muhammad appointed his dear friend and father-in-law,
Abu Bakr, to lead the prayers. For the great fourteenth-century historian Ibn
Khaldun, this was enough reason for the community to choose Abu Bakr as
caliph, or leader, after the Prophet’s death:
That the men around Muhammad considered the caliphate as some-

thing analogous to prayer and on the strength of that attitude argued
in favour of Abu Bakr’s caliphate, is merely another proof of the fact
that no appointment of an heir [of the Prophet] had taken place. It
also shows that the question of the imamate [leadership] and succes-
sion to it was not as important then as it is today. Group feeling,
which determines unity and disunity in the customary course of af-
fairs, was not of the same significance then as it was to be later on.7
According to such a reading of Islamic history, divisions and schisms within

the Prophet Muhammad’s religion were later, undesirable developments; the
Prophet’s companions were not complicit in such divisions. Even where the
Sunni historical discourses agree that divisions over questions of legitimate
leadership came into existence right after the Prophet, they minimize the im-
portance of such divisions. These Sunni discourses are informed by the theme
of the elevated status and worthiness of the first four caliphs. Sunnis consider
these four caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar, Usman, and Ali, as the rāshidūn, or the
rightly guided leaders. The Sunnis privilege all four of these caliphs (although
to varying degrees) as the staunchest allies of Islam and its Prophet, whether
in the capacity of the Prophet’s companion-relatives in Mecca and Medina or
through their characteristic piety and wisdom after the Prophet’s death: Abu
Bakr, the first caliph, was one of the first converts to Islam and the father of
the Prophet’s favorite wife, Aisha. Abu Bakr accompanied the Prophet at times
when his life was in danger, and even saved the Prophet’s life. The second
caliph, Umar, whose daughter Hafsa was also married to the Prophet, is held
in high esteem among Sunnis as the ruler whose policies heralded the spread
of Islam from Persia to Egypt, while his firmness in matters of Islamic law
remains unsurpassed. Since the beginning of the month of Muharram is the
time when Umar was martyred, many Sunnis hold commemorative gatherings
in honor of the second caliph, as if to declare that Muharram does not belong
exclusively to Husain; the Caliph Umar, and his successor, Usman, also suf-
fered at the hands of Islam’s enemies.8 The Sunni accounts of Usman, who
married two of the Prophet’s daughters, are replete with examples of kindness
and generosity; he is most admired for his work of compiling the Quran. The
Quran compiled in Usman’s time still holds sway over the entire Muslim
community. Ali, in much of the Sunni discourse, is the strong, brave cousin
and son-in-law of the Prophet, whose courage in battle is proverbial, whose
knowledge is indisputable, and through whose children the Prophet’s line of
descent continues. Historically, as Hossein Modarressi has pointed out, Sunnis
positioned many of the Shii imams (descendants of Ali and Fatima) along the
grids of religious and spiritual authority, but did not feel obliged to render
these imams complete obedience nor did they claim that these descendants of
the Prophet could never err. Within many Sunni historical discourses, these
imams, along with the four caliphs, are usually considered beyond reproach.
As far as the relationship between Islam and political authority is con-
cerned, for Sunnis, after Ali, the rule of the last of the “rightly-guided” caliphs
came to a close, causing Islam’s original spirit to be diluted. And this dilution
precipitated the events that eventually led to Karbala. When discussing Kar-
bala’s chronology, the Sunni view of the event does not link it to the issue of
immediate succession to the Prophet. Rather, it begins with the death of the
Umayyad caliph Muawiya and his decision to designate his son, Yazid, as his
successor.
Yazid, even in most Sunni accounts, is an affront to Islam; Husain, the
Prophet Muhammad’s sole surviving grandson at the time, refused to pay
allegiance to Yazid. When pressured to offer allegiance to Yazid, and detecting
78 reliving karbala
an anti-Yazid support base for himself in the garrison city of Kufa, Husain
departed from his home in Medina. En route to Kufa, Husain and his fol-
lowers were stopped in Karbala by the forces of Umar b. Sad, a general rep-
resenting Yazid’s appointed governor of Kufa, Ibn Ziyad. When Husain re-
fused to offer allegiance to Yazid at Karbala, he and most of his male
followers, including his family members, were killed on the plains of Kar-
bala. Husain’s severed head was taken, with his surviving family, first to
Kufa and then to Yazid’s court in Damascus.9 Although Sunnis as well as
Shias agree that these events happened, for the majlis-attending Shias, the
timeline of Karbala begins before 680 c.e.; the succession of Yazid was only
the last of many injustices inflicted upon the Prophet’s family, beginning at
the time of the Prophet’s death.
Karbala’s First Martyrs
To the majlis-attending Shias, the trajectory of Karbala begins on the day of

the Prophet’s death.10 Sources sympathetic to the Prophet’s family narrate the
ensuing happenings in lurid colors. Although direct divine revelation in Islam
came to an end with the Prophet’s death in 632 c.e., the community never-
theless needed a leader who could be trusted with preserving the message of
Islam; no one in the Prophet’s community was more qualified to bear the
responsibilities of such a task than Ali. The Shias believe that the Prophet, by
the command of God, explicitly designated Ali his successor. Ali was the son
of the Prophet’s guardian and uncle, Abu Talib. Ali was one of the earliest
converts to Islam, if not the very first, and for all practical purposes, he was
raised by the Prophet. He accompanied the Prophet on many expeditions and
his valor and courage were unsurpassed during the early decades of Islam.
After arriving in Medina, in order to foster harmony between the Meccan
immigrants (muhājirūn) and their Medinan helpers (ansfiār), each Meccan man
took a man from Medina as his brother. The Prophet, notably, picked Ali, a
fellow Meccan, as his brother.11 When the time came for the Prophet to decide
on a husband for his beloved daughter Fatima, Ali was deemed the most eli-
gible choice for her.12
When the Quran challenged the Christians of Najran to bring forward their
best, to be compared with the best of the followers of the Prophet, the Prophet
took with him Ali, Fatima, Hasan, and Husain. Ali stood for the best of men,
Fatima for the best of women, and Hasan and Husain for the best of children.13
On another occasion the Prophet asked these four to join him under a cloak,
thereby securing the Quranic testament to the purity of these noble souls:
“Allah wishes to remove uncleanliness from You, O People of the House, and
purify You a thorough purification.”14 This incident is usually referred to as
the hfi adı̄ṡ-e kisā, tradition of the cloak; it is frequently recited in Shii households
throughout the year.
There were many other occasions when the Prophet praised Ali: “I am the
city of knowledge, Ali is its gate”; “Ali and I are from the same light (nūr)”;
“Whosoever hates Ali hates me”; “Whoever abandons Ali abandons me and
whoever abandons me abandons God”; “Allegiance to Ali is a prerequisite for
the entrance into paradise”; “The Truth is with Ali and Ali is with the Truth”.15
Ali supported the Prophet’s mission from a very early age. During the battles
of Badr and Khaybar, Ali led the Muslim forces to victory. When the Prophet
embarked on an expedition to Tabuk, Ali remained his deputy at Medina. The
Prophet compared his relationship to Ali with Moses’ relationship to Aaron;
hence Ali’s sons, Hasan and Husain, are frequently referred to by the names
of Aaron’s sons, Shabbar and Shabbir, respectively.16
These and many more incidences demonstrate Ali’s exalted position in the
eyes of the Prophet. According to Shias, after returning from his last pilgrim-
age, while at the pool of Ghadir Khumm, the Prophet explicitly designated Ali
as his successor: “He whose lord I am, Ali is his lord. O God, be the friend of
him who is Ali’s friend and an enemy to him who is Ali’s enemy.”17 The day
of Ghadir has historically been celebrated by Shias as a day of great festivities
(id) on which the Prophet’s mission came to an end with the designation of
the most worthy of successors, the father of his only grandchildren and the
beloved brother, who had been tested over and over in the cause of Islam.
Celebrated on the eighteenth day of the last Islamic month, twelve days before
the beginning of Muharram, Shias give Ghadir prominence by lighting their
houses and holding jubilant gatherings (jashans) that reinforce their allegiance
to Ali and his household. On a symbolic level, Ghadir also becomes the site
where the Self of true Islam, embodied by the Prophet and Ali, is distinguished
from its hypocritical Other.
In an act of hypocrisy and defiance of the Prophet’s will, Shias say, some
of the Prophet’s companions gathered in an assembly hall (Saqı̄fa Banı̄ Saı̄da)
in Medina and accepted Abu Bakr as the caliph of the community. Notably, the
prophet’s entire immediate family was absent from this meeting, since they
were busy preparing for his burial.18 A group of Muslims, the Shia Ali (the
Party of Ali),19 disagreed with Abu Bakr’s rise to the caliphate and instead
asserted Ali’s right to lead the community, both spiritually and politically.
Hence the first division within Islam arose over the issue of community lead-
ership. It is essential to remember that Shii identity is inextricably interwoven
(at both political and spiritual levels) with this issue of succession.
Shii perceptions of Islamic history posit a series of leadership usurpations,
in which the Prophet’s descendants were continually displaced from their
rightful positions of political and spiritual authority. While Ali was bypassed
for the caliphate, his wife Fatima was dispossessed of the inheritance of the
Fadak garden, which Shias believe the Prophet had bequeathed her. Even
though the Quran provides examples of previous prophets’ progeny inheriting
their property, Abu Bakr claimed that the garden of Fadak was community
property. Fatima went to Abu Bakr and protested in vain. Further, she and Ali
were forced to offer allegiance to Abu Bakr and when they refused, wood was
stacked around their house in order to set it on fire. The door to Fatima’s house
was pushed open, causing her physical injury. Consequently, she miscarried
80 reliving karbala
her child and died from the complications of her injuries. She willed that those
who caused her misery after her father’s death not be allowed to attend her
burial.20
Fatima’s position in popular Shiism is analogous to the position of the
Virgin Mary in certain Christian denominations: she is referred to as the “vir-
gin,” immune from all sins and impurities; it is through her offspring (Husain)
that God’s true faith was to be saved. Not only Shias but many Sunnis, such
as Muhammad Iqbal, have bestowed on her laurels that privilege her even over
Jesus’ mother, the most praised woman in the Quran. Fatima also becomes a
martyr in Shii Islam. And like other martyrs in Islam, she lives on in spite of
dying in the eyes of the world. According to this view of Fatima’s afterlife, she
is not only present on the battlefield of Karbala supporting her son, but she is
also a comrade to her daughters when they are in the captivity of Husain’s
killers. Moreover, by her presence, she sanctifies every majlis that commem-
orates Husain.
Those who abuse a revered figure like Fatima receive no compassion from
the Shias. If asked, “Who were the sources of misery to Fatima and her family?”
many an informed Shia would name the first three caliphs after the Prophet.
For Shias, these three caliphs are but harbingers of the eventual breakdown of
the Prophet’s righteous community. On the one hand, some Shias only allude
to their actions (as opposed to mentioning their names) in a disparaging man-
ner, so as to preserve harmony vis-à-vis Sunnis in areas where Shias are a
minority. On the other hand, others not only identify the caliphs by name but
also chastise other Shias for cowardice, for compromising the dignity of the
faith. For example, a leading religious authority and zakir, Ali Naqi Naqvi (“Na-
qqan Saheb”) wrote in the early 1930s in Shahı̄d-e Insāniyat (The Martyr of
Humanity), about the need to universalize Husain’s struggle in order to benefit
all of humanity, as well as to unite Muslims in reverence and devotion toward
Husain.21 Subsequently, he was severely reprimanded by members of his own
community for glossing over the “crimes” of the first three caliphs in order to
appease the Sunnis. Naqvi’s critics asserted that any oversight in such matters
amounts to endorsing the misdeeds of the enemies of the Prophet’s family.
One such critic reminds Naqvi that “Husain was murdered at the gathering in
which Abu Bakr was elected.”22 Therefore, denying Ali’s leadership of the Mus-
lim community after the Prophet is tantamount to murdering Husain.
The caliphate passed from Abu Bakr to Umar and then to Usman. Ali and
his supporters took a relatively quietist stance during the period of these first
three caliphs, a period which lasted for almost twenty-four years. Eventually
Ali did become the caliph, although he governed a state marred by civil strife
and rebellions. The first obstacle he faced was the Prophet’s wife, Aisha. Con-
sumed with a jealousy that had been ignited by the Prophet’s affection toward
Ali and Fatima, many a Shia claims, Aisha raised an army against the newly
elected Ali, thereby contributing to the first battle (the Battle of the Camel) of
Islam’s first civil war. Ali successfully overcame Aisha, but the opposition he
faced from the forces of Muawiya was far more intractable.
Muawiya, the head of the powerful Umayyad clan, had been appointed the
governor of Syria by the second caliph, Umar. Members of the Umayyad clan
had been the staunchest enemies of Islam and were among the last Meccans
to embrace the religion. It fell upon Ali, as heir to the Prophet’s Islam, to
combat the Umayyads, led by Muawiya. Muawiya, through the use of his po-
litical guile, prevailed over Ali and his followers and forced them to move their
power base from the Prophet’s Medina to the garrison town of Kufa. It was in
the mosque of Kufa that a disgruntled Muslim, who had developed a hatred
for factionalism in Islam, assassinated Ali.
In spite of the obstacles he faced, Ali inaugurated a series of policies and
practices that helped guide future generations of righteous Muslims. His er-
udition and justice revealed him as a man who followed the Quran, effected a
return to Muhammad’s Islam, and brought about justice for all his subjects.
Among Ali’s bequests, not just for his community but for humanity, is a letter
to one of his governors, Malik Ashtar, in which he lays down the guiding
principles for a just government. Not only does this letter—often quoted by
scholars defending Islamic humanism after the September 11 attacks in the
United States—call for the fair treatment of non-Muslims, but it is also con-
cerned with the well-being of society’s have-nots. Rashid Turabi translated this
letter from Arabic into Urdu and English, fondly quoting it as a reflection of
Islam’s pluralism and justice:
Develop in your heart the feeling of love for your people and let it be
the source of kindliness and blessing to them. Do not behave with
them like a barbarian, and do not appropriate to yourself that which
belongs to them. Remember that the citizens of the state are of two
categories. They are either your brethren in religion or your breth-
ren in kind. They are subject to infirmities and liable to commit
mistakes. Some indeed do commit mistakes. But forgive them even
as you would like God to forgive you. Bear in mind that you are
placed over them, even as I am placed over you. And then there is
God even above him who has given you the position of a Governor
in order that you may look after those under you and to be sufficient
unto them. And you will be judged by what you do for them. Do not
set yourself against God, for neither do you possess the strength to
shield yourself against His displeasure, nor can you place yourself
outside the pale of His mercy and forgiveness. Do not feel sorry over
any act of forgiveness, nor rejoice over any punishment that you
may mete out to anyone. Do not rouse yourself to anger, for no good
will come out of it. Do not say: “I am your overlord and dictator, and
that you should, therefore, bow to my commands,” as that will cor-
rupt your heart, weaken your faith in religion and create disorder in
the state. Should you be elated by power, ever feel in your mind the
slightest symptoms of pride and arrogance, then look at the power
and majesty of the Divine governance of the Universe over which
82 reliving karbala
you have absolutely no control. It will restore the sense of balance to

your wayward intelligence and give you the sense of calmness and
affability.23
After Ali’s murder, in an effort to establish a legitimate state, his eldest

son Hasan was elected the caliph in Kufa; but under pressure from Muawiya,
Hasan had to relinquish this position of leadership. Hasan, along with his
younger brother Husain, retired to Medina from Kufa and agreed to remain
silent as long as Muawiya held the reins of power. Shias believe that Hasan
was eventually poisoned at the instigation of Muawiya.
Political dissent under Muawiya was not a matter taken lightly. He ap-
pointed governors who employed all means necessary to assure the stability
and legitimacy of the growing empire, which he headed from the capital of
Damascus. Ali was cursed from the pulpits of the mosques, lest a counter-
claim to the caliph’s legitimacy endanger Umayyad authority. Ali’s Shias, like
Hujr b. Adi al-Kindi, revolted against Muawiya, only to be beheaded.24
Within Shii communities, Muawiya, Aisha, and others, who are believed
to have conspired against Ali are cursed in incantations known as tabarra; this
tabarra has become a doctrinal necessity for many Shias. In some Shii house-
holds, certain days of Muharram are selected for tabarra. Muharram has be-
come the ideal time for this cursing, some Shias would say, because it demands
allegiance to the Prophet’s family and condemnation of those who made this
family suffer. Not only has the tabarra become a verbal testimony of commit-
ment to the Prophet’s family, but it is followed by actions, such as the burning
of effigies (putle) of the enemies of Ali and Husain. The effigy-burning, color-
throwing, carnival atmosphere marks, for some Shii communities, the end of
the two-month eight-day-long mourning period of ayyam-e aza. The ninth day
of the third Islamic month is referred to as navı̄ñ kı̄ı̄d; on this day, Shias in
parts of South Asia celebrate the renewal of their faith, since it is around this
time that one of the later followers of Husain, Mukhtar, killed several enemies
of the Prophet’s family to avenge the tragedy of Karbala. This day is preceded
by exuberant recitations of the feats of Mukhtar, which work as a welcome
restorative for many Shias. In addition to providing a forum for the recollection
of the vengeance unleashed by Mukhtar around this time, in many Shii circles
this is also the day on which the last Shii Imam, the awaited savior of the
community, assumes community leadership after his father’s martyrdom. Dev-
otees believe that the last Imam is present (although in occultation) and is
guiding the righteous members of his community. Thus the navin kiid occa-
sions a breath of relief—not all was lost in Karbala—and Husain’s progeny,
in spite of overwhelming difficulties, have survived to guide humanity.
The festivities associated with this day in many parts of South Asia are
similar to those associated with the Hindu spring festival of Holi, which is
marked by paint-throwing and bonfire-burning to symbolize the victory of vir-
tue and the destruction of vice. Many of these Shii practices can be traced back
to sixteenth-century Safavid Iran.25 The Shii navin kiid arouses the ire of many
Sunnis, who feel that Shii celebrations on this occasion are an affront to the
first three caliphs, who are cursed in some Shii households during this time.
Furthermore, this festival, in the popular lore of many Sunni communities,
has acquired a reputation for promoting licentiousness among Shias. For ex-
ample, stories of Shii wife-swapping are part of the Sunni narratives of this
festival, as though to make the point that not only are Shias guilty of cursing
the Prophet’s companions but such cursing is tied to the Shii community’s
other sinful actions. Just as self-flagellation during the majlis provides a basis
for many Sunnis to criticize Shias for mourning Husain in an excessive (un-
Islamic) manner, the joys of navin ki id cause Sunnis to reproach Shias for
indulging in unrestrained debauchery. Shias, of course, deny participating in
acts that violate Islamic law.
Although the performance of public tabarra, or effigy-burning, exists in
South Asia, it should be emphasized that only a handful of Shias, usually those
from neighborhoods that are overwhelmingly Shia, participate in such actions.
The precise character of such provocative festivities varies from region to re-
gion, as it varies from neighborhood to neighborhood. These actions are loudly
condemned by many community leaders; they are seen as triggers for Shii-
Sunni sectarian violence. Shii-Sunni controversies in the subcontinent have
raged for years, largely over the issue of tabarra and effigy-burning. Sunnis
have reacted to Shii vilification by praising the companions (madhfi -e sfiahfi āba),
this in turn infuriates Shias who see this as tantamount to calling the Karbala
tragedy an aberration in the history of Islam.26 In particular contexts of Shii-
Sunni tension, such as Lucknow during the late 1960s—when Shias felt tar-
geted not only by Sunnis but by extension by the ruling Congress party that
was courting Sunni votes—Shias have sought assistance from right-wing
Hindu parties like the Jan Sangh.27 Even worlds away from the anti-Muslim
nationalist political agenda of the Jan Sangh, in order to be heard and elicit
action from the government, Shias (as a minority within India’s Muslim com-
munity) have at certain times forged desperate alliances fraught with unsettling
political equations for the present and the future.
When speaking of Shii-Sunni conflicts, I do not wish to essentialize the
configuration of conflicts whose origins and causes—as Sandria Freitag and
others have shown so well28—are disparate and often contingent upon broader
socioeconomic factors. However, by mentioning these issues, I underscore Shii
perceptions of the need for an alternative, if not oppositional, history within
the majlis context.
Justifying an Alternative History
Sayyid Muhammad Murtuza (d. 1999), a friend of Rashid Turabi as well as a

student of Turabi’s mentor, Ayatollah Haji Mirza Mahdi Pooya (d. 1973), spoke
to me about the Sunni “misperceptions” of Shiism and Shiism as an antithesis
to Islam.29 Furthermore, he laid the basis for the necessity of articulating Is-
lamic history from a Shii perspective; Shias, in his opinion, had been histori-
cally “victimized” by Sunni readings of Islam, both in India and Pakistan:
84 reliving karbala
From Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi to Shah Waliullah, from Shah Abdul

Aziz to the Deobandis, to Mahmood Abbasi, all have felt threatened
by the Shii version of Islamic history and they have gone to all
lengths to discredit Shiism. Lately, they [Sunnis] have invented the
madh-e sahaba which has no historical grounding and it is simply a
slogan to infuriate Shias.30
All those mentioned above have contributed to the anti-Shii polemical dis-
course in South Asia: Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624 c.e.), a contemporary
of the Mughal emperor Akbar, often referred to in Sunni circles as mujaddid,
or “renewer,” talked of Shias as “innovators” and “worse than infidels.”31 The
Shaykh’s rhetoric was fanned in the ensuing century by Shah Waliullah (d.
1762 c.e.) who, according to Athar Abbas Rizvi, “like all other orthodox Sunnis
considered Shias to be odious and damned and therefore cut off from Divine
grace.”32 Shah Waliullah’s son, Shah Abdul Aziz (d. 1824 c.e.) further perpet-
uated this view of Shias by not only considering them heretics, but also dis-
couraging any form of Sunni association with them, whether through marriage
or by eating animals slaughtered by them.33 The likes of Shah Abdul Aziz
inspired the founding of such prominent institutions of Sunni learning as the
school in Deoband (founded in 1867).34 Barbara Metcalf notes in her work on
nineteenth-century North Indian Muslim scholars and institutions, Sunni re-
ligious authorities were quick to appraise Shias in a negative light, blame weak-
ening Muslim values on Shii and Sufi modes of Islam, and hold these groups
more responsible than non-Muslim forces.35
The labor to discredit continues in the opinion of the late Murtuza, even
in the twentieth century, as evident in the works of Mahmood Abbasi. Mah-
mood Abbasi defends Yazid’s cause36 by citing traditions that go back to the
Prophet. In one such tradition, the Prophet is reported to have said that if the
Muslim community is split by allegiance to two separate caliphs at one time,
then the second caliph, i.e., the one to whom allegiance was paid at a later
time, must be killed.37 This, in effect, amounts to an apology for Yazid’s actions
in Karbala, since Husain rose against Yazid only after members of the Muslim
community had paid allegiance to the latter. “By reading such books, one would
think that the Prophet had condoned the murder of his own grandson,” said
Sayyid Muhammad Murtuza, wryly.38
The need for the majlis to articulate Shii history (according to Taqi Hasan
Wafa, Murtuza’s cousin and a leading Shii authority of Hyderabad) has to be
judiciously placed within the larger colonial and postcolonial contexts that fu-
eled rigid religious categorization, anti-Shii stereotypes, and exclusivist iden-
tities. Wafa, who for years headed Hyderabad’s oldest Shii institution (Madrasa-
e-Jafaria), was directly involved in training students in Shii studies. As a student
of Shii history and the supervisor of South India’s largest library of Shii man-
uscripts and books, Wafa is certain that the majlis has grown over the last
hundred years as a forum for Shii-Sunni polemics. According to Wafa, and
consistent with historical evidence from other parts of South Asia,39 pre-
twentieth-century majlises in South Asia were more about expressing devotion
to Husain than giving Shii faith a legitimate historical grounding by polemi-

cally engaging Sunnis. In precolonial times, with a few exceptions, Muharram
was allotted a significant role in various South Asian communities, including
those of Hindus, Buddhists, and Sunnis. In regard to the symbol of Husain,
these heterogenous communities superimposed a universal heroic perspective.
By way of example, Wafa mentions that the Hindu Prime Minister of Hyder-
abad, Maharaja Kishan Parshad, was a Hindu flagellant in Husain’s devotion.
Legend has it that when this devotee of Husain was cremated, all of his body,
save for his palm and chest that were used in flagellation, was reduced to ashes.
This syncretic tradition altered with the advent of colonialism; colonial officials,
in collaboration with a few chosen representatives of India’s religious com-
munities, strategically used the religious cachet to “divide and rule” India.40
Hence, the British colonial process began to undermine the events of Mu-
harram, whose parameters were jointly framed by various religious commu-
nities and whose existence for centuries enfeebled the very notion of religious
boundaries. As rigid religious categories were projected onto the culture of
South Asia, in the hope that such categorization would make the running of
the colonial enterprise easier, religious orientations appeared in increasingly
exclusivist terms. Many colonized subjects in the subcontinent marshaled ef-
fective arguments against the British “divide and rule” policies through poetry
and other art forms.
For instance, during Muharram of 1908, when harsh polemical relations
between particular Shii and Sunni segments of Lucknow gave a gloomy am-
bience to that city, the Awadh Punch, Urdu’s premier comic magazine, cari-
catured Lucknow’s Muharram as a “circus.” In this circus, the British assumed
the role of the “general manager,” or ringmaster, who was confounded by the
conflict between the police and the masses of Lucknow. Both sides in this
conflict lost their humanity to their animalistic nature and religion was reduced
to a mere toy in the hands of Lucknow’s masses (see figure 3.1). The great
Urdu satirist, Akbar Allahabadi, wondered in the same magazine as to how
Shii and Sunni communities, both of whom believe in the “same Quran, the
same direction of prayer, the same Allah, and the same Messenger” will gain
anything in the long run by fighting each other while both remain “enslaved”
by the Others [the British].41
During the colonial era, discourses of Muharram, especially the flagella-
tion that characterized it, were repressed from a shared spiritual sphere and
became anchored in discourses of violence that needed to be managed. Even
a fictional work like E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India speaks of Muharram as
a moment of mayhem in India.42 Religious nationalists fulfilled what the co-
lonialists had prefigured.
The invectives against the Shii minority community and its practices only
increased with the progress of the twentieth century, even after the British
departed from the region in 1947. Muharram is at once a key moment of Shii
self-assertion and a syncretic event that facilitates the convergence of Shii and
non-Shii devotees of Husain in many parts of South Asia. Therefore, it is not
difficult to see how it has become a target of criticism and violence for those
86 reliving karbala
figure 3.1 Cartoon appearing in Awadh Punch, 1908. (Left to right:

‘Police, General Manager, People of Lucknow with Religion in their hand.’)
The Urdu caption reads: “The Spectacle of Muharram Circus in Lucknow.”
who want to police cultural and religious boundaries, thereby defining Islam
anew. The violence-Karbala-Muharram discursive nexus and the concomitant
agenda of repressing the Shii community, albeit in shifting patterns, has forced
Shias to make the majlis a creative space for political interventions and identity
assertions. While particular Sunni groups invoke the likes of Abbasi, Sirhindi,
and Waliullah, to sharpen their anti-Shii stances and use Muharram as a coded
reference for Shii “heresy,” Shias, in their majlises, court an Islamic history
that supports their own spiritual and ideological orientations against the cor-
relative workings of colonial discourses and Sunni puritanism.
Modes of Invoking Karbala in the Majlis
When speaking in a public forum like the majlis, Shias are usually careful to
frame their arguments so as not to incite violent reactions in other commu-
nities. However, Karbala is still seen within its widest interconnections and the
speakers of the Shii community do not shy away from negative appraisals of
developments in the post-Prophetic community. These appraisals usually occur
without mention of certain names: The fact that Ali and Fatima were oppressed
is mentioned, but the names of the oppressors are omitted. Or, the narrators
resort to the passive tense whereby the subject performing the action is oc-
cluded. Even though the oppressors of Ali and Fatima, unlike the oppressors
of Husain, are seldom openly mentioned by name, they are clearly understood
by the Shii interpretive community to be the first three caliphs and their sup-
porters. Such a concealment of names dates from an early period in Islamic
history and is evident in the writings of the likes of Nasir-e Khusraw (d. ca.
1075 c.e.):
tū bar ān gozideh-ye Kfi hudā o Payambar
gozı̄dı̄ fulān-o fulān-o fulān43
In preference to the one chosen by God and the Prophet
You chose so-and-so, so-and-so and so-and-so.
Implied here is Khusraw’s belief that God and the Prophet chose Ali as
the successor to the Prophet, but those opposed to Ali picked “nobodies” in-
stead. Such a Shii discourse of “fulān-o fulān-o fulān,” or “so-and-so, so-and-
so and so-and-so,” far from blunting the issue of succession to the Prophet,
serves to underscore the absurdity of denying Ali his rightful place in the
Islamic community in favor of three “nobodies.” The three immediate succes-
sors to the Prophet (Abu Bakr, Umar, and Usman) always carry the blame for
Karbala on their shoulders. One South Asian zakir says:
If you look for the beginning links [reasons] of the Karbala incident,
then Karbala will appear as the culmination of the beginning at
Saqı̄fa—If after the Messenger, Ali and Fatima had not been op-
pressed, if their rights had not been violated, then an audacious one
like Yazid would not have had the courage to wreak oppression and
havoc [on the Prophet’s family].—Satan became responsible for the
destruction of humanity by not prostrating in front of Adam and
Muslims became responsible for the destruction of Islam by not ac-
cepting the Caliphate of Ali [immediately after the Prophet].44
The zakir, Meeran Sahab, implicitly compares those who “usurped” the caliph-
ate from Ali, to Satan. He argues that the merit of the Prophet’s companions
should not be judged by virtue of their association with the Prophet during his
lifetime, but by their steadfastness to the Prophet’s cause, as shown in their
treatment of the Prophet’s family after his death—treatment meted out to the
Prophet’s family by Abu Bakr, Umar, Usman, and Muawiya.
From Muawiya to Yazid
After Muawiya’s death (680 c.e.), his son Yazid inherited the caliphate and
insisted on the allegiance (baya ) of Husain, to whom the Alid leadership had
passed after Hasan’s death (670 c.e.). It was customary at this time for political
authorities to legitimize their rule by extracting allegiance from prominent
members of the community. Thus Husain, as the Prophet’s grandson, accrued
unmatched spiritual status and his allegiance was perceived by Yazid and his
advisors as essential to the survival of their rule. The political dimension of the
struggle between the Alids and the anti-Alids emerges sharply with the rise of
Yazid. As far as many pious Muslims of the time were concerned, Yazid had
parted ways with Islam and it was up to Husain to provide guidance to the
88 reliving karbala
community. Hence Husain, refusing to pledge allegiance to Yazid, set out for
Kufa, whose people had invited him to provide leadership for them. He had
also received confirmations of support from his cousin and emissary, Muslim
b. Aqil, who had been sent to Kufa to gauge the potential backing for the
Prophet’s grandson.
Kufa had witnessed several uprisings during the reign of Muawiya, caus-
ing the powers in Damascus to look suspiciously at this Iraqi garrison city.
Hence the Umayyad power could foresee Husain’s arrival in Kufa as a fresh
spark in an already combustible political scene. It was to forestall any such
uproar in Kufa that Husain was stopped in Karbala, on the banks of the river
Euphrates, by the Umayyad forces led by Hurr b. Yazid al-Tamimi. Hurr
warned Husain of the death that awaited him if he were to proceed to Kufa.
With ferocious assurance, Husain argued with Hurr and made it clear that
Muhammad’s grandson prized the well-being of Islam over his own life.45
Over the next few days, Husain was given grim news from Kufa: Many of
his supporters were severely persecuted and his cousin Muslim as well as a
staunch Kufan ally of the Alids, Hani b. Urwah, had been executed. The Kufan
governor, Ibn Ziyad, soon dispatched a force of four thousand people under
the command of Umar b. Sad. With the arrival of this force, an outright battle
became inevitable. Great pressure was put upon Husain to reconsider his po-
sition against Yazid; he was even denied water. Husain, traveling with family
members including young children and women, bore all of this with forbear-
ance. On the ninth day of Muharram, Husain asked for a night devoted to
meditation and prayers. Husain’s only son to survive Karbala, Ali b. Husain,
also known as Zain al-Abedin, later recounted his father’s words to his com-
panions:
I glorify God, the Blessed and Exalted, with the most perfect glorifi-
cation and I praise Him in happiness and misfortune. O God, I
praise You for blessing us with prophethood, teaching us the Quran
and making us understand the religion. You have given us ears,
eyes, and hearts. You have not made us be among the polytheists. I
know of no followers more fitting and more virtuous than my fol-
lowers, nor of any family (ahl al-bait) more pious and more caring
about family relationships than my family. May God reward you well
on my behalf. Indeed, I think that our final day will come tomorrow
through these enemies. I have thought about you. All, go away with
the absolution from your oath, for there will be no obligation on you
from me. This is a night that will give cover to you with its dark-
ness. Use it as a camel to ride away through it.46
Not only did Husain not lose any of his companions, but as dawn broke, he
gained a new one: Hurr b. Yazid, the general from the Umayyad camp, who
had initially prevented Husain’s caravan from going to Kufa.
Hurr’s arrival in Husain’s camp is a favorite topic of the majlis. Much of
Husain’s suffering is validated by the arrival of Hurr. Hurr’s revolt provides
insight into the effect of the Imam’s presence and speeches on Yazid’s army.
In spite of all the worldly wealth and honor at his disposal, Hurr meditated on
the consequences of fighting Husain. When a companion asked Hurr why he
was not committed entirely to the cause of Yazid, Hurr voiced his dilemma: “I
am deciding between hell and heaven.”47 The choice makes Hurr’s path of
action clear; a path that will lead him to Husain:
Fate brought him from fire to light
Just a moment ago he was an atom
Now he’s a resplendent sun!
Pleased, the Intercessor of the Resurrection48 forgave his mistake
His last moments were spent with his head in the lap of Shabbir49
He attained stature, honor and splendor in the army of God
When he was reduced to dust, his abode was in the healing dust of
Karbala50
Hurr was perhaps one of the first ones to attain martyrdom on Husain’s side.
He is remembered year after year by millions as a paradigm of hope that
reflects not only the contemplative aspect of religion but also its emphasis on
forgiveness. In spite of Hurr thwarting the Imam’s effort to move forward to
Kufa, Husain forgave him when his mistake was realized. Hurr’s very name
means “freeborn,” and as Husain himself had pointed out, Hurr lived up to
this name—he was not a slave to any Yazid.51 Hurr’s story emphasizes the
forgiving and transformational aspects of religion—with one important stip-
ulation: The transformation must be reflected in action not mere words.
Hurr was followed in martyrdom by other loyal companions: the Ethiopian
Jawn, the Imam’s childhood friend Habib; and finally the members of the
Prophet’s family. Neither young nor old were spared. Each mother prepared
her sons for the battlefield with such spirit that the children themselves vied
with each other to attain precedence in martyrdom. Zainab, Husain’s sister,
sent her only two sons with an admonition: “You must not turn away from the
cause of Truth.”52 The children never returned alive. The Imam himself
brought their corpses into the women’s tent. Upon seeing this, Zainab fell
prostrate.
A mother’s children are dearer to her than anything

But she sacrificed those sons that she adored for the sake of her
brother
She did not breathe a word of complaint when her two loved ones
breathed their last
Nor did she ask, “Who has departed for paradise?”
Neither did she let fall the scarf from her hair, nor did she furrow
her brow
Bowing low, she prostrated twice to offer thanks53
Zainab’s forbearance, however, quickly gave way to sorrow when the turn came
for Ali Akbar to head for the battlefield. Ali Akbar was Husain’s beloved son
who Zainab raised as a foster mother for eighteen years. He resembled the
90 reliving karbala
Prophet Muhammad in every respect. The majlises of Rashid Turabi, in which

he recited the martyrdom of Ali Akbar, are considered especially poignant.
Turabi asserted that at times, when the zakir is discussing an aspect of Kar-
bala, there is an indication to the zakir (perhaps from the Imam himself ) that
Ali Akbar’s martyrdom must be narrated.54 Also, in Ali Akbar, Rashid Turabi
saw the continuation of the family tradition of safeguarding the truth. Ali
Akbar was willing to give up his life while protecting his father, just as his
great-grandfather Abu Talib had protected the Prophet, his nephew, till the very
end.
Once again, the Karbala narrations echo an alternative view of Islamic
history. The majority of Sunnis do not believe that Abu Talib accepted Islam
in his lifetime. A few of the Sunni traditions also relate that the Prophet, in
spite of his love for Abu Talib, pointed out that Abu Talib would not be treated
as a believing Muslim on the Day of Judgment, for he had not accepted his
nephew as the Messenger of God. The Shias, however, believe that Abu Talib
had embraced Islam, but had not declared it openly, in fear of his life. Rather
he practiced taqiyya (dissimulation), a practice adopted by many Shias when
their lives and livelihoods are threatened. While concealing his identity as a
Muslim, Abu Talib protected his nephew from the hostilities of the Meccan
aristocracy, including Yazid’s father Muawiya, and his grandfather Abu Sufyan.
While discussing Ali Akbar’s determination to sacrifice his life for the cause
of Islam, Rashid Turabi often introduces a narrative about the sacrifices of
Husain’s paternal grandfather for the same cause. Abu Talib’s commitment to
Muhammad in Mecca can only be paralleled with Ali’s commitment to Mu-
hammad in Medina, or Ali Akbar’s commitment to Husain in Karbala. The
father (Abu Talib) safeguarded the Prophet before he immigrated to Medina,
his son (Ali) did so after the Prophet arrived in Medina.
In the sweltering desert of Karbala, Husain’s Ali Akbar is determined to
stay true to his family’s honor: “Ali Akbar is the progeny of Abu Talib,”55 says
Turabi, thereby invoking the ongoing struggle between virtue and vice, alle-
gorized through the narrative of confrontation between Husain’s protective son
and Abu Sufyan’s vicious grandson. The struggle, which started on the sands
of Mecca between Muhammad and the Meccan aristocracy headed by Abu
Sufyan, reached its culmination on the banks of the Euphrates. Although Abu
Sufyan’s family had entered Islam after being defeated by the Prophet in the
Battle of Badr, its commitment to Muhammad’s cause could be measured by
its blood-stained hands—hands stained from murdering Muhammad’s sup-
porters, including the blood relatives of God’s last messenger. Karbala was the
test to differentiate between those who simply paid lip service to Islam (the
munāfiqı̄n, or hypocrites) and those who struggled and sacrificed for God’s final
revelation (the mujāhidı̄n, or those who strive in God’s way). Karbala was thus
a righteous, divinely sanctioned struggle led by Husain, in essence an unveiling
of hypocrisy. The mere proclamation of God’s unity and Muhammad’s proph-
ecy was not sufficient. Husain’s opponents proclaimed such a creed but Islam
demanded action more than it demanded words. Who but Abu Talib, his son
Ali, his grandson Husain, and his great-grandson Ali Akbar could meet this
demand?56 Ali Akbar was followed by other members of his family, including
his cousin Qasim, a son of Hasan, who, according to tradition, had just been
wed to Husain’s daughter.
The standard-bearer (alamdār) of Husain’s cause was his half-brother Ab-
bas b. Ali. Abbas resembled Ali in majesty and courage. Husain reminded his
brother that the physical war was only to be defensive. The Alids would neither
initiate nor prolong it. This point is underscored repeatedly by Shii zakirs of
the subcontinent in the wake of assertions by many—including, of course,
many Orientalists—that Islam is “a religion of the sword.” Sayyid Ibn Hasan
Jarachvi, a popular zakir of Uttar Pradesh, with a following in other parts of
South Asia, went so far as to call Husain’s struggle with the forces of Yazid a
satyagraha, the term used by Gandhi for his nonviolent resistance to the Brit-
ish.57 As evidence for this assertion, the zakir cites Husain’s speech on the eve
of ashura, in which the Imam told all his companions and family members to
leave Karbala, since Yazid demanded allegiance only from Husain and not from
those who accompanied him. Had the Imam desired a physical confrontation,
why would he urge his followers to depart?
The September 11 attacks further stimulated an interpretation of history
that identifies the Shii cause with peace and nonviolence. After these attacks,
many majlises side-stepped any thoughtful and nuanced discussion of politics
and instead reinstated caricatural categories of peace-loving, nonviolent Mus-
lims. Rather than rejecting the polarized images of Islam projected by the US-
based mass media, these majlises made reference to violence that was perpe-
trated against the United States and violence that Shias face in Iraq and South
Asia, as if the perpetrators were the same throughout history and the violence
were comparable. In a majlis broadcast on a popular cable channel in South
Asia and parts of the Arab world on February 15, 2005, Maulana Muhammad
Athar, a popular contemporary zakir in South Asia, extolled Husain’s war in
Karbala as one that was launched to protect the Quranic principle: “There is
no compulsion in religion.”58 In this reading of Karbala, Yazid is identified with
force and compulsion, for demanding allegiance from Husain. Yazid’s actions
are also identified as the actions of a terrorist, thereby linking Yazid to modern-
day enemies of Shias who participate in violent suppression of Shii mourning,
whether in Pakistan or Iraq. Thus a link is forged among modern-day anti-Shii
elements (the Taliban, al-Qaida and other organizations with similar anti-Shii
agendas), the forces of Yazid, and the powers that usurped the caliphate from
Ali. Kalb-e Jawwad of Lucknow also depicts Shiism as a peaceful religion by
inviting his audiences to step into the ethical world of Imam Husain during
the battle of Karbala. In spite of being deprived of water, when the Imam was
asked by one of his companions to physically attack the forces of Yazid, the
Imam replied: “We do not start wars.”59 The zakir wants the world to remember
this principle of Husain’s and believes that if all nations follow its spirit, there
would be no war in this world.
In Muharram of 2002, the first after the September 11 attacks in the United
States, Athar read ten majlises in Mumbai (generally known as “Bombay” in
the West) that were focused on the issue of terrorism. Not only did he distance
92 reliving karbala
Shias from terrorism, but he also defined jihad as a defensive war, as a war
that must be fought inside oneself, against one’s lower, immoral self, before
it is fought against people and ideas outside oneself. For this religious authority,
Karbala is an important lesson for all non-Muslims because it reflects two types
of Muslim practioners: One on the side of Yazid, who claim to be Muslim, and
the other on the side of Husain. Yazid believed in force and compulsion, while
Husain believed in justice and peace. Athar pities those Muslims who have
been foolish enough to make heroes out of those “Muslims” who attain military
victory at the price of Islam’s spirituality. The people he names are historically
associated with anti-Shii sentiments: Mahmud of Ghazna (the eleventh-century
Turkish warrior who raided the temples of Somnath), Aurangzeb (the Mughal
ruler who conquered the Shii kingdom of the Qutb Shahis in the Deccan), and
Saddam Hussein (the Iraqi leader who murdered many Shias and Kurds).
Athar’s discourse paves the way to condemning these heroes as belonging to
Yazid’s side and calls for an alternative set of heroes, such as those who sup-
ported Husain in Karbala, especially his half-brother Abbas.
When physical confrontation was forced upon the Imam Husain, Abbas
gallantly defended him. Husain and his children were so dear to this son of
Ali that he braved a storm of arrows to fetch water for Husain’s daughter Sakina
and attained martyrdom on his way back to Husain’s tent. The faithfulness
with which Abbas carried out his brother’s mission forever secured his status
as the Messenger of Fidelity, the Moon of the Hashimite clan, and the Water-
carrier of the holy family. The replicas of his standard became favorite icons
of the Shia for centuries to come. They are constant reminders that although
Abbas died defending the standard of Islam, that standard itself survived Kar-
bala. Thousands of Shii houses raise replicas of these standards (alams) along
with replicas of the shrines of the Prophet’s family in memory of those who
suffered in the cause of Islam.60 Although such icons, infused with religious
significance, are reminders of the ultimate victory of the cause of justice, they
keep the devotees of the Prophet’s household always mindful of the suffering
that each member of this family endured.
Perhaps no sacrifice of Karbala carries more emotional weight than the
martyrdom of the Imam’s six-month-old son, Ali Asghar. A popular elegy, with
a moving internal rhyme, recited in commemoration of this event, alludes once
again to the extent of the opposition’s vendetta against Husain:
batātı̄ hai sfi āf yeh shaqāvat ke āj kal kı̄ nahı̄ñ adāvat
karfiı̄ kamāñ detı̄ hai shahādat ke ek zamāne kı̄ dushmanı̄ hai
thā is gharāne kā ek zamāna ke kalmā parfihta thā ek zamāna
aur āj hai yeh vahı̄ gharāna ke jis kā bachcha bhı̄ kushtanı̄ hai
na āte yūñ māñgne ko pāni kfi habar gar Asfi ġhar ko is kı̄ hotı̄
ke ummat-e jadd kı̄ āj ithı̄ barfihı̄ huı̄ nāvak afganı̄ hai61
The villainy [of Yazid’s side] clearly reveals that this hatred did not
begin just yesterday
The arched bow bears witness, this is an age-old hostility
There was a time when the entire world uttered the creed of this [the
Prophet’s] family,
Testifying to their faith
But today they [the enemies] see fit to murder a child from this very
same family
Had Asghar known that his grandfather’s community was so bent on
shooting arrows,
He would never have asked for water
Another poet wishes that the paradigmatic model of patience, the Prophet Job,
had been able to witness a more painful submission to God.
If only noble Job could behold today
How Husain demonstrates the glory of patience!62
The event of Asghar’s martyrdom has become a dominant focal point in
Shii commemorative exercises, as the Imam’s devotees re-enact the painful,
reluctant steps that Husain must have taken toward the infant’s mother while
carrying the corpse of the youngest martyr of Karbala. With these oft-quoted
consoling words from the Quran, Husain makes sense of his latest agony:
“From Him we come and to Him we return. I submit to the God-given fate
and I accept His commands.”63
Through this and other distressing incidents, the Imam evinced an ex-
emplary forbearance, praising God for granting him the strength to sacrifice
so much for the cause of Islam. As that day drew to a close, the last surviving
grandson of the Prophet was murdered while performing his afternoon
prayers, by those who claimed to be the Prophet’s followers. Karbala, since that
moment, was no longer a geographical dot on the banks of the Euphrates; it
has exerted its symbolic strength far beyond the boundaries of Iraq for more
than a millennium. And although this event has no uniform or consistent
interpretation, poets, devotees, detractors, and historians of Islam continue to
discuss its legacy.
While the Umayyads restricted the public commemorations of Karbala,
they were unable to effectively thwart the remembrance of this event in private.
In subsequent years, the memories of Karbala set off and sustained several
uprisings against the forces held responsible for slaying Husain. Although later
commentators on Karbala, who spoke from political vantage points, advanced
the argument that this was a model religio-political struggle at one level, this
argument does not seem to feature prominently in the extant early discussions
of this event. Amir Moezzi makes this point more forcefully by arguing that
the Imams who came after Husain saw his struggle at Karbala more as an
uplifting spiritual achievement than a political rebellion:
As far as al-Husayn’s [Husain’s] case is concerned, to our knowledge
none of his successors interpreted his presence in Karbala as being a
“political” act aimed at upsetting the powers that be. According to his
own successors, the act of the imam was that of a Friend of God (walı̄)
fulfilling his destiny according to the will of the Beloved (mawlā).64
94 reliving karbala
Notwithstanding the existence of such apolitical discourse, we should beware

of drawing a straight line of explanations or dismissal over time and across
contexts. If we consider that Husain, for whatever reason, was killed while
confronting the army of the ruling authority, could it be that the political re-
pression of Husain’s followers was such that they had to keep a discreet silence
about the reasons behind and the legacy of the event of Karbala?
For South Asian devotional and poetic lore, the historians’ perspective on
whether Shiism gathered political, mystical, or both forces from the battle of
Karbala is irrelevant. For such lore, Fatima, who descended from heaven to
support her son during his agony, was seated very close to the Imam and
witnessed the horror of Husain’s brutal slaying. Such a blight was this incident
to God’s creation that the sun was eclipsed, the earth quaked, and the clouds
wept tears of blood. The desert of Karbala witnessed the arrival of night, shām-e
ġharı̄bān, or the night of the dispossessed. This night, far from concealing the
heroic sacrifices of Husain and his companions, brought to light the figure
who would, from this point forward, promulgate Husain’s message—Sayyadah
Zainab.
Karbala from Husain to Zainab
It was on the night of the tenth of Muharram that Husain’s sister Zainab took
charge of her desolated household. The majlises commemorating this evening
are usually held in the absence of any light. In the late 1960s and early 1970s,
this majlis of Rashid Turabi was broadcast around South Asia from Karachi;
it thereby created a transnational bond among South Asian Shias. For Turabi,
when the time came for Husain to rise as a martyr, it was Zainab who presented
her brother as a sacrifice and offered him on Islam’s behalf, just as the Prophet
Abraham presented his son Ismail. From this point onward, she spoke with
paramount authority and unsurpassed courage. Turabi’s prose narration of
Zainab’s endurance in the face of such sorrows was followed by Sayyid Al-e
Raza’s farewell salam that salutes Zainab:
salām bhejte haiñ apnı̄ shāhzādı̄ par
ke jis ko soñp gae marte vaqt ghar sarvar
musāfirat ne jise be bası̄ yeh dikhlāı̄
niṡār kar dı̄e bachche na bach sakā bhāı̄
ası̄r ho ke jise Shāmiyoñ ke narġhe meñ
Hfi usainı̄at hai sikhānā Alı̄ ke lahje meñ65
We convey greetings to our princess
To whom the King [Husain] entrusted the house in his dying
moments
Her journey reduced her to such straits of helplessness
That despite sacrificing her children
She was unable to save her brother
shackled, encircled by the Syrians [forces of Yazid]
She has to teach the way of Husain

In the manner of Ali
Being the Imam-like and Prophet-like force that she is for her devotees,
the focus of Shii commemorations shifts to Zainab at dusk on ashura. For the
rest of the commemoration period, no gathering is likely to be void of mention
of her. So far in the story of Karbala, Zainab was Husain’s strongest supporter.
She left her husband behind in Medina to accompany her brother. Husain was
always deferential to his sister. Thus writes Anis in his marsiya:
From her elders the rose of Zahra [Zainab] inherited

Fatima’s character and the majesty of God’s Lion [Ali]
Husain, the Oppressed King, recognized the rank of the second
Zahra
And considered her a second mother66
So Zainab was the second Fatima Zahra. Moreover, she had the majesty of Ali,
the Lion of God. The Imam Husain treated his sister accordingly. Within hours
the women of Zainab’s household and Husain’s only surviving son Ali (Zain
al-Abedin, the fourth Shii imam, who was too ill to fight), were taken as cap-
tives, first to the court of Ibn Ziyad in Kufa, and then to Yazid’s palace in
Damascus. Along the way, both Zainab and Zain al-Abedin gave eloquent ser-
mons in support of the cause of those who were murdered at Karbala. Finally,
on the first day of Safar, the second Islamic month, Zainab confronted Yazid
in Damascus, to redeem her family’s suffering and tell the world the reasons
for which Husain and his companions suffered. From this moment onward,
Zainab evoked the far-flung conquest of Husain, metaphorically turning Da-
mascus into a variant of Karbala. Husain’s martyrdom and his physical combat
are reinforced through Zainab’s subsequent confrontation with Yazid; her bat-
tle with words and deeds. Husain and Abbas are the masculine faces of mar-
tyrdom; Zainab is its feminine face.
Zainab: The Conqueror of Syria
O God! Answer our prayers for the sake of Zainab,

The patient and wounded woman of Karbala,
Those who are ill, hasten to cure them,
Deliver us from envy and mischief,
Intercede on our behalf, O sorrowful Zainab!67
When Saddam Hussein imposed restrictions on Shii pilgrimage to Karbala

in the 1980s and 1990s, it was to Damascus that thousands of Shias turned.
I visited Damascus in 1996 to find a majestically solemn shrine awaiting the
pilgrim-visitor as s/he walks through the raucous markets of southeast Da-
mascus. Inside the arched gate of the shrine of Sayyadah Zainab, the gilded
dome, along with the ceilings and walls of the shrine, glittered with mirrors.
96 reliving karbala
The tear-filled eyes of the pilgrims reflected the reverence and love that is
accorded to this granddaughter of the Prophet. Pilgrims of diverse ethnicities
and nationalities recited prayers like those at the beginning of this section.
Many came not only to reaffirm their commitment to the cause of Islam, for
which Zainab gallantly fought, but also to atone for their sins and ask for
Zainab’s intercession on the Day of Judgment. Few pilgrims to the shrine of
Zainab remain untouched by the intensity of the devotional acts that can be
seen as one moves toward the sepulcher of the Prophet Muhammad’s grand-
daughter.
The modes of invoking Zainab are as diverse as the ethnic backgrounds
of the thousands of pilgrims who converge at this shrine: from reading the
tributary Arabic prayers (ziyarat) that salute the trials and tribulations of Fat-
ima’s daughter, to reciting moving Urdu elegies that recount her courage with
remarkable vividness. One of the things that struck me the most during my
visit to Damascus was the tape recorders that had been brought by several
South Asian pilgrims, used to play Urdu elegies and sermons (including those
of Rashid Turabi) in honor of Zainab, hence resonating the symbiosis between
modern technology and premodern history, South Asia and Syria, Karbala and
Damascus.
The sermon that I heard in Damascus on the first day of Safar was perhaps
one of Rashid Turabi’s most powerful. This sermon was, in many ways, a
continuation of his previous sermons that established Zainab as the co-hero
of Karbala, along with her brother, the martyred Imam Husain. When recount-
ing the events of this solemn day, Rashid Turabi compares it to ashura: “For
me, this day is not less in significance than the day of ashura.”68 “My God! The
revolution of time! This household of Muhammad and this treatment [of the
household] by his community!”69 On the day of ashura, Husain’s jihad is com-
memorated; the first of Safar is a commemoration of Zainab’s jihad. Husain’s
jihad was marked partly by swords and arrows; Zainab’s jihad was waged
through words of eloquence. Husain made Karbala immortal; Zainab assured
the immortality of Karbala through her sermons in Damascus. She must have
been well aware of the words of her grandfather Muhammad: “The best form
of jihad is to utter just words (kalimat adl) in the presence of a tyrant ruler
(imām jāir).”70 Turabi is quick to remind his audience of the oft-cited words of
the Prophet to his community: “Certainly, for you, I am leaving two valuable
things behind—the Book of God, and my progeny, my household. If you stay
faithful to them then you will never be led astray.”71 On this day, the progeny
of the Prophet—led by his granddaughter Zainab and his great-grandson Ali
b. al-Husain, both of them well-versed in the Book that was revealed to their
forefather, both adherent to its commands, even at the cost of immense per-
sonal sacrifice—faced Yazid. This majlis commemorates the confrontation be-
tween Zainab and Yazid. It is repeated each year, says Turabi, so the world does
not fear Yazı̄diat, Yazidism. The minority must not be intimidated by the ma-
jority.72 Thus Husainiyyat, the way of Husain, remains the model for genera-
tions to come.
Turabi’s narration of this event can be reconstructed along these lines: The
captured family of the Prophet and the heads of the martyrs were taken into
Yazid’s presence. Yazid first asked the identity of each of the martyrs and then
turned to the captives. Among the captives, Yazid noticed a woman, encircled
by other women, whose very demeanor signified defiance. Yazid lashed out,
asking, “Who is this arrogant woman?” A surreal silence enveloped the court.
The defiant woman rose to respond to this question, and made her way through
the women who surrounded her. Finally, face to face with Yazid, she retorted:
“Why are you asking them [the women]? Ask me. I’ll tell you [who I am] I am
Muhammad’s granddaughter. I am Fatima’s daughter. Ask me, Yazid.” The
entire court was awestruck by Zainab’s introduction; she began her kfi hut3ba
(sermon) with the praise of God:
In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All
praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. May praise and saluta-
tions be upon my grandfather, the Leader of Allah’s Messengers,
and upon his progeny.73
Turabi reminds his audience of the three most memorable khutbas in

history: the ones given by Fatima, Ali, and Zainab. If Fatima’s khutba was
incomplete, Ali completed it. If Ali’s khutba was incomplete, then Zainab com-
pleted it. Fatima’s khutba also took place in a court, says Turabi, carefully side-
stepping the name of the ruler in whose court the khutba was given.74 Turabi
does not need to mention this name, for his Shii audiences know very well
that it was the court the first caliph, Abu Bakr. Fatima, marshaling the verses
of the Quran for her cause, argued with Abu Bakr for her Fadak inheritance
and for the caliphate of Ali, both of which she believed were bestowed upon
her household. By connecting Zainab to her eloquent, knowledgeable, and bold
mother, Turabi creates a nexus between Zainab and the Prophet.
The cause of justice was the vocation of the Prophet’s family, Turabi wants
to stress, and it was in this very spirit that Ali went to Abu Bakr’s court to
claim the caliphate. Again, Turabi does not need to name the forces that op-
posed Ali. Ali’s Shias know that Ali pleaded his case (for being the most de-
serving successor to the Prophet) in Abu Bakr’s presence, in the sermon of
shaqshaqiyya; again, to no avail. Just by alluding to the khutbas of Ali and
Fatima, Turabi intertwines Karbala and its aftermath with the injustices that
befell the Prophet’s family after his death. Karbala thus becomes a culmination,
the pinnacle of sacrifice in the cause of Islam. It was left to Zainab to proclaim
the message of her parents and brothers loudly and clearly. At the same time,
it is up to a zakir like Turabi to proclaim the antecedents of the injustices that
were the lot of the Prophet’s family.
The audience’s interest is heightened as Turabi once again speaks the
language of Zainab, which has now become the language of the Quran. The
Prophet’s granddaughter, after sacrificing her family in the way of God, spoke
through the language of God to a tyrant gloating at his “victory”: “O Yazid!
Have you forgotten the words of God? ‘Let not those who disbelieve think
that our giving them respite is good for their selves; We only give respite to
98 reliving karbala
them that they may increase in sins, and for them is a disgraceful chas-
tisement.’ ”75
After uttering these words from the Quran, Zainab lashed out at the vices
of Yazid and his forefathers, especially his grandmother: “What else could I
have expected from the progeny of a person whose forefathers ate the liver of
my forefathers? This blood [of my forefathers] runs in their blood and the
martyrs’ blood has nurtured their flesh. What else could I have expected from
such a family?”76
Turabi reflects on Zainab’s words: “Have you seen this? This is an op-
pressor’s court. This is a tyrant’s court. This is a despot’s court. This is a
murderer’s court and here is the daughter of the Lion of God [Ali]. It is this
sermon of Zainab [at Yazid’s court] that has preserved these houses [Shii
houses] for centuries.”77
Through the words of Zainab, Turabi invokes those “historical” events that
privilege the Prophet’s family at the expense of Yazid’s. Zainab is quick to point
out the not-so-illustrious ancestry of Yazid: His grandmother, after all, had
gnawed on the liver of the Prophet’s uncle after the Battle of Uhud, thereby
securing for herself the title jigar kfi hwāra, the liver-eater. It was several years
after Uhud that the Meccan aristocracy, including Yazid’s Umayyad ancestors,
was defeated by the Prophet’s forces, and Yazid’s grandfather Abu Sufyan was
taken captive. When Abu Sufyan was taken to Muhammad, he fell at the
Prophet’s feet as an act of apology, and the Prophet freed him. Zainab reminds
Yazid of this family’s debt to her own family: “O progeny of the freedman of
the Prophet! Is this your justice? Your daughters, your slave girls, your dear
women are all sitting behind the curtain and the daughters of the Prophet, in
shackles, unveiled, stand before you.”78
Veiling signifies honor and privacy to Turabi and many others. Fadwa El
Guindi captures the historical significance of veiling in Islamic societies:
In general, veiling by women or men communicates, not subordi-
nated gender status or the shame of sexuality, but the group status
of the individual, the identity of the group, and the sacredness of
privacy. Whether it is the Prophet entering Makka [Mecca] in victory
or Aisha in public political speech, veiling becomes a device to for-
malize communication and a means to ceremonialize one’s status
and one’s group identity.79
One of the accusations made against Yazid and his subordinates is that they
forcefully removed the veils from the Prophet’s family and dishonored them
by making them walk unveiled in the streets, markets, and palaces of Kufa and
Damascus. But as Zainab’s sermon clearly attests, this attempt at dishonor
failed miserably. Zainab gained honor and respect in the eyes of her devotees,
not on account of her gender or the presence or absence of her veil, but through
her discourse. Zainab proceeded in her sermon:
I swear by Him who has bestowed prophecy upon our house and
who has honored us with His book. I swear by Him who has se-
lected us. I swear by Him who has given us good fortune. O Yazid!
You will not be able to efface our account nor will you be able to
comprehend our intentions, our goals, and the mystery of Husain’s
murder. Begone! I don’t expect any such thing from you.80
Turabi continues in the present tense: “The deluge of tears is sweeping
the court audiences to the feet of Zainab.” Rashid Turabi compared Zainab’s
sermon to that of the Prophet when he defeated the armies of Yazid’s grand-
father: “When Mecca was conquered, the Messenger gave a sermon. Now,
having conquered Syria, Zainab is giving a sermon.”81 The Prophet, in his
sermon, had freed Yazid’s grandfather, Abu Sufyan, who, after the defeat of
his army, could have become a part of the booty won by the Prophet. Zainab,
today, reminds Yazid of that freedom, as she implicates him in the destruction
of Islam. She exposes the hypocrisy that had assumed power. She underscores
the insignificance of such worldly power—the wrath that awaits those who ride
on wealth and arrogance. Her grandfather completed the cycle of messages
that were revealed by God. Her mother and father stood steadfast and con-
fronted the ruling authority of the time (Abu Bakr). Her brother sacrificed his
own life and that of his family to preserve the message of God. All these deeds
needed to be brought to light, and for that, God had chosen Zainab. Zainab
was truly her mother’s daughter, and her mother was the Prophet’s daughter.
It did not matter that no son of the Prophet survived, says Turabi. His daughter
Fatima survived him. To Turabi, Fatima is the wāriṡ (heir) to the legacies of all
the Prophets.82 Turabi’s majlis has as its subject the daughter of Fatima, the
honor of the Prophet’s house. He makes it clear that this is not because she
is a woman, nor is it because her face is publicly unveiled, rather it is because
she carries the benefaction of God’s messengers and saints, of her parents and
of her brothers, a benefaction of virtue, justice, patience, motherhood, sister-
hood, sacrifice, love, swordless war, dishonored honor, and so much more.
Who in human history, man or woman, could carry all of this with such grace
and fortitude? Turabi continually refers to Zainab as a “princess,” he says,
because she is a princess in God’s kingdom of the hereafter, a realm in which
the glory of this world fades into non-existence. Indeed, though she deserved
the title and honor in this world, it was not her destiny, and ultimately, it is
nothing compared to the glory that awaits her.
Zainab’s centrality in the readings of Karbala has an important bearing on
the gender dimension of this struggle; this is clear from the discourses of other
South Asian Shii authorities such as Sayyid Ali Naqi Naqvi, popularly known
as “Naqqan Saheb”:
While looking at the merits and circumstances of Zainab the Great,
may Allah’s peace be upon her, can any person hesitate to say that
the stations that she passed [the obstacles she overcame] were more
difficult than that station that was crossed by the friends of the
Prince of Martyrs [Husain]? Having observed the historical condi-
tions, can any person claim that in those forceful and trying mo-
ments, Zainab’s tongue had any knots, her heart any intimidation,
100 reliving karbala
or that she herself had any fear or dread? . . . She is the voice of
truth in the face of a tyrannical government and an oppressive sul-
tanate—Can there be any doubt that each and every sentence of
[Zainab’s] speech was more brutal for Yazid than the wounds
wrought by thousands of swords and spears? Can it be refuted that
this sermon and many more sermons like this, some reaching us
through history and others not, were such powerful weapons that
they overturned the ruling throne of Yazid and the Umayyads and
rendered them non-existent?83
In Naqvi’s reading of Karbala—which is quite similar to many of Turabi’s

sermons on Zainab—not only did Zainab complete Husain’s battle, but she
became the medium through which Karbala survives for posterity. She became
the inspirational rallying cry for the overthrow of the Umayyads that was des-
tined to take place within the next few decades.84
At this point, it is imperative to highlight the way in which Zainab is
projected among South Asian Shii authorities. Zainab ratifies the cause of
Husain by reproaching Yazid in his own palace. The obeisance of the entire
court to this woman of the Prophet’s house was somehow surreal. Yazid ar-
rogated to himself the status of the ruler of the Islamic world, he gloated over
his temporal victories, but Zainab was left to provide a counter to Yazid’s read-
ing of his own authority, to set straight the historical record.
Through repeated invocations of Zainab, Shias also project her, along with
her mother Fatima, as alternatives to the Sunni ideals of femininity embodied
by Aisha. Zainab and Fatima are simultaneously warriors and women, but
unlike Aisha, they did not venture into “misguided campaigns” against what
is “right.” The gendered presence of both these women in the majlis discourses
becomes subservient to their agency as spokespersons of Islam. In short, this
mother and daughter pair constitutes an interface between womanhood and
warrior. They are neither spatially excluded from the constitution of Karbala
nor is their physical presence and devotional inscription a patronizing diver-
sion. While Zainab became the first to displace Karbala geographically by con-
tinuing to wage her brother’s battle in Kufa and Syria, Fatima did not content
herself with merely supporting the causes of Ali and Husain in Medina and
Karbala: She is present in every majlis, entwining the past and the present,
Ali, Husain, and their devotees, into a single matrix. While Zainab’s most
important legacy is her role as the vanguard of the majlis tradition that or-
chestrates the articulation of the Shii version of Islamic history, Fatima herself
will continue to endorse this tradition for her devotees.
Although many Shias depict Zainab and Fatima as models of female em-
powerment in the early history of Islam, at times these depictions are consti-
tuted with tensions and ambiguities. On the one hand, these women offer
powerfully provocative models of courage to the community; on the other hand,
these women are so perfect that they lose their humanness and appear as
Prophet-like and Imam-like. Can the invocation of these models atone for the
injustices done to women? Can the majlis, as a network of devotion and ped-
agogy, link Zainab and Fatima to their devotees in a pragmatic way? While
many Shias feel that Fatima and Zainab, by virtue of their speeches in the
courts of oppressors, provide a template for women’s empowerment in Islamic
societies, these models can also be disempowering because these women, es-
pecially Fatima, are elevated to such levels of perfection that it becomes im-
possible to emulate them. When these women are discussed in Shii gatherings,
their power derives from their status as the Prophet’s daughter and grand-
daughter—Fatima, at times, is even raised above the Virgin Mary, making it
impossible for her life to resonate and cohere with the lives of her common
devotees. Rashid Turabi and others conceal the ordinariness of the women of
Karbala, and these women (Fatima included) are caught between devotional
superhumanness and practical humanness, romanticism and realism.
But the discourse of women’s empowerment cannot eclipse the comfort
that Zainab and her mother offer to their devotees. Their effect is visible in
the institution of majlis, founded by Zainab herself, and attended by Fatima.
Whether the devotees mourn for Fatima’s son, or for the members of their
own respective families, they take comfort in the belief that their tears are being
collected by the Prophet’s daughter whose family embodies forbearance. She
is present in every majlis consoling the community of her father and sons. No
matter how much the devotees suffer, their suffering pales in comparison to
the narratives of Fatima and Zainab’s suffering. In this aspect, Shii devotees
impart to these women a status matched only by Mary, the mother of Jesus,
in many Christian traditions.
While I have focused in this chapter on the modes in which the South
Asian Shii community has articulated its history and on the informal pact that
exists between the zakirs/zakiras and their audiences, I would also like to draw
attention to the problematics of unconditionally accepting the legitimacy of
these alternative historical discourses or celebrating these gatherings as ideal
and safe minority sites. It is the Shii community’s task to reconcile Islamic
history, which has sidelined them and challenged their Muslimness, with dy-
namic interpretive/poetic strategies that are a prerogative of the zakir(a)-
interpretive community nexus. This task can also precipitate history creation
that is based on an appeal to existing prejudices. A recent incident from South
Asia makes this point more assertively: One of the Shii religious authorities
in South Asia (whom I shall refer to as Maulana Imran, so as to protect his
anonymity), who publishes an Islamic monthly journal in Urdu, quoted a pas-
sage from one of the Lebanese religious authorities that suggests Ali might
have paid allegiance to Abu Bakr after the Prophet’s death. In this case, paying
allegiance does not mean that Ali pronounced any endorsement of the moral
and spiritual authority of Abu Bakr.
Although the passage made it obvious that this was not Maulana Imran’s
personal view, he faced serious threats and harassment for not explicitly re-
futing this view and dissociating himself from it in a clear language. Many of
his fellow Shii zakirs also turned against him, resorting to ad hominem attacks
against him and his family, and even encouraging the region’s rogue elements
to make his peaceful survival difficult. Those Shias who supported Maulana
Imran during this controversy claim that the real instigators marshaling forces
against him were other Shii authorities envious of Maulana Imran’s increasing
popularity among a particular group of educated South Asians. Maulana Im-
ran, because of his involvement with various philanthropic and youth-oriented
causes, was becoming a threat to the guardian-zakirs of the South Asian Shii
establishment; his fellow zakirs wanted to discredit him before he gained a
larger following. Maulana Imran, from his minbar, had become a vocal advo-
cate of education for men and women and a staunch critic of majlis gatherings
that display the sponsors’ worldly wealth more than their spiritual piety. During
one of his majlises, he questioned those Shias who spent their money on lavish
majlises, yet did not have resources to pay for their children’s schooling. To
Maulana Imran and those who support him, Karbala is most importantly about
education: Husain picked a wide open field to confront the forces of Yazid with
his knowledgeable sermons. Before the physical war was imposed upon Hu-
sain’s side by the forces of Yazid, Husain repeatedly informed Yazid’s army
about the merits of Islam and how Yazid was violating the sanctity of those
merits. Husain’s grandfather and father had identified closely with the acqui-
sition of knowledge; the Prophet Muhammad had encouraged his followers to
go to all corners of the world in order to seek knowledge.
The metaphor of dars (lesson/teaching) is repeatedly invoked by many of
these people when they speak of Karbala. Maulana Imran and like-minded
fellow Shias keep this instructive value of Karbala in mind when they ask:
“What does it mean for the Prophet’s community that young people miss
classes in schools and colleges to attend majlises that are more entertainment
than an opportunity to acquire knowledge? What does it mean to resort to
Karbala’s emotive appeal while its educational message suffers violent retri-
butions? To what extent do the majlises that are projected on the loud speakers
of certain South Asian cities during the middle of the night, disturbing the
sleep of both Shias and non-Shias, serve the Shii community in enhancing its
spiritual and social status?”
Such questions were central to Maulana Imran’s recitations even before
his journal article—and by extension his credibility—became embroiled in the
controversy regarding Ali’s purported allegiance to Abu Bakr. These questions,
many Shias from Maulana Imran’s camp feel, encroach on the personal inter-
ests of those Shii leaders who have exploited their community’s ignorance.
Shias like Maulana Imran end up doubly challenged when speaking from the
minbar: challenged by Sunni attacks on Shiism that aim to discredit the very
legitimacy of Shii faith; and challenged by members of the Shii community
who feel that Shii history should come neatly packaged with no questioning
of that which has been taken as a given for many centuries. Those Shias who
sympathize with the plight of Maulana Imran remember similar controversies
generated by the discourses of other religious figures, most notably by the
books of the late Ali Naqi Naqvi. Naqvi was challenged by members of his
community whenever his scholarship did not accord with popular perceptions
of Karbala. In this world of challenges, spaces for dialogue, to the extent that
majlises were ever such spaces, are shrinking and any view that questions the
hegemonic readings of Shii history is purposefully and forcefully excluded.
So while one part of the discourse surrounding Maulana Imran relates to
the way in which history is, or should be, presented, the other part concerns
issues specific to particular moments, ideologies, prejudices, and rivalries. That
Sunni and Shii views exist in which Ali paid allegiance to Abu Bakr is a reality.
What does it mean for some Shias to censor this reality so aggressively? An
alternative history or a minority history in this context should be registered
with a caution: it can be vulnerable to dangerous revisionism, dogmatic au-
thoritarianism, and regressive parochialism that end up creating and silencing
minorities within the minority community.
4
Lyrical Martyrdom
Shāh ast Hfi usain bādshāh ast H fi usain

dı̄n ast H
fi usain dı̄ñ panāh ast H fi usain
Sar dād na dād dast dar dast-e Yazı̄d
hfi aqqa ke binā-e lā illāh ast H
fi usain
King is Husain, Emperor is Husain
Religion is Husain, the refuge for religion is Husain
[He] gave up his head but did not give his hand in the hands
of Yazid
The truth is that the foundation of lā ilaha [negation of all
gods except God] is Husain
Thus wrote the revered Sufi master (kfi hwāja/pı̄r) of the subcontinent,
Muinuddin Chishti (d. 1236 c.e.).1 The Khwaja’s words reflect and
illuminate the larger framework of Sufism, a manifestation of Is-
lamic mysticism, and the privileged position that the martyr of Kar-
bala, Husain b. Ali, holds in these traditions. In these verses, Hu-
sain is the spiritual foundation of the legitimate authority and
indeed, the religion of Islam. The truth, according to this thirteenth-
century Sufi, is that the very core of Islam, its essential creed of ta-
whid, or Divine Unity, “lā ilaha illā Llāh Muhfi ammadan rasūl Allāh,”
or “there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger,” is
Husain. Since Husain refused to pay allegiance to Yazid, in spite of
having to make innumerable sacrifices, he is projected as an embod-
iment of Islam’s creed that refuses to acknowledge any power other
than that of God. In another poem, the Khwaja goes so far as to
claim that Husain’s feat in Karbala was greater than the feat any
prophet performed.2 Thus the fortunes of Islam rested with the
Prophet’s grandson, who posited suffering and martyrdom as the
basis for this religion, and negated the offenses to Islam that appeared in the
form of Yazid.
The quatrain above is perhaps the most frequently recited Persian quatrain
in South Asia. Not only were these the first Persian verses that entered my
memory, but many of my relatives, who do not have a good grasp of Persian,
demonstrate their knowledge of it through these verses. Whether during the
majlis gatherings or in conversations with those who criticize the majlis for
instilling apathy in their community, these words, more than any other, suc-
cinctly capture the eternal significance of Husain’s struggle. These are also the
first words that come to the lips of Meraj Ahmed, Delhi’s leading singer of
Sufi songs, when he discusses Karbala’s significance.
The spiritual and professional identities of Ahmed are simultaneously em-
bedded within two devotional traditions: He is not only an accomplished Mu-
harram elegy reciter, but he is also the chief performer in the mystical-musical
assemblies, or qawwalis, at the Sufi shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Awliya in
Delhi. Ahmed has been able to lend Karbala both a sorrowful aura and a ce-
lebratory one, mourning Husain’s martyrdom during Muharram and cele-
brating Husain’s accomplishment during the rest of the year. For Ahmed,
Karbala’s role in the Sufi qawwali texts is aligned with, yet distinct from, its
role in the Shii majlis tradition: Whereas the majlis serves as a reminder of
what Husain underwent in order to defeat Yazid, the qawwali validates the end
result of Husain’s suffering—Husain and his companions are annihilated in
figure 4.1 Volunteers serving water during Muharram; on the banner is

the verse of Muinuddin Chishti that is quoted at the beginning of this
chapter.
lyrical martyrdom 107
the will of God to such an extent that prostrating to Husain is tantamount to

prostrating to God. The qawwali and the majlis intersect at the point of praising
Husain but the qawwali inevitably emphasizes the results of Husain’s suffering
while the majlis vividly depicts the suffering alone. Ahmed shores up the dif-
ferences between the majlis and the qawwali through the metaphor of child-
birth:
When a woman experiences childbirth, she feels intense pain. Her

family and friends usually sympathize with her and some even cry
with her. But then she brings a new life into this world, all her suf-
fering gives way to a sense of relief. Many women tell us that they
cannot even remember their labour pains. They celebrate the child’s
arrival. Similarly, qawwalis celebrate Husain’s arrival in God’s court.
The majlis functions as a reminder of the path that Husain had to
traverse in order to reach God’s presence.3
Citing a tradition of an important Sufi saint from the Deccan,4 Ahmed cautions
against celebrating Husain’s ultimate victory against Yazid on the day of
ashura, when other devotees of Husain are shedding tears for the Imam’s
suffering. While recognizing that the qawwali and the Shii majlis stimulate
different emotive responses to Karbala, Ahmed calls for the qawwali to yield
to the majlis on that key day.
This chapter is largely concerned with looking at Karbala in the context of
the qawwali, for it is the genre of the qawwali that brings Islamic mysticism
to the fore for many South Asians. I discuss two qawwalis in which Husain’s
martyrdom remains the subject and concentrate on the playful intertextual
embellishments by which Karbala becomes the point of departure for reflection
of a more general mystical nature, as Husain’s story is woven into the fabric
of broader Islamicate mystical/poetic discourses. In order to fully appreciate
these qawwalis, it is imperative to understand the poetic temperament, the
mystical outlook, and the general context in which this tradition resides. I
divide the qawwalis into various segments so as to make their analysis more
manageable.
I heard the first qawwali at the shrine of Salimuddin Chishti, in Fatehpur
Sikri, in the summer of 1997. The performers were Muhammad Alam Ali and
his brother Safdar Ali. The second qawwali, performed by Syed Adil Hussaini,
Saber Habib, Harjit Singh, and Syed Saleemullah, was inspired by the perfor-
mance of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in a concert hall in Paris. It was
recorded in Hyderabad in February 2005.
Translation of Qawwali I
1
Neither drinking nor serving wine is forbidden
What is forbidden is regaining consciousness after drinking
On the Magian sage’s tavern is written:

It is forbidden to offer wine to the weak
So far, I have received no brimful goblet
O Cupbearer! Pour me more wine, more wine, and more wine
2
Penniless have I come to your door
I see the beauty of the Lord in your beautiful face
The Kaba of the heart, the direction of my prayer, is your face
Your eyebrows are the place of prostration for lovers
3
The world worships God and praises the One far away
Some search for Him in Mecca, others go to Kashi [Banaras]
Why shouldn’t I bow at the feet of my beloved?
Every people [seeks] the right path, the right religion and the right
direction of worship,
I, however, straightened my direction of worship toward the tilted
cap [of my beloved]
As he drew his bare sword to slay me, my head was in prostration
O wondrous is his dalliance, O wondrous is my offering
4
It is a drop’s joy to be annihilated in the ocean,
Pain, having passed the limit, becomes its own cure
But: Ask not about the elation of desirers after they reach the
execution ground
The baring of the sword is a feast for their sight
Hence, as he drew his bare sword to slay me, my head was in
prostration
Prostration—Prostration is a strange thing
What else is there in the mantle of Islam, besides
The sword of Ali, the Hand of God, and the prostration of Shabbir
[Husain]
Hence, As he drew his bare sword to slay me, my head was in
prostration
However, so far I have received no brimful goblet
5
The Cupbearer was heard asking the drunkard:
What wine will you drink O mad man?
That which Mansur drank on the gallows.
Will you drink this?
He said “No.”
That which Jesus drank when he revived the dead with “Rise at the
command of Allah.”
He said “No.”
That which Moses drank, having appeared on Mount Sinai
He said “No.”
That which Job drank, having squandered his wealth of patience
He said “No.”
That which Salman and Abu Zarr drank after arriving in Medina?
He said “Not even this.”
[The Cupbearer asked] What then?
He says:
6
That wine which was drunk at Karbala
That wine which was given to the son of Haidar
That, after drinking which, Zahra’s beloved
Gave up his life at the will of his master
His body was wounded and he bled
Above him, the shadow of the Most High Lord
Husain was thirsty for three days
However, he was the grandson of the Chosen One [Mustafa]
Why would he ask the enemy for water?
After all, had he not drunk the wine made out of divine light
Having drunk a goblet of “la ilaha”
He laid down his life [he sacrificed his head] in the passion of love
He gave up his head, but did not give his hands in the hands of
Yazid
The truth is that the foundation of “la ilaha” is Husain
He sacrificed his head in the passion of love,
The son of Zahra sacrificed his head
My master sacrificed his head
My lord sacrificed his head
The son of Zahra sacrificed his head
He sacrificed his head in the passion of love
O Cupbearer! May it be my fate to receive
The wine goblet of Shabbir
Since, so far I have received no brimful goblet,
O Cupbearer, pour me more wine, more wine, and more wine.
Analysis and Contextualization of Qawwali 1

analysis of stanza 1. In this qawwali, the tavern looms large, as wine drink-
ing remains a recurrent symbol. The qawwal (the performer of a qawwali)
employs this rebellious goblet to receive the mystical ideals. In order to fully
appreciate the wine imagery in this qawwali, one must keep in mind the in-
terface of religion, mysticism, rebellion, helplessness, and language—an in-

terface that constitutes the mainspring of Sufi poetry. That the realm of lan-
guage cannot possibly accommodate the profundity of mystical experiences is
an age-old complaint. Recognizing the shortcomings of speech and writing,
Sufis, and those inspired by them, have resorted to figurative language that
attempts to ameliorate this shortage. According to the great Persian lyricist,
Hafiz, the pen is unable to speak the truths of love:
qalam rā ān zabān nab’vad ke sirr-e ishq goyad bāz

varāe hfi add-e taqrı̄r ast sharhfi -e ārzūmande5
The pen doesn’t have the tongue to speak the secrets of love
The exposition of desire is beyond the bounds of speech.
As far as his Urdu counterpart, Ghalib, is concerned, Truth must be cast using
the imagery of wine and goblet in order to be made comprehensible:
har chañd ho mushāhida-e hfi aqq kı̄ guftagū

bantı̄ nahı̄ñ hai bāda o sāġhar kahe baġhair6
No matter how much the witnessing of the truth is discussed,
It cannot be spoken of save through [the language of] the wine and
the goblet.
Sufi poetry tends to go beyond the obvious, the manifest, the apparent. At
times, going “beyond” the obvious entails parodying it. Hence the signifiers of
the obviously religious realm—the mosque, the inspector of morality, the re-
ligious leader, the ascetic, and even the Sufi—are given an inverse significance.
Similarly, the outwardly forbidden wine and the tavern rise to a noble station.
Thus, as waywardness became the way of mystical poetry, the disruptive
mien of the mystic was lyrically canonized, gradually undermining all the re-
vered exoteric manifestations—Jalaluddin Rumi questioned the pilgrims en
route to Mecca;7 Amir Hasan Sijzi turned in prayer toward his beloved, who
was wearing his cap awry, instead of turning toward Mecca; and Ghalib desired
to build a tavern in the shade of the mosque (masjid ke zer-e sāyaa kfi harābāt
chāhı̄ye) just as the arched brow depends aesthetically on an eye underneath
it (bhauñ pās āñkh qibla-e hfi ājāt chāhı̄ye).8 Although, at one level, extracting
meaning from contradictions can be seen as a subtle dialogic discourse that
gains power by evoking the very discourses that have been denied legitimacy,
at another level, the harmonious blending of the temple and the tavern, the
mosque and the ruins, and the drunkard and the priest can be thought of as
the very keynote of Sufism—all the disparate elements of creation flowing into
a common ocean.9
One point I made about Islam in the introduction of this work also holds
true for the Sufi dimensions of Islam: They should not be slotted into exclu-
sivist ideological frameworks. Just as Muslims live out Islamic values in many
different ways, mystically inclined Muslims also approach Sufism through a

variety of methods. As to what I mean by mysticism, mystic, or Sufi, I shall
adhere to the words of a qawwali singer that shed light on these concepts:
Sufism is a means to know God intimately. It is a vision in which

God and His creation enter a relationship that is not solely defined
through the creation’s obedience to their creator. Although obedi-
ence to the Creator’s will is essential, the creation must prove to
Him that they love Him to such an extent that they are willing to do
more than what is required of them.10
From a lay student’s viewpoint, Sufis can be described as those who want
to earn extra credit in God’s court, which for many is located within the heart
of God’s servant. When we turn to more academic works concerning this topic,
we see that the earliest Sufis were those who had the spiritual resolve to gain
proximity to the Divine, even if it meant personal loss or suffering. Believing
the Prophet Muhammad to be the most excellent model of virtue, the first few
generations of Sufis spent their nights and days around mosques, often en-
gaged in supererogatory prayers. While the Muslim community was being torn
apart in various controversies, many pious Muslims felt that most political
authorities after the Prophet—especially those belonging to the Umayyad dy-
nasty—had injured the fabric of Islamic spirituality by subscribing to self-
serving readings of Islam. Behind the guise of the language of Islam, these
Sufis felt, Islam was compromised. Many Sufis wore coarse woolen garments
as markers of their denial of worldly wealth. Since the word for wool in Arabic
is sfiūf, it is probable that the word Sfi ūfı̄ has an etymological relationship with
this Arabic word. The expression for the way of the Sufis, Sufism, is the Arabic
verbal noun, tasfiawwūf. Sufis project themselves (and have been characterized)
as those who effectively disavow greed for worldly goods (symbolized by silk);
they see the life of this world as a temporary sojourn, a test in preparation for
eternity.11
For many Sufis, the essence of Islam rests upon the central principle of
tawhid, or the Oneness of God. Muslims believe that this principle was revealed
to all peoples through God’s chosen messengers, the last of whom was the
Prophet Muhammad. As the recipient of the Divine Word of God, the Quran,
the Prophet completed the cycle of revelation and perfected the ideals for hu-
manity. In the Quran, God proclaims His mercy12 for and proximity to His
creation: “We [God] are nearer to him than his jugular vein.”13 According to
another popular tradition, “God says, ‘My heavens and My earth encompass
Me not, but the heart of My gentle, believing, and meek servant does encom-
pass Me.’ ”14
In order to fully gauge Husain’s importance in the qawwali tradition, it is
essential to see the role of Husain’s grandfather and father in the Chishti order
of Sufism. The very word qawwali derives etymologically from the Arabic word
qawl (saying) and most qawwalis are ideally based on the qawl of the Prophet
Muhammad.15 Since the Chishti order in the subcontinent trace their lineage
to Ali and accord him a privileged spiritual position among the Prophet’s com-
panions, it follows that the Prophet’s saying that declares Ali his spiritual suc-
cessor is musically valorized in the qawwali context: “Man kunto mawlā fā Ali
un Mawlā—Whoever considers me his master, Ali is his master too.” Regula Qur-
eshi highlights the importance of this qawl:
This is the basic ritual song of Sufism in India; indeed one can call
it the Opening—or Closing—Hymn of Qawwālı̄. At Nizamuddin
Auliya no Qawwālı̄ event can start any other way, while elsewhere in
India and Pakistan the Qawl serves as a conclusion. The hymn ex-
presses a basic Sufi tenet, that the principle of spiritual succession
in Sufism was instituted by the Prophet himself, as recorded in one
of his sayings (hadı̄ṡ).16
Ali, after the Prophet’s death, had led a quiet, withdrawn life. Busying
himself with the compilation of the Quran and imparting knowledge to a few
chosen disciples, Ali manifested exemplary piety and knowledge. The prayer
he conveyed to one of his companions, Kumayl b. Ziyad, is still recited as a
most cherished example of humility before God. Close associates of Ali, such
as Abu Zarr and Salman, are seen by many Sufis as early initiates into Islamic
mysticism. Meraj Ahmed claims that the qawwali is the point of entry into the
world of spirituality, just as Ali is the point of entry into the world of knowledge.
Beginning the qawwali event with a praise of Ali initiates the listeners and the
performers into the world of Islam’s sacred knowledge (gnosis/irfān).17
For many Sufis, true life begins with the annihilation (fanā) of the base,
ego self (nafs), and the harmonious subsistence (baqā) in the will of and love
for the Beloved, the Sustainer, the Creator, Allah. The base nafs, al-nafs al-
hfi aywāniyah (the animal soul), is actually a referent to two ego selves: al-nafs
al-ammārah (the egotistical soul that commands humans to compromise God’s
unity and reject those who are traveling on God’s prescribed path); and al-nafs
al-lawwamah (the soul that generates hatred for God’s creation and love for the
hypocrites). These two nafses must be demolished in order for the soul at peace
(an-nafs al-mut3ma’inna) to subsist. The struggle against the base self constitutes
the greatest jihad (struggle) for the sake of Allah. When speaking on the topic
of jihad and martyrdom, the eleventh-century Sufi master, Abd al-Rahman al-
Sulami (d. 1021 c.e.) gives a higher rank to those martyrs who successfully
combated their base nafs and then lived piously than to those who died right-
fully fighting other human beings on the battlefield.18
In fact, even the physical death of many Sufi masters in South Asia is
referred to and celebrated as if it were the urs, the wedding day on which the
lover and the Beloved are united forever. Hence death itself loses its sense of
finality and exults in the union with the Origin. “From Him we come and to
Him we return,” proclaims the Quran; this simple eschatological affirmation
speaks of a common point of origin and return and has become a common
Muslim response to the news of any death. It is no wonder that the renowned
Sufi martyr, Mansur al-Hallaj (d. 922 c.e.), could accord with death so well:
“Kill me, my faithful friends! For in my slaughter is my life—my death is in

my life and my life in my death.”19
The wine drinking trope was one of the most famous that Hallaj used to
express his desired proximity and union with God. The delightful sparkle of
Alam Ali’s art in this qawwali is also a product of this trope. The very first line
of the qawwali is provocative; it refutes a commonly held belief about wine
drinking in Islam. “Pı̄nā,” which means “to drink,” or, “drinking,” and “pilānā,”
the causative of “pina,” i.e., “to make someone drink” are both left ambiguous.
If the object of “pina” is left unstated, the idiomatic conventions of the language
would have us believe that “sharāb,” that is wine, is the object. This very am-
biguity, however, allows the writers and reciters to play with language that may
otherwise cause the orthodox to raise an eyebrow in skepticism. Although from
a literal reading the statement is problem-free, its idiomatic nuances make it
subversive. The couplet is written in the same vein as much of mystical liter-
ature, which is open to a variety of readings and does not impose any sort of
closure as far as “precise” meaning is concerned.
The second line, however, when read in conjunction with the first one,
makes the couplet more mystically nuanced. By drinking worldly wine, the
toper is bound to regain consciousness after his stupor. The intoxication of
mystical wine lasts till the lover-beloved/Beloved duality is terminated and the
lover lives through the beloved/Beloved. The great fourteenth-century work
Gulshan-e Rāz, or the Rosegarden of Mystery, by Mahmud Shabistari, makes this
apparent:
Drink wine that it may set you free from yourself,
And may conduct the being of the drop to the ocean.
Drink wine, for its cup is the face of “The Friend,”
The Cup is his eye drunken and flown with wine.
Seek wine without cup or goblet,
Wine is wine-drinker, cupbearer is winecup.20
Not everybody, however, is deserving of this wine. This is clearly spelled
out at the door of the tavern that is under the auspices of the Magian elder.
For the Magians (Zoroastrians were usually referred to by this name) wine is
permissible, hence they are the ones who run the taverns through their elders
(pı̄r-e muġhān) and their handsome young men, the muġhbache, serve the wine.
Schimmel clarifies this further:
These figures [pir-e mughan, mughbachaha] came to represent the
wise master and the lovely cupbearer who introduce the seeker into
the mysteries of spiritual intoxication. They are integral to that
group of images with which poets try to indicate the contrast be-
tween law-bound exterior religion, or narrow legalism, and the reli-
gion of love, which transgresses the boundaries of external forms.21
Thus the spiritual master, metaphorically cast as pir-e mughān, does not tol-
erate the drinking of a kam 3zarf, an ignoble creature who cannot hold his liquor.
Of course in this world of metaphors, kam zarf is the one who has not reached
that spiritual state wherein the base self gives way to the higher self. A case in
point: Ghalib, in his usual playfulness with cherished symbols from the Islamic
tradition, claims his own superiority over Mount Sinai, at least as far as 3zarf
(tolerance [for wine]) is concerned:
girnı̄ thı̄ ham pe barq-e tajallı̄ na 3ūr

t pe
dete haiñ bāda 3zarf-e qadahfi kfi hwār dekh kar22
The lightning of manifestation should have struck me, not Mount
Sinai
The drink is poured according to the capacity of the drinker.
Legend has it that when Moses desired to gain a glimpse of the Almighty from
Mount Sinai, the mountain was reduced to ashes when struck by divine light-
ning. This couplet implies that the speaker has the capacity to contain the
Divine Light, whereas Mount Sinai could not bear such a force. Here we see
an implicit allusion to the superiority of humans over all of God’s other crea-
tions, since the former accepted the heavy “trust” (amāna) of carrying out God’s
will when all of creation refused.23
In this qawwali, the drinker begins with a complaint to the Cupbearer, for
he has not, as yet, been served the brimful goblet. The sāqı̄yā24 (or saqı̄,) in the
same vein as pir-e mughan and mughbacha, is a metaphor for that spiritual
guide who facilitates the union between the lover and the beloved/Beloved by
pouring the wine of love and gnosis into the goblet-like heart of the lover. In
fact, there is an entire genre of Persian literature known as the sāqı̄nāma in
which the lover-toper desires wine from the beautiful saqi.25 Both the Prophet
Muhammad and Ali b. Abi Talib are considered to be saqis par excellence, who
will provide for their followers from the heavenly fountain of Kawsar. After all,
many Muslims believe that it will be the shafāat, or intercession, of the Prophet
Muhammad and Ali that will lead the believers into eternal bliss. In worldly
life, however, spiritual wine is given by the pir, or murshid (spiritual master),
who himself is the object of great veneration. For many people, qawwalis are
legitimate expressions of mysticism only when performed in the presence of
this master. The spiritual master has ascended the spiritual ladder himself and
unity with him implies proximity to the Beloved. Thus, the greatest of mystics,
Jalaluddin Rumi, sang about the destruction of his own lower self by the all-
encompassing love of his master Shamsuddin of Tabriz:
Shams-e Tabrı̄zı̄! marā kardı̄ kfi harāb

ham tū sāqı̄ ham tū mai ham mai farosh26
O Shams of Tabriz, you have ruined me
You are the cupbearer, the wine, and the wine seller.
The next part of the qawwali under discussion is set to the metrical pattern
of one of Rumi’s most famous works, the Masfinavi. But first the refrain or title
verse of the qawwali is sung: “O Cupbearer, pour me more wine, more wine,
and more wine.” The repetition of this verse here and throughout the qawwali
makes the underlying message of desire articulated in this qawwali more ef-
fective, thereby enhancing the affective power of the text.
analysis of stanza 2. In the hope of receiving spiritual wine, the impover-

ished petitioner (muflis) has arrived at the threshold of the master’s tavern, at
the Sufi shrine. For him, all worldly possessions have lost their glow; spiritual
poverty (faqr) requires complete submission to the master and humility in his
presence. Few pilgrims to the Chishti shrine at Fatehpur Sikir (where this
qawwali was performed) can forget the legend, so movingly captured in K.
Asif ’s 1960 Bollywood blockbuster motion picture, Muġhal-e Āzam (re-
released in a colored version in 2004 to great acclaim) in which the Mughal
emperor, Jalaluddin Akbar, goes to the abode of Salimuddin Chishti in the
hope of being blessed with a son. The barefooted emperor, having left behind
his palace and entourage of worldly might, walks on the burning desert sand
in order to petition the mendicant mystic for his intercession in the court of
the “Emperor of Emperors.” When Akbar is blessed with a son, he honors his
spiritual master, Salimuddin Chishti, by naming the Mughal heir-apparent
Salim. One aspect of the mystical discourse, as reflected in secondary hagi-
ographies (tażkirahs) as well as primary oral discourses (malfūz3āt) has pre-
sented the Sufis as those who looked askance at the political authorities of their
time and belittled anybody who paid homage to the political order.27 Muzaffar
Alam, a fine historian of medieval India, captures the legacy of Sufis, especially
those belonging to the Chishti order, as follows:
They shunned ritual and ceremony, they spoke the language of the
common people, they gave an impetus to linguistic and cultural as-
similation. All types of people are reported to have visited the
jamāat kfi hānas (hospices) of the early Chishti mystics, who believed
and preached that the highest form of prayer was the removal of
misery among those in distress.28
However, as the work of Muzaffar Alam, Richard Eaton, and others, suggests,
we should not create fixed divides between political rulers and Sufis.29 If we
look at the careers of people like Mir Momin Astarabadi (d. 1625 c.e.), who
was a high-ranking minister in the Qutb Shahi court, and was also considered
a Sufi, we can see that Sufis not only served as advisors to rulers, they also
distinguished themselves as skilled craftsmen and architects.30
Mindful of the need to present Sufism in polyvocal idioms, I must em-
phasize that the discourse of anti-political, anti-establishment Sufis helps us
read into Sufism an acknowledged, if not appreciated, resistive dimension.
Such an interpretive space is widened when Husain b. Ali, who refused to pay
allegiance to the ruler of the time, is semantically enthroned by Muinuddin
Chishti—“The King is Husain, The Emperor is Husain.” In this qawwali
stanza, such power is exercised by the spiritual master that he becomes insep-
arable from the Kaba, the pivot of Islamic worship located in Mecca. In fact,
the petitioner-lover’s direction of prayer is toward the master. Even the attrib-
utes of the Beloved are manifested through the master’s beautiful face. When
the mercy of the Almighty overwhelms his creation, the creation, according to
the Quran, falls prostrate. Could any place of prostration be loftier than the
one facing the niche-like brows of the master? These verses, attributed to Amir
Khusraw, are, according to Alam Ali, very likely in honor of his own master,
Nizamuddin Awliya.
When discussing this segment, it should be noted that this one is in Per-
sian, unlike the first one in Urdu. Basking in textual cross-fertilization, the
qawwali text can accommodate a variety of literary genres (ghazal, masnavi,
rubai, mukhammas) while playing with the literal and the metaphoric, the
sacred and the profane. These texts can even transcend linguistic univocality,
as is evident from the jockeying of languages (Urdu, Persian, Punjabi, Sindhi,
etc.) within the qawwali. This play of words and ideas is made possible through
the technique of interpolation, referred to in the qawwali jargon as girah bañdı̄,
or knot-tying. This essentially means that the performer-qawwal can juxtapose
verses from disparate sources in a single qawwali, as though they are knots in
a single rope. The qawwals make the decision as to what is an aesthetically
appropriate “flowing knot,” usually after considering whether the particular
knot will prove to the audience that the performer is a polyglot seasoned Sufi
and gain their approval.31 The counterpart of girah bandi in literature, as Regula
Qureshi points out, has been the rhetorical device of tazfi mı̄n, whereby one poet
inserts another poet’s verse(s) in his or her own poetry. Girah bandi, like taz-
min, has the triple objective of providing exegetical information for complex
ideas; impressing the audience with literary acrobatic feats by interfusing gen-
res and languages; and drawing a genealogy from particular types of
authoritative literature of the past, to provide the poet/qawwal with the legiti-
macy of cherished traditions.32
The technique of girah bandi in the qawwali tradition has implications for
our larger discussion of intertextuality and the porous boundaries of cultural
genres. Given the aesthetic configuration of the qawwali texts through the
ghazal texts, the ghazal idiom has found its way into qawwali as it has found
its way into the marsiya, nauha, and zikr texts. The qawwals hope to win plau-
dits not only by tying one Urdu-Hindi verse with another, but also through
animating their performance by invoking Persian verses.
For many qawwals, the Persian verses give their performance legitimacy.
Since Persian—apart from functioning as the language that bonded elite North
Indian cultures from the thirteenth century to the nineteenth century—has
long been considered the most fitting of mystical robes of Islamic spirituality,
the donning of Persian not only beautifies the performance, it also reflects the
qawwal’s aptitude in mysticism. After all, the qawwals are the heirs to the
legacy of that archetypal devotee, Amir Khusraw. That they tie Persian knots
in an Urdu text does not necessarily mean that Persian can be understood by
the audience. In fact, an overwhelming majority of the qawwali audience can-
not give a grammatical translation for a single verse of Persian. They can absorb
these verses because they know the connotations of specific Persian words as
they appear in Urdu. Even when they may not understand a single Persian
word sung by the qawwal, the melody of the qawwali, along with the melodic
sweetness of the Persian language, make up for the lack of precise understand-
ing of the verses in their original language. Plus, the girah bandi can become
a welcome sentient addition to what might be unintelligible verse(s) for some
audience members.33
It is helpful to mention the issue of authorship of qawwali texts. Although
many qawwalis have well-known, identifiable authors, such as Amir Khusraw,
Simab Akbarabadi, or Qamar Jalalvi, there are many others whose authorship
is disputed or completely unknown. In the course of a millennium, many
written texts have disappeared. Other valuable manuscripts are hidden in ar-
chives or less-frequented saint’s shrines. Oral culture, in many places, retains
a privileged position, and the author of an existing text cannot be parted from
it simply because of a lack of corroborating written evidence that he is the
author. What many scholars and students of South Asian literature also fail to
realize is that, similar to many texts of bhakti (“Hindu” devotionalism), those
of the qawwali tradition carry the signature of a prominent poet/saint not
because they were actually penned by that poet/saint, but more because they
emanate from the authoritative spirit popularly associated with him.34 The au-
thors’ nominal identity is framed as a legitimacy-granting “rhetorical perso-
nae”35 that unfolds through the larger sentiments popularly associated with the
author. When the qawwal attributes a certain statement to Amir Khusraw,
s/he is stylizing this statement to integrate it into the larger framework of
authoritative and legitimate mysticism. And when the audience (interpretive
community) does not question this attribution, then for all practical purposes,
Amir Khusraw is the author. To go a step further, I would even assert that the
knot-tying power of the qawwal is so immense that s/he should be considered
the authority that created the texts. The discretion these qawwals exercise in
bringing multiple texts together under the rubric of one or several refrains
make the qawwali text a feat of intertextuality, sustaining the reign of liberal
configurations in the Islamicate landscape. Even metrical inconsistencies
among these knots can be accommodated with a slight change of the melodic
pattern or tune at the discretion of the qawwal.
Thus it is not surprising that the qawwali repertoire, like the majlis, in-
cludes a felicitous juxtaposition of Karbala-centered lyrics and tunes from pop-
ular film songs. In one popular qawwali sung by Meraj Ahmed and his sons,
the literary existence of Karbala flows through the tune of a popular 1968 film
Anokhı̄ Rāt (A Rare Night). For example, a song that Indeevar wrote and Mu-
kesh sung to the musical score of Roshan, when entrusted to the repertoire of
Meraj Ahmed, becomes a qawwali that praises Ali, Husain, and Zainab:
Maiñ to nām japūñ Alı̄ Alı̄ kā Alı̄ se hūñ vābasta
Alı̄ Alı̄ mere maulā koı̄ aur na
hotā hai kab kisı̄ kā kunba H fi asnain sā, betfiı̄ ho Zainab jaisı̄ betfiā
H fi usain sā
kunboñ meñ aisā kunba koı̄ aur na
Ali, Ali, I shall recite, to Ali I am tied
Ali, Ali, Oh my master, none but to you I turn,
A family like Hasan and Husain’s?! How can one do better?

A daughter like Zainab, a son like Husain,
A family best among families, this one is it!
Meraj Ahmed acknowledges that such eclecticism, at times, incurs the objec-
tions of the purists, those who see Bollywood as an anti-spiritual establishment.
But qawwals today, Ahmed says, are reconciled to the fact that Bollywood music
has tremendous cultural currency and in order for the qawwali to retain its
popularity among the masses it has to draw on the Bollywood heritage. More-
over, Ahmed cites a number of Sufi poets, who also wrote for Bollywood films,
as evidence that it was Sufi literature and musical traditions that brought in
its wake much of the popular songs of modern-day South Asia. As far as Ah-
med is concerned, arriving at tenable distinctions between what constitutes
true or appropriate spirituality and what opposes it, false spirituality, is a futile
enterprise that runs counter to the ecumenical objectives of the qawwali tra-
dition.
The objective of the qawwali texts, according to Ahmed, is to entertain the
audience, as well as “amplify” them by raising their consciousness to a higher
level (wajd), thereby inducing in them a spiritually ecstatic state (hfi āl) and be-
stowing luminosity upon the larger gathering (qawwālı̄ mahfi fil): “Upon listening
to the qawwali, to the lyrics more than to the music, the world of the listener
should be transformed at once. Copper should give way to gold. Body must
succumb to spirit.”36 As students of Sufism know so well, the prized work of
Sufi aesthetics, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s The Alchemy of Happiness, uses the
alchemy metaphor to convey this “transformation” that Ahmed upholds. The
girahs at the disposal of the qawwal facilitate such a transformation.
analysis of stanza 3. This segment is attributed to none other than that

most revered of Delhi’s saints, Nizamuddin Awliya, and his students Hasan
and Khusraw. The sentiments of religious cosmopolitanism expressed in the
beginning of the girah are quite common in modern Indian qawwalis and
reflect a spirit that intends to “promote religious tolerance.”37 For Nizamuddin,
the propagation of Islam meant living an exemplary life; he could see the
virtues of those who worshiped God, in a variety of forms, in the seekers in
Kashi (Banaras) or those at the Kaba (Mecca). Legend has it that one day Ni-
zamuddin saw a group of Hindus engaged in worship and spontaneously re-
cited a couplet: “Every community has its own path and faith, and its own way
of worship.”38 It was this sentiment that was so lovingly incorporated in a
beautiful ghazal by one of the favorite disciples of Nizam and a friend of Amir
Khusraw, Amir Hasan Sijzi (d. 1337 c.e.):
har qaum rāst rāhe, dı̄ne o qibla gāhe [words of Hazrat Nizam]
mā qibla rāst kardı̄m bar simt-e kaj kulāhe.39 [Hasan’s
improvisation]
Every community seeks the right path, the right religion, the right
direction of worship [words of Nizam]
I turn my direction of worship toward the tilted cap [Hasan’s

improvisation]
Although these words acknowledge and appreciate religious differences, they
do not absolutize them. The Chishtis, especially the contemporaries of Niza-
muddin Awliya, are known for their religious openness. Another Chishti saint
fondly quotes a couplet of Hafiz in the same spirit:
fi āfiz3ā gar vasfi l kfi hwāhı̄ sfi ulhfi a kun bā kfi hāsfi o ām
H
bā Musalmān Allāh Allāh, bā barahman Rām Rām40
Hafiz, if you desire union, seek friendship with high and low
With Muslims, [say] Allah, Allah, with the Brahmans, [say] Ram, Ram
The “right path” is sought by all, though it might be reached through a variety
of paths. Nizamuddin clearly understood the ecumenism within his commu-
nity, thus he could understand Hasan’s choice to turn the direction of his
prayer toward the tilted cap of his beloved, instead of toward any other sacred
spot. By this time, the beloved had long been envisioned in Persian poetry as
a handsome, albeit cruel Turk, with his cap awry and a propensity for ever-
changing, teasingly mischievous ways. When the beloved draws his bare
sword to test the lover’s resilience, as the next knot by Amir Khusraw ex-
presses, the lover falls prostrate. If the beloved insists on having his cruel de-
mands fulfilled, then the lover can glow in his own unconditional surrender.
How can any Muslim not recount the executions of God’s mandates allego-
rized in the Quran, most notably in the story of the Prophet Abraham, in
which Abraham is willing to sacrifice his most dear son Ismail. It is the lover’s
privilege to submit to the desires of the beloved. By no longer adhering to his
jaded base self, the lover loses his egoism. Again all such tropes are religiously
hued and the ambiguity, even tension, between the worldly beloved and the di-
vine Beloved can easily be resolved with the alleged statement of the Prophet
after his heavenly journey: “I saw my Lord in the form of a young man with
his cap awry.”41 The all-encompassing Reality, whose decrees often remain
mysterious, manifests Himself to His creation in an array of forms, and the
form of a young handsome Turk is as captivating as any other. It is interesting
to note that Nizamuddin Awliya lovingly refers to Amir Khusraw as “Turk Al-
lah,” because of his Turkish/Central Asian ancestry. Legend has it that Amir
Hasan was quite fond of Khusraw and it is possible that the “kaj kulah” to-
ward which Hasan turns is that of Khusraw.42 Thus, as we have already seen
in section 2, the Beloved is seen through the beloved. So the lover in this qa-
wwali, having fallen prostrate, once again calls out for more wine, more wine,
and even more wine.
analysis of stanza 4. The creative autonomy of the qawwal is at its best as

he ventures to bring into a playful nexus the poetry of three literary giants of
the subcontinent: Mirza Ghalib, Muhammad Iqbal, and Amir Khusraw. The
first couplet encompasses the quintessential Ghalibian view of wahfi dat al-
wujūd, the Creator and creation are bound together in various ways and de-
grees. In many other places, Ghalib uses the raindrop metaphor to convey the
significance of an individual being. When separated from the ocean, the drop
is in agony. It rejoices as this separation ends and it is united with the larger
body of water, its original source. The longer it is separated, the longer its
agony lasts. Hence, the ultimate end of its agony is vouchsafed in the remedy
of its pain—its cure-providing unity with its source. Of course, some drops are
more fortunate than others as they are not simply annihilated in the ocean but
emerge as valuable pearls from the great body of water. But in order to subsist
in a pearl, the drop must go through the grueling existential process whereby
it escapes the deadly throats of a hundred crocodiles. Ghalib explains this else-
where in his corpus:
dām har mauj meñ hai hfi alqa-e sfi ad kām-e nehañg

dekheñ kyā guzre hai qat3re pe guhar hone tak43
In every wave, a hundred crocodile throats lay their snare,
Let’s see what the dewdrop has to undergo before it is transformed
into a pearl.
Hence, agony is a prerequisite for perfection. Subsistence in annihilation is

perfection manifested. The pearl is thus a metaphor for any entity that has
gone through the pangs of pain to attain annihilation in perfection. The pearl,
having demonstrated its strength, comes back in order to provide guidance
and beauty for those who are still traversing the mystical path in an effort to
unite with their Beloved.
The next couplet is also Ghalib’s, wherein the joy of those who desire the
ultimate unity is expressed: In a manner similar to those millions of Muslims,
who, having seen the crescent moon, rejoice after their last fast of Ramadan,
the martyrs-to-be are jubilant to see the crescent-like bare sword of the beloved.
The beloved’s sword becomes the lover’s crescent, and since the crescent is a
boon to all those who have endured hunger and thirst during the holy month,
the sword also bespeaks the end of the agony of separation between the lover
and the Beloved. Tied to this couplet is once again the lover-seeker’s adamant
prostration, expressed by Khusraw, when the beloved’s sword is drawn.
The qawwal then interpolates his own thoughts: “Prostration is a strange/
wondrous thing.” It is, indeed, especially for the mystics. If love must be ex-
plained through intoxicating wine, then submission must be explained through
the neck under the sword. And since the meaning of the very word “Islam” is
submission, what can signify it better than the sword and the prostration?
Thus, for Iqbal, whose couplet has now been knotted into this rich rope, the
sword of Ali and the prostration of Husain comprise the only real possessions
of religion. Few Muslims need to be reminded that Ali’s double-edged sword,
Żūlfiqār, is second to none. On swords in this part of the world, the popular
saying is engraved:
Lā fatā illā Alı̄ lā sayf illā Żūlfiqār

There is no hero save Ali, and no sword save Zulfiqar
This saying is frequently preceded by an invocation to Ali, in the qawwali

tradition as “Shāh-e mardān, Sher-e Yazdān, Qūwwat-e Parvardigār” or “the King
of Men, the Lion of God, and the Strength of the Sustainer.” The tradition says
that this sword was given to Ali by the command of the Almighty, by none
other than the archangel Gabriel.44 The significance of the sword stems from
its mystical dimension as well as from the belief that Ali’s physical prowess
was enhanced by it. Schimmel once again captures these cultural and mystical
nuances in her own riveting manner:
The movement from the lā ilāh, “no deity,” to the positive acknow-
ledgment illāLlah, “save God,” was very inspiring to the Persian
writers with their tendency to dialectical thinking, and the graphic
form of the first lā (c) was rightly compared by Sufis, poets, and cal-
ligraphers to a sword (in particular Ali’s two-edged sword Zulfiqar)
or to scissors by which the believer should cut off relations with any-
thing but the One and Only God.45
So for Muhammad Iqbal, when this sword of Divine Unity is drawn, the
ideal gesture is to offer the head in prostration. Ali controlled this sword of
unity, thereby becoming the mystic of the mystics, and his son Husain showed
the world how the ultimate Union is attained under the Divine Sword. As from
the mystic whose thirst has not been quenched, even from his prostrate posi-
tion, we hear the plea: “O Cupbearer! Pour me more wine, more wine, and
more wine.”
analysis of stanza 5. It is now the Cupbearer’s turn to speak. The selection

of wine at this tavern is wide-ranging. The first type of wine that is offered is
the one drunk by Mansur. Husain Mansur al-Hallaj (d. 822 c.e.), the Sufi who
danced his way up to the gallows while divulging the mystical secret “ana’l
Hfi aqq,” or, “I am the Truth.” With this bold claim, Mansur partook of divinity,
hence ending the duality between the Beloved and the lover:
I am He whom I love and He Whom I love is I,

We are two spirits dwelling in one body!
If thou seest me thou seest Him.
If thou seest Him thou seest us both.
Is it thou or I? No, both of us are one,
I shun and avoid positing duality.46
For the Sufis of the subsequent generation, Mansur, whose very name means
“victorious,” was the exemplary martyr on the mystical path. The sentiments
expressed in the verses above became a constant melody in the ensuing Sufi
literature. A case in point is Amir Khusraw’s well-known couplet:
man tū shudam tū man shudı̄ man tan shudam tū jāñ shudı̄
tā kas na goyad bad az ı̄ñ man dı̄garam tū dı̄garı̄47
I have become you, You have become I; I have become the body, you,
the soul
Let no one say from now on: “You and I are separate.”
The intoxication of the mystical wine that Hallaj quaffed on the gallows still
inspires his devoted mystics to rejoice in their master’s martyrdom. It is also
interesting to note that poets like Attar and Ghalib, along with the Turkish poet
Yunus Emre and others like him, juxtapose the suffering of Husain b. Ali to
that of Husain Mansur al-Hallaj.48 Both become eternally-living martyrs on the
path of God. Ghalib writes:
God has kept the ecstatic lovers like Husain and Mansur in the
place of gallows and rope, and cast the fighters for the faith, like
Husain and Ali in the place of swords and spears: in being martyrs
they find eternal life and happiness and become witness to God’s
mysterious power.49
Need we add that Hallaj himself wove the tradition “God has not created any-
thing he loves more than he loves Muhammad and his family,” into the rich
texture of his mystical work, Kitāb al-Tfi awāsı̄n?50 Thus the Cupbearer first offers
the wine of Mansur to the one who has, so far, been unable to quench his
thirst. However, the drinking lover desires something more than the wine of
Mansur.
Now the lover moves from the saints to the prophets. The first of the
prophets whose wine is offered is that of Isa ibn Maryam, or Jesus, son of
Mary. Jesus has a distinction in Islam as the “Spirit from God” (Rūhfi un min
Allāh) and the “Word of God,” or Kalimat Allāh.51 His messianic status is a
common trope, stemming from the Islamic belief that he will descend before
the end of time to redeem the world. It is the combined strengths of these
God-given attributes that enabled Jesus to perform miracles. Among his most
notable miracle is his act of raising the dead.52 Hence, Jesus’ calling to the
dead, “qum bi iżn Allāh,” or “Arise at the command of Allah,” is considered
the consequence of quaffing the wine of unity.53 The lover in this qawwali,
however, says “no” to this wine.
The next roving cup of wine that is offered to the lover is the one that
Moses drank at Mount Sinai. Moses insisted on seeing the manifestation of
God. God replied to Moses, Lan tarānı̄, or “You shall not see me.” Mount Sinai
was reduced to dust and Moses was rendered unconscious. The overwhelming
experience of being struck by the glory of Allah is one of the most frequent
allusions in the poetry of the Islamic would.54 This story is a reminder to many
that even the faith of God’s prophets wavered at times, and Moses, unable to
grasp God’s glory that surrounded him, insisted on containing God within a
particular time and place. God’s reply to Moses is carefully worded: the watch-
word in this reply is “see.” God does not tell Moses that He will not show
Himself to the Prophet, rather Moses, because of his desire to contain God,
will not be able to see the Diving Being in all His majesty. We have already
seen Ghalib’s use of this trope when he chides the mountain for not having a
large enough receptacle to hold the Divine wine. Even though the wine ren-
dered Moses unconscious and reduced Mount Sinai to ashes, the lover wants
something stronger, and it is in this spirit that he rejects the wine that was
offered to Moses.
The wine that comes to the mind of the Cupbearer next is the one drunk
by the Prophet Job. Job is the paradigm of patience, especially as it is trans-
formed into magnanimity. While God tested Job by taking one possession after
another from him, Job’s resilience in the true faith only became stronger. The
more of his prized possessions he squandered, the more intoxicated he became
in the love of God. However, such a wine, too, remains undesired by the lover
in this qawwali.
The last type of wine that is offered is the one consumed by Salman and
Abu Zarr, two devoted companions of the Prophet Muhammad and Ali b. Abi
Talib. These two pious companions saw both Muhammad and Ali after coming
to Medina (the first established Muslim community), and this sight is com-
pared to the drinking of wine. Alas, the lover does not fancy this wine either.
analysis of stanza 6. When the Cupbearer asks in frustration what better
wine could he desire, if not the wine of Mansur, Jesus, Moses, or Job, the lover
reveals his choice: the wine which was drunk in Karbala; that wine which was
drunk by the son of Haidar [Ali]; and that wine which the beloved son of Zahra
[Fatima] drank. After drinking this wine and by the will of God, Husain gave
up his worldly life. Even marked by wounds, he was under the protective shade
of his Beloved, God. Even thirsty for three days, he was the legacy of Mustafa,
the Chosen One, and bore this with patience. Asking the enemy for water was
out of the question for Husain, since he was content with the wine of Divine
Light. Having drunk the wine of negation (la ilaha) of all existence besides that
of one Allah, Husain affirmed the existence of the one True Beloved. The
negation (la ilaha, there is no god) in the Islamic declaration of faith precedes
the affirmation (illa Llah, or, except for Allah) in the existence of only Allah.
By drinking of this wine of negation, and experiencing the intoxication that
resulted from it, Husain underwent martyrdom; and martyrdom in this tra-
dition leads to eternal life. The word for martyrdom, shahadat itself literally
means “bearing witness,” and thus affirms life over death. Thus, it is fitting
for the qawwal to enhance the affect of his mystical song by knotting into it
the last two lines of Muinuddin Chishti’s quatrain, “he sacrificed his head but
not his honor, the truth is that the very foundation of lā ilaha is Husain.” The
lover can only wish that fate had allotted him the goblet of Shabbir [Husain].
So far he has been deprived of the brimful goblet in its true sense.
No student of Islamic mysticism will see the metaphor that conflates mar-
tyrdom, Husain, the act of loving, and wine drinking as an isolated one. An-
nemarie Schimmel writes that the “most revealing” lyrics of the distinguished
Sindhi poet Shah Abdul Latif (d. 1752 c.e.), at least as far as the martyrs of
Karbala are concerned, are as follows:
In their martyrdom was all the coquetry of Love:
Some intoxicated people may understand
the mystery of the case of Karbala.55
In order to appreciate Husain’s presence in the qawwali tradition, we must

also study the model of Husain presented in South Asian Sufi literature of the
past millennium.
Karbala in South Asian Sufi Literature

One of the earliest and most influential extant works of Sufism is undoubtedly
Abul-Hasan Ali al-Hujwiri’s (d. 1077 c.e.) Kashf al-Mahfi jūb li-Arbāb al-Qulūb,
or The Unveiling of the Veiled for the Lords of the Heart. The author of this work,
who died in Lahore, is still lovingly referred to as Data Ganj Bakhsh or Data
Sahab, and his tomb has remained an object of veneration for more than nine
centuries. In addition to claiming Ali as the model for all Sufis, the saint praises
the Imam Husain:
He is the martyr of Karbala, and all Sufis are agreed that he was in
the right. So long as the Truth was apparent, he followed it; but
when it was lost he drew the sword and never rested until he sacri-
ficed his dear life for God’s sake. The Apostle distinguished him by
many tokens of favour. Thus Umar b. al-Khattab relates that one day
[when Husain was a child] he saw the Apostle crawling on his
knees, while Husain rode on his back holding a string, of which the
other end was in the Apostle’s mouth. Umar said: “What an excel-
lent camel Thou hast, O father of Abdallah [Muhammad]!” The
Apostle replied: “What an excellent rider is he, O Umar!” It is re-
corded that Husain said: “Thy religion is the kindest of brethren to-
wards thee,” because a man’s salvation consists in following reli-
gion, and his perdition is disobeying it.56
It is worth noting that Husain’s significance is articulated by invoking a context
that also features Umar. Such a Sufi discourse counters the abuse to which
Umar is usually subjected in the Shii readings of Islam. Al-Hujwiri, however,
does censure Yazid for the tragedy of Karbala. He also recounts the virtues of
several other Shii imams, most notably those of Ali b. Husain.
As far as the influential Sufi saints of Sindh (a region south of Lahore) are
concerned, we have the discourses of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar (d. 1252 c.e.), in
which Husain occupies the highest mystical station, that of the martyrs. In
order to reach such a station, Husain surpasses the stations associated with
Adam (repentance), Noah (celebration and praise of God’s glory), Abraham
(love of God), Ismail (contentment), Jesus (asceticism), Job (patience), Muham-
mad (gnosis).57 Not only is it striking that Husain is lodged in the company of
the prophets in the spiritual understanding of Lal Shahbaz, but Husain even
transcends the station of these prophets, including that of his own grandfather.
It is unclear if Lal Shahbaz was familiar with the verses of Muinuddin Chishti,
who lived in the same century, and had credited Husain with “infusing spring
in the garden of the Chosen Prophet [Muhammad].” Spring adds luster to the
garden with roses, and Husain’s wounds are metaphorically associated with
lush roses.58
A modern Sufi master of Pakistan, Wasif Ali Wasif (d. 1993), almost seven
t
hundred years after Lal Shahbaz, assesses the difference between 3ariqat (the
mystical path of Islam) and sharı̄at (the exoteric, legal path) by recalling the
event of Karbala: “Praying due to obligation constitutes shariat; praying out of
loving desire is tariqat.” Wasif elaborates by pointing to the required ritual
prayers performed in Karbala on the tenth day of Muharram. He holds that
those on Yazid’s side, as well as those on Husain’s side had said their prayers,
but there was a difference in these prayers. Yazid’s side prayed out of obligation,
to fulfill an Islamic requirement. And in spite of fulfilling the demands of
Islamic legal code, they fell short of understanding the very spirit of these
prayers—the spirit that motivated Husain’s side to not only pray but also to
act on the path of God. One could say that even though Yazid’s side followed
the letter of the shariat, Husain’s side sublimated the prayers of shariat through
tariqat.59
Such a stature of Husain in Sufi literature has stimulated and enriched
the qawwali tradition which is central to the Sufi order of Chishtis. One of the
means used by the Chishti order to approach the Almighty is samā (lit., lis-
tening or audition), or a gathering for spiritual music. The sama gatherings
have such power over the attendees that they can take them into the world of
ecstasy (wajd) wherein the Beloved par excellence unites with His lover-devotee.
Hagiographic traditions record many such unions, some quite literal. For ex-
ample, one of Muinuddin Chishti’s disciples, Khwaja Qutb al-Din Bakhtiyar
Kaki, died ecstatically upon hearing the musical rendition of this verse:
The martyrs of the dagger of taslı̄m (surrender)
Each moment get a new life from the Unseen world.60
The stroke of the beloved’s sword is much desired by the lover, since it leads
to proximity with the beloved. The musical rendition of this concept shapes
the way in which the symbol of Karbala is incorporated in the qawwali context.
In the interest of my larger argument, I am primarily concerned with the
poetic texts used in these qawwalis. I must, however, shed some light on the
relationship between poetry and music by invoking Amir Khusraw. In a playful
lyrical dialogue, Khusraw captures a brief conversation he has with a mut3rib
(singer). The singer asks Khusraw if the latter considers music superior to
poetry, since music cannot be captured by the pen. Khusraw, adroit in both
arts, replies that poetry is superior for it is not contingent upon the voice of
the singer or the audition of the listeners. Although music can adorn poetry,
poetry is quite complete in itself:
Poetry can be regarded as a bride and the melody its jewelry.
There is no flaw if the beautiful bride is without her jewelry.61
When examining the qawwali tradition, I limit my discussion to that of the
bride.62
From Shrines to Concert Halls: Expansion of the Qawwali Context

Sufi shrines, such as that of Salimuddin Chishti, where the first qawwali I
analyzed was performed, have historically been home to a wide range of de-
votional expression, ensured by the confluence of diverse religious traditions,
not only those associated with the Prophet Muhammad’s Arabia. Notwith-
standing their appeal to Muslims and non-Muslims alike, those who guard the
code of religious exclusivism resent the inclusivist nature of these shrines. This
resentment is characteristic of Shii, Sunni, and Hindu extremists alike, al-
though for very different reasons. For those Sunnis influenced by certain
strands of Wahhabi ideology, Sufi shrines draw vulnerable Muslims away from
an Allah-centered Islam into the realm of intermediaries and grave-worship.
Thus, Sufi shrines and saints stand accused of obstructing monotheism. Many
Shias militate against Sufi saints and shrines by accusing them of deflecting
deference from Shii imams and the sacred sites associated with the imams’
lives. Even though these imams are frequently invoked in Sufi assemblies as
the forefathers of saints like Nizamuddin Awliya and Salimuddin Chishti, and
praise of the imams, as the qawwalis under discussion demonstrate, is a reg-
ular feature at these shrines, many Shias feel that the paramount authority of
their imams is diminished when Shias attend to Sufi pirs instead of devoting
themselves to the prophets and the imams. Given the extent of the non-Muslim
presence at Sufi shrines, Hindu extremists are also complicit in sternly con-
demning their coreligionists for making pilgrimages to Sufi centers. In fact,
during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots of Gujarat, the popular tomb of one of the
finest Urdu Sufi poets, Vali Gujarati, was desecrated. Ironically, Vali’s poetry
is full of lavish admiration for Gujarat’s cosmopolitanism as a divine gift to
this region.
Even in the face of contempt from extremist elements, Sufi shrine culture
permeates the lives of sundry South Asians in the form of spiritual healing
and worldly entertainment. The pilgrims to these shrines find the qawwali
performances mystically empowering, consoling, and entertaining. But the qa-
wwali culture is itself dynamic and by no means limited to the shrine. It has
undergone significant transformations over time and qawwalis have become
commercial commodities produced by the likes of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the
Sabri Brothers, and Abida Parveen. Such qawwals have moved the genre of
spiritual poetry and music from the shrines of South Asia to the concert halls
of Paris and New York. These qawwals have expanded qawwalis to non-mystical
sites; though the precedent for this expansion and commercialization on the
subcontinent goes back to the second half of the nineteenth century at least.63
The experience of mystical entertainment began to be created outside the
traditional boundaries, with qawwalis leaving their mark upon public gather-
ings celebrating the lives of saints such as Abdul Qadir Jilani, and upon house-
hold functions such as weddings, birthdays, and other auspicious events. Qa-
wwalis have not been limited to Muslim households. Even the popular Parsi
theater of nineteenth-century Bombay included qawwalis in its plays.64
As the nineteenth century drew to a close, the record industry gained
ground in South Asia. Concomitant with the rising popularity of certain record
companies, the qawwalis were dispersed into all corners of South Asia and
beyond, to a large extent by the South Asian diaspora. With the popularity of
the Sabri Brothers (from the 1970s on) and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (from the
1980s on), the demand for qawwali, and the concomitant market, increased
apace. Record companies such as World Music marketed the qawwalis with
slickly produced recordings. The increasingly diverse qawwali audience comes
to terms with the performance and the performers through their own ideolog-
ical and spiritual background. For example, the hand clapping that provides a
beat (of sorts) in the qawwali performance constitutes an interface of cultures
for non-Urdu speaking audience members, and becomes a means by which
the familiar genres of western music embrace a newcomer:
It is this rhythmic element and the obvious intensity of the perform-
ances that endear qawwali to Western listeners. The syncopated
rhythm set up by the hand clapping is so close in feel to the ubiqui-
tous rock ‘back-beat’ that Western audiences immediately feel at
home. This connection is important, because the majority of West-
ern audiences cannot understand the lyrics, traditionally the most
important aspect of the performance. However, they can dance to
the music. It is not surprising then, that one reviewer of a 1998
Queen Elizabeth Hall concert by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan compared
the ecstatic delivery and rhythmic energy of the music to that of
James Brown, or that another at WOMAD in 1985 termed it “A sort
of scappella [sic] Persian jazz that moved many of the audiences to
tears of joy,” or that a Welsh critic noted its “cajun-style energy” with
“ancient scales that went westwards from the same areas and ended
up as Irish reels.”65
Judging from the qawwali performances in the western world, the themes
of mysticism that characterized the origins of the qawwali tradition still remain
pivotal to the “new” qawwalis, i.e., those far removed from their shrine origins.
The commercially successful qawwals like Khan give many of the same reasons
for and accounts of their performances as do little-known qawwals like Alam
Ali and Safdar Ali. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan stated in an interview:
When I sing traditional spiritual songs, I always concentrate on who
it is that I’m singing about. For instance, if I am inspired by the
Holy Prophet, I concentrate on the Prophet. When I sing, I sing for
God and for holy prophets, and their personalities are in my mind.
Accordingly, whenever I sing about God, or the prophet Muham-
mad, I feel like I am in front of him. I feel their personalities and I
pray. I feel like I am in another world when I sing, the spiritual
world. I am not in the material world while I am singing these tradi-
tional holy messages. I’m totally in another world. I am withdrawn
from my materialistic senses, I am totally in my spiritual senses,
and I am intoxicated by the Holy Prophet, God and other Sufi
saints. When I sing for God, I feel myself in accord with God. The
house of God, Mecca, is right in front of me, and I worship. When I
sing for Muhammad, peace be upon him, our prophet, I feel like I
am sitting right next to his tomb, Medina, and paying him respect
and admitting to myself that I accept his message. When I sing
about the Sufi saints, I feel like the saints are in front of me, and as
a student, I am accepting their teachings. I repeat again and again
that I accept their teachings, that I am really their follower.66
This interview bears out the truth according to many Sufis, that sincerity of
belief and the devotional words that spring from it can transform any location
into the niche wherein the devotee meets the object of his devotion. Perhaps
these words of Khan remind one of Simab Akbarabadi’s couplet that has a
pronounced presence in many qawwalis:
Kfi hulūsfi -e dil se jo sajda ho us sajde kā kyā kahnā
vahı̄ñ Kaba sarak āyā jabı̄ñ ham ne jahāñ rakh dı̄67
The prostration that is performed in a sincere, heartfelt manner
What can be said about it!
The Kaba is drawn to where I place my forehead
When appreciating the qawwali tradition, one also has to keep in mind the
degree to which a successful qawwali is dependent upon the interaction that
the qawwal has with the audience. The qawwali-attending audience is keen on
making requests (farmāish) and the qawwals try to abide by such requests. The
reward for fulfilling the wishes of the audience usually comes in the form of
nazr, a monetary reward dependant upon the socioeconomic status of the au-
dience members. The social and religious sensibilities of audience members
also dictate to some extent the items that are sung. For example, when the late
Aziz Ahmad Khan Warasi (himself a Sunni) performed in Shii households, he
sang verses that praised Ali with words above and beyond the usual praise:
zabāñ jab hfi amd meñ khultı̄ hai tab dil thām letā hūñ
kfi hudā ke nām se pahle Alı̄ kā nām letā hūñ68
When my tongue begins to praise God, I clutch my heart
Before God’s name, I take Ali’s
Many of the requests made during modern qawwali performances are
undoubtedly a result of the widespread use of technology—radioes, television,
tape recorders, and compact disc players. Through such media, particular qa-
wwalis, especially those performed by commercially successful groups, gain
popularity. Audiences attuned to these qawwalis are likely to request them from
other qawwals as well. Thus, a tradition born within the Sufi shrine culture
accords with the imperatives of the modern, ever-shrinking world through the
initiatives of concert organizers, individual Sufi music assembly holders, and
record producers.
But the mass-marketing of qawwalis has caused a decline in the demand
for local works of poetry. Even twenty years ago, local poets could circulate
their poetry through qawwali gatherings. Testifying to the power of mass re-
cordings, many qawwals with whom I spoke complained that the qawwalis
requested by members of the younger generations in performances are those
that have become popular through radio or television broadcasts. These qa-
wwalis represent the taste of a limited number of urban centers like Karachi,
Lahore, and Mumbai and do not usually resonate with the poetry and com-
positions of smaller communities. The qawwals from smaller communities,
however, are not the only performers complaining that a globalized aesthetic
is negatively effecting the locally established poetry traditions and performers.
Not surprisingly, several people who recite various genres of majlis poetry also
complain that they have to yield to requests to recite nauhas, salams, and
marsiyas that are broadcast on television or radio. At the mercy of globalization,
the emerging proclivities within today’s qawwali listeners and majlis audiences
undercut the time-honored tradition of local poets projecting their voices
through the qawwals or majlis-reciters of their communities. The demands
made on the local performers often reflect new global standards that have an
authoritative standing as a result of large concerts sponsored by corporations,
record companies, radio stations, or television channels.
A friend who had accompanied me to the shrine of Shaykh Salimuddin
Chishti, requested that Alam Ali, a visiting qawwal, sing “Sāqı̄yā aur Pilā” (the
first qawwali discussed). This particular qawwali, composed in honor of Hu-
sain b. Ali, was made popular, especially among Shias, by the commercial
audiotapes of the Sabri Brothers.69 Although the performer at the shrine (Alam
Ali) did incorporate much of the Sabri Brother’s qawwali into the performance,
he also added many verses of his own. And even though the thematic rope still
looked the same as that of the Sabri qawwali, Alam Ali added his own signature
knots and unknotted many knots of the Sabri Brothers. It should be mentioned
that the Sabri Brothers themselves did not always sing this qawwali with the
same knots; they added and subtracted units depending on the time and place
of the performance. For instance, in one of the versions of this qawwali, the
Sabri Brothers glorify the esoteric wine and explicitly distance themselves from
the Wahhabi tradition because this tradition has shown little tolerance to the
Sufi readings of Islam.70
The mystically impelled vision of Karbala appears in the next qawwali
through the juxtaposition of the symbols of devotion, commemoration, the
banishment of ego, and the call for Husainian intercession. This qawwali, a
version of which was originally performed by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in Paris,
not only confirms the lofty status of the Martyr of Karbala, it also broadens the
mystical purview discussed so far. Although Syed Adil Hussaini, Saber Habib,
Harjit Singh, and Syed Salimullah reproduce most of Khan’s qawwali, when
singing this qawwali at a private assembly in Hyderabad, they do insert a girah
which we encountered in the last qawwali, and this insertion makes their per-
formance a bit different from that of Khan’s.
Translation of Qawwali II
1
O Believers! When the world remembers the Martyr of Karbala,
It writhes and sheds tears of blood.
O Husain! O Husain! O Husain! O Husain!
2
Husain is the king, Husain is the emperor,
Husain is religion and Husain is the refuge for religion
He sacrificed his head but did not give his hand [in allegiance to]
Yazid
Truly, the basis of “la ilaha” is Husain
Although in prostration he let his head be cut off
Still he sounded the drum of God’s name
3
If you desire [the] vision, bow your head in prayer
Banish the ego from the heart, erase your selfhood in prayer
Then you’ll see the face of God in prayer
First of all, like Husain, sacrifice your head in prayer.
And say:
4
O Husain! Who has such audacity as to equal you in stature
In your father’s house is the imamate, in your grandfather’s house,
prophethood
Having seen Husain’s face, God Himself will say on doomsday:
O the darling of my Mustafa, my Chosen One, the people of
Mustafa have been set free
5
It is a drop’s joy to be annihilated in the ocean,
Pain, having passed the limit, becomes the cure
But: Ask not about the elation of desirers after they reach the execution
ground
The baring of the sword is a feast for their sight
Hence, as he drew his bare sword to slay me, my head was in

prostration
Prostration—Prostration is a strange thing
What else is there in the mantle of Islam, besides
The sword of Ali, the Hand of God, and the prostration of Shabbir
[Husain]
Hence, As he drew his bare sword to slay me, my head was in
prostration
However, so far I have received no brimful goblet
6
What a ruinous moment must have befallen Karbala,
When the blade of the sword fell upon Shabbir’s neck
Even the celestial sphere must have grabbed its heart,
When the spear pierced the heart of Ali Akbar
“Let me take water and go” said Abbas
“Sakina, thirsty for many days, must be crying.”
In the whole world, no world of the oppressed has been looted
As the world of Haidar’s son was looted at Karbala.
What the grandson of Muhammad did in the shadow of swords—
Not even angels, let alone people, would have been capable of such
servitude [to God]
“In exchange for our blood, forgive our followers, O Lord!”
This will be Shabbir’s plea on doomsday.
O Husain! O Husain! O Husain! O Husain!71
figure 4.2 Hussaini and his companions performing at a qawwali

assembly.
Analysis and Contextualization of Qawwali 2

analysis of stanza 1. Hussaini begins the qawwali by reminding the audi-
ence that any remembrance of the Martyr of Karbala is bound to evoke sorrow
among those listening to this tale. The first two lines of the qawwali conjure
up the context of the commemorative majlis gatherings with the vocative ut-
terance momino! (believers!) and the phrase kfi hūn ke ānsū (tears of blood). This
phrase also aligns the world that sheds tears of blood with the cause of Hu-
sain—the paradigm of sacrifice, who shed his own blood to rescue virtue. Like
the majlis audience that forms a relationship with the martyrs of Karbala, the
qawwali audience must also suffer vicariously in order to honor and relate to
Husain. Remember that singing the praises of Husain and celebrating his
ultimate victory does not mean that the elements of sorrow and suffering that
are always latent in the account of Karbala must be excluded.
analysis of stanza 2. To convey Husain’s great victory, Hussaini, like Alam

Ali, adorns his Urdu qawwali with the Persian poetic knot from Muinuddin
Chishti. The resounding drum of Husain’s victory, of God’s name, was
sounded when Husain allowed his head to be cut off in prostration. For with
this act, Husain no longer lived in separation from the Almighty; he subsisted
in the Almighty.
analysis of stanza 3. Hence, if the vision of the Almighty is desired, why

not emulate the one who has reached the stage where such vision is possible?
The first step in this quest is to bow one’s head in prostration, just as Husain
did. The Quran provides the remedy for the distance between the Creator and
the created by calling upon the created to prostrate themselves to attain prox-
imity with the Creator: “Prostrate and draw near.”72 This very notion of pros-
tration implies the existence of a superior force. Thus kfi hūdı̄, by which the
qawwal implies the ego, whose very existence creates a duality between the
Creator and His creation, needs to be banished and only then can the vision
of God become a possibility. This transcendental vision of God surpasses
worldly temporality and is set on eternal permanence. The mystic once again
draws his currency from the Quran: “Whatever is on earth is perishing save
His face.”73 Yet, empty talk cannot convey such profound mystical truths. These
truths can only be grasped through actions. Therefore the qawwali calls out to
all those who desire the vision of God to bow their heads in prostration—with
the willingness to sacrifice it and the same sincerity as Husain. These lines
also resonate with the notions of the fine Persian Sufi poet, Abul-Majd Maji-
duddin b. Adam Sanai (d. 1131 c.e.). He reminds us that any faithful rendition
of Husain’s station is not possible unless one is liberated from the base self
and one has the strength to emulate Husain’s courageous fight.74
analysis of stanza 4. In these verses, Husain’s status is set apart from that
of all other heroes. As if the sacrifices of the martyr of Karbala were not enough
to secure for him the highest of accolades in God’s eyes, his genealogical line-
age also privileges him over and above all other martyrs. In the house of Hu-
sain’s father, Ali, resides the imamate, or the spiritual leadership of the com-
munity. The institution of the imamate, which holds a theological importance
within Shii communities, is also revered by numerous Sufi orders. Many Sufis
claim their descent through one of the Shii imams. Evidence of this reverence
can be seen in Sufi shrines adorned with the names of these Shii imams.
Furthermore, the “father” of all these imams, Ali, is the forebear of Islamic
spirituality. Husain not only inherits the imamate from his father, he is also
honored by virtue of being born in the Prophet’s house—a house upon which
God showered His mercy through His final revelation. Thus, when Husain
appears in the presence of the Lord on Judgment Day, he will already have
accumulated such merits through his personal conduct and noble lineage that
the Final Arbiter will say at once: The community of Mustafa [the Prophet
Muhammad], is set free from all punishments, and from the chains of ego.
Of course the qawwali is underscoring the redemptive nature of Husain’s
struggle—redemptive in the sense that Husain underwent the most severe
suffering in order to set up a model of love and piety; and all those who emulate
this model are guaranteed eternal victory.
analysis of stanza 5. This segment includes the metaphor of the raindrop,

the sword trope, and the invocations of Ghalib and Iqbal in the service of
Karbala, all covered in segment 4 of the last qawwali. Hussaini basically repeats
verbatim stanza 4 of Alam Ali’s qawwali.
analysis of stanza 6. In the last section of the qawwali, the qawwal imagines
that the suffering of Karbala was so grave that the oppressive celestial sphere,
that is a constant witness to the toils of God’s creation, would itself have been
in agony at the resilience and forbearance of Husain and his companions. So
innumerable were the sacrifices on Husain’s part that it is difficult to imagine
any angel, much less a human, coping with them. The only reward that Husain
asks for his blood is that his grandfather’s community be forgiven. This theme
of Husain’s intercession on behalf of faithful Muslims permeates many qa-
wwalis that invoke Karbala. Such qawwalis ineluctably affect the eschatological
hopes of the performers, as well as the audiences, by reminding them that
Husain is the intercessor by virtue of his suffering and martyrdom. He can
relate to the Supreme Lord on the basis of his exemplary character and stead-
fastness in devotion.
The above qawwali is the locus wherein Husain’s paradigmatic and inter-
cessory roles converge into one another. Through his ideal annihilation at Kar-
bala, Husain is freed from the shackles of his worldly existence and united
with his beloved, to subsist in the highest of forms—a form which not only
inspires others but intervenes on their behalf when they stumble.
Conclusion
Qawwali is just one facet of a large, complex mystical culture. This tradition
not only encompasses a range of mystical texts, from simple to quite complex,
it also forms a nexus where diverse traditions and peoples converge, thereby
facilitating the diffusion of mystical symbols, such as that of Karbala, into wider
circles. Along with the continually changing social and cultural backdrops of
the qawwalis, the tradition has also accommodated a great deal of creative
autonomy on the part of the qawwals themselves. The qawwals find in Husain’s
martyrdom spiritual themes that correspond to the best of Islamic spirituality:
They illustrate, through Husain, the highest standards of spirituality. The
meaning of Husain is seen through the lens of his worship and his willingness
to live under the sword of God’s will. As Alam Ali elucidates for us, invoking
Husain’s martyrdom means celebrating the death of the base soul and the
survival of the higher soul. He argues his case as follows: The symbolic wine
imbibed through the remembrance of Karbala causes the demise of conscious-
ness of all entities other than God, so that a state of oblivion (bekfi habarı̄) comes
into being. Since the human ego resides in consciousness, through the wine
of Husain’s remembrance, the ego’s abode is demolished.
The major difference between this tradition and the majlis tradition lies
in the emotional reaction to martyrdom. The qawwalis are more favorably dis-
posed to view death as a victory, a union with God, than to view death as an
event to be mourned. The very context of the qawwali has a built-in celebratory
appeal and the qawwalis, in their meditative and contemplative mode, serve to
reinforce the celebratory aspect of the union, rather than the mournful aspect
of the suffering of Husain and his family and companions. The treatment
accorded to Husain in the South Asian qawwali tradition is not much different
from that accorded to him in other popular Sufi traditions. Valerie Hoffman-
Ladd, in her wonderful work on popular Sufism in Egypt, makes the following
observations that can also resonate with South Asian qawwali audiences:
The [Egyptian] Sufis, however, express their love for Husain and
other members of the ahl al-bayt not through grief, but through joy-
ful songs and expressions of devotion. The love Egyptian Sufis have
for Husain springs from his close relationship with the Prophet, af-
firmed in many sayings, as well as by adoption, for the Prophet de-
clared Hasan and Husain to be his own sons. After the Prophet, the
person who inspires the greatest love among Egyptian Sufis is Hu-
sain. His shrine-mosque in Cairo, which allegedly houses the noble
head, is enormous and beautiful, and his mawlid [birthday] is the
largest one of all. His name frequently comes up in Sufi songs, and
on the outer wall of his mosque hangs a large, illuminated plaque
bearing the saying of the Prophet: “Husain is from me and I am
from Husain.” The Egyptians do not dwell on Husain’s martyrdom,
but sing joyfully of their love for him. . . .75
It is also worth mentioning that in several qawwalis, the line calling for
the celebration of martyrdom and lamenting the obstacles on the path of mar-
tyrdom is sufficiently blurred to accommodate a wide band of emotions.
Hence, it is perfectly acceptable for qawwalis to cause their audience to weep
“the tears of blood” at the tribulations of the lover [Husain] and his followers,
as the qawwali by Khan does. However, in the same qawwali, this suffering
and sorrow is transformed into rejoicing at the union of the lover and the
Beloved. Although there are moments of despair, the persistence of joy over-
comes them. The qawwalis that deal with Karbala thus transcend the specific
instances of death and suffering and point to the outcome of this struggle: the
union between the lover and the Beloved and the lover’s willingness to go to
any length to accomplish this.
No discussion of Sufi literature, of which qawwalis are an important com-
ponent, should end without mentioning the influence these tropes had on the
overall literary corpus of Islamicate literatures. Sufi literature has historically
provided that safe space wherein subtle and enduring forms of resistance to
oppression and injustice could be forged. The literary space is an avenue to
reactivate and articulate the messages of Husain and others. Such symbols
thus constitute a counterdiscourse to the outward appearances of the religion.
These poets and performers, by upsetting the existing social equilibrium, set
up alternative worlds that are in overt contradiction to the worlds of the reli-
gious leaders.
Sufism, through the language of the qawwali, has also transmitted dy-
namic idioms to generations of poets across various regions, even when their
writings were not religious per se. The idioms should not be seen as an already
harvested land, but should instead be viewed as fertile soil that accommodated
ever-new seeds of creativity. These idioms are thus constantly re-oriented, leav-
ing traces of ambiguity that can be simultaneously profane and spiritual, literal
and metaphoric. The Sufis, very early on, carved out a niche so accommodating
that subsequent developments in Perso-Indic poetry are easily held within the
genres of the qawwali, ghazal, marsiya, salam, and nauha; all abound in im-
agery that encompasses Sufi discourses in one way or another. Undoubtedly
precipitating the anguish of those who wish to safeguard neat religious and
ideological categories, the Sufis, a diffuse category of identity in itself, so col-
ored the overall literary and poetic landscape that it became impossible to create
boundaries separating the mystical from the non-mystical, Amir Khusraw from
Iqbal, Bollywood from shrines, Karbala from wine-drinking, the potential from
the possible.
5
Iqbal and Karbala
Ramz-e Qurāñ az H fi usain āmūkfi htı̄m

z-ātish-e ū shola ha añdūkfi htı̄m
I learned the lesson of the Quran from Husain
In his fire, like a flame, I burn
Muhammad Iqbal
When I began my academic engagement with various South Asian

contexts that receive their vocabulary from the event of Karbala, I re-
alized very early that one figure through whom these contexts may
be woven together is Muhammad Iqbal. He becomes the most signif-
icant interlocutor of the various ideologies of the Islamic world. Al-
though people from disparate backgrounds lavish praise on him,
Iqbal’s role in the constitution of these ideologies differs in signifi-
cant ways. In many ways, we can compare him to the elephant in
the mystical work of Iqbal’s own source of emulation, Jalaluddin
Rumi.1 Like the elephant in Rumi’s parable, situated in the dark and
surrounded by men who each feel a part of the elephant’s body and
mistake that part for the whole, Iqbal has been studied, admired,
and criticized from the vantage point of various contexts and ideolo-
gies. Such multiple approaches to Iqbal make him an intellectual
whose legacy is infinitely negotiable, perhaps also like the event of
Karbala. Iqbal also warrants his own chapter of this work because he
is arguably the most original Muslim reformer-poet hailing from
modern South Asia, and one whose evocations of Karbala and mar-
tyrdom have become important refrains in the subsequent dis-
courses of anti-colonialism and nationalism.
In the India of Iqbal’s time, British colonial rule had assumed a
preeminent status from 1857 on, when the last Mughal ruler was ex-
iled. Although the three-century-long rule of the Mughals was relatively decen-
tralized and hardly a reflection of textual Islam dictating the policies of the
state (even though some Mughal rulers identified closely with Islamic religious
establishments), many Muslims after the fall of the Mughals were concerned
about their community’s fate in a post-Mughal India under British colonial
rule. The very idea of a unified religious community, whether Hindu or Mus-
lim, was, to a great degree, ushered in by colonial discourses that persisted in
viewing India as if it were constituted by well-defined religious categories.
Ironically, those wrestling with the questions of whether or not colonialism
should be resisted, and if so, with what strategies, also generated a prodigious
amount of literature that employed religious idioms at the expense of those
idioms formulated through linguistic, regional, or class concerns. South Asian
intellectuals in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century were acutely
concerned with positing the anti-colonial struggle through discourses saturated
in religious vocabulary. Iqbal was no exception to this. Yet, he was unique in
his mastery of Urdu and Persian reformist language and in the towering
shadow he still projects on discussions of South Asian Islam.
Muhammad Iqbal, having lived as a prominent intellectual and poet in the
first four decades of the twentieth century, and having witnessed life in both
Europe (where he went for his higher education from 1905 to 1908) and Asia,
is a fascinating mélange of voices of the East and the West. Drawing from
Islamic spirituality, philosophy, aesthetics, and history, as well as from certain
discourses of the European Enlightenment, he was a South Asian modernist
force who bridged temporal and geographical distances. By “modernist,” in the
context of Iqbal, I mean that he was a utilitarian configurer of the past who
sought to use this past to meet the spiritual and material needs of the present
and ultimately secure a brighter future. This reconfiguration of the past is itself
rooted in the vision of reconciling Islamicate and European ideologies to pro-
gressive ends, ends that are shaped by a desire to wake up the dormant ele-
ments in the Muslim community.
Surprisingly, the centrality of Karbala and martyrdom in the discourses of
Iqbal has not received due attention, despite the importance of these concepts
for Iqbal’s concept of khudi, or the desired higher self. In the first section of
this chapter, I explore how Iqbal reclaims the symbol of Karbala for a pan-
Islamic reformist discourse that transcends sectarian differences. In so doing,
I locate Iqbal loosely within the Sufi and Sunni socioreligious reformist
traditions (of Muhammad Ali Jauhar and Maulana Abulkalam Azad), while
underscoring the poet’s important breaks with these traditions. Iqbal consti-
tutes Karbala as a political project to unite and mobilize Muslims, especially
the Muslim minorities of the South Asian subcontinent. For Iqbal, Karbala is
also a move away from the ritualistic-symbolic realm toward the spiritual-active
one.
The second part of this chapter explores how Shias, a persecuted minority
in Pakistan, in turn, valorize Iqbal, in an attempt to accrue legitimacy for their
own sociopolitical ends. In spite of his Sunni heritage, Iqbal’s name becomes
an important invocation, and therefore a rhetorical device for validating Shii
iqbal and karbala 139
readings of Islamic history. This chapter concludes by pointing to the hetero-

geneity of the engagements with Iqbal’s rearticulation of Karbala, in the works
of Iqbal’s contemporaries and followers, as well as in the writings of modern
Iranian intellectuals.
Iqbal and Karbala
The first Muslim, the King of men, Ali

The treasure of faith, in the world of love, Ali
In the affection of his progeny, I live—
Like a jewel, I sparkle [in his love]
Muhammad Iqbal
With these words, Iqbal sings his panegyrics for Ali b. Abi Talib, in the epic
poem Secrets of the Self. Iqbal illustrates here the ideal Muslim self through the
persona of Ali. As one of the mystically-inclined commentators of Iqbal put
it,2 within Ali, Iqbal sees the embodiment of three of the loftiest human char-
acteristics: knowledge, love, and action. To Iqbal, the scope of Ali’s knowledge
is evident from the Prophetic tradition: “I am the city of knowledge and Ali is
its gate.” Iqbal is fully immersed in this Sufi tradition and knows well that
according to many Sufis, the Prophet invested Ali with the cloak of spirituality,
or the kfi hirqa. Although all companions of the Prophet are to be revered for
seeing the last Messenger of Allah face-to-face and enjoying his company, Ali’s
status in the chain of Islamic spirituality is distinct. And it is upon this status
that Iqbal founds the concept of khudi or “self.” Recall that the second qawwali
in the last chapter had also used the word khudi, but as a reference to the base
ego that separates God from his creation. In many Sufi discourses, khudi ap-
peared with a pejorative connotation. But Iqbal reclaims this concept in order to
articulate a higher self. This triadic self—invested with knowledge, love, and ac-
tion—derives from that “first Muslim,” Ali, and lies latent within all Muslims.
Ali, however, is not alone in manifesting the ideals of the true Muslim
self; he is accompanied by his beloved wife Fatima. Had the Prophet not for-
bidden grave worship, Iqbal declares in his praise for Fatima, “I would have
circumambulated her grave and fallen into prostration on her dust.” Fatima is
not only the center of the realm of love but she is also the leader of all those
in the caravan of God’s love. Husain’s traits are the inheritance from Fatima
since whatever jewels of truth and virtue sons inherit, credit is due to their
mothers. And Fatima is not only the perfection of all mothers, but of all women;
for in addition to her love for her children and husband, she is tied to the toil
and labor of this world, having borne a heavy burden in the most excruciating
circumstances. Along with action and love, knowledge is also the providence
of Fatima: The Word of God rests on her lips as she works her way through
life.3 Fatima, in the world of Iqbal, is Ali’s complement, and thus central to the
propagation of Islam. It is the son of Ali and Fatima, Husain, who traverses
the paths of martyrdom with the lamp of knowledge and an abiding commit-
ment to love, so as to project to the world the manner in which Islamic ideals
can be realized.
In his poem “The Meaning of Liberation in Islam and the Secret of the
Karbala Incident,”4 Iqbal first situates Husain in the context of Islam’s philos-
ophy of ishq, or love, as prefigured by both Ali and Fatima: He who enters the
divine covenant with the Lord must not prostrate in the presence of anyone
but the object of devotion, God. The momin, or true believer, emerges from
love, and love likewise flows from the momin. Love makes the impossible
possible. Love is superior to intellect (aql) in every imaginable way. Love cap-
tures its prey with no guises, whereas intellect has to lay a snare. The treasury
of intellect overflows with fear and doubt, whereas love is an efflorescence of
determination and certainty. Intellect partakes of construction in order to de-
construct whereas love causes desolation in order to foster prosperity. The
leader of this realm of love is Husain:
ān imām-e āshiqāñ pūr-e Batūl
sarv-e āzāde ze būstān-e Rasūl
That imam of lovers, that son of Batul [Fatima]
That liberated cypress tree from the garden of the
Messengers
Iqbal compares Husain’s exalted station within the Muslim community to that
of Sūrat al-Ikfi hlāsfi in the Quran. This sura is a fundamental component of
Muslim ritual prayers and concisely summarizes the Islamic creed of mono-
theism: “Say, He is Allah, the One, the Eternal; He begets not nor is He be-
gotten and there is none like Him.” Just as the words of this Quranic sura are
pivotal, Husain is an integral part of the Muslim community. In fact, according
to Iqbal, truth itself survives through the strength of Husain.
Having paid this tribute to the martyred hero of Karbala as the fountain-
head of the philosophy of love, Iqbal proceeds to dehistoricize Husain’s strug-
gle, at least as far as the Shias are concerned: “When the Caliphate severed its
relationship with the Quran [under Yazid] and dropped poison in the mouth
of liberation,”6 Husain rose as the cloud of mercy and then rained upon the
land of Karbala. The implication is that before Yazid, the successors of the
Prophet had been tied to the privileged Islamic text, and Yazid strayed from
the path of his (rightly-guided) predecessors. This is of course a Sunni impli-
cation, for as far as the Shias are concerned, the Quran is invariably bound to
Ali and his descendants. Since Ali was deprived of his leadership position after
the Prophet (except for the brief time span in which Ali became the fourth
Muslim caliph), the caliphate was separated from the Quran within moments
of the Prophet’s death. But Iqbal rescripts Husain as a more cosmic force, a
cloud of mercy akin to his Prophet-grandfather, above and beyond sectarian
strife and appeals to history. The rain from the cloud of mercy was so nour-
ishing that tulips sprouted and gardens flourished and the despotism of a
desolated world was eradicated. According to Iqbal, the suffering that Husain
himself had to undergo to nourish the garden of truth transformed him into
the very foundation of monotheism:
bahr-e hfi aqq dar kfi hāk o kfi hūn ġhalt3ida ast

pas binā-e lā illāh gardı̄da ast
For the sake of Truth, he writhed in dust and blood
Thus did he become the foundation of lā ilaha7
Iqbal, a devout student of mysticism and a devotee of Muinuddin Chishti,
the Sufi luminary from Ajmer (discussed in chapter 4), is of course building
upon the Sufi hermeneutics of Karbala and identifying Husain as the foun-
dation of Islam’s most essential creed of Divine Unity. In addition to living in
a milieu where qawwalis, such as the ones we discussed, were commonplace,
Iqbal had also received formal exposure to Sufism and Persian metaphysics
while pursuing his doctorate at Munich University, in the land of his beloved
Goethe.
Iqbal, Karbala, and Persian Sufi Poetry
Iqbal’s outpouring of love and devotion to Husain had its precursors in Persian
mystical verses, especially those of Abul-Majd Majiduddin b. Adam Sanai
(d. 1131 c.e.), Fariduddin Attar (d. c. 1229 c.e.) and Jalaluddin Rumi (d. 1273
c.e.). According to Sanai, Karbala is the archetype of suffering in the path of
God, to which the Sufi must look for guidance:
Until they turn away from happiness,
men of purity will not be able to step onto Mustafa’s carpet.
How should there be joy in religion’s lane when,
for the sake of empire, blood ran down Husain’s throat at Karbala?8
So the very allegiance to Mustafa, God’s Chosen Prophet, entails a willingness
to suffer—a willingness similar to that of Mustafa’s grandson, Husain. Hu-
sain’s willingness, as far as Sanai is concerned, is surely unique:
This world is full of martyrs,
but where is a martyr like Husain at Karbala?9
But to speak of Husain is a formidable task, for if justice is to be done to the
Martyr of Karbala, the individual ego self of the speaker must be annihilated.
How can one really know the beauty of the most lofty of stations unless one
has actually seen it? The practitioners of annihilation can only carry out the
ministration of the cause:
Sanai, since you have not been cut off from your own self,
How can you tell tales of Husain?10
The conflict between Husain and Yazid is an allegorical conflict reflecting the
tension that exists between the virtuous and the vicious side of all individuals.
Thus, all the righteous have to defeat the Yazids and Shimrs11 of their own
vicious, egotistical selves (nafs) with the help of Husain:
Religion is your Husain,

while desires and hopes are pigs and dogs—
yet you kill the first through thirst and feed these two.
How can you keep on cursing the wicked Yazid and Shimr?
You are a Shimr and a Yazid for your own Husain!12
For Attar, this Husainian dimension is what endears one to God. Husain
b. Ali, with his beautiful traits, was friends with God and His Prophet. Friend-
ship implies an intimate knowledge of the friend. Thus Husain is:
āftāb-e āsmān-e marifat

ān M fi uhammad sfi ūrat o H fi aidar sfi ifat.13
The Sun in the sky of gnosis,
With the form of Muhammad, and the attributes of Haidar [Ali].
Such is Husain’s station that God’s prophets pay tribute to him on the soil of
Karbala:
sfi ad hazārān jān-e pāk-e anbiyā

sfi af zadah bı̄nam bakfi hāk-e Karbalā14
A hundred thousand pure souls of the prophets,
I see, lined up on the soil of Karbala.
The only station that he desires in relation to the Martyr of Karbala is to be the
lowliest of creatures, perhaps a black dog, in Husain’s lane.15 But then again,
Attar reconsiders the utility of such a creature and wishes he were more pro-
ductive to Husain’s cause—and had melted into water in the sorrow of the
martyr’s pain, thereby quenching the Imam’s thirst. As far as those who hurt
Husain, Attar considers them to be nothing but infidels (kāfir).
Attar and Sanai were followed by the most majestic of Persian mystical
writers, Jalaluddin Rumi. Rumi is more than anything else, the poet of love.
To him, the being of the Beloved par excellence is all encompassing:
jumla mashūq ast o āshiq parda-eh

ziñdah mashūq ast o āshiq murda-eh16
All is the Beloved, the lover but a veil
Alive is the Beloved, the lover but dead.
The earthly existence in essence is the separation of the lover from the Beloved:
like the reed torn from the reed bed.17 Such a forlorn existence obviously cannot
have a substantial significance in itself. It derives its significance from the
loving quest for its Origins, a quest that is often painful. However, the more
painful it is, the keener the awareness the lover has of his separation from the
Beloved.
The ego of the lover must never be allowed to run amuck, lest it is deluded
by its own existence. It must be combated—combated within the prison of the
body. Rumi, in the same vein as Sanai, sees the Husain-Yazid struggle as
symbolic of the struggle between the higher self and the lower ego within all
humans:
Night died and came to life, for there is life after death:
O heartache, kill me! For I am Husain, you are Yazid.18
How does Rumi mourn Husain, the exemplary lover who comes back to life
after the travails of the dark night of Karbala?
My heart is Husain and separation Yazid—
my heart has been martyred two hundred times
In the desert of torment and affliction (karb-o-balā).19
In Rumi’s verses, Husain wages a war and refuses to pay allegiance to
separation, opting instead for union with the Beloved. Thus Karbala should
cause people to rejoice, not lament. Rumi cautioned his own followers against
mourning his death:
When you see my funeral, say not “separation, separation,”
For that shall be the moment of my union and meeting.
When you entrust me to the grave, say not “farewell, farewell,”
For the grave is but the veil hiding the gathering of Paradise.20
Rumi, in his magisterial mystical poetic compilation, the Maṡnavı̄, recounts a
tale in which a poet arrives in Aleppo on the day of ashura and is baffled by
the fact that the Shias still mourn for Husain after several centuries. This poet
believes that Husain’s death should be remembered not through lamentations
but through celebration. Implicit in the poet’s language is the subliminal crit-
icism of those who mourn for Husain, namely the Shias.
The spirit of a sultan [king] has escaped from a prison.
Why should we tear our clothes and bite our fingers?
Since he was the king of religion,
His breaking of the bonds was a time of joy,
For he sped toward the pavilions of good fortune
And threw off his fetters and chains.21
Images of a king and a liberated being are skillfully layered on each other so
as to draw attention to the archetypal lover. The image of Husain as an ideal
lover continued to enrich Islamic mystical poetry after Rumi. Nuruddin Abdur
Rahman Jami (d. 1492 c.e.) believes it is necessary for all lovers to pay tribute
to the place of martyrdom (mashhad) of Husain:
I turned my eyes toward the place of martyrdom of Husain
This travel, in the religion of all lovers, is a necessary obligation22
Even the most sanctified of the Islamic sites, the Holy Kaba, according to Jami,
circumambulates the shrine of this martyred lover of God.23
In opting to tie Husain, first and foremost, to the idea of love, Iqbal selec-
tively utilizes these mystical threads of the past. The Husain-Yazid dialectic (in
the beginning at least) is more concerned with the inner human conflict than
with any outward political agenda. From this conflict, the higher self (khudi)
emerges victorious as it overcomes the base self. Through this spiritual capital
of khudi, even the will of kfi hūdā (God/god) becomes subservient to the one
who possesses khudi:
kfi hūdı̄ ko kar balañd itnā ke har taqdı̄r se pehle

kfi hūdā bañde se kfi hūd pūche batā terı̄ rizfi ā kyā hai24
Raise yourself to such a station,
that before any fate,
God Himself shall ask his creation, “What is thy will?”
Thus the “will” of the creation rests comfortably within the agency of the cre-
ation and the creator-creation dialectic is puckishly and punningly unsettled—
khudi (self ) seems to dictate the will of khuda (god/God)!
Just as eternal life is promised to those killed in the way of God, khudi,
for Iqbal, is constituted by self-affirming eternity:
kfi hūdı̄ hai ziñda to hai maut ek maqām-e hfi ayāt

ke ishq maut se kartā hai imtehfi ān ṡabāt25
If the self lives, death is only a station in life
for love tests its affirmation [permanence] through death
Iqbal follows through on this idea elsewhere:
ho agar kfi hūdnagar o kfi hūdgar o kfi hūdgı̄r kfi hūdı̄

yeh bhı̄ mumkin hai ke tu maut se bhı̄ mar na sake.26
If the self is self-reflexive, self-creating, and self-comprehending,
it’s even possible that you will not die from death
This realization of khudi, according to Iqbal, was passed on by Ali and Fatima
to Husain, the martyr of Karbala, who, along with his seventy-two companions,
lived the concept of khudi by fighting (acting) for the principles of Islam
(knowledge) and dying (loving) a martyr’s death.
However, in the battle of Karbala, Husain is not the sole object of Iqbal’s
praise. Husain’s companions also deserve to be labeled “godly” in that aes-
thetically creative way:
dushmanāñ chūñ reg-e sfi ahfi ra lā taddad

dostān-e ū ba Yazdāñ ham adad27
Like the grains of desert sand his [Husain’s] enemies were countless
While the number of his friends equaled God [Yazdan]
Relying upon the numerical value that is attributed to Arabic letters in the
system of abjad,28 the poet transforms the seventy-two followers of Husain into
God or Yazdān—the value of the letters composing Yazdan is: y ⫽ 10; z ⫽ 7;
d ⫽ 4; a ⫽ 1; n ⫽ 50. It is as though the seventy-two companions are annihi-
lated in the Persian equivalent of Allah, Yazdan (fanā fı̄ Yazdān), in order to
strengthen their khudi and ratify the cause of Truth (Hfi aqq) that was espoused
by Husain.
Continuing in this mystical vein, Iqbal considers Husain’s struggle to be
a mine of the mysterious sacrificial tradition that the Prophet Abraham prefig-
ured. In fact, one of Iqbal’s most fondly remembered couplets regarding Hu-
sain treats this theme in Urdu:
ġharı̄b o sāda o rañgı̄ñ hai dāstān-e H
fi aram
nehāyat us kı̄ Hfi usain ibtedā hai Ismāı̄l29
The legacy of the haram is mysteriously simple yet colorful
Ismail is its beginning and Husain its climax
Iqbal signifies the revered House of God, the Haram, or the Kaba in Mecca,
in terms of Ismail and Husain. Ismail was the product of the constant prayers
of his father, Prophet Abraham, who nevertheless was willing to sacrifice his
son at God’s command. An important part of the annual Muslim pilgrimage,
the hajj, is to recall Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. Abraham was
called upon to make only one sacrifice, but Husain made countless sacrifices
in the battlefield of Karbala to save the ideals of Islam. Hence, if Abraham and
Ismail started the tradition of martyrdom, Husain perfected it—not only by
providing an eternal example of sacrifice for the world, but by awakening the
slumbering Muslim self.
Iqbal is so consumed in Husain’s love that the very lessons from the Word
of God, the Quran, are imparted to the poet through Husain:
I learned the secret/lesson of the Quran from Husain
In his fire, like a flame, I burn30
These words bespeak Husain’s importance in constituting an epistemological
framework for the Quran. The words of the Beloved, in the form of the Quran,
are imparted to Iqbal when he is consumed in the fire of Husain’s love. Con-
sumed, though far from immolated, the lover-Iqbal’s higher self lives on like
a flame. The annihilation reaches its fruition in subsistence and it is this flame
of subsistence that guides the spiritually thirsty Muslim community, even be-
yond the borders of the subcontinent:
reg-e Irāq muntaz3ir, kisht-e H
fi ijāz tishna kām
kfi hūn-e H
fi usain bāz deh, Kūfa o Shām-e kfi hwı̄sh rā31
The sands of Iraq await, the desert of Hijaz is thirsty
Once again satiate your own Kufa and Syria with the blood of
Husain.
The city of Kufa (in Iraq) and the region of Syria were Yazid’s two major power
bases. Husain was murdered by Yazid’s forces before the Prophet’s grandson
could reach Iraq and incite others to rise up against Yazid. Yazid’s fear was
that if Kufa fell to Husain, Syria would soon follow.
For Iqbal, Husain’s struggle does not completely end with Karbala. Al-
though Husain himself could not go on fighting in Kufa and Syria, it became
incumbent upon the Muslim community to keep this struggle alive. Each and
every member of the Muslim community, regardless of his/her sect, gender,
or class, has the responsibility to emulate Husain’s struggle, for this struggle
was the struggle par excellence for justice. Karbala, for Iqbal, is a site whereupon
the Quran and the Kaba, two of the loftiest religious artifacts for all Muslims,
converge, and consequently, all differences within the community should be
subsumed within the Husainian struggle. By invoking Karbala as an intrinsic
component of an overall Islamic reform blueprint, Iqbal ruptures the previ-
ously held sectarian codes of this struggle. By underscoring the degree to which
Karbala is bound up with the Quran and the Kaba, Iqbal at once limits the
apparently divergent readings of this event. Karbala is thus constituted by a
larger and more comprehensive temporal process, the duration of which ren-
ders it timeless. Iqbal relocates Karbala away from its original moment (which
for Shias is the moment when Ali’s rights were usurped after the Prophet’s
death) and anchors it in an extratemporal fold of Islam. Iqbal could not have
agreed more with Husain’s great-grandson, Jafar al-Sadiq, the sixth Shii Imam
and a pillar of Islamic spirituality for Sufis, who uttered the following words
while imputing both timelessness and spacelessness to Karbala: “Every day is
ashura; every land is Karbala.” To the extent that Muslims conceive of Karbala
as timeless, an event transcending its particularity, like the Quran and the Kaba,
there is a possibility of using Karbala as a catalyst to forge a more united
community. Such a catalyst can only enhance the advancement of reform and
justice.
Iqbal is aware that despite their agreement on the pivotal importance of
the Quran and the Kaba, the Muslim community of his time was subject to
discordant impulses. In dismay, the poet-reformer writes:
The profits of this community are one, so are the losses
The Prophet is one, so is the religion and faith
The sacred Kaba, Allah, and the Quran are one
Had Muslims also been one, would it have been such a big deal?!
Sectarianism prevails in some places, factionalism in others
Is this the way to prosper in the world?32
While wishing for a united Muslim front on one level, Iqbal does not isolate
this front in any way: Iqbal is determined to locate Muslims within a larger
web of cultures and regions:
China and Arabia are ours, India is ours
We are Muslim and our homeland is the entire world.33
Differences between Muslims can be respected, but under the aegis of a unified
community. The edification of this community can take place through para-
digmatic struggle, like that of Karbala. The ethos of this struggle is shaped by
a determination to act on behalf of the self, as well as the community, and by
extension, all of God’s creation.
Thus in poetry that bespoke urgency, Iqbal, through finely drawn meta-
phors, framed his potent appeals for action. This action, rooted in love and
knowledge, gathered momentum by constantly conjuring up Husain’s battle

and from situating Karbala within the concept of khudi. Karbala for Iqbal be-
came a political project constituted not only by the simultaneity of affirming
the higher self and negating the lower one, but also by creating and reinforcing
community solidarity. Iqbal implored those who saw Karbala solely as the
epiphany of the highest mystical struggle to interpret this struggle via political
activism:
Get out of the khanqahs [Sufi residences]
and perform the ritual of Shabbir [Husain]
For the poverty of the khanqahs is naught but
anxiety and affliction34
The Sufi centers and residences, khanqahs, have long stood for asceticism,
spaces for those who are weary of this world. But, to Iqbal, resigning from the
affairs of the world serves neither the individual nor the community—hence
one should leave the khanqahs in order to perform the deed of Shabbir, a deed
that moves beyond symbolic and ritualistic gesture into the domain of activist
social, political, and religious intervention. Khanqah in these verses stands for
passive and hollow rituals whereas Husain’s action, his willingness to preach
under the sword, is the process whereby rituals receive spiritually relevant and
activist lives. The mystical fetish for poverty, according to Iqbal, vulgarizes class
struggle, and rigidifies it into iniquitous institutions. Material poverty within
Sufi lore was valorized so as to create a discourse of worldly apathy and political
indifference.35 Of later developments within Islamic mysticism, Iqbal argued
that there was so much emphasis placed on the “other-worldly” rewards that
“this-worldly” concerns were neglected. Hence the spirit of poverty that Husain
advocated—poverty that invests worldly wealth with loathsome qualities and
instigates the search for justice—was sacrificed:
ek faqr hai Shabbı̄rı̄ is faqr meñ hai mı̄rı̄
mı̄rāṡ-e Musalmānı̄, sarmāya-e Shabbı̄rı̄36
There is a poverty, that of Shabbir [Husain]
In this poverty lies Kingship
The inheritance of Islam
Is the wealth of Shabbir
For Iqabal, Husain’s poverty lay in his righteousness and spirit of sacrifice:
He fought Yazid when he had the option of accepting worldly wealth and tol-
erating the rule of Yazid in silence. Had Husain cherished worldly wealth, he
would have accepted it from Yazid rather than give up his life fighting for the
community’s greater good. Had Husain simply valued poverty, then he would
have withdrawn into a khanqah and forsaken political activism. But Husain
rose above the dichotomies of wealth and poverty, asceticism and indulgence,
to evoke khudi, that higher self that is predicated essentially on love, knowl-
edge, and action. This higher self is conceived in the spirit of social and eco-
nomic justice at a communal level; it functions in response to the real needs
of the downtrodden. This khudi is then transposed to the community or a

social collective (qawm, millat, ummat), and the calls for just and loving action
are raised:
utfiho merı̄ dunyā ke ġharı̄boñ ko jagā do
kākfi h-e umarā ke dar o dı̄vār hilā do
jis khet se dahqāñ ko muyassar nahı̄ñ rozı̄
us khet ke har kfi husha-e gañdum ko jala do37
Rise! Awaken the poor of my world
Shake the doors and walls of the palaces of the rich
Set ablaze every stack of grain
In the field from which the farmer receives no sustenance.
These verses, appearing in Iqbal’s provocative trilogy, Firmān-e Kfi hudā, God’s
Decree, are Allah’s (khuda’s) call to awaken the khudi of the poor.
The “decree” of God can be read as a willingness on the part of the Divine
to heed the calls for economic justice, raised by both Marx and Lenin. Iqbal,
in effect, articulates his ideal of socioeconomic justice by synthesizing what he
takes to be the redeeming aspects of Marx’s thought, and what he imagines to
be Lenin’s valid complaints to God. Lenin, through Iqbal, questions God about
the fate of the economically less fortunate. Decrying the perpetuation of banks
at the expense of churches, he notices gambling in the guise of trade and
exploitation in the name of education. In such a world, souls are destroyed by
the machine, as technological tools carelessly crush humanity. Vicariously
speaking for Lenin, Iqbal closes Lenin’s complaint:
tū qādir o adil hai magar tere jahāñ meñ
haiñ talkfi h bahot bañda-e mazdūr ke auqāt
kab dfi ūbegā sarmāyā parastı̄ kā safı̄na
dunyā hai terı̄ muntaz3ir-e roz-e makāfāt38
You are all-powerful and just,
Yet in your world
The slaves of labor suffer through bitter times
When will the boat of capital worship sink?
Your world awaits the day of requital.
The day of requital can dawn with the insights of new visionaries like Marx:
He’s the Moses without the light, he’s the Messiah without the cross,
He’s not a prophet but yet has a book under his arm39
By invoking Marx as a prophet-like entity, by metaphorically according The
Communist Manifesto a near-holy status, and by passionately speaking for
Lenin, Iqbal interpolates Islamically-inflected Marxist-Leninist ideals of social
justice into the structure of the Muslim self and community. The higher self
learns from the new Moses figures and the new Messiahs, as seen through the
lens of the Quran and Islamic spirituality.40 This khudi, easily learning from
other traditions of knowledge, is not shy in embracing sources of virtue that
transcend Islam’s traditional realm in order to redress the grievances of the

masses. Hence the khudi can comfortably act as a site where Nietzsche’s su-
perman embraces a Kantian categorical imperative, where Bergson’s social
correctives shape Goethe’s artistry and imagination, and where Marx’s calls
for economic justice amplify Lenin’s cries. This site, by virtue of its very es-
sential attributes (love, knowledge, and action), is always in an existential flux:
sukūñ muhfi āl hai qudrat ke kārkfi hāne meñ
ṡabāt ek taġhayyur ko hai zamāne meñ41
Permanence is impossible in the factory of nature,
Only change remains permanent in time
Change is borne of inventions, alterations, and reinterpretations. Iqbal, in The
Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, underscores a dynamic, existential
interpretation of the Quran: “As in the words of a Muslim Sufi—‘no under-
standing of the Holy Book is possible until it is actually revealed to the believer
just as it was revealed to the Prophet.’ ”42 No great philosopher or any distin-
guished mystic can unravel the knots of revelation, as Iqbal says, until individ-
ual “conscience” itself becomes the site of revelation. And of course the reve-
lation is signified to Iqbal through Husain. The significance of Husain’s
struggle is inextricably bound to the significance of the Word of God, and like
the Word of God, the struggle also must be interpreted anew in the immediate
context of each Muslim individual.
Iqbal’s reading of Karbala is in accordance with—although not identical
to—the Sufi readings of this event by Sanai, Rumi, and Muinuddin Chishti,
more than with any binary Shii reading in which the alignments for the battle
of Karbala were made in the hours following the Prophet’s death, almost forty-
eight years before the actual event itself. In order for such an Iqbalian reading
to have any significance within Sunni reformist discourse, the battle of Karbala
had to be situated atemporally.
In the subcontinent, the dislodging of Karbala from a Shii narrative se-
quence occurred within a broader Sunni reformist rhetoric. Another promi-
nent Sunni reformer of the first half of twentieth-century South Asia, Muham-
mad Ali Jauhar, invoked Karbala as a trans-Shii struggle during his efforts to
preserve the institution of khilafat. The Khilafat movement attempted to mo-
bilize Muslims, especially in North India, to restore the institution of the Ot-
toman Khilafat after the close of the First World War. The Ottoman Empire
had suffered severe blows at the hands of the Allies after it sided with the Axis
powers. The remnants of the authority of the Ottoman caliph, who had become
a figurehead leader for millions of Muslims around the world had eroded and
the institution itself was finally abolished by Ataturk. One legacy of the Khilafat
movement was that it rose above Hindu-Muslim communal tensions and was
successful in recruiting such luminaries as Gandhi as a vocal advocate. Al-
though short-lived, it did jolt the British Raj with acts of resistance like the
boycott of British goods. As Gail Minault has shown in her work on the Khilafat
movement, poetry was crucial in consolidating this anti-colonial movement of
sorts.43
Within this context, in which the British Empire was seen as a force in-
imical to Muslim interests, Muhammad Ali Jauhar defined anew the partisans
of Husain (Shiān-e H
fi usain):
hfi aqq o bāt3il kı̄ hai paikār hameshā jārı̄
jo na bāt3il se dfi areñ haiñ vahı̄ Shı̄ān-e H
fi usain44
The war between truth and falsehood is eternal
Those who are not frightened by falsehood are the partisans of
Husain
The very word Shia is appropriated and expanded by this Sunni with an implied
double-bind qualification: Those who are “Shia” are not intimidated by false-
hood; those who are intimidated by falsehood cannot be “Shia.” This partisan
group, according to Jauhar, is quite selective:
Although a thousand might beat their chests, as they do
The world of Karbala is limited to but a few45
Thus Jauhar wrests the monopoly of Husain’s cause away from those who
commemorate the martyr solely by mourning his suffering in an act of ritu-
alistic exchange. Mourning, for Jauhar, also belies Husain’s cause, since Hu-
sain’s battle at Karbala resurrected Islam:
qatl-e H
fi usain asfi l meñ marg-e Yazı̄d hai
Islām zinda hotā hai har Karbalā ke bad46
In reality the murder of Husain is the death of Yazid
Islam is resurrected after every Karbala
Hence for the worshipers of truth, Husain left an unforgettable example of a
righteous struggle:
His splendid example will remain until doomsday
The truth-worshipers shall never forget their debt to Husain47
In a similar vein, the (Sunni) Meccan-born Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
(d. 1958), two-time president of the Indian National Congress (1923 and 1940–
1946) and prominent among India’s “freedom fighters,” affirms the meaning-
fulness of Karbala in his Shahādat-e H fi usain (The Martyrdom of Husain). Ac-
cording to him, the paradigm that Karbala presents is that of truth and sacrifice
in the path of righteousness and freedom. Adept in mystical cadences, Azad
adapts this powerful Persian couplet to his own endorsement of Husain’s
struggle:
kushtagān-e kfi hañjar-e taslı̄m rā
har zamāñ az ġhaib jan-e dı̄gar ast48
The martyrs of the dagger of taslı̄m [surrender]
Each moment get a new life from the Unseen world.49
In chapter 4, we encountered this couplet in the context of Khwajah Qutb
al-Din Bakhtiyar Kaki, a disciple of Muinuddin Chishti, who died ecstatically
upon hearing the musical rendition of these words. The “Prince of Martyrs,”
in Azad’s opinion, laid the foundation for such a taslim, and for an honorable
struggle against the forces of oppression and tyranny: Husain demonstrated
that in order to confront the forces of vice, it is not necessary to have the
majority on one’s side. Adducing reformist lessons from Karbala, and juxta-
posing to them the mystical and devotional values invested in this symbol,
Azad attributes to this event an atemporal universality. The “friends” of Husain,
however, in Azad’s opinion, have not been faithful to Husain’s precepts for
which he laid down his life: Not only have Husain’s enemies oppressed him
by not crying for him but his friends, who cried for him, have also oppressed
him because they did not emulate his life and actions. Azad enjoins the fol-
lowers of Husain to contemplate this momentous event in order to model their
lives on its basis, not to simply shed tears.50 The sole purpose of the battle of
Karbala, Azad writes, was so that a beautiful model of “truth and virtue, free-
dom and liberation, enjoining the good and forbidding the wrong” could be
presented to the followers of Islam. In short, he calls Karbala the jihad of truth
and justice. Azad was one of the dominant figures in the Sunni scholarship of
the twentieth-century subcontinent; his most important work being a remark-
able translation and interpretation of several parts of the Quran. Azad, like
Iqbal, clearly read Islamic history through Sufi lenses. Through these lenses,
Karbala was seen in terms of a distinctive worldview in which the Shias, the
Sunnis, and the Sufis could participate simultaneously. This tendency to un-
dertake hybrid and synthetic readings of Islamic history and Islamic philoso-
phy, wherein one ideological outlook slides into another one, is the age-old
legacy of the great twelfth-century scholar-sufi who Iqbal so venerated, Abu
Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111 c.e.).
Within the Muslim reform discourse of the first four decades of the twen-
tieth century, as evidenced by the words of Azad, Jauhar, and Iqbal, we can
also identify a polemical thrust that seeks to reclaim Karbala from Shii hands.
The experiences of British colonialism and Hindu nationalism forced Muslims
to conjure images to give voice to their struggle as a minority. What reflects a
more resistant, righteous-minority versus oppressive-majority struggle, than
the battle of Karbala?
What is most fascinating about the way Karbala is invoked in Iqbal, as well
as in Jauhar and Azad, is that this struggle of an Islamic historical context is
never mediated by or filtered through the ulama (religious authorities). Iqbal,
after all, had little faith in the way the religious leaders of his time fostered
Islam. Just as Iqbal wrests control of the Quranic interpretation from the
ulama, Karbala, too, can be liberally read and then emulated by each Muslim.
In his Mulla-e H fi aram (the Religious Leader of the House of God), Iqbal vents his
dismay at those in charge of formal religious practices:
No wonder you don’t reach God

The station of man is concealed from your vision
Neither majesty nor beauty remain in your ritual prayers
The tidings of my dawn are not professed in your call to prayer.51
Whereas Iqbal’s address to the Muslim religious establishment rings with

an accusatory tone, it is the poet’s vocation, Iqbal believes, to provide society
with a vision:
The community, it can be said, is the body; the people its organs
The workers treading the path of handicraft are its hands and legs
The concert the government conducts is the adornment of the
nation’s face
And the poet who sings colorfully is the visionary eye of the nation
Whenever any organ is in pain, the eye weeps
Behold the extent to which the eye sympathizes with the entire
body!52
The ontological status of the poet, in the eyes of Iqbal, is that of a visionary
who is always in tune with the rest of society’s members and not like the
religious authority of Iqbal’s time. The insights Iqbal had gained from the past
sharpened his vision for the present and future. Poetry could generate the
vision for a brighter future by invoking the past. The past has a privileged
legitimizing position for Iqbal, as it did for an overwhelming number of so-
cioreligious reformers. Of course, the past’s revolutionary aspect could hardly
be defined by a symbol more powerful than that of Karbala:
hfi aqı̄qat-e abadı̄ hai maqām-e Shabbı̄rı̄
badalte rahte haiñ añdāz-e Kūfı̄ o Shāmı̄53
The station of Husain is the eternal truth
The ways of the [hypocrites] of Kufa and Syria are ever changing.
The Shii Interpellation of Iqbal: Iqbal in the Pakistani Majlis
A multi-sided mystery in a state of perpetual flux, Iqbal could not

unveil himself in a flash . . . So while his poetic vision enthused
many of his co-religionists, turning it into a dynamic principle of In-
dian Muslim identity meant exposing it to multiple interpretations
and appropriations.54
Ayesha Jalal
Interpellating55 Iqbal as a Shii voice became both a political intervention and

a strategy of survival for the Shii minority in the nation-state of Pakistan,
founded in 1947 (nine years after Iqbal’s death) as an Islamic state for Muslims.
The dictates of state-sponsored or religious-based nationalism have often com-
pelled the modern nation-state/religion to collapse differences (at multiple lev-
els) in order to constitute a supposedly more united nation. In Pakistan, too,
the state, hoping to fulfill its integrationist mission, attempted to elide religious
differences as the years passed. Paradoxically, such attempts were also laced
by group-specific legislations (especially against the Ahmadis, a Muslim mi-
nority that was persecuted at various levels from the 1950s onward56 and
finally declared “non-Muslim” by the Pakistani state in 1974) that weakened

the very idea of a united nation-state. These state actions are borne of a desire
to appease the Sunni orthodoxy (important to Pakistan’s claim of Muslim cre-
dentials) that has continuously issued criticism of religious minorities includ-
ing the Ahmadis, the Shias, the Hindus, and the Christians. Since Karbala
commemorations in South Asia have often flown in the face of those who want
to police imprecise religious boundaries, Muharram has become an occasion
to instigate violence. But in light of works like those of Muhammad Qasim
Zaman, we can also see how Muharram becomes an excuse to act out scripts
written about other socioeconomic grievances. As Zaman has pointed out,
much of the sectarian violence has deeper roots in economic grievances and
alienation. That Sunni peasants join anti-Shii organizations that call for vio-
lence has perhaps more to do with the mistreatment of that peasant by a Shii
landlord than it has to do with anti-Shiism per se.57 But Muharram in Pakistan
has become more and more caught in a loop of violence where one commu-
nity’s losses fuel violence against the other. Thus, even though Karbala com-
memorations might be secondary to other grievances of members of the Shii
and Sunni communities, Muharram has become a time when the Shias as a
community (approximately 20 percent, or 28 million, of Pakistan’s population)
feel especially vulnerable. Although several prominent leaders of Pakistan (Mu-
hammad Ali Jinnah, Iskandar Mirza, Yahya Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto) were
either Shia or had strong Shii connections, the demands of the Sunni religious
establishment in the 1960s to give the Sunni Hanafi law a privileged position
in the country left the Shii community insecure. Apprehensive of such calls,
as well as of rising anti-Shii rhetoric, Shii religious authorities in Pakistan have
used the majlis as a forum to further the agenda of the Shii community, es-
pecially after General Zia ul Haqq rose to authority in 1977. Zia, too, advocated
legal and economic policies that were more in harmony with the Sunni Hanafi
school of jurisprudence than with the Shii Jafari school. Strains of sectarian
violence have become more and more conspicuous from Zia’s time. In 2001,
between February and April, fifty people were killed in Shii-Sunni violence.58
In the Punjab province of Pakistan alone, over six hundred people, mostly Shia,
fell victim to sectarian violence in 1989–1999.59
Iqbal, as we have seen, strove to defactionalize the Muslim community of
the subcontinent by emphasizing a notion of self through which all Muslims
could find common ground in a shared prophetic paradigm, regardless of lan-
guage, culture, or sect. But within three decades of Pakistan’s creation, the
sectarian, regional, and linguistic differences shattered any pretence that the
Prophet, the Quran, or the Kaba was enough to smooth out historical fissures
within the religion. As Sunni orthodoxy became evident in the state’s rhetoric,
Shias began to resist encroachment upon their historical and institutional ter-
ritories through their own interpretive discourses. These discourses undercut
the telos of Sunni hegemony by selectively invoking Iqbal in order to vindicate
Shii legitimacy.
In the official imagination of Pakistan, Iqbal is hailed as the intellectual
and spiritual father of the country, in spite of ambiguous historical evidence
that supports such a view. Thus, invoking Iqbal’s verses in praise of cherished
Shii figures is one way in which the Shii minority, by conflating its sectarian
identity with nonsectarian eulogies for Karbala, can provide powerful rejoin-
ders to Sunni authorities like Abbasi. No one from Pakistan’s Shii minority
endeavors to challenge Sunni readings of Islamic history in the way that Rashid
Turabi did.
Turabi frequently criticized those who taught history in Pakistani institu-
tions for willfully ignoring or downplaying the merits of Ali and his progeny.
In one of his majlises, he cites an incident in which a female student of St.
Joseph’s College, Karachi, learned in an Islamic history lecture that Ali had
only three children: Hasan, Husain, and Muhammad Hanafiya. The students
objected to this statement, saying that Ali had more children than just these
three, and the most prominent of the children left out was Abbas. The lecturer
replied that she, as a teacher in the college, had a greater command of Islamic
history than the Shii students who objected to the omission of the names of
Ali’s other children. When the students began to cite the importance of Abbas
because of his participation as Husain’s helper in the battle of Karbala, the
lecturer replied: “The incident of Karbala is not in the history of Islam.” De-
ploring such experiences in the educational institutions of the Muslim world,
Turabi addresses the educators of Pakistan: “If you want to teach our history,
first ask us about it and then teach—If you don’t understand our [Shii] history
or if you have not learned it from anyone [proper authority], then obviously
you should ask us [the Shias].”
When laying out the “factuality” of the Shii cause and Ali’s place in Islam,
Turabi is quick to point to that monumental work of history, Edward Gibbon’s
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Many Shias have a
penchant for sections of this book, for it projects the Prophet’s family, especially
Ali and Husain, in a relatively positive manner.60 About Ali’s virtues, Gibbon
writes:
The birth, the alliance, the character of Ali, which exalted him above
the rest of his countrymen, might justify his claim to the vacant
throne of Arabia. The son of Abu Talib was, in his own right, the
chief of the family of Hashem, and the hereditary prince or guard-
ian of the city and temple of Mecca. The light of prophecy was ex-
tinct; but the husband of Fatima might expect the inheritance and
blessing of her father: the Arabs had sometimes been patient of a
female reign; the two grandsons of the prophet had often been fon-
dled in his lap, and shewn in his pulpit, as the hope of his age, and
the chief of the youth of paradise. The first of the true believers
might aspire to march before them in this world and in the next;
and if some were of a graver and more rigid cast, the zeal and virtue
of Ali were never outstripped by any recent proselyte. He united the
qualifications of a poet, a soldier, and a saint: his wisdom still
breathes in a collection of moral and religious sayings; and every an-
tagonist, in the combats of the tongue or of the sword, was subdued
by his eloquence and valour. From the first hour of his mission, to
the last rites of his funeral, the apostle was never forsaken by a gen-
erous friend, whom he delighted to name his brother, his vicege-
rent, and the faithful Aaron of a second Moses. The son of Abu
Talib was afterwards reproached for neglecting to secure his interest
by a solemn declaration of his right, which would have silenced all
competition, and sealed his succession by the decrees of heaven. But
the unsuspecting hero confided in himself: the jealousy of empire,
and perhaps the fear of opposition, might suspend the resolution of
Mahomet [Muhammad]; and the bed of sickness was besieged by
the artful Aisha, the daughter of Abubekar [Abu Bakr], and the en-
emy of Ali61 . . . The persecutors of Mahomet [Muhammad] usurped
the inheritance of his children; and the champions of idolatry be-
came the supreme heads of his religion and empire.62
The adjectives modifying Ali, his sons, Aisha, and the political successors of
the Prophet are all fitting, in the minds of many Shias. Of course Turabi could
not quote such a passage verbatim, partly for fear of inciting Shii-Sunni vio-
lence, but he did make reference to the popular history of the Roman Empire,
to be consulted by those who desired to know more about Islamic history.63
The message of such quotations is clear: One does not need to rely on Shii
sources in order to gain an awareness of the superiority of Ali over all other
companions of the Prophet. In addition to the works of historians like Gibbon,
the cause of Ali’s Shiism can also be enhanced by two other prominent non-
Shias: Jalaluddin Rumi and Muhammad Iqbal. For Turabi, Rumi and Iqbal
(both of whom are widely recognized as Sunnis) were instrumental in confi-
guring Shiism as a legitimate segment of Islam. Turabi fondly quoted Rumi
and Iqbal when justifying the privileged position of Ali and Husain within
Islamic history. He was fully aware that both these poets were so well-known
and well-liked in the subcontinent that anything purported to have come from
their pens instantly acquired a status worthy of attention. Rumi, to echo a
cliché, was the greatest of Islamic mystical poets, and his Maṡnavi has the
status of the “Quran in Persian.” This mystical treatise praises all the promi-
nent companions of the Prophet, including Muawiya, Yazid’s father, who is
despised by Shias. This, however, is irrelevant to Turabi, for what he wants to
underscore is Ali’s privileged status. Hence in one of his orations, he urges
the youth to memorize these words of Rumi:
You have seen Ali in darkness

For this reason you privilege others over him
I have seen Ali in the light of day
For this reason I do not privilege anyone over him.64
Through Rumi’s verses, Turabi would have us believe that Ali’s status was
higher than that of other companions of the Prophet. In fact, most students
of Rumi would immediately detect the silences and the absences in Turabi’s
usage. Turabi conveys the impression that no similar words of praise were
written for other companions of the Prophet, and surely not for Ali’s enemy,
Muawiya.
Similarly, Rumi’s most famous Indian disciple, Muhammad Iqbal, was
also a favorite of Rashid Turabi. The passionate words of Iqbal for Ali, Fatima,
and Husain have endeared him to Shias to such an extent that they have even
written books focusing exclusively on Iqbal’s devotion to the Prophet’s house-
hold, at times giving readers the impression that the poet might actually be a
Shia in disguise.65 By invoking Iqbal, the best known Islamic reformer with
equal support from both Shias and Sunnis, Turabi established his own au-
thority. In short, Turabi’s message to the Shias was that even knowledgeable
Sunnis like Iqbal agreed that Ali and his household, especially his son Husain,
had a privileged status:
islām ke dāman meñ bas is ke sivā kyā hai
ek zfi arb-e Yadullāhı̄ ek sajda-e Shabbı̄rı̄66
The skirt of Islam contains naught
But the strike of the Hand of God [Ali] and the prostration of
Shabbir [Husain]
Iqbal, according to Turabi, had himself confessed being a “bū turābı̄” or a
follower of Ali:
ādmı̄ kām kā nahı̄ñ rahtā, ishq meñ ye barfiı̄ kfi harābı̄ hai
pūchte kyā ho mażhab-e Iqbāl, ye gunahgār bū turābı̄ hai67
Love’s greatest flaw is that it renders a man useless
You ask, “What would Iqbal’s religion be?”
This humble sinner is a follower of Bu Turab [Ali]
Turabi vindicates the cause of Shias by invoking Iqbal’s name in the same way
he calls on Rumi to elaborate on the virtues of Ali and Husain. Turabi histor-
icizes Iqbal to undermine the Sunni view of history and legitimize the privi-
leged position accorded by Shias to Ali and Husain. Thus, invoking Iqbal
comes to constitute a polemical strategy for Turabi to unsettle the polarizing,
mutually exclusive Shii-Sunni narratives of Islamic history. Through histori-
cizing Iqbal as a Sunni appreciative of differences among Muslims, as long as
they are under the aegis of a unified community, Turabi posits a strategic
continuum linking Iqbal, the nation-state of Pakistan, and the minority Shii
community within Pakistan. The edification of such a continuum, or interface,
according to Turabi, can be through paradigmatic struggles like that of Karbala.
Consequently, the ethos of such struggles is shaped by a determination to act
on behalf of the self, the community, as well as the nation-state—in this case,
Pakistan. Just as Iqbal retroactively dislodged the battle of Karbala from the
issue of succession and situated it within the wider sweep of martyrdom within
Islam, so Iqbal himself can be alluded to in the majlis context because of the
ambivalence of his own sectarian affiliations.
Although the majlis’s validity as a self-affirming ritualistic forum is with-
out question, there are certain problematic limitations built into this forum.
These problematics are primarily rooted in the messy networks of South Asia’s
majority and minority politics. The religious-majority communities in this re-
gion have become the chief guardians of the national identity. Within this
context, although the site of the majlis might create a nominal space for as-
serting and celebrating legitimate sectarian differences, it ends up fracturing
one of the other necessities of the Pakistani Shias: asserting a legitimate Mus-
lim, as well as Pakistani, identity. The space of this negotiation actually con-
stitutes the minority dilemma in Pakistan, in that it creates a tension between
the assertion of difference and the need to assimilate, that actually necessitates
the obliteration of this difference. When asserting the Shii sectarian identity
(by reading Karbala differently from the hegemonic Sunni readings), the majlis
is speaking in a minority voice, a voice different from the one it uses to validate
its national, larger Islamic identity (for the cause of which it is invoking Iqbal).
We may then ask the question: Does the assertion of a separatist, minority Shii
identity create a downward spiral of alienation from the shared nationalist
Pakistani identity? This question in many ways reflects the minority dilemma
in South Asia: Having asserted its separatist identity at one level, the minority
carries the onus of constantly proving its fidelity at another level. The Pakistani
Shia, the Indian Muslim, the Bangladeshi Hindu, and South Asian minorities
in general share this burden.
Iqbal’s Transnational and Transsectarian Significance
No discussion of the general Urdu socioreligious reform literature of the sub-

continent or of some of the important Iranian reformist discourses is possible
without acknowledging Iqbal’s key influence upon many reformer-writers.
Through his deployments of Karbala, Iqbal walks along an ambiguously located
mystical-reformist line that blurs all rigid sectarian affiliations. Karbala, for
Iqbal, is an epistemological symbol to narrate the existential dilemma of gaug-
ing ideal human conduct.
The relevance that Iqbal bestows upon Karbala as a model of and for strug-
gle also dominates much of the subsequent socioreligious reform literature
from the subcontinent, most of it circulated under the name of “Progressive”
literature. Many writers from this tradition—including socialists of the Pro-
gressive Movement, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Kunwar Mahendra Singh Bedi Sahar,
Ahmad Faraz, and Ali Sardar Jafri—have interpolated the symbol of Karbala,
following Iqbal, into a broader (transreligious) call for justice and action. In
his discussion with me, Ali Sardar Jafri, a member of the Progressive Writers’
Association, made a direct connection between Iqbal, the idea of a higher Mus-
lim self, Karbala, and a universal struggle:
The very word Islam in Iqbal’s times generated loathing on multiple

fronts—the British could not forget the Muslim resistance to the
crusades; some Hindus saw Muslims as uncontrollable warriors
who invaded their land; the Muslims of Palestine were being
crushed in the name of injustice done to the Jews of Europe. Why

was this happening to Muslims? It was a natural question that any
enlightened (raushan fikr) soul would ask. Iqbal, however, did not
ask this question to indict the rest of humanity for Muslim misery.
He asked the question to make Muslims aware of their plight, pro-
vide an outlet from this plight, and instill pride and confidence in
them. He wanted to raise their self to a better self, to a self that
drew its substance from the Prophet Muhammad, Imam Ali and
Imam Husain. This self is first and foremost a Muslim self—not a
Shii or Sunni self. This self is inspired by Marx’s calls for justice yet
does not send either God, the Prophet, Imam Ali or Imam Husain
into exile—as some would say Marx did with historic religious per-
sons. Iqbal, in one sense, was more progressive than Marx for he
realized that religion and history could also impart virtues to the op-
pressed. How could anyone listen to the story of Karbala, of the op-
pressed. Husain’s fight against the most mighty system of his time,
and not be inspired to follow in the footsteps of the Prophet’s grand-
son? Each person could follow Husain in his own way.68
Within this discourse, any righteous struggle can be placed within the
matrix of Karbala and within the definition of “Islam.” The category of “Mus-
lim” intersects the category of the “oppressed,” and by identifying with Muslim
subjects of colonialism or postcolonialism one can identify with the victims of
colonial oppression. In order to resist such an oppression, one can speak the
language of Islam through the idiom of Karbala. As such, Iqbal’s invocation
of Karbala can appeal to a variety of agendas; and Iqbal himself, like Karbala
and martyrdom, becomes an iconic figure, not only in the subcontinent but
also in revolutionary and postrevolutionary Iran.
Those tied to the Islamic revolution of Iran have shared with Iqbal not
only his faith in constituting a Muslim self through the knowledge of the past,
but also a penchant for eliding differences within Islam. This is borne out by
the repeated invocation of Iqbal by intellectuals like Ali Shariati and Abdol
Karim Saroush. Shariati sees Iqbal as a Muslim existentialist, who engages not
only in a personal struggle but also in a communal one, carrying forward the
standard of Ali. In essence he is a “devotee possessing the light of knowledge
who burns with love and faith, and whose penetrating eyes never allow negli-
gence and ignorance to prevail without questioning the fate of enslaved
nations. . . . a person who seeks reform, revolution, and a change of mental
attitudes.”69
Saroush, one of the most controversial and dynamic contemporary Iranian
Shii thinkers, credits Iqbal for inspiring others to engage in a continual rein-
terpretation of Islam.70
These varied and many-layered invocations of Iqbal serve both to reinsti-
gate notions of a dynamic interpretive spirit and to regenerate forms of pan-
Islamic solidarity. Iqbal opens a space in which talk of pan-Islamism and Mus-
lim self-identity can take place. By reconfiguring Karbala as a transhistoric
struggle for justice, as a battle exceeding its particular moment, he subordi-

nates the sectarian issues that have historically charged this event to the con-
cerns of the greater Muslim self and community. These temporally disjunctive
appeals to Karbala, within the frame of reference of the Quran and the Kaba,
engender multiple avenues of sectarian rapprochement, in which both Muslim
identity and the larger Islamic community can be reconstituted. Insofar as
minority Shii claims to these nations are concerned, Iqbal helps in affording
Shias a legitimate space to position themselves vis-à-vis Sunnis in regions of
the world where their survival is threatened. His force is such that it concur-
rently impacts the discourses of the Shii majlises, Sufi qawwalis, and socio-
religious reformist literature. Iqbal himself occupies a site that is in a continual
state of formation and this site, like Karbala, cannot be limited to any particular
historical moment since it always outstrips history and inflects sectarian ori-
entations. It is the site from which Iqbal inspires, accords with, and prays for
the generations to come:
May the youth have my longing sighs for dawn
that these, the falcon’s offspring, may fly again with agile wings
O Lord, my sole desire is but this:
That my luminous vision may belong to all!71
6
From Communal
to Ecumenical
Kase ke kushteh na shud az qabı̄la-e mā nı̄st

Whoever is not killed does not belong to our tribe
Naziri
This verse, culled from the corpus of a seventeenth-century Persian

poet, hangs as a badge of honor in Raj Bahadur Gour’s house.1 Two
factors kindled my desire to spend time with this proud Communist
and Urdu writer: (1) Since he had actively participated in the 1940s
peasant struggle in the region of South India known as Telangana, I
wanted a first-hand assessment as to the role writers played and the
resulting impact they had on mass movements in South Asia. (2)
And since I had detected in the writing of Gour and his colleagues
an attempt to achieve a sociopolitical rapport with the heroes of Kar-
bala while discursively negating the validity of religious institutions,
whether Hindu or Muslim, I wondered about the very utility of reli-
gious symbols in a Marxist language that takes these institutions to
task. On my first query, I received the answer in the form of
Ghalib’s couplet—a couplet that was seared into the consciousness
of other self-identified Communist Urdu writers in South Asia with
whom I spoke:
If the Tigris2 is not visible in a drop, and in a part, the whole

Then it might as well be [as insignificant] as a children’s game,
and not a sagacious eye3
A writer’s calling, or that of any artist, Gour told me, is to make

the world see larger interconnected issues in the confines of limited
time and space. Religion, like literature, must be judged in accor-
dance with its transformative impact on common people. When as-
sessing religions in historical terms, we must remember that many of them

once provided a useful vocabulary to the movements to empower the weak and
the marginalized of the world. This vocabulary can still be deployed in a uni-
versal way to make the world a better place. In further expounding these
thoughts, Gour turned to several examples of texts and their contexts; the one
pertinent to this particular study is a poem of Gour’s departed friend, the most
well-known Communist poet from Hyderabad, Makhdum Muhiuddin.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, which happened to fall in the month of
Muharram that year, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was brutally assassinated at a
motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Quite a distance from Memphis, the Times of
India mourned King’s death in its headline report: “Dr. Martin Luther King,
an apostle of non-violence and follower of Mahatma Gandhi, died like his
guru—a victim of violence.”4 As parts of the United States exploded into riots,
Moscow Radio expressed its condolences by calling King a “wonderful fighter
for Negro equality in the U.S.A. and against the war of American imperialism
in Vietnam.”5 For the dignified widow, Coretta Scott King, her husband’s as-
sassination was nothing short of Jesus’ crucifixion itself.6 By combining these
and similar sentiments, Makhdum Muhiuddin penned this elegy.
1
This is not just the murder of one man
This is the murder of truth, equality, nobility
This is the murder of knowledge, wisdom, humanity
This is the murder of clemency, chivalry, humility
This is the murder of the alleviators of oppression
This is not just the murder of one or two, but a thousand
The murder of nature’s masterpiece is the murder of God
This dusk is the “dusk of the dispossessed”
This dawn, the “dawn of Hunayn”
This is the murder of the Messiah, this is the murder of Husain
2
Even today, those hands exist and wreak havoc
Those hands that raised the poisoned goblet to someone’s lips
Those hands that caused someone to mount the gallows
Those hands are at work in the valley of Sinai, in Vietnam
Around the neck of every glass, every goblet
3
The least condition of fidelity is to give up the head, Hafiz
If you are not capable of this, begone!7
With these haunting words, Makhdum Muhiuddin pays tribute to the slain
American civil rights leader. The elegy is semantically divided into three parts:
The first expresses the profundity of King’s assassination. Couching the as-
sassination in metaphoric language that places King on a par with those who
from communal to ecumenical 163
have been subjugated, Makhdum (as he is known) makes sense of the tragedy.
Two allusions from Islamic history lace this first part: sham-e ghariban and
subhfi -e H
fi unayn. Sham-e ghariban, as we have seen in chapter 1, refers to the
night that came in the wake of the Karbala battle, the night when Husain’s
household was engulfed in a state of sorrow and despair. Subh-e Hunayn refers
to the morning of the Battle of Hunayn, a battle in which the Prophet Muham-
med himself participated and during the course of which his hypocritical fol-
lowers fled, abandoning their commitment to Islam’s cause.8 By invoking Hu-
nayn, Makhdum conveys the magnitude of King’s tragedy, while in the same
verse he reminds his readers that such trying times have historically been oc-
casions when those who pay mere lip service to noble causes run scared. The
poet compares the murder of the “Messiah,” Jesus, to that of Husain. Islamic
religious discourses hold that Jesus was not killed; rather, he was raised to para-
dise alive and will appear (along with Islam’s own “savior,” the Mahdi) before
the end of time, to reward the pious and punish the vicious. Since Jesus’ image
is associated with hope and justice, here Makhdum may be trying to convey
that the very hope associated with Jesus has been killed with Dr. King. Jesus and
Husain frequently appear together in reformist poetry as embodiments of rev-
olutionary struggles. Husain stands alongside Islam’s prophets and Christian-
ity’s savior. On this note, the poet concludes the first part of this elegy.
The second part of the poem is accusatory in tone: The oppressors of the
world are implicated in the murder of righteousness, whether by their activities
in Vietnam and Sinai,9 or by the execution of the innocent (the Rosenbergs).10
The image of King’s murderer(s) is cognate to the image of the United States
government—a government whose policies Makhdum and many like-minded
reformist poets so vehemently attacked.11
The third part of the poem is an insertion, or tazmin, from a ghazal of the
great Persian poet Hafiz. This part of the poem is thus a clarion call for activ-
ism—for correcting wrongs, even if it means losing one’s own life. Hence it
is also a vindication, nay celebration, of the causes espoused by the Messiah
and the Rosenbergs, by Martin Luther King Jr., and by the “King of Martyrs,”
Husain b. Ali.
I begin this section with Makhdum’s poem because it expresses in micro-
cosm the place of Karbala in the imagination of twentieth-century sociorelig-
ious reform discourses in South Asia. Although the subject of the poem is not
Karbala, the symbol of Husain’s battle and martyrdom becomes pivotal in the
expression of the magnitude of a revolutionary struggle. The metaphors of all
other uprisings and struggles move towards this metaphor. Karbala is the Ghal-
ibian drop containing the flowing narratives of oppression and injustice around
the world.
In this chapter, I discuss the manner in which Karbala has been univer-
salized, or more specifically trans-Islamicized, in twentieth-century Urdu lit-
erature. I demonstrate that like the elegy of Makhdum quoted earlier, the use
of the Karbala symbol by socioreligious reform writers is also tripartite. It
decries oppression, alerts us to its continued presence, and acts as a clarion
call to action against it.
In the first part of this chapter, I contextualize the socioreligious reform

literature and the most important ideological strain of this movement, the
“Progressive literature,” to which Makhdum’s poem belongs. The Progressive
Movement began in the 1930s and continues to this day, albeit in altered and
mutated forms. It is constituted more by an attitude than by a rigid literary
canon. The Progressives have thrived on literary experimentation, boldness,
the disruption of conventions, and the call for justice. The Progressive attitude
toward religion has fluctuated: The Prophet of Islam and early Islamic heroes
are embraced as heroes worthy of emulation while the religious establishment
of the present is often rebuked. Progressive writers have often advocated sec-
ularism, but not at the expense of religious identity. To the Progressives, much
of the literature of the past is marred by its failure to recognize the importance
of justice and class issues. In charting the relationship between the Progres-
sives and Karbala, I first take into account the ideological antecedents of Pro-
gressive literature and discuss how Karbala acquires a trans-Islamic signifi-
cance in Indian nationalist discourses. Then, with Karbala’s status established
as a symbol of revolution, reform, and sacrifice that appeals to non-Muslims
as well as Muslims, I discuss how Karbala constitutes a resistive mode of being
and an idiom of solidarity—solidarity posited by linking various sociopolitical
struggles on the same discursive continuum.
The Proto-Progressives and Literary Criticism
No nineteenth-century literary critic contributed more to twentieth-century

Urdu literary criticism than Altaf Husain Hali (1837–1914). Hali’s Madd o Jazr-
e Islām (The Ebb and Flow of Islam) and Muqaddamah-e Sher o Shāirı̄ (Intro-
duction to Poetry and Poetics) contain the earliest calls for the reevaluation of
contemporary Muslim values, including the aesthetics of literature. A subject
of Mughal India until 1857 and then a subject of colonial India after 1857, Hali
was undoubtedly influenced by the vicissitudes of the tumultuous nineteenth
century.12 His aesthetic critiques were inflected not only by the notions of
beauty held by his old masters (among whom was Ghalib), but also by colonial
cultural interventionists like Colonel W. R. M. Holroyd.13 Hali’s harshest cri-
tique is reserved for the Urdu ghazal, which he believed became restrictive and
myopic after exhausting many of its usual tropes. Urdu poetry, according to
Hali, can and must accommodate sentiments other than those of love. One of
the ideal reforms would be to transform the Urdu ghazal so that it can become
a medium capable of generating a moral renaissance of sorts. Hali also calls
for a reevaluation of the most popular poetic genre for the expression of the
Karbala tragedy, the Urdu marsiya. He believes that the elegies and odes written
for the martyrs of Karbala should also serve a didactic function and rise above
their contemporary mode of sorrowful expressions. Hali went even further to
say that these elegies and odes can infuse a community (qawm) with the spirit
of solidarity (qawmı̄yyat).14 For Hali, Urdu literary aesthetics need to be judged
by a functionalist yardstick: Poetry deserves encouragement and praise insofar
as it stays faithful to the ideals of a given society and enhances the moral
standards of the society. What makes Hali’s criteria for good literature even
more relevant to the development of the Progressive Movement is his insis-
tence that literature be liberated from the hands of the elites and appeal to the
masses.
Hali’s critique of traditional literature seems mild when compared to that
of Akhtar Husain Raipuri (1912–1992), who was vitriolic in his attack not only
on Urdu literature of the past and the present, but on the literatures of the
subcontinent in general. Whereas Hali took into account the aesthetic critiques
and perspectives of colonial literary discourses, Raipuri was disgusted with the
colonial standards of beauty, and turned instead to anti-colonial, Marxist aes-
thetics. Spellbound by the Marxist critiques of literature, especially as articu-
lated by Maxim Gorky, Raipuri questioned the very raison d’etre of literature in
1935: “What is literature? Literature for the sake of literature, or literature for
the sake of life? What are the purposes of literature?”15 Raipuri answers these
questions: “Literature is a department of life and a reflector of its own envi-
ronment. The purposes of life and literature are one.”16 As to what these pur-
poses are, Raipuri answers by tying literature to progress:
Literature is that teacher who teaches the lessons of life to humanity
through stories and songs. The purpose of literature should be to re-
flect those emotions that show the world the road to progress, to re-
ject those that do not allow this progress, and then acquire that
manner of discourse which is intelligible to as many people as pos-
sible. For the very purpose of life is to benefit as many people as
possible.17
Such a utilitarian ethics of literature, according to Raipuri, was severely lacking
in both past and present literary epochs in the subcontinent, with only a hand-
ful of exceptions. He accuses writers of serving the elites and being totally
dependent upon their patronage. He goes so far as to compare contemporary
art to a prostitute, seductive but not real.18
Raipuri attempts to chronicle the way in which literature was severed from
life. He caustically assails Urdu poets for their failure to incorporate the most
pressing matters of their time into their poetry. Among the incidents that
Raipuri cites as being unsuccessful in generating poetry are the 1757 Battle of
Plassey, a battle that was instrumental in the consolidation of British rule in
India; the defeat of Tipu Sultan of Mysore in 1779 at the hands of the British;
and the 1857 Revolt which ended an already pathetically weak Mughal rule in
Delhi, thereby formally rendering the British the new sovereigns of the sub-
continent: “How many poets versified these bloody events? How many nauhas
were written? Where were those battle-song-singing marsiya reciters whose
magical recitation caused every gathering of Muharram to become an assembly
of intense lamentation?”19
Although it is true that most canonical poets were not preoccupied by these
events per se, Raipuri exaggerates the dearth of versified sorrowful sentiments
evoked by such incidents. In the expression of many such sentiments, not
only was the symbol of Karbala used, but many an elegy written about Karbala
invoked the images of other struggles. According to Mohiuddin Qadri Zor,
during the seventeenth century, the region was under imminent Mughal
threat; Deccani marsiyas of this time bemoaned the region’s destruction by
mourning for the martyrs of Karbala.20 Such a trend continued through the
nineteenth century when Mir Anis and others hued their marsiyas with im-
plicit allusions to the chaotic state of their own cities.21 Intizar Husain com-
pares the vignettes of Anis’s Arab cities (Medina and Kufa) to those of Lucknow,
a city considered a center of India’s Islamic heritage, as well as a prominent
player during and after the 1857 Revolt. Intizar Husain hence explains Karbala
as a “living metaphor of the struggle of the human soul,” which raises its head
whenever the human soul rebels against oppression.22
The metaphor of Karbala is also evident in the genre of shahr āshūb, the
lament for the city. This is a genre in which poets express the plights of their
cities in the wake of such atrocities as those wrought by Nadir Shah in the
eighteenth century (1739 c.e.).23 Satire and threnody frequently exist in the
same lament, whether in a tone of resignation or resolution. The shahr ashubs
of both Mir and Sauda enlighten us about the volatile state of Delhi and its
precincts during their time period. The agony of this region continued for
decades after the death of these eminent poets until the British exiled the last
Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah “Zafar” (1775–1862 c.e.) and he became a
witness to such heart-wrenching events as the murder of his sons:
Alas! Before the father they killed the son
How can this not be a reminder of Asghar’s sorrow?
Delhi evinces the paradigm of Karbala
Delhi makes the father weep over the son’s bier24
Implicit in these verses is an analogy of the last Mughal emperor and his sons
to Husain and his six-month-old son.
But for Raipuri, literary tropes needed to be much more forthright in their
political allegiances and commitments. It was not enough to speak of one’s
own plight, to vindicate one’s own suffering through allusions to the past nar-
ratives of suffering. Literature needed to constitute an intersection between the
lessons from the past and a progressive agenda for the future.
It was this call for a more radical politics through literary channels that
was heeded by Josh Malihabadi (1898–1982). Although Josh (as he is com-
monly known) took Raipuri’s critique of literature to heart, he was also inspired
by Muhammad Iqbal’s efforts to voice political concerns through religiously
charged literature. Josh tilled the literary soil so that the Progressive Writers’
Movement could blossom in the subcontinent. Josh and his Progressive friends
benefitted from the writings of Raipuri and Hali while making important
breaks with the traditions of the past. Whereas Iqbal spoke primarily of re-
forming the Muslim community and the Muslim self by providing them with
a religious footing, Josh and the Progressives invoked religious symbols such
as Karbala, but in the service of a universal, trans-religious, reformist agenda.
This invocation assimilated struggles that are not particular to Muslim peoples,
thereby forging solidarity among various resistive voices and agendas. While
Raipuri remained devoted to a Marxist reading of literature, wherein the lan-
guage of religion would play a minimal role, Josh and his Progressive friends
used religious idioms liberally, even when critiquing religious establishments.
Josh Malihabadi and Karbala
My vocation is change, my name is youth

My slogan: revolution, revolution, and revolution.25
Securing for himself the epithets of Shāir-e Inqilāb, the Poet of Revolution,
and Shāir-e Shabāb, the Poet of Youth, Josh took the liberty of framing Husain’s
image in hitherto unimagined ways.26 True to the overall spirit of the sociore-
ligious reformist movements and inspired by Iqbal’s concerns for the poor,
Josh was also preoccupied with the issues of class, the problems of the eco-
nomically disenfranchised. In a panegyric to Karl Marx, Josh describes him as
a boon companion of Husain, and a Moses-like friend of the exiled and the
disenfranchised:
The soul-mate of Shabbir, and the adversary of Yazid
The Moses of a new Red Sea controlled by the present-day
Pharaoh.27
According to Josh, it is to Marx that the pulpit legitimately belongs:
O You who preach from the pulpit of grace and trust
O blazing torch whose light is a guide to the Merciful One’s
sustenance28
The existing pulpit was tainted, according to Josh, by the traditional reli-
gious establishment. In his “Żākir se Kfi hitāb” or “Address to the Preacher,” Josh
chastises the zakir who addresses Shii mourning gatherings solely to induce
tears:
You gain nothing from the spirit of the martyr of Karbala
Tresses of cowardice form a noose on your shoulder
How strange, bereavement-loving professional mourner
That in the chest of the Lion’s follower beats the heart of a sheep!
What a shameful account for the warriors
Do not mourn for the Martyr of Karbala in this manner
................................................................
Think! O Zakir of sorrowful temperament and mild manners
Alas! You auction off the blood of the martyrs
Your sighs and wails are a mercantile exercise in every majlis
Your discourse on the pulpit is begging for “fees.”
You turn the world of ethics topsy-turvy
You soak your bread in the blood of the Prophet’s family.
................................................................
Woe! You and your elaborate arrangements for the hereafter

Why do you not say that the rule of vice is forbidden?
You and the fear of prison?! Why O slave of worldly reputation
Do you know how many Imams have been imprisoned?
You cannot die in the manner of the People of the House, so pure
You claim to love them, but cannot emulate them
Look, look at me! I am a libertine, a wine drinker
Neither aware of the rituals of piety nor of obedience
Neither do I sport a turban of honor
Nor a golden mantle
However, I do know death to be a robust life
You make light of the rituals of asceticism and piety
I do not fear death, but you fear prison.29
For Josh, the zakir, the one who has the privilege of narrating Karbala in
the solemn majlis setting, retains in his profession a prostitute-like devotion.
But while the prostitute trades his/her body for financial benefits, the zakir
actually derives profit from the insider trading of the martyrs. In spite of his
knowledge of Karbala’s significance, the zakir uses this knowledge only for his
own profit, at the expense of his community’s loss. The only consolation that
the zakir is able to provide, according to these verses of Josh, is the description
of the elaborate arrangements of the hereafter. Far from living up to the ideals
of the Imam, the zakir cannot even meet the standards of a libertine wine-
drinker like Josh. Not known for his modesty, Josh gives himself credit for
following the Husainian way and simply overpowers the zakir rhetorically.
Josh maintains that the contemporary human plight is worse than the one
that beset Husain. Thus it is necessary, Josh felt, to use the symbol of Karbala
as a means to propagate the view that it is not the pathos-laden event of a
bygone era, but a prototype for contemporary revolutionary struggles. It is his
sheer dismay with the popular majlis construction of Karbala that becomes the
impetus behind Josh’s reassessment of this event. Josh’s writings during the
late 1930s and the early 1940s, when nationalist and anti-colonial feelings ran
high in South Asia, had a momentous impact upon his generation in general
and on the Progressive Movement in particular. What Josh tries to convey in
his writings of this period, more than anything else, is his belief that the youth
of the subcontinent have the responsibility to redefine religion, to reclaim a
belief system that honors revolutionary struggles like those of Husain.
Josh attempts to galvanize the youth by intertwining their anti-colonial
struggle for liberation with Husain’s battle:
Yes Josh! Now call out O Prince of Karbala

Cast a glance at this twentieth century,
Behold this tumult, this chaos, these earthquakes
Now there are hundreds of Yazids, yesterday there was only one
In every village, cries arise that might is right
Once again human feet are shackled30
Difficult as it may be for those attuned to traditional marsiyas to believe,

this stanza belongs to the genre of jadı̄d marṡiya, or new marsiya, wherein the
importunate nature of contemporary crises is underscored by references to the
symbol of Karbala in its various elaborated forms. Thus the pathos-laden ele-
ments of the traditional marsiya are submerged in an activist, socioreligious
reformist rhetoric. Josh adds a new dimension to the genre of marsiya. The
first marsiya of this kind, according to Zamir Akhtar Naqvi, was Āwāz-e H fi aqq
(Voice of Truth), written in 1918 at the time of the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation
movements. Josh called the struggle for freedom from colonialism Tāzah Kar-
balā, or, A Fresh Karbala, and the committed determination necessary in such
a struggle Azm-e H fi usain (the determination of Husain).31
Although Josh was writing, often in an unsparingly acerbic tone, within a
politically charged milieu, his marsiyas entered the repertoire of both tradi-
tional mourning gatherings and nonreligious mushairas. Josh himself spoke
of the effect of his marsiya, H fi usain aur Inqilāb (Husain and Revolution), on a
majlis gathering in 1941, at a time when the fervor of the Second World War
was running high. The entire literati of Lucknow had come to the imambara,
including the poets and masters, Sunnis and Hindus as well as Shias. Since
the marsiya concentrated on inspiring people through the figure of Husain,
the commemorators in the majlis, especially the politically-minded ones, stood
up again and again and passionately praised the poetry. So favorable was the
reception that the pulpit actually began to shake; it seemed as though the
audience was about to jump into the battlefield.32
By lacing his marsiyas with metaphors of a revolutionary struggle and by
depicting imperialist forces as equal to the tyranny of Yazid, Josh, like Makh-
dum, gives the impression that the state of the human community is immi-
nently threatened by colonial powers. Thus, anyone raising his head against
such power is contextualized in the framework of Karbala.
When Josh heard of Gandhi’s assassination, he eulogized India’s most
famous anti-colonial fighter:
Greetings to you, O splendid pearl of the wave of purity

Greetings to you, O King of Indian martyrs
You were the custodian of compassion, the mirror of offering
You fell ill worrying about the well-being of human beings
The remedy-provider for the Brahman, the sympathizer of the Shaykh
The lord of approbation, the incarnation of peace
Greetings to you, O guardian of Kaba and Kashi
Greetings to you, O King of Indian martyrs
On the high path of truth, your footsteps glow
Your standard is set atop the sky of justice
O majestically holy follower of Husain, son of Ali
O victim of the sadistic oppression of the Yazid of the new age
Greetings to you, O contemporary Jesus of a renewed crucifix
Greetings to you, O King of Indian martyrs.33
The Transcommunal Legacy of Karbala
Mohandas Gandhi (d. 1948), Josh’s object of praise in the above poem, along
with Jawaharlal Nehru and many other non-Muslim literati-reformers, also
pursued Karbala as a common denominator of truth, valor, and justice that is
vested with a preponderantly resistive, nationalistic, and reformist significance.
These reformers have passionately used this symbol in devotional, as well as
political discourses, as an ideal readily suitable for a broader vision of a just
struggle. As South Asian historian Mushirul Hasan points out: “The Karbala
paradigm itself communicated profound existential truths not only to the Shias
but also to the Sunnis and Hindus.”34 Gandhi also drew from Karbala and
invoked this event when he embarked on his first salt march; like Imam Hu-
sain’s band at Karbala, his march had approximately seventy-two people in it.35
According to the Mahatma, the incident of Karbala “arrested” him while he
was still young. He claimed to have studied the life of the “hero of Karbala”
and came to the conclusion that the people of India must act on the principles
of Husain in order to attain true liberation. The historical progress of Islam,
according to Gandhi, is not the legacy of the Muslim sword but a result of the
sacrifices of Muslim saints like Husain.36 Gandhi drew from the Hindu epic
Mahabharata (which contains the Bhagavad Gita) by calling it “hopeless” as a
history but valuable because “it deals with eternal verities in an allegorical
fashion.”37 In the same way, Karbala’s value for the shaping of a historical
consciousness was irrelevant to Gandhi and his followers when compared to
the lessons it provided for people of India about the virtues of suffering and
sacrifice that could bind a nation that had diverse histories but a supposedly
common socio-moral agenda.38 Gandhi’s close friend and India’s first prime
minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, read Karbala as a victory of “humanity’s strength
of determination.” Since Gandhi and Nehru are both respected and well-known
figures in anti-imperial and anti-colonial movements around the world, their
admiration for Karbala’s significance has been rhetorically pursued, even by
the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the revered Shii authority, Sayed Hasan
Nasrallah. In a documentary charting the ideology and activities of Hezbollah,
an organization opposing Israel’s policies in the Middle East, Sayed Nasrallah
cites Gandhi and Nehru as examples of non-Muslim leaders “who learned
about confrontation from Husain.”39 The image of Karbala is the most impor-
tant historic image conjured up in the discourses of Hezbollah, thus it is fas-
cinating to see how Gandhi and Nehru’s invocation of Karbala is invoked in
turn by trans-subcontinental Shii authorities, as a way of acquiring legitimacy
for their own causes, for their own ideals. Such intercultural, inter-religious
exchanges challenge notions that valorize Karbala as an exclusively Shii event,
as a purely intramural message: If Gandhi could learn from the subcontinent’s
Muslims about Karbala’s resistive and allegorical power, then the Muslim lead-
ers of Lebanon could draw inspiration from Gandhi about how the Karbala
model can assist in resisting oppression.
To Gandhi’s friend, the preeminent Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore,
Husain’s sacrifice is indicative of the attainment of spiritual liberation. When

the relationship between the material world and the world of love is terminated,
says Tagore, then spirituality must gain ascendancy through sacrifice. Thus,
for Tagore, the material world is the world of the Caliph Yazid whereas spiritual
salvation lies with Husain.40
In addition to expressing devotion to the martyrs of Karbala, what other
functions does Karbala serve these non-Muslim political and nationalist au-
thorities? Why would Karbala, out of all the events in Islamic history, gain this
privileged position in non-Muslim discourses? What does the invocation of
Karbala in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s mean for the agenda of nation-building
that was rapidly gaining ascendancy in India at the time? In attempting to
answer these questions, I turn to the distinguished fiction writer of Urdu-Hindi
and a central figure in the Progressive Writers’ Movement, Munshi Prem-
chand, and his remarkable drama Karbala.
Premchand’s Karbala
The South Asian literary establishment rightly takes pride in Dhanpat Rai
Shrivastava (1880–1936), popularly known as Premchand, as a visionary and
reformer, who contributed much to twentieth-century Hindi-Urdu aesthetic
sensibilities. As a leading figure who helped shape the Progressive Movement,
Premchand committed himself to pursuing a utilitarian poetics in which lit-
erature is valuable insofar as it enhances society’s well-being. The pursuit of
this enhancement requires reassessing existing literary standards, including a
thorough re-evaluation of notions of beauty. “We must change the standard of
beauty,” proclaimed Premchand, and the Progressive Movement subsequently
invoked these words as the most important clarion call resonating from the
subcontinent’s literary circles.41
The 1920s, when Karbala was published, was a tumultuous decade in
North India for Hindu-Muslim relations. This decade saw the acceleration of
communal tensions at an unprecedented rate. Some of the major events that
hastened the decline of intercommunal relations stemmed from the irreverent
objectification of the Prophet Muhammad. Relying on the age-old suspicions
of many a European that cast the Prophet of Islam as a vicious entity, Pandit
Kalicharan Sharma, one of the leaders of the Arya Samaj (a Hindu reformist
organization that often took a confrontational course toward the Muslim com-
munity) wrote Vichitra Jı̄van (A Strange Life) in 1923, a book in which the
Prophet was depicted as an epileptic, experiencing seizures rather than divine
revelations. Within a year of Vichitra Jı̄van, a Lahore bookstore proprietor, Raj
Pal, published Rangı̄lā Rasūl (the Merry Prophet), one of the most inflammatory
works written in South Asia to date. The book drove the wedge further between
religious communities, since many Muslims found the treatment accorded to
the Prophet, as well as his household, intolerably insulting. Rangı̄lā Rasūl re-
ceived the Arya Samaj endorsement in 1924, just as Vichitra Jı̄van had the
previous year. Other catalysts for Hindu-Muslim conflicts of the early 1920s
included the 1923 agitation in Saharanpur over the taziyeh processions of Mu-
harram (in which standards commemorating the martyred family members of
the Prophet Muhammad in Karbala are carried in public places) and the Shud-
dhi movement calling for Muslim “re-conversion” to Hinduism.42 Also surfac-
ing then were not-so-understated claims of Veer Savarkar (1883–1966) that
posited a neat line between genuine Indians and Hinduism and called for a
Hindu state. In such a rapidly deteriorating communal situation, Muslims
feared that a systematic assault on their community was underway. Premchand
brooded about these growing anti-Muslim attitudes and actions that were, in
his opinion, severing the bonds of national unity.43 In order to mount a suc-
cessful campaign against communalism and “to cement the bonds of Hindu-
Muslim unity,” Premchand wrote Karbala.
It is not difficult to understand why Karbala has appealed to non-Muslims,
given the inter-religious and intercultural spaces that Muharram and the Imam
Husain have historically occupied in many regions of the subcontinent. Even
today, in parts of the subcontinent, many Hindus commemorate the tenth day
of Muharrram through culinary means—they cook particular foods as votive
offerings and then distribute it in their neighborhood as food blessed by the
memory of the martyrs of Karbala. I remember the excitement of many Shias
when they went to a Muharram event in Hyderabad where a Hindu man, with
an alam in his hand, walked on burning coals as a demonstration of his de-
votion. When I spoke to two Hindus, who had come to witness this event—
and who were also distributing sweet milk during the fire-walking—about why
they commemorate Muharram, they told me that the Imam Husain and his
brother the Imam Hasan were devtās, divine incarnations. Muharram, to these
self-identified Hindus, is more about honoring manifestations of the divine
than about any connection with Islam. The discourses of Muharram, especially
the Muharram of Lucknow, in Urdu literature (by Quratulain Haidar among
others) are often suffused with nostalgia for a bygone syncretic culture.
Notwithstanding the popularity of Karbala’s invocation outside Shii circles,
for many Hindus wishing to safeguard divisions between their communities
and those of Muslims, Karbala and the Muharram commemorations associated
with it had become great “bogey-rites” in the 1910s and 1920s. Touted as det-
rimental to Hindu patriarchy and purity, commemorations of Muharram for
these Hindus were parasites upon their community.44 In defiance of those
Hindus who wanted to purge their community of any link with this event,
Premchand decided to frame his narrative in the allegorical mode of a nation-
alistic drama.
Karbala was thus conceived as an act of resistance, with Hindus as the
primary intended audience: “The aim of this drama, and of the principal char-
acter’s portrayal, is to make the Hindus pay a tribute to Hazrat Husain. That’s
why this drama which, apart from being religious, is political also.”45 The writ-
ing of Karbala was a twofold utilitarian gesture on Premchand’s part: First, he
hoped to provide a unifying communal impulse; and second, through the play,
Premchand expressed his own devotion to the martyrs of Karbala by paying
“tribute” to them.
Karbala appeared in two modes: first in Hindi, and then in Urdu. Although
the narrative framework and the plot are identical in both versions of the play,
a few differences are worth pointing out: The Hindi play was written in De-
vanagari script and contains more Sanskrit words than the Urdu play, which
was written in Perso-Arabic script. The amount of sanskritized Hindi is tied
to the characters’ nominal religious markings—the Muslim characters use
fewer sanskritized words than the Hindu characters. Premchand asserts in the
preface of his Hindi version that in order to be realistic, he could not put too
many sanskritized words in the mouths of Muslims; he has tried to keep the
language of the play a “shared” communal language that Hindus and Muslims
both speak.46 In making this linguistic point, Premchand suggests that reli-
gious identity in South Asia is linked to language.
The 1920s were also a time of bitter Hindi-Urdu language rivalries, as
both languages were religiously charged. Given the Muslim claims to Urdu as
a privileged lingua franca of Islamic socioreligious reformist discourse of the
late nineteenth and early-twentieth century, and the Hindu tendency to see
Urdu as a language shaped by the foreign Perso-Arabic script, the language of
Urdu now inhabited a Muslim space.47 Premchand, by first publishing Karbala
in Hindi (rather than in Urdu) in 1924,48 validates the Hindi-Urdu polarization
at one level; but at another level, he reengages this space by articulating in
Hindi an Islamic allegory, already held in reverence by many Hindus. Through
the Hindi Karbala, Premchand postulates the plausibility of an affectionate
nexus between Hindi and Islam, Islamic history and the history of Hinduism,
thereby attempting to enervate Urdu’s hold on Islam, Islam’s hold on Urdu,
Hinduism’s hold on Hindi, and Hindi’s hold on Hinduism. In the play’s pref-
ace, Premchand describes the battle of Karbala as the Islamic counterpart of
the epic struggles of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.49 By invoking such
an analogy at the very outset, Karbala is domesticated, stripped of its foreign-
ness, so as to make it more comprehensible and appealing to Hindus.
That the conceptualization of history no longer entails a shared spirit,
Premchand implies, precipitates Hindu-Muslim conflict. “Whenever a Muslim
king is remembered, we invoke Aurangzeb.”50 For Premchand, the Indian
Muslim by and large existed within a continual state of prejudiced assumptions
of Hindus recorded through the Aurangzebian idiom: this fiction had to be
countered. Premchand archives the Hindu-Muslim relationship in mutually
respective terms that move beyond Aurangzeb and his time into a temporal
zone reflecting a more pluralistic Islam. In archiving the Hindu-Muslim re-
lationship in such a way, what Premchand also does is highlight the attitudinal
differences within a religious community: He identifies himself as a Hindu,
yet disagrees with many Hindus who fail to find virtue in Islam; he provides
no apologies for Aurangzeb’s alleged religious intolerance, yet refuses to see
the Mughal emperor as the ideal follower of Indian Islam. By ideologically
fracturing religious communities, he undermines the antagonistic communal
bifurcation within the colonial milieu that posited Hindus and Muslims as
age-old enemies whose scriptures determined their mode of thinking and liv-
ing.
Karbala opens with a description of the disquieting revelry and debauchery

at Yazid’s court. In the first scene, the caliph Yazid is flanked by his advisors/
sycophants, most notable of whom is Zahhak. To those familiar with the topoi
of Indo-Persian literature, the very mention of Zahhak is an instant reminder
of the legendary Iranian tyrant who shouldered two snakes, who were con-
stantly nourished by human brains. The rein of Zahhak was a time of mayhem,
when the utility of the human brain was consumed by dreadful snakes. It took
the brave Faridun to defeat Zahhak and restore justice to the land of Iran. So
in this opening scene, one ignoble caliph, Yazid, is in the company of another
beast of bygone days. When Yazid, concerned as he was with securing the
allegiance of Husain, asks for Zahhak’s advice, the latter suggests the most
forceful means to accomplish such a goal. Yazid’s wife, Hindah, who according
to some sources had once served the Prophet’s family, warns her husband
against such actions, lest he be consumed by the fire of hell for being irreverent
towards the grandson of the Prophet. Yazid dismisses his wife by explaining
his show of loyalty to Islam: “Hindah, this talk of religion is [only] for religion;
not for the world. My grandfather accepted Islam so that he could receive
wealth and honor. He did not accept Islam in order to be redeemed. Nor do I
think of Islam as a means of redemption today.”51
Thus, unconvinced by his pious wife, Yazid sets out to assure his own
victory over Husain. The frame text of the rest of the play corresponds closely
to the popular understanding of the Karbala story: Husain is forced to pay
allegiance to Yazid in Medina; Husain leaves Medina because of the pressure
to accept Yazid’s authority; Husain’s cousin, Muslim, arrives in Kufa to gauge
local support and build a base for the Prophet’s grandson; Muslim is betrayed
by the Kufans and Yazid’s governor, Ibn Ziyad, manages to kill Muslim; Hurr,
in a place called Karbala, blocks Husain and his companions, who are en route
to Kufa; Husain’s family is deprived of the Euphrates water; Husain is provided
with a night’s respite to rethink his determination to oppose Yazid; Hurr, after
reconsidering his previous stance, repents and joins Husain, and becomes the
first martyr for Husain’s cause; Hurr is followed by the rest of Husain’s com-
panions and family members—Abbas, Ali Akbar, Ali Asghar, Zainab’s sons,
and so on; Husain is the last one to attain martyrdom.
Few of Premchand’s readers would have qualms about the linear progres-
sion and artistic extrapolation of this oft-recited frame text. But Premchand
takes narrative liberties with the interpolations within this text. Unlike the
writers of Rangı̄lā Rasūl or Vichitra Jı̄van, Premchand relies on established
scholarly authorities of Islam, such as Amir Ali, and also elegist-poets whose
marsiyas are often recited in Muharram gatherings. For instance, Premchand
depicts Husain’s farewell to his sister Zainab by interweaving the verses of
Urdu’s greatest marsiya writer, Mir Anis, with the prose text of the play:
Can any brother bear the sorrow of his sister!

This darling of Asadullah [Husain], however, is helpless
His heart shattered by sorrow and hardships
Whom can I tell, how much I grieve for you
Shabbir [Husain] cries at the destruction of this house

It’s not you he parts from, he parts from his mother.52
The women, too, are strong and active participants. When Husain urges
his family members to abandon him so as to not incur the wrath of Yazid’s
army, Sakina replies:
“We will never take such disgrace upon ourselves—disgrace that would be
generated if Rasul’s [the Prophet Muhammad’s] sons have sacrificed for the
cause of Islam while his daughters remained seated in the house.”53 Thus the
women also contribute to the project of the ideal community/nation by spurn-
ing complacency and embracing suffering. Women like Zainab give impetus
to the cause of Islam by happily sending their sons to the battlefront, thereby
linking temporary suffering with permanent redemption. This discourse that
positions women as men’s spiritual and ideological comrades not only became
the staple of colonial Urdu literatures (Nazir Ahmed and others), but also made
itself visible within the marsiya traditions of Lucknow and Delhi, where the
likes of Sauda and Anis had complemented Husain’s struggle with that of his
female relatives: Zainab, Kulsum, Sakina, Bano, and so on.54
The point at which Premchand parts company with the popular marsiya
narrative of his time is when he inserts a subplot intended to enhance his
agenda of “cementing” communal harmony by depicting Husain as a universal
hero, who transcends the boundaries of any particular tradition. He thus pres-
ents a story about the mingling of the Hindu and Muslim understandings of
truth, as personified by “Sahas Rai” and Husain. Sahas Rai and his family of
seven brothers, devoted Hindus and originally from India, live in an Arabian
village. Premchand probably drew the Sahas Rai interpolation from a legend
popular among a pocket of Hindus, that a community of Brahmans (the Dutt
Brahmans or Mohiyals) existed in Arabia, contemporaneously with Husain.
These Brahmans were said to have come to Hussain’s assistance in Karbala.
Several of these Brahmans lost their lives and those remaining moved back to
India. At times, these Brahmans are also referred to as the Husaini Brahmans
since they remain devoted to Husain in spite of considering themselves
Hindu.55
Disturbed by the news of Yazid’s accession to the caliphate, Sahas Rai and
his brothers set out to help Husain. They arrive in Karbala, pay tribute to
Husain, and take up arms against Yazid’s army. First they protect Husain and
his companions from their enemies’ arrows while the Imam is busy in ritual
prayers. Husain, in return, blesses these Hindus for protecting him and his
followers:
Friends! My beloved sympathizers! These ritual prayers will be re-
membered in the history of Islam. If these brave slaves of God had
not guarded our backs against the enemy’s arrows then our prayers
would have never been completed. O Truth Worshippers! We salute
you. Although you are not a believer [in Islam]—a religion of Truth-
worshipping followers, willing to die for justice, understanding life
to be insignificant, and willing to have their heads cut off in support
of the oppressed—it is certainly a true and righteous religion. May

that religion always remain in the world. With the light of Islam,
may its light also spread in all four directions.56
When Sahas Rai asks for Husain’s permission to confront the forces of
Yazid, Husain insists that the newly-arrived guests not become embroiled in
the battle. Sahas Rai replies,
Sahas Rai: Sir, we are not your guests, we are your servants. The
main principle of our life is to die for truth and justice. This is our
duty; not a favor to anyone.
Husain: How can I possibly tell you to go [to the battlefield].
God willing, the foundation laid on this ground by our blood and
your blood, will be protected from time’s evil eye and this [founda-
tion] shall never be ruined. May the sounds of joyful songs always
rise from it and may the rays of the sun always shine on it.
(All seven brothers, while singing praises of India [Bharat], en-
ter the battlefield.)
Abbas [Husain’s brother]: Amazingly strong warriors! Now the
truth has dawned upon me that Islam also exists outside the realm
of Islam. These are true Muslims and it is not possible that the Holy
Messenger will not intercede on their behalf.
Hence all seven brothers from the family of Sahas Rai attain martyrdom,
after gallantly defending Husain’s cause. Husain has the funeral pyre prepared
for his Hindu comrades, and delivers a moving eulogy in their honor:
These people are from that pure country where the declaration of
God’s unity (tawhid) was first raised. I pray to God that they receive
a lofty station among the martyrs. Those flames rise from the pyre.
O God! May this fire never be extinguished from the heart of Islam.
May our brave ones always spill their blood for this [Hindu] commu-
nity. May this seed, which has been sown in fire today, blossom till
the Day of Judgment.57
Husain speaks in laudatory tones of Hindus as those who are determined

to vindicate the cause of truth and justice in the face of immense obstacles. As
the words of Abbas testify, the Hindus are metamorphosed into ideal Muslims
without effacing their Hindu identity. Premchand fosters a sensitivity that
would accommodate the confluence of the two religions—allowing both to
cherish, if not embrace, the differences between them. The Hindu brothers do
not perform the ritual prayers with Husain’s band, but they nevertheless en-
sure the safety of this group while it is praying. Husain himself oversees the
rites of cremation—rites not endorsed by scriptural Islam. The rigidly binary
modeling of communalism is unsettled in the same vein as it had been in
much of Perso-Indian poetry. After all, Premchand was a devotee of Ghalib,
the unsurpassed destroyer of many such binaries:
vafādārı̄ ba shart3-e ustavārı̄ asfi l-e imāñ hai

mare butkfi hāne meñ to kabe meñ gārfio barhaman ko58
Fidelity with the strength of determination is the core of faith
If the Brahman dies in the house of idols, bury him in the Kaba
The Hindi version of Karbala was followed by the Urdu version that was
serialized, from July 1926 to April 1928, in the popular and critically acclaimed
Urdu journal of the time, Zamāna (founded in 1903). Its publisher, Munshi
Daya Narain Nigam (1882–1942), had established a reputation for cultivating
Hindu-Muslim dialogue; like Premchand, he saw India’s well-being tied to
intercommunal harmony. In commenting on Zamāna’s contribution to South
Asian culture, Khwaja Hasan Nizami, a prominent scholar of Islam, wrote in
the 1928 issue of Zamāna:
I don’t know of any journal in India in which Hindu and Muslim

writers have jointly written in every single issue, year after year, and
it is this distinction of Zamāna that ought to be written at the high-
est level of the history of the Urdu language.59
In further praise of this journal, after the Urdu serialization of Karbala was
complete, Nizami cites Premchand as “an unprejudiced Hindu who, having
drawn the sword of his pen, rose on the field of action, in order to save his
community from literary prejudices.”60
Premchand also, however, incurred criticism: Syed Ahsan Ali Sambhi (a
staff member and critic working for Zamāna) doubted the desirability of pub-
lishing Karbala as a “drama.” Sambhi felt that the theme of the Karbala nar-
rative was so somber that any attempt to mold it into a medium of trivial
entertainment (and the very word “drama” was widely associated with such
entertainment) was bound to upset the Muslim community. Premchand was
especially sensitive to the criticism leveled against him for any aspect of Karbala
and he retorted to the editors, before the publication of this Urdu drama
began:
It’d be better if you don’t publish Karbala. There’s nothing that I
stand to lose, and I am not prepared to undergo these unnecessary
pinpricks. I read the life of Hazrat Hussain. His zest for martyrdom
moved me and I felt like paying a tribute. The result was this
drama. If Muslims do not concede to Hindus even the right to pay
tribute to Muslim caliphs and imams, I am not keen either. It is no
use, therefore, to reply to the letters which have been advising you
against publishing the drama. I do wish, however, to say a few
things about Ahsan Sambhi’s letter. He says that Shia Muslims
would not like a drama being written about their religious leaders. If
Shia Muslims avidly read or hear Mathnavis, stories and elegies on
the life of their religious leaders, why should they have any objection
to a drama being written on the subject? Or, is it because this one,
Karbala, is written by a Hindu. . . . History and historical drama,
you would agree, are two different things. None can introduce
changes in regard to the principal characters of a historical drama.
. . . Drama is not history. It does not affect the principal historical
characters. The aim of the drama, and of the principal character’s
portrayal, is to make the Hindus pay a tribute to Hazrat Hussain.
That’s why this drama which, apart from being religious, is political
also. . . . Khwaja Hassan Nizami, incidentally, wrote a biography of
Lord Krishna. Just because a Muslim divine had paid his tribute to
Lord Krishna, Hindu critics lauded the attempt. My purpose was
identical. If, however, Hassan Nizami can have the freedom to pay
his tribute to one of another religion but the same is denied to me,
then all that I can say is that I am sorry. Kindly return the manu-
script.61
Husain’s battle in Karbala thus had an ethically inspirational value for

Premchand, who utilized it aesthetically for the enhancement of a more unified
Indian national community, while the larger subcontinental community was
wracked by communal tensions. Such an ideal community, at least in its imag-
inary incarnation, was given further impetus by the intertwined discourses of
suffering and sacrifice that permeated the Indian nationalist rhetoric. And for
Indian nationalists, this is a fitting story with which to regale their nation.
Premchand’s allegory Karbala empowers a nationalist reading that springs
from the sentiments of sacrifice, suffering, and transreligious human bonding.
Such readings of Islamic history and the Indian nation are constituted by
images from Islam’s sacred history together with the Hindu community that
participates in the making of this history—the Hindu community is inscribed
within Islamic history as a protected, respected, and much-needed minority,
in order to set an example for the treatment of India’s Muslim minority. Premc-
hand thus allegorically correlates the imaginary minority status of Hindus in
seventh-century Arabia with that of Muslims in an ideal, and perhaps just as
imaginary, unified Indian nation, in order to synthesize the moral tenor of
nation-building. This Indian nation, interestingly enough, not only locates its
prototype in the distant past (as Ben Anderson claims modern nations do),62
but also in the geographical space that accommodates the Euphrates rather
than the Indus or the Ganges. Karbala becomes a device whereby the dis-
courses tying geography, religion, and community into a neat nexus are
commplicated. Islam exists beyond Islamdom just as Hinduism exists outside
India. Both religions become ideals free from geographical shackles. Although
the Hindu-Muslim religious communities are reified in opposition to each
other, their marked significations overflow the signifiers: Hindus become Mus-
lims through their determination to safeguard Islamic ideals, while Muslims
are tied to the land of India since it is here that monotheism first flourished.
Modern religious communities are represented as the heirs of Husain and
Sahas Rai and each one, in spite of its uniqueness, encompasses and needs
the other, yet must not efface the identity of the self or of the other. Respect
for minority rights is championed as the basis of nation-building and the nu-
merical weakness of this minority becomes irrelevant. It is as though the nation

loses its ethical value when the concerns of its minorities go unheeded. Al-
though cultural and national spaces remain shared, Premchand does not prop-
agate the idea of a shared or syncretic culture as a substitute for addressing
serious minority concerns on their own terms. A work like Karbala supplants
the nationalist exclusionary imaginings about which Partha Chatterjee writes:
The idea of the singularity of national history has inevitably led to a

single source of Indian tradition, namely, ancient Hindu civilization.
Islam here is either the history of foreign conquest or a domesti-
cated element of everyday popular life. The classical heritage of Is-
lam remains external to Indian history.63
By disrupting this play of nationalist imaginings (that Chatterjee critiques)

through his drama, Premchand goes beyond the simplified polarities of syn-
cretism and separatism to locate the nation in the abstract theater, sacred and
solemn, capable of shifting its spatial foci from Arabia to India, as long as it
can constitute a site where mutual respect, especially the sensitivities toward
minorities, plays itself out. This free-floating theatrical space enables each
reader-listener to enact Karbala on his or her own terms while the concrete
theatricality of Karbala is disavowed, partly in consideration of the pejorative
connotations that the theater/stage has for some, at times, and partly as a
distancing strategy. Since visual representation remains a vexed question in
many Islamicate societies, Premchand eliminates the question of staging this
play64 (at least in its current form) lest attention be deflected from its moral.
The imminent telos of the play, to hasten the triumph of a people united in
diversity, would also be compromised if the playwright’s ultimate destination
for his work is the stage—because the staging might offend readers otherwise
sympathetic to the play’s spirit. Dis-anchoring Karbala from the holds of the
stage by marking the play “only to be read; not to be performed”65 is also a
solemn distancing mimetic strategy used by Premchand, similar to the one
used in Iran. There, actors in the taziyeh performance (ironically the only
“serious” theater in the Islamic world, according to Peter Chelkowski) hold a
script even when they have the lines memorized, so as to avoid any comparison
between themselves and the martyrs of Karbala.66
Even when exploring Premchand’s Karbala as a nationalist allegory, we
must also acknowledge Sudipta Kaviraj’s reading of the narratives of the nation
as having limited utility in spite of being “represented as a mystic unity of
sentiments:”67
These narratives are explicit and detailed about freedom, sacrifice,
glory and such things, and usually very vague about the more con-
crete and contestable questions of distribution, equality, power, the
actual unequal ordering of the past society or of the future one.68
Notwithstanding the limitations that attended such nationalist and ecu-
menical imaginaries, Premchand was instrumental in the growth of reformist
literature and the fledgling Progressive Writers’ Movement. His call for a re-
evaluation of the existing aesthetic standards set the trend for Urdu literature
of subsequent decades. “The writer’s aim” wrote Premchand, “is not to cheer
the audience and not to provide material for entertainment. Don’t degrade him
to such a level! He is not even that truth which follows behind patriotism and
politics; instead, he is the standard-bearer, who shows the path.”69 Premchand’s
labor of love was fostering harmony among God’s creation and this was not
lost on the conscience of several other authors of Hindi and Urdu.70
Nathanvilal Wahshi (d. 1968), another Hindu elegy writer, not only in-
cludes a subplot resonating with themes of communal harmony similar to
those of Premchand, but also recasts Karbala in the mold of the sacred Hindu
epic, the Ramayana. In the first part of the elegy, he emphasizes religious
ecumenism:
The discourse of the home-wrecking preacher is mistaken
The bounties of the lord do not draw boundaries
The sun’s rays shine on every home
When a cloud decides to shower its bounty
It does not check to see “this is greenery, that is sand
This is the field of a Muslim, that of a Hindu”71
Wahshi narrates the arrival of a helper for the Imam’s cause on the eighth
day of Muharram. The Imam welcomes him and immediately confirms his
Indian identity. Husain then goes on to praise India and its people:
The perfumed fragrance entered the realm of love from your country
The cool breeze came to my grandfather from that garden72
Upon inquiring more about the guest’s background, the Imam finds out
that he is an Indian merchant residing in the nearby city of Basra; his father
had been entrusted with the treasury of the war booty by none other than Ali
b. Abi Talib. For this reason, the merchant holds himself morally responsible
for assisting Husain in any possible way when the latter is in trouble. Husain
appreciates this gesture, but discourages the merchant from taking up arms.
Brother, in my opinion you are the beloved of the world
In this country you are the treasure of India73
Like the seven brothers in Premchand’s drama, at first this merchant per-
ceives Husain’s gesture as suspicion on the part of the Imam about his sin-
cerity (because he is Hindu).
With tear-filled eyes, the traveler said:
“I am a Hindu, perhaps my fidelity is not convincing
Master! Even though this heart is the lamp of the idol temple
In it is also lit the light of affection”74
The Imam lays to rest any concerns of the newcomer by elevating the
merchant to the station of the warrior of truth:
The King [Husain] said: “What have you said in passion,

Why should my eye doubt your fidelity?
My Lord is aware of my conscience
What’s the difference between Hindu and Muslim in the quest for
truth
This has been the guiding principle for the People of the Cloak:75
To us, the world is the family of God.”76
Like a moth enamored of the “candle of guidance,” the Hindu is immo-
lated in the love of the Imam.77 And in this process of immolation, as he
confronts Yazid’s army, he sings of the past glories of his countrymen, includ-
ing the Hindu deity, Rama:
His slogan was: “Why do you stare hither in astonishment
You are the progeny of Ravan, I, the son of Ram
Once again, today, that same tumult of virtue and vice arises
What fear can the men of truth have of falsehood’s ambush
With the lightning of our sword, we shall set all aflame—
Not only Kufa but Damascus too shall be reduced to Lanka”78
By signifying the battle of Karbala through evoking the Ramayana, Wahshi
is extending the particularity of Husain’s war into a universal struggle of good
and evil. The Husain-Yazid polarity echoes that of the Ram-Ravan, in which
the Lord Ram defeats Ravan and sets afire the latter’s power base, Lanka. Since
Damasus and Kufa were both centers of power under Yazid’s reign, the Hindu
merchant wishes to destroy these cities the way Lanka was destroyed. The
merchant, blessed by Husain, fights with all his physical and spiritual prowess,
and cries echo through the battlefield:
There was an outcry: the House of God has received assistance
from the idol temple
The spirit of Krishna is peeking from heaven79
The haram-kanisht (Kaba-temple) juxtaposition, so omnipresent in the mys-
tical aesthetic, is played out yet again in the personified forms of Husain and
the Hindu merchant. Witnessing this play is that voice of wisdom from the
Hindu epic Mahabharata, the Lord Krishna himself. After all, it is Krishna’s
advocacy for the righteous struggle in the face of obstacles that gives the Bha-
gavad Gita its moral fervor.
Echoing the tone of Wahshi, and looming on the horizons of devotional
and supplicational literature addressed to Husain, are the verses of Kunwar
Mahendar Singh Bedi Sahar, a fine Sikh poet of Urdu:
You resurrected Islam
You showed us truth and falsehood
Everyone knows how to die after living
But you taught the world how to live after dying!
O Prince of Martyrs! When your name comes to my lips
The cupbearer of gnostic wine arrives with the goblet
If you could only bestow upon me the honor of your servitude

After all, O Master, even a counterfeit coin is of use at times.80
“Counterfeit,” as he claims to be, in loving devotion to Husain, Sahar

beseeches the Prince of Martyrs to accept this non-Muslim admirer in his
servitude. He might not be a “genuine coin,” in that he is not a Muslim, but
little harm could come from such worthwhile “counterfeit” ones!
Husain’s uprising, in Bedi’s opinion, lives on as a paradigm for those who
resist the unjust status quo of their time:
To every old order, the tidings of a new ordinance

Oh you, whose martyrdom is really the death of Yazid81
Thus Sahar’s view of martyrdom differs little from that of Muhammad Ali
Jauhar. It should also be clear, Karbala, for many non-Muslim writers, is em-
bedded in a supra-communal matrix. As Banarsi Lal Varma would say:
It’s wrong [to say] that Husain is dear only to Muslims

Husain is a refuge for every sorrowful heart in the world
Such was the sacrifice of this son of the Prophet Varma
That today even Hindus say: “Husain is ours.”82
The notion that the blood of Husain should always be cherished as a life-
bestowing reminder, heralding the causes of righteousness, irrespective of re-
ligion, was not confined to Urdu poetry. The well-liked Bengali, Qazi Nazrul
Islam, whose revolutionary poetic drumbeat inspired poets like Makhdum to
march in step with him,83 implies that his relationship to the cause of Husain
is not unlike that of Abbas to his martyred brother. The river Euphrates, for
Nazrul Islam, becomes the metaphor for modern life, likewise desiring sacri-
fices as great as those of Husain on its shore.84 He sings further:
Muharram! Karbala! Ya Husain! Ya Husain!

Weep it out, if you please, again and again!
But let not the martyr’s blood
By the desert’s sun, be dried outright!85
Thus, the extension of Karbala as a universal symbol was neither limited to

Muslims nor to the Urdu language. It was the convenient appeal of the symbol
that drew Progressive poets to it.
Karbala in Urdu Progressive Literature
In 1935, in the back room of Nanking, a small Chinese restaurant in London,

a group composed mostly of Indian students gathered to lay the foundations
of the All India Progressive Writers’ Association (AIPWA). The Progressive
Writers’ Movement was truly hybrid in its constitution. While it was an exten-
sion of the socioreligious reform movements of nineteenth- and twentieth-
century South Asia on one hand, it also owed a great deal to Marxist ideals of
art and literature.
Initially spearheading this movement were two rebellious young writers,
Mulk Raj Anand and Sajjad Zahir. Sajjad Zahir was an active member of the
Communist Party of India (CPI), and the son of Sir Syed Wazir Hasan, a
distinguished judge of the Allahabad High Court.86 After receiving his bache-
lor’s degree from Oxford University in 1932, Zahir contributed to and pub-
lished a controversial collection of short stories, Angāre, Embers. The stories
irreverently satirized the Muslim socioreligious establishment of the time, kin-
dled a fiery critique of society’s hypocrisy, and were banned for “obscenity” in
British India.87 Thus Zahir was already known when he organized the Pro-
gressive Writers’ Association after his return to England in 1935. Zahir’s friend,
Mulk Raj Anand, who later became one of the most outstanding English nov-
elists from India, was originally from a Hindu middle-class household of Pe-
shawar, then went on to receive a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of
London. A friend of E. M. Forster and also a keen critic of capitalism, Anand
joined Sajjad Zahir in nurturing the Progressive Movement.
The vision of the Progressive Writers’ Movement was articulated in the
first manifesto:
It is the object of our association to rescue literature and other arts
from the priestly, academic and decadent classes in whose hands
they have degenerated so long; to bring the arts into the closest
touch with the people; and to make them the vital organ which will
register the actualities of life, as well as lead us to the future. While
claiming to be inheritors of the best traditions of Indian civilization,
we shall criticise ruthlessly in all its political, economic and cultural
aspects, the spirit of reaction in our country; and we shall foster
through interpretative and creative works (both native and foreign
resources) everything that will lead our country to the new life for
which it is striving.88
Premchand, with small variations, published the manifesto from which

this quote was taken. Established Indian writers of the time, Rabindranath
Tagore, Muhammad Iqbal, and Josh Malihabadi gave more than a nod of ap-
proval to the group and its objectives. In spite of the “radical” appearance of
this organization, the leftist objectives of the movement were condoned by the
“old guard” of literature and prominent anti-colonialist fighters, such as Nehru
and Sarojini Naidu.89 Nehru, writing in the journal published by the Progres-
sive Writers’ and edited by Josh Malihabadi, placed the responsibility of a
brighter future on the shoulders of these writers: “The writer is responsible
for preparing the country for the future revolution.”90 Addressing such writers,
he further wrote:
Please solve the problems of the masses. Please guide them on the
right path. But you must convey your ideas through the arts, not
through logic. Your discourse should penetrate their [the masses’]
hearts. The logic of art is different. It captures the human being

completely. Then reasoning keeps doing its work.91
Many subsequent major Urdu writers were affected by these calls that
resonated in the early phase of the Progressive Movement. Some of them
(Makhdum Mohiuddin, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Ali Sardar Jafri) have been its defin-
ing entities; others (Ismat Chughtai and Sadat Hasan Manto), although sym-
pathetic to its objectives, have disagreed with it over many issues; and still
others (Vahid Akhtar, Ahmad Faraz, Iftikhar Arif ) admitted to being inspired
by it, though they were not part of its formal establishment.
The Progressives in particular, and the reformists in general, did not see
themselves as ideological orphans utilizing historical symbols and literature in
a radical, unprecedented manner. Not only did they often project their combats
back in time, but they also drew the rhetoric of their cause from the canonical
poets of Persian and Urdu. When in 1999 I interviewed the senior-most Pro-
gressive Urdu poet of the time, Ali Sardar Jafri, who had witnessed the various
currents within the movement from its inception, he insisted that his “fore-
father” Ghalib should not be overlooked in any discussion of the Progressives.92
Jafri pointed towards Sajjad Zahir’s words that acknowledge the debt of Pro-
gressive ideology to Ghalib:
The greatness of Ghalib lies in the fact that living in a society and
belonging to a class—the nobility-stricken, as it were, with a gallop-
ing mortal disease of degeneration and decay—he himself being al-
ways in financial difficulties and various other personal unhappi-
ness, yet had the intellectual and moral strength to see the grandeur
and greatness of man as such; to doubt and reject boldly the prevail-
ing superstitions of his time; to proclaim with unsurpassed vehe-
mence and with exquisite artistic beauty his faith, in the elan vital of
human beings, which braving all suffering, misery, persecution and
injustices, continuously leads them through struggle to higher and
higher spiritual, material and moral heights. . . . It is no wonder,
therefore, that of all the classical poets it was Ghalib who became a
source of inspiration to progressive writers and poets of half a cen-
tury or so later.93
For Sajjad Zahir, as for other Urdu poets who followed the Progressive
path, the revolutionary calls of Karl Marx for a just economic order and Prem-
chand’s insistence on the need for a new aesthetic standard were lying dormant
in the poetry of Ghalib. These writers did not want credit for originating Pro-
gressive ideology. Rather, they claimed to restore what had preceded them.
Such a Progressive view of Ghalib, of course, camouflages the aristocratic
social code that had prescribed the poet’s life. One has only to turn the pages
of Ghalib’s letters and other writings to see how distant he was from the rough-
and-tumble of any laborious task, save the aesthetic crafting of Urdu and Per-
sian. He coveted aristocratic titles and honors, basked in courtly patronage,
and derived pleasure from small personal luxuries.94 Hence in the nineteenth-
century accounts of Ghalib’s life, both biographical and autobiographical, we

find little trace of the ideals with which Urdu Progressive writers invested his
legacy.95 But Ghalib’s playful poetic subversion was what the Progressives were
overly prone to see. A few selected verses of this literary icon obscured all his
other deeds and words. By the very act of extracting these carefully chosen
relics from the literary edifice erected by Ghalib, the Progressives essentially
turned Ghalib himself into a trope of reform, resistance, and subversion. And
as far as tropes are concerned, we must remember that there are always ele-
ments amiss from their constitution. Nevertheless, there is something about
Ghalib—perhaps a core of religious ecumenism, or a clarion call for rebellion
against things past, or simply the established and cherished status he has
within the Perso-Urdu literary canon—that drew the Progressives to him.
According to Jafri, the nectar of any Progressive ideology is in such cou-
plets of Ghalib:
By following the masses, one is bound to go astray
I shall not travel on the road that has seen the dust of any caravan.96
Do not quarrel with me O father!
Just look at the son of Azar, [the Prophet] Abraham
A man of insight,
shall not be happy with the religion of his forefathers97
And the most revolutionary, thought provoking couplet of Ghalib is, according
to Jafri:
The jewels were collected from the studded spears of the Persian
kings,
In return, I was given a jewel-scattering pen.98
For the Progressive writers, Ghalib’s words spelled the doom of the era of
spears, swords, and banners, and commenced the pen’s reign: Ghalib acknowl-
edged what Zahir would say, “the greatness and grandeur of man,” is based
not upon the human strength to kill in the battlefield but upon the human
ability to fight through the pen as sword. Jafri is keen to point out that these
are aspects of Ghalib’s poetry that are reflected in the works of the Progressive
writers. And with the might of the pen, as proclaimed by Ghalib, in mind, Jafri
wrote “Karbala,” the rallying hymn of his age.
Karbala
(A Battle Cry)
Again the cry, “I Thirst!” is heard
Like a fountain of thundering war hymns.
Again the caravans of people of the heart,
Are moving across the desert sand.
The river Euphrates flows with fire
The Ravi and the Ganges,99 stream with blood.
Whoever the Yazid of an epoch,
Or Shimr,100 or Hurmula,101
Whether he is aware or not,
The day of reckoning is near,
Near is the day of recompense.
O Karbala! O Karbala!
This land is not mute,
Neither is the sky,
Nor are these discourses mute.
If prudence is mute
Then wounds themselves will gain a voice
That blood, the dust’s nourishment,
Is radiant and enduring,
In the face of the brazenness of centuries,
Man is alive still,
Alive is the wonder of lamentation.
In every crushed atom,
The sound of the heartbeat is heard:
The lords of the thrones of arrogance,
The gods of the lands of oppression,
These idols of tin and iron,
These masters of silver and gold,
Clad in cloaks of gunpowder,
Their voices like the roar of rockets,
Oblivious to the storms of sorrow,
Inept and talentless—
They appear armed to their teeth
But fire blazes under their feet.
The weeping sands of Medina
The weeping sands of Karbala
The winds of the east are raging
Ablaze are the plains of Palestine,
These academies, these universities,
The taverns of learning and craft,
From where have come into them:
These nests of vultures,
These reflections of ignorance,
Twisting and turning endlessly.
Unsure academics,
Custodians of others’ institutions,
Eunuchs of words—
Beyond their power,
Is the blood of life’s spring,
Beyond their power,
Is the blood of eternal life.
The rose’s hue is annoyed with them,

The morning breeze, disappointed with them.
But these very abodes of wisdom,
The fire temples of love,
The splendid abodes of beauty,
In whose embrace are nurtured
The mountain hewers102 of the present,
The young saplings of the garden,
Singing like nightingales, soaring like falcons
Arise, O sons of Sorrow!
Arise, O aspirants!
Through the alleys of their tresses,
Glides the heart’s life-bestowing breeze,
The fragrance of the rose,
The fragrance of fidelity
Is young on the sprouts of lips.
Their eyes twinkle with stars,
Their foreheads glow with sunshine,
Their hearts are filled with the beauty of the night of sorrow,
Their faces beam with the majesty of humility
The footsteps of history
Resonate beneath their feet.
Swords raise hands in supplication—
Before these thirsty ones
They will arrive and they will be brought—
Those unable to see even through Jamshid’s goblet,103
All those merciless masters,
And their true selves revealed.
Their swords and banners will bow
Before the ambassadors of the pen.
Effulgent is the Kaba’s spirit,
Luminous is the beloved’s soul!
In Sardar’s verses lives
The radiance of the martyr’s blood!
O Karbala! O Karbala!104
In spite of his unabashed endorsement of Marxism, Ali Sardar Jafri ac-

knowledged the relevance of Karbala to his progressive, class-conscious think-
ing. He nostalgically recalled the days of his youth when he himself wrote
marsiyas. In his early teens, he praised the Imam Husain with verses like these:
My God! The beauty of Fatima’s moon

The sun’s radiance, disgraced, seeks shelter in insignificance105
figure 6.1 Ali Sardar Jafri recites “Karbala” at Harvard University.
The source of poetic inspiration for such verses was none other than the mar-
siyas of Mir Anis. The figurative language of Anis, according to Jafri, continues
to resonate in his progressive poetry. Along with the powerful influence of
Anis, Muhammad Iqbal’s praise for Husain also remains etched on Jafri’s
aesthetic and reformist understanding. He believes that although Anis and
Iqbal play an important role in the construction of Husain’s image, at the heart
of the Progressive appropriation of Husain lies the need “to secularize” Husain
so that he does not become an exclusively Islamic commodity. When I asked
Jafri how he defined “secular,” a charged idea that is by and large a product of
the modern West, he replied that to him, “secular” suggested a way of thinking
and acting that did not privilege one religion over another, that viewed all
humans as equally deserving of respect and sustenance, regardless of their
religious affiliation. Husain has to be secularized so that his example can ad-
dress the social needs of this world and not just appeal to the enhancement of
the hereafter. Husain’s role in Progressive Urdu literature, Jafri points out, is
different from his role as the martyred Imam in the majlis or the qawwalis,
both of which are preoccupied with the afterlife. Husain, according to Jafri,
wanted to change this world—for Muslims as well as non-Muslims. If Husain
had desired heaven only, he would have prayed and fasted, remaining silent
about the injustices around him.
Jafri frequently prefaced the reading of “Karbala” by illuminating the im-
agery of this poem for his audience: “Two cries were heard on the day of ashura:
the cries of ‘I thirst,’ that were emerging from the tents of the Prophet’s house-
hold, and the roaring of rajaz, or the rallying calls of battle, that were ringing
from the war front.”106 For Ali Sardar Jafri, his invocation “O Karbala! O Kar-
bala!” conflates the two cries that rose on the banks of the Euphrates over a
millennium ago, thereby invoking the rajaz of asfir-e hfi āzfi ir, the battle cry of the
present age.
It was common for Arabs to improvise war songs to rouse the morale of
their own side and undermine that of their enemies. The meter of such im-
provisations, usually short and mnemonic, enthused Jafri to compose his rajaz
in the metrical scale of --u-/--u-, rajaz muzāl. By invoking Karbala, Jafri embarks
on his own battle. Singing the rallying song in such a battle are the rivers of
God’s natural creation—the Euphrates, the Ravi, and the Ganges. They all
stand in opposition to the Yazids, the Shimrs, and the Hurmulas of the modern
age. This new enemy is not constituted of flesh and blood, but of metal—not
only of steel and iron but also of gold and silver. It is cloaked in gunpowder
and it speaks through its rockets. It lacks human traits, it is oblivious to the
cries of its victims. The use of such imagery is a veiled attack not only on the
capitalist infrastructure, symbolized by the United States, but also on the ar-
senal of imperialism and the arms races that subjugate and exclude the weak.
According to Jafri, such authorities cannot surface on God’s earth without
uprisings also surfacing. After all, the earth is very much alive and strong,
sustained by martyrs’ blood. Just as the martyrs do not die, their blood is
assured eternity as well. The earth is also assisted by other forces of nature:
the winds blowing from the east, the Third World, and the burning plains of
Palestine. Of course, the issue of Palestine and the victimization of the East by
the West is high on the Progressive agenda. It would suffice to recall how
Makhdum implicates the “hands in Sinai” in Martin Luther King’s murder.
Jafri’s poem was itself written and recited in the 1980s, when the supporters
of Palestinians hoped for their victory.
The academics and the academies are the forces that must be countered,
according to this poem, because they constitute the support bases of this mon-
strous, metallic, capitalist enemy. Nested in these once-auspicious taverns of
learning are the vulture-like modern forces of vice. They are like those eunuchs
(kfi hwāja sarā) who are perpetually hanging in liminality, worthy only because
of their go-between status. Jafri uses eunuchs as a pejorative metaphor in two
inter-related senses: (1) as an impotent person who cannot act in any practical
capacity; and (2) as a person who is unable to act on the principles he espouses
in words. In South Asia, as in many other parts of the world, eunuchs are
projected as either worthless or as the object of patriarchal jokes. Jafri’s “Battle
Cry” is replete with patriarchal language—in reference to eunuchs, mountain
hewers, and legendary kings of Persia.
When speaking to me about this aspect of his poem, Jafri acknowledged
the impact of Edward Said’s much-acclaimed magnum opus, Orientalism—a
book published in 1978 that castigated many scholars and scholarly traditions
of Europe and North America for being complicit in colonial and imperial
projects.
He [Edward Said] could articulate beautifully in English what many

of us knew all along—many educational institutions of the West, far
from pursuing objective and altruistic agendas, were instead manu-
facturing information that could be used against the third world.
This agenda was colored by paranoia at one level and ignorance at
another.107
But within these institutions of learning, Jafri is quick to point out, a con-
frontational force also exists that can possibly challenge the castrated old guard
that symbolically represents Western academics. This force comprises the koh
kins, or the mountain hewers of the present age. After all, it was the “mountain
hewer” par excellence, Farhad, who hewed the mountain so as to make a river
flow through it. Thus the modern koh kin, the student in the academy, also
has this formidable task ahead of him. These students are strong and brave,
yet sing like the loving nightingales; they can cut down mountains, yet compete
with royal falcons in the quest for ever-new heights. These are the students
whom the poet awakens through this battle cry. Hope for the future is in their
passion—passion for love and passion for life. Their eyes twinkle so as to light
the world; yet they endure many a night disappointed by their beloved. The
treasure of their youth is not stolen by arrogance. The guidance they receive
is from the echoes of history. Their swords (having been transformed into
pens) rise against their enemy in the same determined, petitioning way that
hands rise in ritual prayers. Their cry rings out once again: “O Karbala! O
Karbala!”
These forces of youth bring the culprits to the court of the thirsty, the
martyrs of Karbala. It is here that the people of letters will mete out justice to
all those who had sight but no vision (āsūdgān-e Jām-e Jam), who shamelessly
pretended to be what they were not. At this point, the House of God will once
again rejoice and the beloved’s face will glow—for the student-lover will
emerge victorious from the tribulations of love. Thus, through Jafri’s verses,
the life-giving blood of the martyrs flows, and continues to provide inspiration
for the next generation of students. Hence, just as Ghalib hails the transfor-
mation of spears into pens, Jafri salutes the pen’s power to write precious words
of opposition to untruth and injustice. The new Karbala must now be fought
by such warriors of the pen—pens wielded by university students.
The Progressive Movement’s deployment of Karbala offers illuminating
insights into how a language of religion persists in “secular” vocabulary and
how such a deployment can rhetorically disrupt the monopoly of religious
institutions that have historically claimed such a language. Finding themselves
in the paradoxical position of having simultaneously to renounce the “monop-
olistic control of priests, pundits and other conservatives”108 and yet also em-
brace words tied to such controls, the Progressives did so with the proviso that
the ideals of religion must be understood apart from their reduction by the
mullahs. The Progressives took opportunities to displace the religious estab-
lishment by embracing their language—especially a language like Karbala,
which accords well with minoritarian struggles and legacies of transcommunal

commemorations—while criticizing their institutions.
When Jafri was asked to pay tribute to his late Progressive comrade Faiz
Ahmad Faiz in 1986, he fittingly chose “Karbala” as his tributory poem. Jafri
knew that Faiz was not only influenced by the struggle of the Prophet’s grand-
son, but also believed that the vocation of the poet should be to carry on such
struggles.109
When Faiz Ahmad Faiz visited war-stricken Beirut in 1982, he compared
the carnage he witnessed to that wrought at Karbala. In a poem entitled “A
Song for the Karbala of Beirut,” Faiz reminds his audience of the similarities
between the children dying in Lebanon and those martyred in Karbala. As far
as the martyrs are concerned, does not the Quran promise a better afterlife for
those who die for the sake of truth and justice? In fact, according to the Quran,
the martyrs are not dead: They are alive, continuously sustained by the Al-
mighty. So are the children of Beirut:
Those mirrors of children’s laughing eyes—shattered

now by the flames of those burning lamps
The nights of this city are lit,
and the land of Lebanon is resplendent110
When employing the images of Karbala in the discourses mourning the

destruction of Lebanon during the 1970s and the 1980s, many Urdu poets
invariably tie the tragedies of Lebanon to the dispossession of the Palestinian
people. To these poets, the aggressor in both situations is the same: the Israeli
government. Thus writes Habib Jalib, a popular Progressive poet of Pakistan:
The Palestinians are on a course of confrontation with Yazid

Raising the standard of Husain’s way in their hands111
When speaking about Palestine or Lebanon during the dictatorship of Gen-

eral Zia (1977–1988), Pakistani Progressive poets not only confronted an in-
ternational human rights crisis, but also faced tremendous obstacles in their
own homeland. The violation of Palestine’s integrity became inextricably linked
to the violations of Pakistan’s integrity. As Shahab Ahmed points out:
General Zia’s government sought legitimacy among the Pakistani

populace by presenting itself as Islamic dispensation. In the course
of buttressing this claim to legitimacy, the military government
made much of its support for what it termed “Islamic” causes such
as Afghanistan and Palestine. The Urdu poets of the day seized on
the contradiction between the Pakistan government’s profession of
support for the oppressed Palestinians on the one hand, and its vio-
lent suppression of the political aspirations of its own disenfran-
chised population on the other. The poet Habib Jalib, who, among
the most outspoken public critics of General Zia’s government, was
imprisoned and tortured by the military regime. In the opening

lines of a poem entitled “Reagan” Jalib denounced General Zia as a
client of the same world order that was responsible for the Palestin-
ian condition by condemning the United States’ support for Zia and
for Israel in the same breath. . . .112
On the other side of the Pakistani border, in India, Kaifi Azimi, when
versifying the plight of Palestine and Lebanon in the idioms of Karbala, Husain
and Yazid, also asks the rhetorical question, “Who seats [such] Yazids on the
thrones?” Thus those who condone the policies of the Israeli government and
support that government in its persecution of the Palestinian people are
charged with a crime far worse than that of Yazid. When Husain’s name is
invoked in the context of Lebanon and Palestine, whether by Faiz, Jalib, or
Kaifi, it is not just an alternative to Yazid’s name. It conjures up possibilities
of a different form of existence—an existence in which the ruler’s name does
not matter but his/her policies are all-important. To underscore this commit-
ment to Husain’s agenda and not just to his name, Faiz voices in verse what
he believes to be Husain’s last words:
We desire neither power, nor authority,

Nor do we desire grandeur.
We desire neither throne, nor crown,
Nor do we desire the standard of victory.
We desire neither gold, nor possessions
Nor do we desire monetary rewards.
Whatever is fleeting, we desire it little.
We covet neither leadership, nor kingship.
A word of certainty, and the wealth of faith—
This is all that we need.
If we desire anything, it is just truth
Opposed to falsehood, we worship truth
We side with justice, virtue, humanity
If we oppose the oppressor, t’is because we help the feeble
He who doesn’t curse oppression, is himself damned
He who doesn’t resist tyranny, is himself a rejecter of religion113
For Ahmad Faraz, who followed Faiz’s road to fame, the last words of
Husain are not only for history books or pathetic elegies:
This is not a mere scenario,

Neither is it a fragment of some tale,
Nor just an incident—
For it is from here,
That history embarks upon its new journey.
It is from here,
That humanity commences its flight
Towards new heights
Today, I stand in this very Karbala,

disgraced—dishonored,
broken, ashamed
Yesterday, it was from here,
that my august guide, Husain,
Departed, with pride—his head held high114
For Faraz, Karbala is where history begins. Husain’s blood would have
flowed in vain if a revolutionary spirit were not breathed into the symbol of
Karbala. This is the spirit that he finds missing in the followers of Husain,
especially the preachers:
The preacher’s religion is but the allegiance to the house of the sultan,
People like us will honor your blood.115
Again we see this distrust of the religious establishment that has been
expressed so frequently by other socioreligious reformers, especially Iqbal and
Josh Malihabadi. Faraz also looks askance at those religious leaders who are
silent about their country’s political affairs. Faraz’s message is clear: These
leaders must rise against the “tyrannical” powers of their own time. It is thus
their duty to explicitly withdraw their support from an unjust government, even
if this entails the loss of life.
Faraz invokes Husain as a model whose behavior, motives, and values set
the standard of conduct for all human beings. In addition to being revered as
the grandson of the Prophet of Islam, Husain should be seen as a gallant
defender of justice. The death of Husain, however, does not mark the end of
the struggle. As in the third section of Makhdum’s elegy that I quoted at the
onset of this chapter, there is a call to action after the death of Martin Luther
King or any martyr. In this case, at Karbala, it is Husain’s courageous sister
Zainab who responds to the call. Karbala would not be Karbala without Zainab.
Hence, we now consider the representation of Zainab in the writings of three
reform-minded poets: Iftikhar Arif, Parvin Shakir, and Vahid Akhtar.
Iftikhar Arif (b. 1943), who also spent time in Great Britain, is admired by
the likes of Faiz and Faraz. He has done much to enhance the cause of Urdu
in England, as an active member of the Third World Foundation’s Urdu Mar-
kaz in London, an organization that furthers the literary appreciation of the
language through such activities as the organization of mushairas. The im-
portance of the imagery of suffering in Arif ’s poetry, especially the suffering
of the Imam Husain, is attested by commentators on his work.116 Along with
Husain’s suffering, Arif sees Karbala as a testimony to Zainab’s courage:
Bear Witness, O Karbala
Bear witness, O Karbala
Fatima’s daughter
Transformed her father’s courage
Through patience.
Repaid her brother’s friendship
In what a manner!
Bear witness, O Karbala.
From the gate of the city of wisdom
Till the tents of victory
Till the assembly of martyrdom
How many names were heard!
How many wondrous stations were traversed!
Those who thought the companionship of truth
To be a duty
Were disposed on the path of the truth.
And Zainab was with them at every step117
For Arif, Karbala must be constructed with the inclusion of Zainab. Zainab
is the one who has the transformative role in Karbala—the bravery and
strength so closely associated with her father are given a new meaning through
her patient struggle wherein physical battles are replaced by the battle of words.
She leads Islam on a new path by accomplishing a nonviolent victory in the
palaces of Kufa and Damascus. Tear-filled eyes testify to the resilience of the
traditions of commemoration that Zainab started. Zainab’s struggle begins
where Husain’s ends—during the dark night after the massacre at Karbala,
popularly known as sham-e ghariban. Thus sham-e ghariban, within this dis-
course, although a sorrowful moment in the life of the Prophet’s household,
must be seen as the revivification of Husain’s cause. Even though Husain was
killed during the day, his cause passed from his hands to those of his sister.
The day belonged to Husain; the night to Zainab. In Makhdum’s poem, in
addition to the sorrow expressed at the death of Husain, there is an allusion
to the greater struggle that began at sham-e ghariban.
For Parvin Shakir (d. 1994), one of the most famous female Urdu poets
of twentieth century, Zainab’s fight for the cause of justice can also be seen as
a paradigm for the countless women who combat oppression in numerous
forms. She speaks of Zainab’s plight through the deliberate absence of
Zainab’s name:
Help Me!
From the tent of innocence
As soon as I proceeded towards the city of justice
From their ambush
My killers also emerged
With ready-to-shoot bows, with targeted arrows, with loaded pistols
While giving the arrow shooters on the scaffold command
To be ready
Having grasped the thirsty spears on the highways
The mischievous ones, row by row—
In the city square, the city’s judge armed with a dagger
Streets dotted with daggers hidden in sleeves
Every resident of the city in mayhem
Listening to the sounds of my lonely litter

The spiders of ingenuity, weaving the webs around me
Someone desirous of my banner
Someone wanting my head
And someone wanting to steal my veil,
Is about to snatch [it]
The circle of the enemy is about to be fortified
The last battle with death is about to happen
In the Kufa of love
My helplessness
Covering the face with its hair
Folding its hands
Bowing its head
Uttering only one name on its lips
O Forgiving and Merciful One!
O Forgiving and Merciful One!118
The markets and palaces of Kufa were the first ones through which Zainab
passed after her brother’s martyrdom. Kufa was the capital of Ali and the city
from which Husain received invitations. Zainab had to make the painful pas-
sage through the city before she arrived in Damascus, Yazid’s capital. Tradi-
tional accounts present the most heart-wrenching images of Zainab’s suffering
in this city: Her veil, the attire of honor for women of that time, was mercilessly
snatched and she was forced to cover her face with her hair. Yet, in the face of
all this, she invokes the name of the Merciful at every step.
This poem, however, is written in the first person mode with no mention
of the name “Zainab.” It is as though the poet herself is retracing her steps in
history and reading her own struggle into that of Zainab. As Gopichand Narang
points out, through such words, Parvin Shakir “speaks” Zainab’s language,
thereby “erasing the distance of centuries.”119 Shakir views Zainab’s struggle
in the context of the struggles of women before her, and of those who followed
her. Thus, Zainab’s suffering is resurrected through the poet’s own suffering.
Shakir only hopes to remain steadfast, like those who were martyred at Karbala,
in such trying times:
May I remain steadfast in the thirst of many an hour

May the soul grant me the strength of Karbala in the desert of
affliction.120
Vahid Akhtar (d. 1996), who taught philosophy at the Aligarh Muslim
University,121 further elaborates Zainab’s contributions to the cause of justice.
In the preface to his elegy commemorating Zainab, Akhtar writes:
The tongue of Zainab accomplished a greater task than the swords

of Husain and Abbas. In the market of Kufah, in Ibn Ziyad’s court,
throughout the patience-testing journey till Syria, among the crowds
of Damascus, among the throngs of the world at the court of king-
ship, and in the face of Yazid’s insults—at all these instances if

there was a sword that was raised and then struck the heads of op-
pression and falsehood, it was either the sword of Zainab’s sermons
or the miracle of the the tongue of the Fourth Imam.122
Zainab, for Akhtar, is the combination of all the heroes of Islam and in-
extricably bound not only to the cause of Husain but to the overall cause of
the Prophet of Islam:
Fragrance is not separate from the rose
Nor is the rose separate from the rose garden
Sorrow is not separate from the soul
Nor is the soul separate from the body
Blood is not separate from the heart
Nor is the heart separate from the heartbeat
Neither poetry from the poet
Nor the poet from the art is separate
Truth is from the Quran,
The Quran from the Messenger of God
Karbala is from the martyrs
The martyrs from Zainab.
...................................................
Just as the name of Islam is with the name of Muhammad
The names of Zainab and Shabbir cannot be separated
She is the noblest of women, he is the leader of the caravan of truth
With him martyrdom begins and with her it ends
The life purpose of Zainab and Shabbir is one
The volumes are two, but the style of writing and the meaning of
what is written is one.123
The preponderance of the ghazal language manifests itself once again.
Zainab’s authority, in the eyes of Vahid Akhtar, is also enhanced because she
pens a “new history”124 by propagating Husain’s cause after her brother’s mar-
tyrdom. She becomes the guardian of the two most precious things the Prophet
left behind, his progeny and the Quran. In the poetry of Vahid Akhtar, as in
the poetry of Parvin Shakir and Iftikhar Arif, Zainab becomes the signifier of
an everlasting Karbala. She is, so to speak, bound to the aesthetic of preser-
vation. The narrative landscape of Karbala needs a repository in which the
remnants of the battle fought on the Euphrates are preserved, and it is Zainab’s
model that nurtures the future Husains. Through her sword-like sermons, she
rallies people to Husain’s cause in order to fill the void left by the murder of
the Prophet’s grandson. By commencing the tradition of commemoration, she
preserves the invaluable message of Islam for perpetuity.
The figuration of Zainab in this narrative landscape also evinces the need
for a feminine dimension in this story. Again, in this dimension of reformist
literature, as in Rashid Turabi’s majlis, it is axiomatic that women can com-
plement the struggle of men by waging their own war. While this struggle is
not with a sword, it is just as forceful with the tongue, with patience. In order
for Karbala to be the model for an ideal life, it needs to articulate both mas-
culine and feminine ideals. Thus, Karbala is constructed with the feminine as
an integral component. After all, reforming the worlds of women had been an
age-old concern for the reformists—for if nothing else, these worlds were cra-
dles for future men. In Zainab’s war, too, we see the accommodation of her
reformist agenda within her overall role as the caretaker of the Prophet’s family.
She is employed discursively as a model of Islamic femininity, while retaining
her signification as a challenge to the most formidable of unjust male author-
ities.
When Ismat Chughtai pursues the efficacy of Karbala as a universal par-
adigm in her novel-rendition Ek qat3rah-e kfi hūn, A Drop of Blood, she maintains
Zainab’s depiction from popular majlis discourses. Although Zainab’s voice
in Chughtai’s work counters the Kufans, and Zainab’s words create sheer awe
in the audiences who listen to her, the generally iconoclastic Chughtai has
remained surprisingly meek in this novel as far as the use of interpretive li-
cense is concerned. Dedicated to the great marsiya writer Mir Anis, this novel
is a prose recasting of Anis’ elegiac poetry. Remaining scrupulously faithful to
Anis’ versions of Karbala, Ismat Chughtai glorifies the humane, family-
oriented dimensions of the heroes of Karbala, especially those of Husain. Yet,
the determination of Husain and his companions to fight injustice is never
overridden by such glorifications. The stated aspiration of the author is that
such battles must be waged at all times and in all places. Chughtai reminds
her readers about the utility as well as universality of Husain’s struggle in the
foreword of the novel itself:
This is the story of those seventy-two human beings who confronted

imperialism for the sake of human rights. This fourteen-hundred-
year old story is today’s story, for even today a human being’s
greatest enemy is another human. Even today, the standard-bearer of
humanity is human. Even today, in any corner of the world, when a
Yazid raises his head, then a Husain moves forward to crush him.
Even today, light is on guard to combat darkness.125
Insofar as the symbol of Karbala constitutes an attack on the religious

establishment, the Progressive writers use this pivotal symbol from the dis-
course of the religious establishment to attack this very realm. Of course this
is not a new phenomenon. Agents of resistance have long appropriated con-
cepts advanced by their oppressors and given them new meanings in order to
fight the dominating forces with the weapons provided by these very forces.126
As we have already discussed, the essence of much Sufi writing involves going
beyond the obvious, the manifest, the apparent, and challenging the hege-
monic structures. At times, doing this entails parodying the obvious to disin-
vest it of its monopolizing status. In Progressive Urdu prose, Sadat Hasan
Manto (1912–1955), Ismat Chughtai’s close friend, performs this function sin-
gularly well.
The tumultuous events of 1947 (when the subcontinent was partitioned to

create the nation-states of India and Pakistan) provided Manto the raw material
for his short story “Yazid.”127 The story centers on Karim Dad, a young man
whose father was brutally murdered during the partition violence. Although
the entire village reviles the murderers of his father, Karim Dad remains silent.
When pressed to comment, he only says: “Whatever has befallen us, it is due
to our own mistakes.”128 While the village is still mourning his father, Karim
Dad marries a woman whose brother was also killed in partition-related vio-
lence. While Karim Dad despises tears, his wife mourns perpetually for her
dead brother. “My love, let go of this [sorrow],” Karim Dad tells his wife, “Who
knows how many more deaths we will have to see in our lifetimes. At least
save some tears in your eyes.”129 The wife ponders how a stonehearted man
like Karim Dad could exist. In due time she becomes pregnant and Karim Dad
is ecstatic at this news.
Meanwhile rumors are rampant that the people of India are blocking the
rivers that supply water to this Pakistani village. When Karim Dad’s wife asks
him about the consequences of this action, he casually replies: “Our crops will
be destroyed.”130 The joy of a potential new family member seems to mask all
other concerns for Karim Dad. His wife, however, is afraid that these ominous
developments will foment another Karbala. Of course, implicit in this allusion
to Karbala is the identification of the Indian side that is blocking water to
Pakistan with the side of Yazid. Thus, Karim Dad’s village, whose water was
being blocked, is identified with Husain’s side.
The life of the village is characterized by hatred and name-calling. Some
villagers are so transfixed by this rhetoric that they even curse the first Indian
Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. On one occasion, Karim Dad is no longer
able to bear the venom heaped on India and he warns one of the abusers,
“Don’t curse anybody.”131 When pressed to explain his stance against casting
aspersions, Karim Dad tells the villagers that abuse should only be showered
upon the enemy when there is no other constructive alternative because this
incessant abuse is self-defeating. When India is signified as “dushman” or en-
emy, says Karim Dad, then all sorts of injustices should be expected from the
enemy because the enemy has to live up to its signification. He tells another
villager: “Why do you remember that only it [India] is our enemy? Aren’t we
its enemy too? If it were up to us, we too would block [India’s] food and water
supply.”132 He thus calls into question the very efficacy of such a rhetoric of
animosity.
After explaining his position on this issue, Karim Dad returns home,
where he is given the wonderful news of his son’s birth. When asked to name
his son, Karim Dad thinks for a moment and says “Yazid!” Her anxiety un-
derstandably compounded, the wife raises a squeamish scream: “What are you
saying? Yazid!” “So what? It’s just a name,” ripostes Karim Dad. The wife can
only say “But whose name?” Karim Dad replies thoughtfully “It’s not necessary
that this will be the same Yazid. That [Yazid] cut off the river’s water. This
[Yazid] will restart it!”133
By ending his story with an undermining of the most significant of the

signifiers of oppression, Manto not only imbues Yazid with the most protean
of qualities (at a socio-satirical level, Manto reminds us that Yazid is among all
of us) but also rebuts any attempt to reify the signified by essentializing the
signifier. The author implies, in effect, that any relationship between the sig-
nifier and the signified should not necessarily be irrevocable, nor should it be
held hostage to self-interest. Manto rescripts Yazid from a dreadful tyrant into
a mother’s newborn and invites his audience to identify with the Other not as
an incendiary object but as familial. By according the Other, the enemy, the
outsider, the rank of one’s own product, by enriching the slender narrative of
Yazid that we have encountered time and again, Manto’s story effects a for-
midable discourse of the philosophy of ethics and presages the published writ-
ings of Emmanuel Levinas (1905–1995) that have similar moralistic overtones.
This story also highlights the way the act of naming children has become a
disproportionately male prerogative. Although it is the woman who gives birth,
her role frequently recedes when the time comes to name the child, as in the
case of Karim Dad and his wife.
Arguing for the importance of the discipline of humanities in the United
States, Gayatri Spivak, a leading cultural critic of our own time, invokes the
sentiments of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “I have to imagine the humanity of
those who are designated my enemies.”134 Spivak says “And this ability to imag-
ine is trained by the teaching in the humanities. Once we trivialize the teaching
of the humanities, there is a huge cultural loss.” While Manto imagines the
humanity of the enemy, of Yazid, better than anyone else in the Urdu literature
of the twentieth-century, we must not forget that the wholesale rejection of the
“enemy” is something that has itself been rejected in the historical realm of
Perso-Indian poetic landscapes.
Manto’s rescription of Yazid resonates with the initial verse of the much-
celebrated, augury-generating Persian poet, Khwaja Shamsuddin Hafiz (1326–
1389 c.e.): “O Cupbearer! Pour more wine, and send one more round of
drinks.” Not only is this the first verse of Hafiz’s poetry collection, but it is also
a verse attributed to Yazid ibn Muawiya. Why would Hafiz begin his own work
of poetry with a line from the composition of the notorious Yazid? Hafiz’s
answer was: “Which of you seeing a dog running away with a diamond would
not stop him, and take the jewel from his unclean mouth?”135 Hafiz felt that
the verse was beautiful and perhaps he wanted to underscore the point that it
does not matter how dreadful or ugly the carrier of beauty is. What is required
of the aesthete, like the mystic, is to go beyond the ad hominem charges or hero
worship and benefit from the beauty of the message.
This stance against blind hero worship, or enemy cursing (past and pres-
ent) corresponds to the sentiments of Azim Amrohavi’s “New Karbala.” This
poem was written in the aftermath of the 2002 pogroms against the Muslim
minority population in the West Indian state of Gujarat. After a train com-
partment carrying Hindu pilgrims from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to
Gujarat was cruelly set ablaze, the Muslim population of Gujarat was rocked
by terrible violence. Provoked by the state’s negligence, if not by its outright

encouragement, these pogroms against Muslims were a serious setback to
post-1947 India’s cherished claims of secularism. The tragic cadence of this
event is charted by Amrohavi in the following:
New is the thirst, the Karbala and Yazids

New are the Shimrs, Hurmulas, Khulis
New houses in flames, living up to the age-old rituals,
Blood on earth, air filled with smoke of burning corpses
New spears, new arrows, new daggers,
New, very new, are all the shimmering swords
Today, all things are new in the world—
for the sake of oppression and tyranny,
for the sake of subjugation and repression,
for the sake of wrath and anger,
for the sake of hypocrisy and guile,
but . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
New Husain, the world is unable to create
Earth calls out to a new Husain,
Humanity summons a new Husain,
Countries fetch for a new Husain,
In vain, you await a new Husain.
No new Husain will come to this world,
And hence: Our times demand of us,
We must not fear the Yazid of our time,
We shall overwhelm oppression and tyranny,
the only way we can:
by embracing the determination of Husain136
In these verses, the poet eschews expectations from a single figure, whether
religious or political. He does not invest all his hope in a particular person,
rather the poet embraces the determination to combat tyranny. This determi-
nation is on the same continuum as the signification that Karim Dad bestows
upon his son, or that Hafiz bestows upon the verse of Yazid. Names come to
naught, deeds count for much.
Conclusion
The presence of the Karbala text invokes two important themes pertinent to
socioreligious reform and the Progressive discourses. First, by participating in
the discursive practices of various resistive agendas, it provides an emotionally
charged metaphor through which ideal reformist conduct is shaped and de-
fined. Second, the very memory of Karbala becomes a subversive force. The
continuous use of the image of Karbala keeps up an unyielding resistance to
the status quo. Karbala becomes an important model that demonstrates how
those in a minority can redress the asymmetry of power. Whether the ideolog-
ical spine of the larger resistive projects is provided by Marxism (Josh, Jafri) or
re-fashioned mysticism (Manto), by nationalism (Premchand), or by solidarity
forged with the Palestinians (Jalib, Jafri), these projects are subsumed discur-
sively in the Karbala symbol.
The symbol of Karbala is universalized to provide a paradigm for all the
oppressed peoples of the world. For the reformist-Progressives, who use the
symbol of Karbala, the unity of King and Husain, of Marx and Husain, of
Gandhi and Husain, of the children of Beirut and Husain, of the ideal student
and Husain, of Manto’s “Yazid” and Husain, is sustained at a metaphoric level
so as to infuse Husain’s struggle with meanings relevant for their contempo-
rary age.
While the Progressives explored points of contacts among local, national,
and international issues of justice through the symbolic deployment of Karbala,
ironically, many of these same Progressive writers were also complicit in re-
gional snobbery and particular types of censorship, especially of literature with
explicit sexual themes. Unfortunately, the intolerant attitude that certain Pro-
gressive writers had toward other Progressives and reformists sundered their
political vision of the ultimate victory of the downtrodden from its triumphant
fulfillment. So in spite of the populist spirit enshrined in the ideals of the
Progressive Writers’ Movement, a mass movement for social justice never
reached its fruition under the Progressive auspices. But these shortcomings
should not detract us from marking the legacy of this movement as one which
made a concrete effort to rescue the language of religion from the hands of
religious exclusivists.137
The reformists and the Progressives we have discussed in this chapter blur
and transfigure the exclusivist religious dimension of Karbala, in what
amounts to a reclaiming of the religious language. These writers and poets,
like many Sufis, posit a challenge to the signifying process that operates within
religious institutions. But although there has been a deliberate repudiation of
religious institutions in both the mystical and the reformist contexts, the lan-
guage of religion remains evident in the literatures of these contexts. Karbala
carries implications for reform that do not have to be channeled through the
existing religious institutions. The continually reworked figuration of Karbala
in the reformist context is akin to its figuration in the mystical as well as the
commemorative contexts: It shows the wide latitude of narrative and poetic
license that has been at the disposal of generations of authors in all three of
these often intermingling contexts. Notwithstanding these similarities, Kar-
bala, at least in the reformist literature that we have surveyed, is neither turned
into sectarian polemic nor into an abstract mystical experience.
At times the progressive Urdu writers, like their mystical counterparts,
contended with the hostility not only of the religious establishment but also of
their respective governments. Makhdum, Manto, Chughtai, Faiz, Jafri, Jalib,
and Faraz were censured and maligned. Prison sentences and death threats
were all seen as part of redemptive suffering in the cause of justice.138 As Faiz
Ahmad Faiz put it so eloquently:
jo ham pe guzrı̄ so guzrı̄ magar shab-e hijrāñ

hamāre ashk terı̄ āqibat sañvār chale139
Whatever happened to us has happened—but, O night of separation!
Our tears have flowed on to adorn you hereafter
Thus the Karbala aesthetic, an aesthetic of righteous suffering, becomes deeply
intertwined with socioreligious reform rhetoric and (in Manto’s case) with the
ethics of dealing with the Other. A richer symbol can scarcely be imagined.
Urdu socioreligious reform literature becomes an intertextual intersection
between the seventh-century event of Karbala and contemporary society. It
provides an episteme and a source of propelling moral convictions for vari-
ous reform agendas. The present struggles acquire meanings through the
rhetorically-deployed past. This past, at times, becomes a part of the vision of
the future. The vision of the historic Karbala is transposed onto the present
world of the reformer-writer, while the present world provides these writers
with the idiom to speak of and for the past. The result is a circularity (with
ever-changing concentricity) in that Karbala assumes meaning against the
background of current events, and simultaneously invests the contemporary
crises with a vision of importunate reform. The signifier-symbol can initiate
the rebirth of modern society, just as the signified-event had symbolically res-
cued Islam in the reign of Yazid.
If we broaden identity politics to include devotional expressions of Hindus
and Sikhs, Karbala also looms imaginatively large in the discourse of struggle
for universal justice. Through the invocations of this charged symbol, the
reformer-poets/writers whom we discussed attempt to rhetorically reconstruct
the lives of their imagined forebears, to profit from their examples, and to
follow in their footsteps to create a better world. If invoking the struggles of
Husain and King means the road to the gallows, then so be it. The final line
of Makhdum’s elegy, with which we commenced this discussion of the symbol
of Karbala in Urdu reformist literature, itself calls for a new beginning:
kamı̄na shart3-e vafā tark-e sar buvad Hfi āfiz3
baro guzār-e tu in kār gar namı̄ āyad
The least condition of fidelity is to give up the head, Hafiz
If you are not capable of this, begone!
Conclusion
bujhā dı̄ sāre zamāne kı̄ tishnagı̄ jis ne

ajı̄b pyās hai jo Karbalā se miltı̄ hai
That which satiated the parchedness of a whole generation—
It is an extraordinary thirst that comes from Karbala
Mahdi Nazmi
żikr-e ġham-e H
fi usain se mahfi fil sajı̄ rahı̄
gul ho gayā chirāġh magar raushnı̄ rahı̄
Through the remembrance of Husain’s sorrow, the gather-
ing remained vibrant
The lamp was extinguished, but the light remained
Saeed Shahidi Saeed
The last time I saw Saeed Shahidi Saeed (1914–2000) was on Janu-
ary 1, 1999.1 It was a crisp, sunny day, vibrant with good wishes for
a new year. I had last seen Saeed in 1997, on the eve of ashura, in a
dimly-lit assembly hall in Hyderabad. That evening, in a pain-ridden
trembling voice, amidst the sobs of a thousand or more Shias, Saeed
had beautifully rendered the sentiments of Zainab, as she prepared
herself for the tragedy about to befall her family: “On the eve of
āshūr, Zainab said ‘O Night, favor me and pass slowly; O Night,
please pass slowly—ae rāt żara āhista guzar.’ ” Saeed’s simple yet
poignant language expressed the sentiments of a sister who did not
want the night to overtake her momentary comfort, for she knew
that in the wake of this darkness, her brother would be taken from
her. This nauha was not laced with rhetorical flourishes that call for
an employment of elaborate interpretive tools; its innocence spoke
to the devotees’ hearts. Saeed was famous for writing such verses,
verses remarkable for their sincere simplicity and crystal-like inten-
sity. Saeed was, for the last four decades of the twentieth century, one of Hy-
derabad’s most popular poets. A versatile poet, scion of the prominent Hyder-
abadi Shii family of Shahid Yar Jung, Saeed was also a brilliant mathematician
who had secured the highest mark in the 1929 statewide mathematics final
exam. Not only did he decipher complex astronomical and mathematical equa-
tions and write poignant elegies, he also composed the most widely recited
modern ghazals in Hyderabad. On the lips of popular qawwals and the inim-
itable ghazal singer Begum Akhtar, within the gatherings commemorating Hu-
sain’s last moments or in those celebrating the Prophet’s birthday, Saeed’s
oeuvre lent memorably to a broad range of performances.
Whenever Saeed’s elegies were recited in our family commemorations,
people showered praise upon him and speculated as to the possible basis of
his uniquely affective poetry. Perhaps the personal tragedy of his young son’s
death in 1961 had impacted his allusions to Karbala. The verses he composed
prior to 1961 reflected shokfi hı̄ (playfulness), whereas his verses after that year
overflowed with soz o gudāz (smoldering pain and sorrow). In reading Saeed’s
nauhas, then, the audience recalls not only the tragedy of Karbala, but also the
tragedy in the life of their contemporary poet, who so lovingly painted the
images of Karbala.
Given that Saeed was such a towering figure in Hyderabad’s culture, I
wished to elicit from him, for the purpose of the present study, his thoughts
on the processes and inspirations that molded his Karbala poetry. What spe-
cifically spurred his writings? What did he see as the difference between writing
nauhas and ghazals? To what extent was he expected to honor the historical
and aesthetic impulses of his predecessors? In short, without invoking the term
“intertextuality,” I hoped to discuss this concept with him.
As our discussion began over tea on that New Year’s day, Saeed told a
personal anecdote that encapsulated many of the issues in which I was inter-
ested. Rather than delving into his personal relationship with Karbala, he took
me back in time to an occasion in the 1960s, the precise date of which he had
t fi ı̄ mushāira—a poetry gathering in which the 3arah
forgotten. At a certain 3arah t fi
(a pattern/model verse with a particular meter-rhyme structure or zamı̄n)2 is
given—the participants were asked to compose an impromptu ghazal based
on a tarah devised by the master poet of Urdu, Mirza Ghalib: ghiste ghiste pāōn
meñ zañjı̄r ādhı̄ rah gaı̄. Saeed was naturally familiar with Ghalib’s famous
couplet in this pattern:
ghiste ghiste pāōn meñ zañjı̄r ādhı̄ rah gaı̄
mar gae par qabr meñ tamı̄r ādhı̄ rah gaı̄3
Chafing and abrading, the chains that shackled my feet were half
worn away
I died, but [my] construction in [my] grave remained just half
completed
Interestingly enough, this pattern couplet was itself inspired by Ghalib’s pa-
tron, the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, a legendary Urdu poet
himself, who wrote:
conclusion 205
khiñch ke qātil jab terı̄ shamshı̄r ādhı̄ rah gaı̄

ġham se jān-e āshiq-e dilgı̄r ādhı̄ rah gaı̄4
O Slayer, when you drew your sword only halfway out of its
scabbard
Because of grief, only half a life remained for this heart-stricken
lover
Zafar’s couplet is a typical ghazal couplet, describing the oppressive beloved
who does not pull out the sword at once and kill his lover, but teases half the
life out of his victim by drawing the sword only halfway out of its sheath. Ghalib
retains the suffering, restless lover as his theme and using the long-established
image of the tormented, Qais-like lover in chains,5 he accounts for the abrasion
of the lover’s chains or fetters. The lover has been dragged by the throes of
love to such an extent that when he dies, his chains are half eroded. However,
the half of the chain still remaining signals his incompleteness as a lover. He
did not endure all the suffering that was needed for the entire chain to be worn
away. So when this half-constructed lover is buried, he complains that life did
not give him the opportunity to prove himself a consummate lover. The cruel
beloved did not even allow the lover (by granting him a longer time to suffer)
to wear his chains away completely so he could pass for a complete lover. Even
though the lover suffered till he died, his existential potential was only half-
constructed at his death.
When this pattern-verse by Ghalib was performed at the 1960s poetry
reading, various poets improvised couplets patterned after Ghalib’s. The cou-
plet that framed the above pattern in the image of Karbala, and met with the
vocal approval of the audience, was the following one by Saeed:
Karbalā thı̄ muntaz3ir takmı̄l kı̄ is vāst3e
kfi hwāb-e Ibrāhı̄m kı̄ tabı̄r ādhı̄ rah gaı̄6
The plains of Karbala awaited fulfillment
Because Abraham’s dream remained but half-realized
Islamic lore holds that the Prophet Abraham, having dreamt of God’s com-
mand to sacrifice his son Ismail, was willing to undertake this sacrifice. How-
ever, God spared Abraham the agony and replaced Ismail with a ram. While
Abraham displayed courageous willingness to sacrifice his son, the Imam Hu-
sain concretized Abraham’s willingness. The tenth of the last Islamic month,
Żul hfi ijja, is the date when Abraham’s determination to obey God is celebrated;
and the tenth of the first month of the Islamic calendar, Muharram, commem-
orates the perfection of the tradition of sacrifice—perfection enacted by none
other than a direct descendant of Abraham. Drawing on the traditions of Is-
lamic history and a meter-rhyme pattern set over a century ago, Saeed’s verse
encapsulates the religious logic of the battle of Karbala. The tradition of mar-
tyrdom that God commanded Abraham to initiate needed to be taken to its
climax. Husain, frequently referred to as Wariṡ-e Ibrāhı̄m, or the Heir of Abra-
ham, had to manifest, through his sacrifices, the extent to which God’s humble
servants can go to please the Almighty. Of course, Saeed follows the pattern
of reflecting upon Husain’s virtues as superior to the best of the prophets and
saints.
Hence, with his improvised couplet, Saeed gives a new dimension to the
pattern of love poetry set by Bahahdur Shah Zafar and Ghalib. Neither Ghalib
nor Zafar made explicit allusions to Karbala in their ghazals, but Saeed,
through his sentiments, adds a different ethos to the literature of the past. By
recalling the 1960s poetry assembly, Saeed wanted me to see that the writing
of both poetry and history is context-bound and one has to resort to imagina-
tion when speaking of these discourses:
shāirı̄ aur tārı̄kfi h zamāñ aur makāñ ki qaid se āzād nahı̄ñ ho saktı̄,
magar takfi hayyul kı̄ parvāz gumān ki hfi addoñ ko pār kar saktı̄ hai
Poetry and history cannot be free from the prison of time and space
but the flight of imagination can traverse the limits of thought.7
The ability to write good poetry or good history, the poet told me, depends on
the educational training (tālı̄m), sincerity (ikhlāsfi), insight (basfiı̄rat), and devo-
tion/faith (aqı̄dah) of the poet or historian. The rest of our conversation was
grounded in the discussion of the poetry of Mir, Ghalib, Anis, Dabir, and Iqbal.
I wanted to ask Saeed about the son he had lost, how that loss affected his
poetry, how he read Karbala through his own personal sorrow. But considering
the cheerful enthusiasm he showed in discussing poetry, history, and religion,
and taking into account that it was New Year’s day, I could not bring myself to
raise the subject. Perhaps Muharram would have been a better occasion for
such a question. Thus, my curiosity regarding the links between Saeed’s self-
reflexivity and his Karbala-related writings remains unsatisfied. Although I was
not privy to his personal mental landscape of suffering a child’s loss, which I
speculate may be conjured up more by his devotees than by him, I was grateful
to him for generously sharing his time and knowledge, providing me with
insights into the literary, historical, and religious landscape of Karbala. Our
conversations, more than anything else, reinforced the notion that religious
concepts accrue meanings through their temporal and spatial “prisons.”
In this study, Karbala emerges as a polyphonic symbol that acquires mean-
ing through the social and political apparatuses that engage it. Produced by a
collective of factors, it is serviceable for a wide variety of purposes. These factors
and purposes are themselves engaged in negotiations, in unison at times, and
alone at others. The texts pertaining to Karbala and the contexts of its symbolic
invocations are, among other things, amenable to overlapping interpretations
and constituted by the shifting ideals of “interpretive communities.” In the
context of the majlis, Karbala underscores the virtues of the Imam Husain, his
companions, and his family members. The devotion expressed to these lumi-
naries of Islam, whether through shedding tears or blood, endorses the heroes’
suffering. The very context of the majlis ritualistically bridges the sacred past
and the present, the martyrs and their devotees, ideals and realities. Parallels
between the circulation of this narrative and popular cultural trends, whether
generated by the ghazal universe or Bollywood images, bespeak the manner
conclusion 207
in which religious discourses in South Asia are encoded by themes and images
of other discourses. A discussion of the Anis-Dabir rivalry offers insights into
the creative accretions to Karbala narratives that emerged from the competitive
literary spirit of nineteenth-century Lucknow.
The efficacy of Karbala is also evident in the context of qawwali, a context
that has the potential to challenge the literalist readings of Islam and Karbala.
At times, this forum invokes Karbala in much the same way as a majlis, but
is more celebratory in its overall appeal: Karbala is brought to life through a
sparkling mix of wine and sword imagery, signifying the felicity that results
from partaking of divine love and exemplary martyrdom. Love and martyrdom
become desired actualities that the qawwali audiences cherish via knot-laden,
musical Sufism.
By building substantially upon Sufi discourses, Muhammad Iqbal, Mau-
lana Azad, and Muhammad Ali Jauhar poise Karbala as an event to draw Mus-
lims into a firm allegiance to a trans-Shii reformist model. These writers also
redefine age-old concepts in the light of their own sociopolitical needs: Iqbal,
for example, configures the notion of khudi as a hard-won desired self rather
than reading it in the Sufi parlance as the ego or conceit that displaces humility
and constitutes a barrier between God and His creation. The struggle over
religious language continues in the Progressive Movement. Although devotion
to the martyrs and their cause invariably permeates the Urdu socioreligious
reformist rhetoric and Progressive ideologies that we have discussed, Karbala
is, by and large, imagined in this context as a universalized symbol that beckons
all righteous minorities to confront oppressive majorities by emulating the
struggles of Husain and Zainab. Through Karbala, the reformist writers en-
visage a better world, born anew each time a similar battle is waged. While
speaking through the discourse of the universalization of Karbala, writers such
as Premchand take Karbala beyond the framework of Islam and exploit its
nationalist cachet. The symbol’s most significant use is when it becomes an
intertextual locus that accommodates multiple textual as well as contextual loci.
It is a story told through many other stories, a pattern set forth by other pat-
terns, and yet it continuously blurs social and generic contours, belying reifi-
cation.
I have also shown in this study how a single symbol variously serves the
functions of building a communal/sectarian identity and transcending that
identity, how it is at once tied to a particular self-serving religious language
and ecumenical, and how it is riddled with tension between the global and the
local. Religious, communal, national, regional, and linguistic identities make
incursions into each other through Karbala, broadening their respective do-
mains and proliferating their vocabularies. Thus a study of Karbala attenuates
the ease with which we can speak of Shii, Sunni, Sufi, Hindu, religious, secular,
or diasporic—all of them implicated within the discourses of each, and existing
in an unending bind of reciprocity.
Multiple struggles inhere within the constructed space of this symbol, as
Karbala grants endurance to a wide variety of causes: Husain versus Yazid;
Zainab versus Yazid; Ali versus Abu Bakr, Umar, Usman, and Muawiya; Fati-
ma versus Abu Bakr; Shia versus Sunni; base ego versus the higher self; Sufi
khudi versus Iqbal’s khudi; sobriety versus intoxication; affection versus duty;
death versus life; Martin Luther King Jr. versus American racism; Gandhi ver-
sus British colonialism; Yazid-like capitalism versus Husain-like Marxism;
faithful Hindu versus hypocritical Muslim; Sahas Rai and his brothers versus
Yazid’s army; Manto’s signified-Yazid versus Manto’s signifier-Yazid; and many
more. Although these striking binaries are obviously constitutive of the symbol,
the symbol’s nuanced overlapping intertextual and intercontextual alignments,
quite elusive at times, cannot be effaced. Also, the themes of commemoration,
devotion, sacrifice, celebration, reform, and emulation, while remaining over-
arching in particular contexts, can easily transcend these contexts and be ab-
stracted from the symbol’s general textual landscape.
Karbala also emerges as an unyielding site of alterity, a contestation of
various forms of hegemony: In the majlis context, Karbala constitutes an al-
terity by articulating a Shii reading of Islamic history; in the qawwali context,
Karbala bids for significance by undermining the outward, at times superficial,
expressions of Islam; in the socioreligious reformist context, Karbala persis-
tently and passionately calls for a re-evaluation of the status quo. Hence the
symbol of Karbala, through its alterity, symbolically confers agency upon and
opens up spaces for many a challenge to dominant discourses. The invariant
element of resistance that it brings to the fore is worth stressing.
Thus, born in Iraq, or some might say at that spot on which Ali’s right to
the leadership of the Muslim community was usurped, the story of Karbala is
embraced and nurtured, not to mention redesigned and mobilized, around the
world. Its geographical and religious displacements do not necessitate its di-
lution. It is the fulfillment of a vision, Abrahamic perhaps, as Saeed would say;
but it also inspires perennial envisioning. Its supreme hero is undoubtedly
Husain, but not to the exclusion of Fatima’s womb and Zainab’s sword that
safeguarded this martyred paragon and his calling; of Muhammad’s love and
Ali’s righteousness that Husain had inherited; of Zain al-Abedin’s forbearance,
Qasim’s grace, Abbas’s fidelity, Sakina’s innocence, Shahr Bano’s agony, and
Ali Asghar’s thirst that constantly satiates Husain’s devotees year after year; of
Hurr’s overnight transformation on the day of ashura in 680 c.e. that keeps
hope alive till the final hour. Its symbolic identity cannot persist apart from its
relationship with its other—much like Manto’s Yazid. Manto’s Yazid plays
adroitly with a venerable Sufi sentiment: God’s creation, with every breath, is
renewed afresh. This renewal takes place in the most far-reaching sense, meta-
morphosing the enemy into the friend, the provincial into the universal, and
vice versa.
But as I conclude my engagement with Karbala in this work, several ques-
tions remain. What can we extrapolate from our discussion of Karbala that
would contribute to our larger understanding of Islam? What is the utility of
a symbol that can serve multiple agendas and retreat into easy platitudes? How
wise is it to privilege a religiously informed reading of the world at the expense
of readings springing from issues of imperialism, colonialism, class, gender
or race? Does Karbala rob its devotees of the imagination to look at the world
conclusion 209
through different paradigms? How can we cast a different lens on area studies
through these readings of Karbala?
I pursue the last question first: by bringing together ethnographic views
of lived contexts and highlighting the traffic that moves back and forth between
traditions and regions, this work makes revealing inroads into area studies and
religious studies, focusing specifically on how the language of religion is ne-
gotiated across contexts and continents. It offers frameworks and analyses that
lie beyond the Middle East but still engage in a dialogic relationship with those
from that region: Gandhi’s deployment of Karbala, Hezbollah’s deployment of
Gandhi, Iqbal’s serviceability for the Iranian reformers, the “dot.com” utility
for majlises in the United States, Rumi’s presence in qawwalis, or Rashid
Turabi’s majlises, all are ever more plainly at odds with the imperative to fix
cultural boundaries with impunity.
Speaking to whether this discussion of Karbala will contribute to a better
understanding of Islamicate cultures, I assert that Karbala, like Islam, is or-
ganic. Both the languages of Islam and the languages of Karbala are subject
to revisions and re-visionings as one mode of speaking displaces and obscures
the other. Zainab’s heroism can speak the language of Karbala, but so can
Gandhi’s satyagraha. Those who speak through the idioms of Karbala, however,
like many of those who invoke Islam for particular agendas, do not always
labor for common causes. Even though Karbala may appear in the discourses
of martyrdom, as Islam may appear within the discourses of jihad, these dis-
courses are not standard or uniform in any way. The recollections and re-
fashionings of Karbala, like those of Islam, are invariably affected by the slant
of their sources and contexts.
In the post-September 11 world of rigid and clashing dualities, Islam’s pre-
dictive value is held in its inability to live with other worldviews. This work calls
for a re-assessment of Islam, by looking at the matrices of wider discourses
that this religion occupies. Interpretations of Islam, like those of any other re-
ligion, are consequent upon various extra-religious factors. Many Muslims feel
that provisions for transforming the modes in which Islam exists are inherent
within their religion: One could participate in a solemn commemorative gath-
ering for the martyrs of Karbala while rebuking the religious authority who
presides over this gathering. One could shed tears over the narratives of Karbala
while appreciating the oblique presence of humor in these gatherings. If
nineteenth-century residents of Lucknow envisioned the heroes of Karbala as
variations of eleventh-century Persian epic heroes, then twentieth-century el-
egy reciters from Hyderabad can selectively borrow from the tunes of India’s
film industry. Karbala-related narratives that did not exist in the eighth century
can become an integral part of this story for some a few centuries later.
But we must also exercise caution, so as to not make the evocations of
Karbala a product of free-ranging speculations or random and fickle aesthetic
deployments. It is important to acknowledge that Karbala discourses, like all
other discourses, are formulated and enlivened according to factors operative
through the entangled mechanisms of power relations in a given spatiotem-
poral order, and these discourses cannot be purged of the asymmetrical distri-
bution of authority and legitimacy that is not solely a problem of Muslim peo-
ples. A forthright study of the practices of Islam, as of other religions, poses
numerous challenges to any reading of religion that does not take into account
collateral historical, political, economic, and conventional filters.
For a generation or more of scholars in the social sciences and in literary
studies, religion itself was not considered a legitimate and serious expression
of cultural understandings and imagination. For those who were drawn to the
grand theories of Marxism and Freudian psychology, religion could not provide
an analytical perspective on societal functions and thus could be discounted as
a discourse subservient to the workings of economics, language, and the sub-
conscious. But the political crises stemming from South America, the Middle
East, and South Asia have directed the attention of many of these people to
the ways in which religion plays a sociopolitical role. In order to fully compre-
hend this role, however, complexity must be restored to religion’s historical
narratives, its lyric perspectives, its dialogic instances, and its embarrassing
discords.
This said, I must also sound a cautionary note: We should beware of no-
tions that lock us into the creation of religious explications and apologies for
causes and issues that are more about concrete sociopolitical and economic
grievances—grievances that might seek refuge in the language of religion, but
are, essentially, acts of desperation. Religion should not be over-read and priv-
ileged or cast as a convenient alibi, because other explanatory frameworks seem
too complicated, risky, or painful to articulate. The struggle over the language
of religion that I bring to light in this study is, at one level, a metaphor for
struggles over resources, ideas, and identities. Unfortunately many projections
of Islam in the West only attribute religious significance to issues that stem
from economic and political crises. This religious significance has been exag-
gerated to such a degree that in many instances, one cannot find space left to
speak of the regions of the Middle East or South Asia, or even the day-to-day
lives of Muslim peoples, unless one submits to fetishize “their” religious pen-
chants in monologic discourses. Not only does this process of signification
strip people of their history, culture, and aesthetics, but it also clouds the amal-
gam of issues that compel people to speak and act in a particular way. Islam
and Karbala then are as much about politics as they are about religious devotion
or polemics insulated from the larger world.
Karbala’s positive interventions in a world of increasingly exclusivist and
colluding narratives are twofold: It instills a dynamic questioning spirit for
reading against the grain, and it offers a recourse to imagination. The inter-
ventions of a hallowed event turned into a symbol have been sustained by an
adoring and richly diverse posterity for over a millennium. Perhaps the lon-
gevity of this symbol is borne out by the poignant Quranic verse with which
we began this study: “Do not think of those who are slain in God’s way as
dead. Nay! They are alive and receive their sustenance from their Lord.” Life
and death, faith and devotion, sorrow and joy, hope and beauty—they defy
categorical confinements and transcend any singular mode of being. No clo-
sure can be imposed on them.
Glossary
Prominent Personages in Karbala Narratives
When consulting this list and the glossary that follows, readers should re-
member that each of these terms is open to a wide variety of nuances and
interpretations. This glossary is intended to provide basic information about
Karbala personages and non-English words used in this book.
Abbās “alamdār”: Husain’s half-brother, the “standard-bearer” in the battle

of Karbala. Husain’s daughter, Sakina, was especially fond of him. He
was martyred while bringing water to the thirsty children in Husain’s
camp.
Abū Bakr: First kfi halifa (caliph) after the Prophet Muhammad’s death. Sun-
nis regard him as the righteous, legitimate leader of the Muslim commu-
nity; Shias see him as a usurper who displaced Ali from his rightful posi-
tion.
Abū T 3 ālib: Ali’s father and the Prophet’s uncle. His religious identity is a
point of contestation between Shias and Sunnis: Many Sunnis believe
that he did not embrace Islam, though he provided protection and shel-
ter for the Prophet Muhammad when the latter’s life was threatened.
Shias believe that he embraced Islam but, for various reasons, practiced
dissimulation (taqiyya).
Alı̄: First Shii Imam; father of Husain, Hasan, Zainab, Kulsum, and Abbas;
the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law; Fatima’s husband; Shii identity is
strongly tied to him, for they consider him the rightful successor to the
Prophet and identify themselves as his “partisans.” Many narrators of the
Karbala event state or imply that the seeds of this tragedy were sown on
the day Ali was deprived of the caliphate. Also known as H fi aidar (the
Lion), Asadullāh (the Lion of God), Amı̄r al-Mominı̄n (Commander of
the Faithful), Qur’ān-e Nāt3iq (the Speaking Quran), and Yadullāh (the
Hand of God).
212 glossary
Alı̄ Akbar: Husain’s eighteen-year-old son who bore a striking resemblance to the
Prophet; he was martyred fighting for his father’s cause.
Alı̄ Asfi ġhar: Husain’s six-month-old son who was martyred in his father’s arms.
Aun and Muhfi ammad: Zainab’s young sons who were martyred with Husain in Kar-
bala.
Bāno (Shahr Bāno): Husain’s Persian wife and, according to some elegy-writers, Ali
Asghar’s mother.
Fāt3ima: The “radiant” daughter of the Prophet; Ali’s wife; mother of Hasan, Husain,
Zainab, and Kulsum. She is venerated by many Muslims—Sunnis and Shias. She
is believed to be present in mourning assemblies conducted for her family mem-
bers.
Fāt3ima Kubrā: Husain’s daughter; she was married to Hasan’s son moments before
the battle of Karbala began.
Hfi asan ibn-e Alı̄: Second Shii Imam; Husain’s older brother; he was forced to give up
his rightful leadership position by Muawiya. Shias believe that he was poisoned by
forces that collaborated with Muawiya. He predeceased Husain.
Hfi urmala: The archer from Yazid’s side who shot and killed Ali Asghar.
Hfi urr: A general from Yazid’s army who underwent a spiritual transformation hours
before the battle of Karbala and joined Husain’s side.
Hfi usain ibn-e Alı̄: Sayyid al-Shuhadā, the Leader of Martyrs; third Shii Imam; the su-
preme hero of Karbala and the Prophet Muhammad’s younger grandson; also
knows as Shabbir.
Muāwiya: Yazid’s father and the first Umayyad caliph; he waged a war against Ali; he
is vilified by Shias as a shrewd opportunist and an enemy of Islam.
Muhfi ammad: Muslims consider him the last Prophet of Allah who received divine
revelation in the form of the Quran; Husain’s grandfather.
Muslim ibn-e Aqı̄l: Imam Husain’s cousin and emissary who was murdered in Kufa.
Qāsim: Hasan’s son who married Husain’s daughter Fatima Kubra.
Sakı̄na: Husain’s young daughter.
Shimr: The soldier from Yazid’s side who actually beheaded Husain.
Umar: For Sunni Muslims, the second legitimate successor to the Prophet. For Shias,
the usurper who succeeded Abu Bakr.
Umar ibn-e Sad: Yazid’s general who was directly responsible for waging the battle
of Karbala.
Umm-e Kulṡūm (Kulsum): Sister of Zainab, Husain, and Hasan.
Umm-e Lailā (Laila): Husain’s wife; Ali Akbar’s mother.
Uṡmān (Osman): Third legitimate successor to the Prophet for Sunni Muslims. For
Shias, a usurper like Abu Bakr and Umar.
Yazı̄d: Chief antagonist in the Karbala story; as the ruling Umayyad caliph, he de-
manded Husain’s allegiance. When Husain refused, Yazid’s forces martyred him
and his followers.
Zainab: Husain’s sister who became the caretaker of the Prophet’s household after
her brother’s martyrdom.
Zain al-Ābedı̄n: Fourth Shii Imam; Husain’s son who did not fight in Karbala be-
cause of bad health.
glossary 213
Glossary
ahl al-bait/ahl-e bait: Members of the Prophet’s household; to Shias, this means Ali,
Fatima, and their descendants.
alam: Standards used on the battlefield. The replicas of these standards adorn many
Shii commemorative sites, especially during Muharram.
ālim: Religious authority who presumably has ilm (knowledge); pl. ulamā.
āshūra: The tenth day of the first Islamic month of Muharram, the day on which the
battle of Karbala took place.
āshūrkfi hāna: A commemorative site where celebratory and mourning assemblies for
the Prophet’s family are held. Also known as imambara.
azā dārı̄: Practice of mourning for the martyrs of Karbala and other members of the
Prophet’s family.
Damascus: The capital city of Yazid’s empire. Zainab gave memorable sermons in Ya-
zid’s court; she is also buried in this city.
fanā fi’llāh: A common Sufi concept that means annihilation in the Divine in order to
attain subsistence in God (baqā billāh).
fazfi āil: The virtues and merits of the Prophet’s family that constitute the first part of
the zikr.
ġhazal: The most popular genre of Urdu poetry; it has an AA BA CA rhyme scheme
and a prescribed meter; it also has a strong presence in other Islamicate lan-
guages. Although it is usually referred to as a “love lyric,” it can contain wide-
ranging themes, playful ambiguity, mystical insights, and humor. The tropes that
inhabit the ghazal universe also influence other genres of Urdu poetry.
girah bañdı̄: The technique of “knot-tying” in qawwalis that allows the qawwals to in-
terpolate verses from different sources into a single qawwali.
hfi adı̄ṡ: The traditions and sayings of the Prophet for the Sunnis. For the Shias, this
collection also includes the sayings of their Imams. In parts of South Asia, the
majlis’s sermon is also referred to as hadis.
hfi amd: Poetry in praise of God.
imām: For Shias, the term refers to the divinely appointed descendant of the Prophet
who received his legitimacy from the previous Imam’s designation. Many Shias
also use this term to refer to highly-respected religious authorities who provide
spiritual guidance for the community. For Sunnis, imams can be respected com-
munity leaders, prayer leaders, or religious authorities.
imāmbārfia: Same as ashurkhana.
kfi hūdı̄: In many Sufi discourses, this word connotes the “base ego” that creates a
schism between God and his creation, and hence needs to be eliminated. Iqbal,
however, resignified this term as the existential “self ” that needs to be developed
and perfected so as to contribute positively to the larger society.
kfi hut3ba: A respected person’s sermon, oration, or speech.
Kūfa: A city in Iraq, the residents of which had invited Husain to come from Medina
to provide leadership for them. Husain was on his way to Kufa when he was inter-
cepted and martyred. Many devotees of Husain believe that the people of Kufa did
not come to Husain’s support when his life was in danger. Several poets and writ-
ers discussed in this work use Kufa as a metaphor for hypocrisy and the people of
Kufa as a metaphor for hypocrites.
majlis (pl. majālis—pluralized in this work as majlises): In the Shii context, com-
214 glossary
memorative assemblies held in honor of the martyred members of the Prophet’s

family.
marṡiya: The elegy that usually has six-line stanzas with an AAAABB rhyme scheme.
masfi ā’ib: The second part of the Shii zikr that recalls the hardships endured by the
Prophet’s family.
masfi ūm: Infallible; for the Twelver Shias, this designation applies to the Prophet, Fat-
ima, Ali, and the eleven Imams who followed him.
mātam: Mourning that is usually accompanied by breast-beating.
miñbar: The pulpit from which the zakir speaks in a majlis.
mushāira: Poetry readings.
namāz: The five prescribed ritual prayers that are required for Muslims. Husain was
martyred while performing his late afternoon prayers.
nat: Poetry that honors the Prophet.
nauhfi a: A dirge, usually in the last phase of the majlis; usually recited with breast-
beating.
qawwālı̄: Sufi musical texts and assemblies in South Asia. They ideally contain a qawl,
or, saying, of the Prophet Muhammad.
Rawzfi at al-Shuhadā: The Garden of the Martyrs. Husain Waiz Kashifi’s late fifteenth-
century account of Karbala that has dominated the popular perceptions of this
event in parts of Iran and South Asia.
salām: Literally, “salutation.” A genre of majlis poetry that usually has the ghazal
rhyme scheme and imagery.
sfi alavāt (durūd): A call for blessings on the Prophet Muhammad and his progeny. This
benediction is usually recited in the beginning and end of the majlis, and as an
interjection at various points during these assemblies; the benediction is “Allā-
humma fisalli alā Muhfi ammadin wa āli Muhfi ammad—O God bless Muhammad and
the progeny of Muhammad.”
shabı̄h: In Hyderabad, these are visual depictions of the battle of Karbala, or of the
Prophet and his family members. In other parts of South Asia, it refers to the rep-
licas and pictures of the tombs of the Prophet’s family.
shahādat: Witnessing. The word that most commonly signifies martyrdom in the Is-
lamic cultural lexicon.
shahı̄d: Witness. The word for martyr.
shām-e ġharı̄bān: “Night of the dispossessed.” The evening of the day of ashura.
Commemorative assemblies during this time are usually held in darkness.
soz: Literally, “burning.” The traditional majlis usually begins with this genre.
sfi ūfı̄: The term usually refers to Muslim “mystics.”
tabarrā: The controversial incantation for “condemning” or “cursing” the enemies of
the Prophet’s family.
tabarruk: The consecrated food that is distributed in the name of the martyrs of Kar-
bala, or in the name one of the Prophet’s family members.
tasbı̄hfi : Prayer beads, many of which are made from the soil of Karbala.
tazı̄yeh: Replicas of the tombs of Husain and his companions that are usually made
from paper and tinsel, but at times also from wood, metal, and glass. The paper
replicas are buried on ashura while the more permanent ones are stored like many
alams till the following Muharram. This designation also refers to “passion plays”
in parts of the Middle East, especially in Iran.
żākir (female: żākira): The majlis sermon-giver who recalls the calamities that befell
the Prophet’s family.
glossary 215
żikr: In the Shii context, this designation refers to the remembrance of the Karbala
tragedy and other tragedies that befell the Prophet’s family. In the Sufi context,
this refers to the remembrance of God, usually through a recitation of His names.
Żulfiqār: The sword of Ali that Husain also wielded in Karbala.
Żuljināhfi : Husain’s horse. In many South Asian Muharram processions, a white
horse plays a central role in Muharram processions.
Notes
preface
1. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of
World Order (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 256.
introduction
1. K. L. Nārañg Sāqı̄, ed., Kulliyāt-e Sahfi ar: Kuñwar Mahendrā Siñgh Bedı̄
Sahfi ar (New Delhi: Kunwar Mahendra Singh Bedi Committee, 1992), 398.
2. Interestingly, the signifying relationship between shahādat and wit-
nessing is complemented by the signifying relationship between the Greek
word martyr (that is frequently used in the Christian religious lexicon) and
its meaning that also conveys the idea of witnessing. To what degree, if any,
the Christian idea of martyrdom had an impact upon the Islamic discourse
of martyrdom is open to debate. See Keith Lewinstein, “The Revaluation of
Martyrdom in Early Islam,” in Sacrificing the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom
and Religion, ed. Margaret Cormack (New York: Oxford University Press,
2002), 78–91. A very useful and concise study that deals with the relevance
of Islamic concepts like “holy war” and “martyrdom” to the cultural and ge-
opolitical issues of our time is John L. Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the
Name of Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
3. See Mahmoud Ayoub, The Crisis of Muslim History: Religion and Poli-
tics in Early Islam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 146.
4. The apt adjective, Islamicate, that Marshall Hodgson proposes is
very useful when speaking about the complex religious and cultural net-
works in which the religion of Islam resides. In his own words, this adjec-
tive “would refer not directly to the religion, Islam, itself, but to the social
and cultural complex historically associated with Islam and the Muslims,
both among Muslims themselves and even when found among non-
Muslims.” See Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and His-
218 notes to pages 7–16
tory in a World Civilization, vol. 1, The Classical Age of Islam (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1977), 59.
5. Numerous studies in English discuss Karbala in Iranian cultures as well as
the manner in which Karbala acquired ever-new dimensions in this region. For exam-
ple, see Peter Chelkowski, ed., Taziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran (New York: New
York University Press, 1979); Michael Fischer, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolu-
tion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980); Hamid Dabashi, Theology of
Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York: New
York University Press, 1993).
6. Quoted in Hugh Tinker, The Banyan Tree: Overseas Emigrants from India and
Pakistan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), iii.
7. Gail Minault, The Khilafat Movement (New York: Columbia University Press,
1982), 154–55.
8. Roland Barthes, “Theory of Text,” trans. Ian McLeold in Untying the Text: A
Post-Structuralist Reader, ed. Robert Young (London: Routledge, 1981), 39.
9. See Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Michael Holquist, trans.
Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981).
10. Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Com-
munities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 171.
11. The Shii community itself is divided into various subsects and the Shii di-
mension of the present study deals exclusively with the Iṡnāasharı̄ or the Twelver
branch of the Shias. These Shias constitute a majority of the population in Iran and
Iraq and minorities in many other countries, including India and Pakistan. Although
Husain’s martyrdom remains an important part of the general Shii lore, not all read-
ings of Shiism have treated Karbala in a uniform manner.
12. In order to avoid confusion, I will be using the English plural majlises instead
of the Urdu majālis.
13. The period of mourning for most South Asian Shias begins on the first day
of Muharram and ends on the eighth day of Rabı̄ al-awwal. Thus ayyam-e aza tradi-
tionally constitutes a period of two months and eight days and it is this period that I
have in mind when I refer to the days of mourning. In addition to these days of
mourning, Shias also mourn the deaths of the Prophet, his daughter Fatima, and all
the other Imams, except for the twelfth one, who is believed to be alive, although in
hiding, and expected to return at the end of time to bring about justice.
14. For the most recent English account of the controversy surrounding the suc-
cession to the Prophet Muhammad, see Wilfred Madelung, The Succession to Muham-
mad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). For a Shii understanding of
these events, see S. Husain Jafri, Origins and Early Development of Shia Islam (London:
Longman, 1979). For a discussion on the evolution and transformation of Twelver
Shia Islam itself, see Hossein Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Pe-
riod of Shiite Islam (Princeton: Darwin, 1993); and Mohammad Ali Amir Moezzi, The
Divine Guide in Early Shiism (New York: State University of New York Press, 1988).
chapter 1
1. Sayyid Turab Ali Rizvi, ed. Fuġhān-e Azādārāñ (Hyderabad: Maktabah-e Tura-
biya, n.d.), 3.
2. Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1975), 121.
3. Shias, in their ritual prayers, routinely prostrate on the soil of Karbala (khāk-e
notes to pages 16–23 219
shafā) as a gesture of devotion to Imam Husain’s cause. See Ali Naqi Naqvi, Sajdagāh
(Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim University, 1969).
4. Nūrullāh Shustarı̄, Majālis al-Muminı̄n, trans. Muhfi ammad H fi asan Jafarı̄ (Ka-
rachi: Akbar H fi usain Jivānı̄ Trust. n.d.), 125.
5. See Juan Cole, Roots of North Indian Shiism in Iran and Iraq (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1988).
6. Syed Mohammad Ameed, The Importance of Weeping and Wailing (Karachi:
Peermahomed Ebrahim Trust, 1974), 6.
7. Sfi ālehfi a Abid H fi usain, ed. Anı̄s ke Marṡiye (New Delhi: Taraqqı̄ Urdu Bureau,
1990), 161.
8. Sayyadah Jafar, Yūsuf Zulaikfi hā (Hyderabad: n.p., 1983), 131.
9. Ameed, Importance of Weeping, 11.
10. Mahmoud Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional As-
pects of Āshura in Twelver Shiism (The Hague: Mouton, 1978), 153.
11. See Athar Abbăs Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isna Asharı̄ Shı̄ı̄s in
India, vol. 1, 7th to 16th century A.D., with an Analysis of Early Shı̄ism (New Delhi:
Munshiram Manoharlal, 1986), 65–66.
12. Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in Islam, 153–54.
13. Also see Joel L. Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural
Revival during the Buyid Age (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986), 41–42, 65–68.
14. See Yaacov Lev, State and Society in Fatimid Egypt (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991),
145.
15. Zfi ākir H fi usain Fārūqı̄, Dabistān-e Dabı̄r (Lucknow: Nası̄m, 1966), 104.
16. Quoted in Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in Islam, 167.
17. Mohammad-Djafar Mahdjoub, “The Evolution of Popular Elegy of the
Imams Among the Shia,” trans. John Perry, in Authority and Political Culture in
Shiism, ed. Said Amir Arjomand (New York: State University of New York Press,
1988), 57.
18. H fi usain Wāiz3 Kāshifı̄, Rawzfi at al-Shuhadā (Kanpur: Naval Kishor, 1911), 308.
19. Hamid Demirel, The Poet Fuzfi ūlı̄: His Works, Study of his Turkish, Persian and
Arabic Divans (Ankara: Ministry of Culture, 1991), 114–15.
20. See J. M. Rogers, “The Genesis of Safawid Religious Painting,” in Iran: Jour-
nal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 8 (1970):136. Rogers touches on the per-
missibility of illustrations in Islam and the Shii influence on Ottoman art.
21. See Ashraf Biyābānı̄, Maṡnavı̄ Nausarhār, ed. Afsar Siddı̄qı̄ (Karachi: Anju-
man-e Taraqqı̄-e Urdu Pakistan, 1982).
22. Sura 33:56.
23. I have consciously used the term “recited” as opposed to “sung,” because the
Urdu verb used for such a recitation is “parfihnā” (to read/recite) as opposed to gānā
(to sing). The latter verb, for many, evokes musical and joyous sentiments and is thus
antithetical to the solemn spirit of the majlis. Although classical Indian melodies (rā-
gās) are frequently employed in such recitations, they nevertheless are considered out-
side the usual realm of music. I discuss the issue of music and musicality in more
detail in chapter 4.
24. H fi akı̄m Shaykh Abulqası̄m H fi ussam, ed. Hilāl-e Muhfi arram (Hyderabad:
Kutubkfi hana-e H fi aidarı̄, 1995), 33.
25. See Athar Abbas Rizvı̄, Socio-Intellectual History, 1:40.
26. Ali is also referred to as musfihfi af-e nāt3iq (the Speaking Book). Ali is consid-
ered by his devotees to have a complete command of the Quran. Some traditions go
so far as to refer to him as zabān-e Kfi hudā (the Tongue of God). According to these
traditions, during the Prophet’s heavenly ascent, Allah spoke to the Prophet through
the tongue of Ali. Sayyid H fi āmid H fi usain, Urdū Shāirı̄ meñ Mustamal Talmı̄hfi āt o Musfi-
t fi āt (Bhopal: n.p., 1977), 107, 224. Since the Shii doctrine of imamate gives all
3aleh
imams an equal status, the Imam Husain presumably has such powers as well.
27. See Athar Abbas Rizfi vı̄, Socio-Intellectual History, 1:8. Also see Ayoub, Re-
demptive Suffering in Islam, 57–65.
28. See Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in Islam, 77. Also see H fi usain, Urdū Shāirı̄,
182.
29. Moezzi, The Divine Guide, 42.
30. Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation.
31. The hero of Karbala has no tragic flaw (hamartia) and this is one important
reason that the event of Karbala is not a “tragedy” in the conventional Greek or Aris-
totelian sense. See S. H. Butcher, trans., Aristotle’s Poetics (New York: Hill and Wang,
1961), 75–77. Karrar Husain, however, argues that the “tragic flaw of the hero [of Kar-
bala, Husain] is that he is flawless—too good for the world.” Karrar Husain, “The
Social and Spiritual Significance of the Urdu Marthı̄ya,” in Al-Sfi erāt: Papers from the
Imām H fi usain Conference—London, July 1984, 272. Whenever Shias signify the event
of Karbala as a “tragedy,” it is intended to mean a sorrowful event in that the Imam
Husain, his family, and companions underwent terrible hardships and agonies.
32. H fi āmid Hfi usain, Urdū Shāirı̄, 85.
33. Mı̄r Anı̄s, Anı̄s ke Salām, ed. Ali Javad Zaidi (New Delhi: Taraqqı̄ Urdu Bu-
reau, 1981), 105–107.
34. Such language and images in the salam led Gopı̄chañd Nārañg, an Urdu lit-
erary critic, to define this very genre as “that ghazal in which devotion to the Imams
is expressed.” Gopı̄chañd Nārañg, Urdū Tanqı̄d aur Uslūbiyāt (Delhi: Educational Pub-
lishing House, 1989), 114.
35. Hfi ussām, Hilāl-e Muhfi arram, 52–53.
36. H fi ussām, Hilāl-e Muhfi arram, 293–94.
37. Akbar H fi aidarı̄, ed. Intikfi hab-e Marāṡi-e Mirzā Dabı̄r (Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh
Urdu Academy, 1980), 171.
38. Haidari, Intikfi hab-e Marāsi-e Mirzā Dabı̄r, 172.
39. See for example the marsiyas of Bijapur’s Sultan Ali Adil Shah Sani that are
accompanied by their ideal ragas in Mı̄r Saādat Rizfi vı̄, Ādil Shāhı̄ Marṡiye (Hydera-
bad, India: Abulkalam Azad Oriental Research Institute, 1980), 106–117.
40. A prominent nineteenth-century marsiya writer, Mir Ishq (d. before 1890),
for example, takes the origins of arsi mushaf away from the similar Hindu marriage
ritual of samakshanā (face-to-face) and instead attributes its origins to Imam Husain’s
wedding. (Sayyid Muhfi ammad Aqı̄l Rizfi vı̄, Marṡiye kı̄ Samājiyat [Lucknow: Nusrat,
1993], 21–22).
41. Mirzā Muhfi ammad Rafı̄ Saudā, Intikfi hāb az Marāṡi-ye Mirzā Saudā (Allaha-
bad: Ram Narain Lal Beni Madhu, 1962), 41.
42. Fazal Ali Fazli, Karbal Kathā, ed. Malik Ram and Mukhtaruddin Ahmed
(Patna: Idāra-e tehfi qı̄qāt-e Urdū, 1965), 155. Also see Rizfi vı̄, Marṡiye kı̄ Samājiyat, 16.
43. Muhfi ammad Aqı̄l Rizfi vı̄, Marṡiye kı̄ Samājiyat, 16.
44. See for example, Meer Hassan Ali, Observations of the Mussalmans of India,
ed. W. Crooke (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1974).
45. Ması̄hfi Uz Zamān, Urdū Marṡiye kā Irtiqā, Ibtedā se Anı̄s Tak (Lucknow: Uttar
Pradesh Urdu Academy, 1992), 377.
46. See Akbar H fi aidar Kashmı̄rı̄, Avadh meñ Urdū Marṡiye kā Irtiqā (Lucknow:
Nusrat, 1981), 433–35.
47. For one of the earliest and finest works about marsiya written in English, see
C. M. Naim, “The Art of Urdu Marsiya,” in Islamic Society and Culture: Essays in
Honor of Professor Aziz Ahmad ed. Milton Israel, N. K. Wagle (New Delhi: Manohar,
1983), 101–116.
48. The marsiya is considered by many as the first one written by Dabir. See
Kashmı̄rı̄, Avadh meñ Urdū Marṡiye, 546.
49. Uz zamān, Urdū Marṡiye, 378.
50. H fi ussām, ed., Hilāl-e Muhfi arram, 268–71.
51. Muhammad Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature (Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1995), 211.
52. Mujāwir H fi usain Rizfi vı̄, “Urdū Marṡiye Keġhair Musalmān Shuarā” in Urdū
Marṡiya: Seminār meñ Parfihe Gae Maqālāt, ed. Shārib Rudaulvı̄, (New Delhi: Urdu
Academy, 1991), 132.
53. Cole, Roots of North Indian Shiism, 117.
54. T. Graham Bailie, A History of Urdu Literature (Lahore: al-Biruni, 1977),
69.
55. Sayyid Masūd Hasan Rizfi vı̄, Rūhfi -e Anı̄s (Lucknow: Kitab Nagar, 1964), 37.
56. See E. G. Browne, Literary History of Persia, vol. 2, From Firdawsi to Sadi
(1000–1290) (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1997), 74.
57. Hfi ussām, Anı̄s ke Marṡiye, 195.
58. Hfi ussām, Anı̄s ke Marṡiye, 195.
59. H fi amid H fi usain, Urdū Shāirı̄, 83.
60. Frances Pritchett, Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and its Critics (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1994), 86, 87.
61. Dars-e Balāġhat (New Delhi: Qaumı̄ Council Press barā-e furuġh-e Urdū Za-
bān, n.d.), 18.
62. For an excellent discussion of the rhetorical devices in Anis’ poetry, see
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Urdū Ġhazal ke Aham Morfi (New Delhi: Ghalib Academy,
1997), 51–56.
63. Sfi ālehfi a Ābid Hfi usain, Anı̄s ke Marṡı̇ye, 459.
64. Muhfi ammad Shiblı̄ Numānt, Muwāzānah-e Anı̄s o Dabı̄r (Allahabad: Rām
Narain Lāl Uran Kumār, 1987), 252–62.
65. Sayyid Masūd H fi asan Rizfi vı̄, Anı̄siyat: Mı̄r Anı̄s par Mazfi āmı̄n va Maqālāt
(Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy, 1976), 172.
66. See Pritchett, Nets of Awareness, 94.
67. See Stewart Gordon, ed., Robes of Honor: Khilat in Pre-Colonial and Colonial
India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003).
68. Masūd H fi asan Rizfi vı̄, Anı̄siyat, 174.
69. Masūd H fi asan Rizfi vı̄, Anı̄siyat, 174.
70. Mas̄ud H fi asan Rizfi vı̄, Anı̄siyat, 175.
71. Naiyar Masūd, Marṡiya Kfi hvānı̄ kā Fan (Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Urdu Acad-
emy, 1990), 11.
72. The art of marsiya recitation was tremendously indebted to the art of the dās-
tān tradition and many a marsiya reciter, including Mir Anis, came from families that
had prominent dastan go, or dastan reciters. Masud, Marṡiyah, 17.
73. Masūd, Marṡiyah, 43.
77. Cole, Roots of North Indian Shiism, 90.
78. Amı̄r H fi usain Chaman, ed., Miñbar kā Dūsrā Nām (Karachi: Print Media
Publications, 2000), 95.
79. Rashid Turabi, Sajda, audiotape of Rashid Turabi’s ashura majlis. Although I
could not ascertain the exact year, this majlis was most likely recorded in 1972. Mah-
fuz Book Agency of Karachi has published the transcribed speeches of Turabi from
the ayyam-e aza of 1972 and 1973; the audiotape I have cited corresponds to these
transcriptions. For the transcribed version of Turabi’s majlis see Rashı̄d Turābı̄, Ma-
jālis-e Turābı̄, vol. 1, ed. Z
3 amı̄r Akfi htar Naqvı̄ (Karachi: Mahfi fūz3 Book Agency, 1987),
29–43.
80. For the best discussion of the various components and genres of the texts of
majlis-e aza see Alı̄ Muhfi ammad Zaidı̄, Al Azā, vol. 1 (Lucknow: Jamı̄l al-H fi asan,
1970). For the different elements of żikr see ibid., 53–54.
81. The Quran, 19:58. In the Quran, God refers to Himself in the first person
singular and plural forms, as well as in the second and third person singular forms.
Muslims believe that the Quran, as the revealed word of God, has many unique char-
acteristics; this use of pronouns is but one of many. This particular characteristic is
understood as a linguistic reminder that God is not a person and cannot be circum-
scribed by pronouns used to refer to finite beings.
82. Mı̄r Taqı̄ (“Mı̄r”), Kulliyāt-e Mı̄r, ed. Z 3 ill-e Abbās Abbāsı̄ (Delhi: Taraqqı̄
Urdu Bureau, 1968), 662. The first verse appears in this book with a slight variation.
83. See Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, 2nd ed., trans. Laurence
Scott. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968).
84. See Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 41.
85. Shahı̄d Safı̄pūrı̄, Shahı̄d-e Z 3 ulm (Lucknow: United India Press, 1970), 266–
67.
86. Muhfi ammad Aqı̄l Rizfi vı̄, Marṡiye kı̄ Samājiyat, 196.
87. I have refrained from mentioning the names of particular zakirs who are
mocked or who have been engulfed in controversy, as it would serve no purpose in
this study. The salient point is that although these religious authorities accrue a cer-
tain amount of power, this power is frequently challenged.
88. See Murtada Mutahharı̄, “Āshūra: History and Popular Legend,” in Al-
Tawhfi ı̄d 13, no. 3 (Fall 1996): 41–74.
89. These reciters, in addition to the members of the household, can also be
groups (gurūhān) of men and women that are formed on the basis of their desire to
go from place to place in order to recite the majlis elegies. These guruhan are invited
by Shii households to enliven the gatherings through their recitations. Members of
the guruhan are also deemed to have appealing voices. These groups train days and
weeks before the beginning of Muharram so they are well-prepared at the commence-
ment of the days of mourning. For a more elaborate discussion of this institution, see
David Pinault, The Shiites: Ritual and Popular Piety in a Muslim Community (New York:
St. Martin’s, 1992).
90. Turāb Alı̄ Rizfi vı̄, Fuġhān-e azādārāñ, 91–92.
91. For a discussion of the origins and importance of the Bibi ka alam, see Mu-
hfi ammad Wasfi ı̄ Kfi hān, H fi usain, Hfi usain, vol. 2 (Karachi: Mehfi fil-e H fi aidarı̄ Naz3imabād,
1981), 251–55.
92. Josh Malı̄hfi ābādı̄, Shola o Shabnam (Delhi: Himalaya, n.d.), 218.
93. See Ali J. Hussain, “A Developmental Analysis of Depictions of the Event of
Karbala in Early Islamic History” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2001).
94. See Slavoj Zizek, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology
(London and New York: Verso, 1999), 372.
95. See Veena Das, Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contempo-

rary India (Delhi: Oxford Unviersity Press, 1995), 175–96.
96. Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), 175.
97. I observed this majlis at Hyderabad’s Abbas shrine (bārgāh) on March 25,
2005.
98. See Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books,
1972).
fi usain and Masihfi Uz Zamān, eds., Intikfi hāb-e Josh (Allahabad: Al-
99. Ihfi tishām H
lahabad University, 1967), 78–84.
100. Dabistān-e Anı̄s Rāwalpindfi ı̄ kā Yādgār Majla Basilsila-e Sfi ad Sāla Barsı̄, 10
December 1974 (Rawalpindi: Nasim Printing Press, 1974), 344.
101. Benazir Bhutto, Daughter of Destiny: An Autobiography (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1989), 303–304.
chapter 2
1. See Vernon Schubel, “The Muharram Majlis: The Role of Ritual in the Preser-
vation of Shia Identity,” in Earle H. Waugh, et al, eds., Muslim Families in North
America (Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta Press, 1991), 186–203.
2. According to a survey conducted by a Shii organization, the breakdown of the
Shii population in 1995 was as follows: total number of Shias in the world,
2,820,000; Shias in the United States, 1,962,000; Shias in Texas, 130,000 (most live
in Houston); Shias in Canada, 256,000. Of course not all of these Shias are “Twel-
vers,” hence the Muharram commemorations do not have the same doctrinal impor-
tance for them. See Sayyed Mohammad Hejazi and A. S. Hashim, eds., Ahlul Bayt
Assembly of America: Abstract of Proceedings Convention of 1996 (Potomac, MD: Ahlul-
Bayt Assembly of America, 1997), 43–46.
3. See Tzvetan Todorov, Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical Principle, trans. Wlad
Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).
4. http://www.outlookindia.com/scriptur11w2.asp?act⫽sign&url⫽/full.asp
?fname⫽naim&fodname⫽20040116&sid⫽1 (C.M. Naim, OutlookIndia.com, January
2004). Last accessed Jan. 7, 2004.
5. Abdulaziz Sachedina, “Challenges of Being a Muslim in 21st Century North
America,” in Hejazi and Hashim, Ahlul Bayt Assembly of America, 160.
6. Fischer, Iran, 12–13.
7. Hosh Bilgirāmı̄, Mushāhidāt (Lahore: Maktaba-e Dār-ul-Kitāb, n.d.), 79. Fol-
lowing Mahmood Mamdani, I must strike a cautionary note with regard to essential-
izing the category of “Wahhabi.” In the reification-ravaged world of post-9/11 United
States, the category of “Wahhabi” has surfaced as the Other of the good Muslim. The
pejorative connotations that have accrued to the category of “Wahhabi” have once
again obscured certain issues and conflicts tied to particular historical moments, po-
litical contexts, disenfranchisement, and alienation. See Mahmood Mamdani, Good
Muslim, Bad Muslim: Islam, the USA, and the Global War Against Terror (Delhi: Perma-
nent Black, 2004), 219–20.
8. Michael Fischer and Mehdi Abedi, Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in
Postmodernity and Tradition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 272–73.
9. Fischer and Abedi, Debating Muslims, 255.
chapter 3
1. Murtada Mutahharı̄, a leading Shii Iranian scholar, cites a similar incident, of
what he considers tahfi rı̄f, or, distortion, and how such “distortions” become constitu-
tive elements for most majlises. See Mutahhari, “Āshūra,” 47–48.
2. See Hussain, “A Developmental Analysis,” 279–88.
3. See Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, ed. and trans. Lewis Coser
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). Halbwachs ascribes agency to collective
memory, which he argues inflects and shapes the personal memory.
4. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity (New
York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), 29–30.
5. See Denise A. Spellberg, Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of
Aisha bint Abi Bakr (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994).
6. Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1989), 45.
7. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Ro-
senthal, ed. N. J. Dawood (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 169.
8. See the Siasat Daily (Hyderabad), February 13, 2005.
9. The monumental work of Islamic history that was composed by Abu Jafar
Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari (d. 923 c.e.) Tārı̄kfi h al-Rusul wa-Mulūk, echoes past his-
torical works, such as Baladhuri’s (d. 892 c.e.) Ansāb al-Ashrāf as well as those com-
posed by Hisham b. Muhammad al-Kalbi (d. 819–820 c.e.) and Abu Mikhnaf (d. 774
c.e.). In the same vein, the imprint of al-Tabari’s emplotment of Karbala on subse-
quent emplotments can be seen in works of Shii luminaries like al-Mufid (d. 1022
c.e.) and Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (d. 967 c.e.).
10. See Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in Islam, 93.
11. Athar Abbas Rizvi, Socio-Intellectual History, 1:12.
14. Sura 33:33.
15. Hfi āmid bin Shabbı̄r, Kalimatul H fi aqq (Delhi: Samar Offset Printers, 1985),
328–40.
16. H fi usain, Urdu Shāirı̄, 128–29.
fi āmid H
18. For a Shii understanding of these events, see Husain Jafri, Origins and Early
Development of Shia Islam.
19. According to many Shias, the origins of their community lie in the time of
the Prophet. Ali had a devout following before the Prophet’s death and most of this
following continued to espouse Ali’s cause after the Prophet’s departure from this
world.
20. Sayyid Alı̄ Naqi Naqvı̄, Rahnūmāyān-e Islām (Lucknow: Sarfaraz, n.d.), 64.
21. See Sayyid Alı̄ Naqi Naqvı̄, Shahı̄d-e Insāniyat (Lahore: Maktaba-e Imāmiya
Mission Trust, 1991). According to many South Asian Shias, this is one of the most
important books written about Karbala. The author of this book can be counted
amongst the leading Shii authorities of the twentieth century. But the authority of
Naqvı̄ (“Naqqan” Sfi āhfi ab) has often been challenged in his own community, for he is
accused of making conciliatory gestures toward Sunnis at the expense of Shii historic
values. Controversies regarding the discourses of Karbala and the Imam Husain are
obviously not unique to South Asia. Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon have all had their share
of controversy rooted in this topic. For an interesting case study of how Iranians have
dealt with such controversial topics and books, see Hamid Enayat, Modern Islamic Po-
litical Thought (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982), 190–94.
22. See Shahı̄d Sfi afı̄pūrı̄, Shahı̄d-e Z 3 ulm, 160–69.
23. http://www.amaana.org/ali/ismaali.html#The%20Different. Consulted on
March 10, 2005. http://islampak.freeservers.com/bio.html. Consulted on March 10,
2005.
24. Husain Jafri, Origins and Early Development of Shia Islam, 159–69.
25. See Kathryn Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of
Early Modern Iran (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 223.
26. See Nadeem Hasnain and Abrar Husain, Shias and Shia Islam in India: A
Study in Society and Culture (New Delhi: Harnam, 1988), 167–79. For the primary
documentation pertaining to these conflicts and the governmental interference in
them, see Sayyid Ashraf H fi usain, Tahfi affuz3-e Shı̄at (Lucknow: Tanz3ı̄m-e Millat-e Luck-
now, n.d.).
27. See Ashraf H fi usain, Tahfi affuz3-e Shı̄at, 97.
28. See Sandria Freitag, Collective Action and Community: Public Arenas and the
Emergence of Communalism in North India (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1989), 249–79. This is one of the best studies of the Shii-Sunni communal tensions
in North India during the late-nineteenth century and the first few decades of the
twentieth century. Far from discussing these communal tensions as rooted in age-old
differences of religious interpretation between the Shii and the Sunni communities,
Freitag takes into account the role of colonialism in crystallizing communal identities
and the shifts in ruling networks during this period.
29. Born in the Yazd province of Iran in 1899, Ayatullah Pooya migrated to In-
dia in 1925 and became a prominent Shii scholar and authority soon after. He then
migrated to Pakistan upon the creation of that state. Rashid Turabi and Syed Muham-
mad Murtuza were among his disciples and the latter translated and edited some of
Pooya’s writings. See Syed Muhammad Murtuza and Husain P. Taylor, eds., Essence
of the Holy Quran: The Eternal Light, by Ayatullah Haji Mirza Mahdi Pooya (New Jer-
sey: Imam Sahebuz Zaman Association, 1990).
30. Syed Muhammad Murtuza, conversation with author, Los Angeles, August 1,
1996.
34. Barbara Daly Metcalf, “The Reformist Ulama: Muslim Religious Leadership
in India, 1860–1900” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1974), 75. A re-
vised version of Metcalf ’s dissertation has been published: Barbara Daly Metcalf, Is-
lamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1982).
35. Metcalf, “Reformist Ulama,” 4.
36. Mahfi mūd Ahfi mad Abbāsı̄, Kfi hilafat-e Muāwiya o Yazı̄d (Karachi: Mahfi mūd
Abbāsı̄, 1964). Although historians/polemicists hardly rushed to Yazid’s defense
throughout the course of Islamic history, there is evidence, especially from Syria (the
power base of Yazid as well as his Umayyad clan) that historians like Ali b. Asakir did
attempt to redeem Yazid. See James Lindsay, “Caliphal and Moral Exemplar? Alı̄ ibn
Asākir’s Portrait of Yazı̄d b. Muāwiya,” in Der Islam (1997): 250–78.
37. Abbāsı̄, Kfi hilafat-e Muāwiya o Yazı̄d, 115.
38. Syed Muhammad Murtuza, conversation with author, Los Angeles, August 1,
1996.
39. See Abdul H fi alı̄m Sharar, Lucknow: The Last Phase of an Oriental Culture,
trans. and ed. E. S. Harcourt and Fakhir Hussain (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1976), 149.
40. Syed Taqi Hasan Wafa, conversation with author, Hyderabad, India, July 18,
1997.
41. Awadh Punch, February 20, 1908.
42. See Pinault, Shiites (pp. 63–76), for a good discussion of the manner in
which Muharram was represented during the British rule in India.
43. Nasir-e Khusraw, Divān-e ashār-e H fi akı̄m Abū Muı̄n H fi amı̄d al-Dı̄n Nāsfiir ibn
Kfi husraw Qubādı̄yānı̄, ed. Mahdi Suhail and Nasr Allah Taqavi (Isfahan: Intishārāt-e
Kitāb Furūshı̄-e Tayid, 1339 [1960]), 5.
44. Sayyad H fi asan, ed., Mumtāzul Majālis (Lucknow: Ihfi bāb, 1962), 150.
45. Abu Jafar Muhfi ammad b. Jarı̄r al-T 3 abarı̄, The History of al-T3 abarı̄, trans.
I. K. A. Howard (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990): 19:97.
46. Al-T3 abarı̄, History, 19:115.
47. Hfi usain Naqvı̄, Dāstān-e Karbalā (Hyderabad: Turābiya, n.d.), 34.
48. Shāfa-e H fi ashr, or the Intercessor of the Resurrection Day, is one of the epi-
thets of the Prophet Muhammad.
49. Shabbı̄r, as we have mentioned previously, is another name for the Imam
Husain.
50. Mir Anis, Anı̄s ke Marṡiye, ed. Sfi ālehfi a Ābid H fi usain (New Delhi: Taraqqı̄
Urdu Board, 1977), 172.
fi usain Naqvı̄, Dāstān-e Karbalā, 35.
51. H
52. Hfi usain Naqvı̄, Dāstān-e Karbalā, 39.
53. Mir Anis, Anı̄s ke Marṡiye, 2:298.
54. Sound cassette. Transcribed in Turābı̄, Majālis-e Turābı̄, 1:120.
55. Sound cassette. Transcribed in Turābı̄, Majālis-e Turābı̄, 1:119.
56. Turābı̄, Majālis-e Turābı̄.
57. Sayyid Ibn-e H fi asan Jārchavı̄, Chaudah Majālis (Lucknow: Sarfarāz Qaumi,
1965), 57.
58. Majlis Broadcast in India on ETV Urdu, February 15, 2005.
59. Majlis Broadcast in India on ETV Urdu, February 14, 2005.
60. See Diane D’Souza, “In the Presence of the Martyrs: The Alam in Popular
Shii Piety,” The Muslim World 88, no. 1 (January 1998): 67–80. For a traditional
South Asian Shia view of alams, see Ahmed Ali, Husain: The Saviour of Islam (Bald-
win, NY: Anjumane Aza Khana-e Zahra, n.d.), 232–35.
61. Turāb Alı̄ Rizvı̄, ed., Fuġhān-e Azādārāñ, 22.
62. Turāb Alı̄ Rizvı̄, ed., Fuġhān-e Azādārāñ, 19.
63. Turābı̄, Majālis, audiotape of Rashid Turabi’s majlis (n.p., n.d.).
64. Moezzi, The Divine Guide, 66.
65. Sayyid Al-e Ahfi mad, “Salām-e Ākfi hir,” in Soz-e Karbalā, ed. Sayyid H fi asan Ab-
bas Zaidı̄ (Karachi: Ahmad Book Depot, 1983), 350.
66. Mı̄r Anı̄s, Marṡiya dar H fi āl-e Ṡāni-e Zahra H fi azfi rat Zainab Kubrā (Hyderabad:
Aijaz Printing Press, n.d.), 3.
67. Sayyid Anı̄s Jahān H fi aidarı̄, Guldastah-e Murād (Bombay: H fi aidarı̄ Kutub
Kfi hāna, n.d.), 131.
68. Turābı̄, Majālis-e Turābı̄, 2:244.
70. Quoted in Abdulaziz Abdulhussein Sachedina, The Just Ruler in Shiite Islam
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 114.

79. Fadwa El Guindi, Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance (Oxford: Berg, 1999),
126. In fact many artists who depicted the events of Karbala showed the male mem-
bers of the Prophet’s family veiled. As one artist told me, this is because we can never
really fully understand the lofty status of these people. Even if they appear to us un-
veiled at one level, their overall majesty remains veiled.
83. Sayyid Alı̄ Naqi Naqvı̄, Mujāhida-e Karbalā (Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi Press,
n.d.), 332–41.
84. Alı̄ Naqi Naqvı̄, Mujāhida-e Karbalā, 341–42.
chapter 4
1. Muinuddı̄n H fi asan Chishtı̄, Dı̄vān-e Kfi hwājah-e Kfi hwājagān Ġharı̄b Navāz
Muinuddin Ajmerı̄ Chishtı̄, trans. Abdul Qādir Chishtı̄ (Dhanbad: Abdul Qādir
Chishtı̄, 1984), 196.
2. Muinuddı̄n H fi asan Chishtı̄, Dı̄vān-e Kfi hwājah-e Kfi hwājagān, 197.
3. Meraj Ahmed, conversation with author, New Delhi, India, June 3, 2004.
4. Sayyid Muhfi ammad Akbar H fi ussaini, ed., Jawāme al-Kalām: Malfūz3āt-e Khwāja
Bande Nawāz Gesūdarāz. (Delhi: Adabı̄ Dunyā, 2000), 531.
5. H fi afiz3, ed. and trans. Ibādullāh Akhtar (Lahore: Al-
fi afiz3 Shirāzı̄, Divān-e H
Kitāb, 1979), 543.
6. Ġhulām Rasūl Mahr, Navā-e Sarosh (Lahore: Shaiykh Ghulam and Sons,
n.d.), 207.
7. Wheeler Thackson, A Millennium of Classical Persian Poetry: A Guide to the
Reading and Understanding of Persian Poetry from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century
(Bethesda, MD: Iranbooks, 1994), 42.
8. Mahr, Navā-e Sarosh, 446.
9. Inayat Pasha, interview by author, Jhangir Piran shrine, near Hyderabad, Au-
gust 7, 1998.
gust 7, 1998.
gust 7, 1998.
12. Sura 7:156 (“My mercy encompasses all things.”)
13. Sura 50:16.
14. Quoted in William Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of
Rumi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), 39.
15. Regula Qureshi, Sufi Music of India and Pakistan (New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1986), 116.
16. Qureshi, Sufi Music, 21.
17. The dilemmas and political controversies after the Prophet became a prelude
to the crystallization of Sufism, as they were a prelude to the development of Shiism;

however, these two readings of Islam have not been identical. For example, most
Chishtis, when pressed, identify themselves as Sunnis, in spite of their view that Ali
was the best of the Prophet’s companions. According to these Sufis, love and rever-
ence for the Prophet’s family is not an exclusively Shii attitude. That the Prophet
loved his daughter Fatima, relied heavily upon his son-in-law Ali, and adored his
grandsons Hasan and Husain, is understandably axiomatic for Muslims in general.
The issue that creates a schism within the community is the succession to the Prophet.
For the Shias, a grave injustice was done to the Prophet’s family with the “usurpa-
tion” of the caliphate from Ali. Although many Chishtis might hold Ali and his de-
scendants in the highest respect, and even agree that Ali suffered injustices, they are
not willing to raise this issue to the same doctrinal importance as the Shias do.
18. See Etan Kohlberg, “Shahı̄d,” in Encylopaedia of Islam, vol. 9 (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1997), 206.
19. Quoted in Chittick, Sufi Path, 183.
20. Mahfi mūd Shabistarı̄, Gulshan-e Rāz (Islamabad: Iran Pakistan Issues of Per-
sian Studies, 1978), 79.
21. Annemarie Schimmel, A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 116.
23. See Sura 33:72.
24. Sāqı̄ya (O Sāqı̄) is the vocative form of Saqı̄.
25. Just as the trope of wine is loaded with ambiguity in Perso-Indic poetry, the
(genre of ) saqı̄nama, usually in praise of the saqi, at times leaves the identity of the
saqi ambiguous too. There are also many saqinamas that explicitly identify the saqi
with the Prophet Muhammad, a member of his family, or other spiritually revered
personality. Even the genre of marsiya contains plenty of saqinamas within it. Accord-
ing to one source, Mir Anis introduced this subgenre within the larger genre of Urdu
marsiya. (Mir Anis, Anis, Dabistān-e Anı̄s Rawalpindi kā Yādgār Majla [Rawalpindi:
Dabistan-e Anis Rawalpindi, 1974], 231.)
26. Thackston, A Millennium of Classical Persian Poetry, 43.
27. Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, “Early Indo-Muslim Mystics and Their Attitude To-
wards the State,” Islamic Culture: The Hyderabad Quarterly Review 23 (1949): 13–21.
Nizami discusses in this article and at other places the manner in which political
power was kept at arm’s length by most Sufis.
28. Muzaffar Alam, The Language of Political Islam in India c. 1200–1800 (Delhi:
Permanent Black, 2004), 82.
29. See Richard Eaton, Sufis of Bijapur, 1300–1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medie-
val India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).
30. Sadiq Naqvi, Muslim Religious Institutions and their Role Under the Qutb
Shahs (Hyderabad: Bab-ul-ilm Society, 1993), 118–19.
31. The audience’s nod of approval can either come through the cheers of vāh
(Bravo! Great!), bahot kfi hūb (very good), kyā kehne (What can be said!), subhfi an Allāh
(Glory be to God!) or through monetary gifts (nażrāna) to the qawwal.
32. Regula Qureshi, “Recorded Sound and Religious Music: The Case of Qa-
wwali,” in Media and the Transformation of Religion in South Asia, eds. Lawrence A.
Babb and Susan S. Wadley (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 147.
33. Qureshi, “Recorded Sound and Religious Music,” in Media and the Transfor-
mation of Religion, eds. Babb and Wadley, 147–48.
34. See John Hawley, “Authorship and Authority in Bhakti Poetry of North In-
dia,” Journal of Asian Studies, 47 (1988): 269–90.
35. Thomas de Bruijin quoted in Ali Asani, “At the Crossroads of India and Ira-
nian Civilizations: Sindhi Literary Culture,” in Sheldon Pollock, ed., Literary Cultures
in History: Reconstructions from South Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2003), 621.
36. Muslim societies have historically been ambivalent as far as audition of spiri-
tual music (samā ) is concerned. Of course it is important to keep in mind that the
issue here is spiritual music, not other forms of music. The contemplative treatises of
tenth-century Iraq, the Rasāil Ikfi hwan al-Sfi afā, or the Treatises of the Brotherhood of Pu-
rity, consider music a means to enhance spirituality. The great philosophers Abu Nasr
Muhammad b. Tarkhān al-Farabi (d. 950 c.e.) and Ibn Sina acknowledged the enter-
tainment value of music as a means to alieviate life’s hardships and boredom. Ibn
Sina also underscored the principle of pleasure in which music is anchored; he was a
physician and utilized music as a therapeutic device. Abu Hamid Muhammad al-
Ghazali, a bridge-builder of sorts who tried to reconcile Sufism with Islamic “ortho-
doxy,” provides a passionate defense of music in his Alchemy of Happiness.
The cumulative weight of these testimonies favors the view that music has not
usually been seen as completely forbidden, and is even encouraged when deemed
conducive to the community’s spiritual enhancement. Although some Muslims are
keen on proscriptions against all forms of music, the attack of most is not on music
per se but on its inappropriate use. The thrust of their attack is framed more in terms
of its implications for piety and spirituality than its ontological status. While sympa-
thetic to its spiritual impulses, they caution that this can lapse into the vice of licen-
tiousness. Thus, the discourses on music are usually subordinated to spiritual con-
cerns and these are the concerns that primarily condition the qawwali context, at least
in its traditional form.
37. Carl W. Ernst and Bruce Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in
South Asia and Beyond (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 137.
38. Quoted in Athar Abbas Rizvı̄, A History of Sufism in India (New Delhi: Mun-
shiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1986), 1:167.
39. H fi asan Sijzı̄, Dı̄vān-e H
fi asan Sijzı̄ Dihlavı̄ (Hyderabad: Ibrahim, 1933), 390.
40. Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, Tārı̄kh-e Mashāikh-e Chishti, 383. (Delhi: Idara-e
Adabiyat-e Dilli, 1980)
41. Quoted in Annemarie Schimmel, Islam in the Indian Subcontinent (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1980), 28.
42. Another version of this couplet’s birth is that when Nizamuddin Awliya ac-
knowledged the diversity of communal beliefs with the first hemistich, it was Khus-
raw, and not Hasan, who improvised the second hemistich. I mention this other ver-
sion for it helps us remember that hagiographies, like histories, are emplotted in
more than one way.
44. H fi usain, Urdu Shāirı̄, 100.
fi āmid H
45. Schimmel, A Two-Colored Brocade, 56.
46. Quoted in Mir Valiuddin, Love of God: A Sufi Approach (Surrey, England:
Sufi, 1972), 32.
47. Hadi Hasan, A Golden Treasury of Persian Poetry (New Delhi: Indian Council
for Cultural Relations, 1972), 217.
48. Annemarie Schimmel, “Karbala and Husain in Literature,” in Al-Sfi erat: Pa-
pers from the Imām H fi usain Conference—London, July 1984 (London: Muhammadi
Trust of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1986), 31–32.
49. Quoted in Al-Sfi erat, 31.
50. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 70.
51. Sura 4:171.
52. Sura 3:49. It must be kept in mind that Jesus, although a privileged messen-
ger of God, is not a divine being in Islam. Nor does Islam accommodate any version
of the Christian “trinity.” The Quran neither gives credibility to Jesus’ crucifixion nor
to his resurrection as interpreted by the majority of Christians (4:157). There are, how-
ever, Muslim traditions that state that Jesus’ return before the end of time is assured,
since he will combat and destroy the Anti-Christ (al-Dajjāl) who will have sown the
seeds of spiritual destruction.
53. See The Quran, 5:110. Schimmel has again elucidated this connection be-
tween Christianity and wine drinking by pointing out the fact that many times in Per-
sian mystical poetry, the cupbearer was Christian. For like the Magians, the Chris-
tians were also permitted to drink (A Two-Colored Brocade, 79.)
54. Sura 7:143.
55. Annemarie Schimmel, “The Marsiyeh in Sindhi Poetry,” in Chelkowski, Tazi-
yeh, 221.
56. S. H. Nasr, Sufi Essays (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991),
76.
57. Jalil Sehvani, ed., Al-Shehbāz: Savānihfi H fi azfi rat Qalandar Lal Shahbāz
fi ayāt H
(Sehvan Sharif, Sindh: Idara-e Shahbaz, 2001), 79–80.
58. Muı̄nuddin H fi asan Chishtı̄, Dı̄vān-e Kfi hwājah-e Kfi hwājagān, 197.
59. Wāsfi if Alı̄ Wāsfi if, Guftagū (Lahore: Kashif Ali, 1996), 101.
60. Quoted in S. H. Nasr, ed., Islamic Spirituality, vol. 2 (New York: Crossroads,
1987), 2:129.
61. Amir Khusraw, Seventh Centenary Celebration, February 11–13, 1972 (Hydera-
bad: Abul Kalam Azad Oriental Research Institute, 1976), 96–98.
62. A discussion of the bride’s jewelry is available from the works of fine schol-
ars like Regula Qureshi. See Qureshi, Sufi Music.
63. Akmal H fi aidarābādı̄, Qawwālı̄: Amı̄r Khusro se Shakı̄la Bāno Tak (New Delhi:
Idāra-e Shama, 1982), 100.
64. H fi aidarābādı̄, Qawwālı̄, 100.
65. Gerry Farrel, Indian Music and the West (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999), 207.
66. Quoted in Dimitri Ehrlich, Inside the Music: Conversation with Contemporary
Musicians about Spirituality, Creativity, and Consciousness (Boston: Shambhala, 1997),
120–21.
67. Manz3ar Siddiqi, Sı̄māb Akbarābādı̄ (Lahore: Feroz Sons, 1968), 36.
68. Aziz Ahmad Khan Warasi, Qawwalis, Hyderabad, private recordings.
69. Ġhulām Farı̄d and Maqbūl Ahfi mad Sfi abrı̄, Qawwālı̄, vol. 8 (Karachi: Maria
Gold Production), audiocassette.
70. Sfi abrı̄, Qawwālı̄.
71. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan et son ensemble en concert a
Paris, 1985, vol. 2 (Paris: Ocora, 1987), compact disc.
72. Sura 96:19. Quoted in Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 153.
73. Sura 55:26.
74. See William Chittick, “Rūmi’s View of the Imām H fi usain.” In Al-Sfi erat, 4. Pa-
pers from the Imām H fi usain Conference—London, July 1984, (London: Muhammadi
Trust of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1986): 4.
75. Valerie J. Hoffman-Ladd, “Devotion to the Prophet and His Family in Egyp-
tian Sufism,” in International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992): 615–37, citing
625.
chapter 5
1. Reynold Nicholson, (trans.), A Rumi Anthology (Oxford: Oneworld, 2000), 111.
2. Yūsuf Chishtı̄, Asrār-e Kfi hūdı̄ ma Sharhfi (New Delhi: Eteqad, 1998), 412–415.
3. Sayyid Afzfi al H fi usain Naqvı̄, Midhfi at-e āl-e Muhfi ammad aur Iqbāl (Karachi:
Anjuman-e Safina-e Adab, 1977).
4. Afzal Husain Naqvi, Midhfi at-e āl-e Muhfi ammad aur Iqbāl, 55.
8. Chittick, “Rūmi’s View of the Imam H fi usain,” in al-Sfi erāt, 4.
9. Chittick, “Rūmi’s View of the Imam H fi usain,” 4.
11. Shimr was the person who actually killed Husain in Karbala.
13. Farı̄duddı̄n At3t3ār, Musfiı̄batnāmah (Tehran: Kitābfurushı̄ Zavvār, 1958), 37.
14. At33tār, Musfiı̄batnāmah, 37.
15. At3t3ār, Musfiı̄batnāmah, 37.
16. Muhfi ammad Anqirawı̄, Sharhfi -e Kabı̄r-e bar Maṡnavı̄-e Mawlavı̄ (Tabriz:
Kitābfurushı̄-e H fi ikmat, 1970), 96.
17. Anqirawı̄, Sharhfi -e Kabı̄r-e bar Maṡnavı̄-e Mawlavı̄, 1.
20. Hadi Hasan, A Golden Treasury of Persian Poetry, 163.
22. Nūr al-Dı̄n Abd al-Rahfi mān Jāmı̄, Divān-e Kāmil-e Jāmı̄ (Tehran: Chāpkfi hāna-e
Pı̄rūz, 1962), 78.
23. Jāmı̄, Divān-e Kāmil-e Jāmı̄, 78.
24. Muhfi ammad Iqbāl, Kulliyāt-e Iqbāl (Urdu) (Aligarh: Educational Book House,
1992), 347.
25. Z3 ahı̄r Ahfi mad, Iqbāl aur Kfi hūdı̄ (n.p.: Etemad, 1971), 33.
26. Z3 ahı̄r Ahfi mad, Iqbāl aur Kfi hūdı̄, 39.
27. Afzfi al H fi usain Naqvı̄, Midhfi at-e āl-e Muhfi ammad aur Iqbāl 60.
28. Abjad is the sequence of Arabic letters in which each letter has a numerical
value. It has been used throughout centuries for chronograms and other mystical as
well as playful expressions wherein the artists have desired to link numbers to con-
cepts.
29. Z3 ahı̄r Ahfi mad, Iqbāl aur Kfi hūdı̄, 67.
30. Afzfi al H fi usain Naqvı̄, Midhfi at-e āl-e Muhfi ammad aur Iqbāl, 61.
31. Afzfi al H fi usain Naqvı̄, Midhfi at-e āl-e Muhfi ammad aur Iqbāl, 64.
32. Iqbāl, Kulliyāt-e Iqbāl, 202.
35. Sayyid Ahfi san Imrānı̄, Iqbāl dar Madhfi -e Muhfi ammad va āl-e Muhfi ammad (La-
hore, H fi aqq Brothers), 193.
36. Imrānı̄, Iqbal dar Madhfi -e Muhfi ammad, 193.
39. Muhfi ammad Rame, Iqbāl aur Soshalizm (Lahore: Albayan, 1970), 103.
40. It was under Iqbal’s pervasive inspiration that other Progressive Marxist po-
ets of the subcontinent, like Shabbir Hassan Khan “Josh” Malihabadi, struck the re-
formist chord.
42. Muhammad Iqbāl, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Lahore:
SH. Muhammad Ashraf, 1988).
43. Minault, Khilafat Movement, 154–155.
44. Muhfi ammad Alı̄ Jauhar, Sukfi han-e Jauhar, ed. Akfi htar Bastavı̄ (Lucknow: Uttar
Pradesh Urdu Academy, 1983), 31.
45. Jauhar, Sukfi han-e Jauhar, 79.
48. Quoted in Abulkālam Āzād, Shahādat-e H fi usain (New Delhi: Eteqad, 1987),
60.
49. Quoted in S. H. Nasr, ed., Islamic Spirituality, 129.
50. Abulkālam Āzād, Shahādat-e H fi usain, 88–89.
fi usain Naqvı̄, Midhfi at-e āl-e Muhfi ammad aur Iqbāl, 63.
53. Afzfi al H
54. Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian
Islam since 1850 (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 176, 179.
55. I am using the term “interpellation” in the way in which the French cultural
critic, Louis Althusser used it: Processes whereby an ideology designates and defines
its subjects without giving the subjects themselves much agency in the constitution of
their identity. See Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. Ben
Brewster (London: New Left Books, 1971).
56. For an excellent analysis of how Sunni religious authorities of the 1950s
were bent upon defining Islam by excluding the Ahmadis, see Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr,
The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jamaat-i Islami of Pakistan (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1994), 132–141.
57. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Pakistan: Custodi-
ans of Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 127.
58. See Rory McCarthy, “Religion and Violence on Pakistan’s streets,” Guardian
Unlimited (Friday, April 6, 2001), http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/
story/0,7792,469439,00.html. Accessed May 8, 2001.
59. See Rana Jawad, “632 Fell Prey to Sectarian Killings in Punjab in Nine
Years,” News International Pakistan (January 19, 1999), http://www.best.com/karachi/
news/sectarian2.html. Accessed May 25, 2001.
60. In my conversations with Syed Muhammad Murtuza and many other Shias
who are well versed in English, I repeatedly heard references to this work of history
in order to legitimize the Shii cause. Interestingly enough, W. Madelung’s Succession
to Muhfi ammad has a similar appeal among many Shias today.
61. Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed.
David Womersley (London: Penguin Press 1994), 218.
62. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, 224.

63. A Pakistani contemporary of Turabi told me that excerpts from Gibbon’s Is-
lamic history were readily available in Karachi, where Turabi was based.
64. Turābı̄ (Karachi, 1971), cassette recording.
65. See S. M. A. Zaidi, Iqbāl aur H fi ubb-e Ahl-e Bait (Lahore: Shaykh Ghulam Ali
and Sons, 1965).
66. Rashid Turābı̄ (Karachi, 1971), cassette recording. Although this couplet is
repeatedly invoked in Iqbal’s name, it most likely does not come from him. See Im-
rānı̄, Iqbāl dar Madhfi -e Muhfi ammad, 36–37.
67. Rashid Turābı̄ (Karachi, 1971), cassette recording.
68. Ali S. Jafri, interview, January 1999.
69. Alı̄ Sharı̄atı̄, “A Manifestation of Self-reconstruction and Reformation,”
http://www.shariati.com/iqbal.html. Accessed January 6, 2005.
70. “Struggle to Rescue Islam from Zealots,” Irish Times (November 22, 1997),
http://www.seraj.org/Irishr.htm. Accessed January 6, 2005.
chapter 6
1. Raj Bahadur Gour, interview with author, Hyderabad, India, January 5, 1999.
2. Tigris here is a metaphor for river.
4. Times of India (Bombay), April 6, 1968.
7. Makfi hdūm Muhfi iuddin, Bisāt3-e Raqs (Hyderabad: Urdu Academy Andhra Pra-
desh, 1986), 195–196.
8. See Syed Saeed Rizvi, The Life of Muhammad: The Prophet, Peace be Upon Him
(Stanmore: The World Federation of Khoja Shia Ithna-Asheri Muslim Communities,
1999), 127–130.
9. The actions of the United States in Vietnam as well as America’s support for
Zionism was a constant theme in critiques of US imperialism.
10. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed on July 19, 1953, in the United
States, for allegedly spying for the Soviet Union. The unjust aspects of their trial in a
paranoid United States outraged human rights advocates around the world. The Ro-
senbergs instantly became the symbols of martyrs at the hands of capitalism and im-
perialism. The finest of Urdu poets, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, himself in a Pakistani prison at
the time, also wrote a passionate poem in their honor. See Faizfi Ahfi mad Faizfi , Nuskfi h-
hahā-e Vafā (Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 1992), 266–68.
11. See Carlo Coppola, “Urdu Poetry, 1935–1970: The Progressive Episode”
(Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1975).
12. For an excellent discussion of this period, see Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sover-
eignty, 43–101.
13. Holroyd, a British official involved in the Indian educational establishment,
had encouraged the composition of poetry based on themes that were not traditional
in Mughal India. See Frances Pritchett, Nets of Awareness, 34–39.
14. Alt3āf H
fi usain Hfi ali, Muqaddamah-e Sher o Shāirı̄ (Allahabad: Rāi Sāhfi ab Lāla
Rām Dayāl Agarval, 1964), 338.
15. Akfi htar Hfi usain Rāipūrı̄, Adab aur Inqilāb (Karachi: Nafı̄s Academy, 1989), 15.
16. Rāipūrı̄, Adab aur Inqilāb, 21.

20. Sayyid Abul Kfi hayr Kashfı̄, Urdū Shāirı̄ kā Siyāsı̄ aur Tārı̄kfi hı̄ pas Manz3ar,
1707 se 1857 Tak (Karachi: Adabı̄, 1975), 103.
21. Mirza Dabir likewise tinged the poetic landscape of Karbala with faint
touches of his contemporary Lucknow. He also appraised Karbala’s didactic value by
reminding his ruler-patron about the necessity of keeping on guard against oppres-
sion.
22. Int3izar H fi usain, “Anı̄s ke Marṡiye meñ Shahr” in Anı̄s Shināsı̄, ed., Gopic-
hañd Narañg (Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 1981), 159.
23. Nadir Shah (d. 1747 c.e.), from eastern Iran, wreaked havoc on the Indian
subcontinent by killing hundreds of inhabitants of this region and looting large
amounts of wealth. The Mughal rule, based as it was in Delhi, was unable to stave off
his attacks, thereby displaying its weak infrastructure that consequently lead to more
attacks on its territory.
24. Sayyid Abdullāh, Mubāhfi iṡ: D fi āktfiar Sayyid Abdullāh ke Tahfi qı̄qı̄ aur Tanqı̄dı̄
Mazfi āmı̄n (Lahore, Majlis Taraqqı̄-e Urdu Adab, 1965), 254. Also see Āmir Arifı̄,
Shahr Āshūb: Ek Tajziya (Delhi: Delhi University, 1994), 158–59. Both these works
discuss this genre and provide numerous examples of it.
25. Ismat Malı̄hfi ābādı̄, ed., Josh kı̄ Inqilābı̄ Naz3meñ (Lucknow: Ismat Malı̄hfi ābādı̄,
1982), 16.
26. Although Josh Malihabadi was born into a predominantly Sunni family, he
grew up inclined to Shiism under the influence of his Shii paternal grandmother.
Josh’s family is a good example of a non-Shii family that strictly observed the “Days
of mourning.” Josh, however, like many poets before and after him, scoffed at any
label of narrow sectarian identity.
27. Ismat Malı̄hfi ābādı̄, Josh kı̄ Inqilābı̄ Naz3meñ, 175.
28. Ismat Malı̄hfi ābādı̄, Josh kı̄ Inqilābi Naz3meñ, 174.
29. H fi usain and Uz zamān, Intikfi hāb-e Josh, 78–84.
30. Josh Malı̄hfi ābādı̄, Josh Malı̄hfi ābādı̄ ke Marṡiye, ed., Zamir Akhtar Naqvi (Kara-
chi: Idarah-yi Faiz-e Adab, 1980), 121.
31. Josh Malı̄hfi ābādı̄, Josh Malı̄hfi ābādı̄ ke Marṡiye, 21.
32. Josh Malı̄hfi ābādı̄, Josh Malı̄hfi ābādı̄ ke Marṡiye, 23.
33. Josh Malı̄hfi abādı̄, Samūm o Sfi abā, (Delhi: Munshi Gulab Singh, 1950), 267.
34. Mushirul Hasan, From Pluralism to Separatism: Qasbas in Colonial Awadh
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), 37.
35. Gopı̄chañd Nārañg, Sānahfi ae Karbalā Bat3aur Shirı̄ Isteāra, 121.
36. Anjum Vazı̄rābādı̄, H fi usain Dūsroñ kı̄ Naz3ar meñ (Lahore: Maktaba-e Ahfi bāb,
n.d.), 43.
37. Quoted in Vinay Lal, The History of History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern
India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), 62.
38. See Sheila McDonough, Gandhi’s Response to Islam (New Delhi: D. K. Print-
world, 1994), 46.
39. Mouna Mounayer, dir., The Living Martyr: Hizbollah Unveiled. 2001, Films
for the Humanities and the Sciences.
40. Vazı̄rābādı̄, Hfi usain Dūsroñ kı̄ Naz3ar meñ, 50.
41. Alı̄ Sardār Jafri, “Tahfi rı̄k-e Jamāliyat aur Siyāsat,” in Taraqqı̄ Pasañd Adab,
Pachās Sāla Safar, ed. Qamar Rais and Sayyid Ashur Kazmi (Delhi: Educational Pub-
lishing House, 1994), 46.
42. See Gene Thursby, Hindu-Muslim Relations in British India: A Study of Con-
troversy (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974), 99–101; also see Norman G. Barrier, Banned: Con-
troversial Literature and Political Control in British India, 1907–1947 (Columbia: Univer-
sity of Missouri Press, 1974).
43. Of course there was no nation-state of India in the 1920s and this very no-
tion of national/qawmı̄ was obscure and subject to multiple readings.
44. Charu Gupta, Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims, and the
Hindu Public Sphere in Colonial India (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001), 286.
45. Madan Gopal, Munshi Premchand: A Literary Biography (New York: Asia,
1964), 236.
46. Munshi Premchand, Karbalā (Hindi) (Delhi: Saraswati, 1985), 8.
47. See Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Early Urdu Literary Culture and History (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001). Even a hundred years prior to this period,
Urdu and Hindi did not exist in independent, mutually-exclusive terms. But as the
fervor of religious exclusivism increased with each passing year, religious communi-
ties constituted themselves, among other things, on the basis of particular linguistic
identities. With time, the division between Urdu and Hindi became more polarized,
as the Urdu “community” borrowed its learned vocabulary more from Persian and
Arabic, and the Hindi “community” from Sanskrit.
48. The Hindi Karbala was first published in the Devanagari script in November
1924 by Ganga Pustak Mala of Lucknow.
49. Munshi Premchand, Karbalā, 5.
51. Munshi Premchand, Karbalā, 38–39.
54. Sfi ālehfi a A. Hfi usain, Kfi havātı̄n-e Karbalā Kalām-e Anı̄s ke Āı̄ne Meñ (New Delhi:
Maktaba Jāmia, 1973).
55. As far as this narrative’s historicity is concerned, Premchand is little con-
cerned with the truth behind the Hindu presence at Karbala. He claims that he has
been exposed to this story by reading Āı̄na, a journal that was published in Allaha-
bad. See Premchand: A Miscellany, Selections from the Monthly Zamāna (Kanpur) 1903–
1942, (Patna: Kfi huda Bakfi hsh Oriental Public Library, 1995), 211. For a fascinating, al-
though poorly-documented, account of the Husaini-Dutt Brahmans, see Abu Talib,
“Dut Brahman Imām Husain se Rabt3 o Z fi abt3” in Reg-e Surkfi h, 63–71.
58. Imtiyāz Alı̄ Arshı̄, Dı̄vān-e Ġhālib Urdū: Nuskfi hah-e Arshı̄ (Lahore: Majlis
Taraqqı̄-e Adab, 1992), part 1, 251.
59. Khwāja H fi asan Niz3āmı̄, “Urdū Hindı̄ aur Risāla-e Zamāna,” in Yādgār-e Jashn-e
Sfi ad Sāla Munshı̄ Dayā Narāin Nigam, ed. Sri Narain Nigam (Lucknow: Sri Narain
Nigam, 1981), 19.
60. Khwāja H fi asan Niz3āmı̄, “Urdū Hindı̄ aur Risāla-e Zamāna,” 20.
61. Premchand’s letter from Hindi-Urdu has been translated in Gopal, Munshi
Premchand, 235–37. For the original letter, see Munshi Premchand, Chitfifithi Patr [Corre-
spondence] (Allahabad: Hamsa Prakasana, 1978–1985), 1:146–48.
62. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991), 187–206.
63. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1993), 113.
64. See Premchand, Premchand: A Miscellany, 212.
65. Although he makes this clear in his Hindi version, he suggests that the play
could be staged with some modifications. What exactly these modifications are, we
are never told. However, by the time his Urdu version is ready to go to press, he in-
sists that the play is “only to be read.” The Urdu play would give Muslims a wider
access and it is possible that Premchand did not want controversy over the staging of
the play to hurt his agenda of bringing religious communities together. As Prem-
chand himself points out, there are two types of dramas: one written for the stage,
one written only to be read.
66. Peter Chelkowski, Taziyeh, 4–5.
67. Sudipta Kaviraj, “The Imaginary Institution of India,” in Subaltern Studies
VII: Writings on South Asian History and Society, ed. Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra
Pandey (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992), 31.
68. Kaviraj, “The Imaginary Institution of India,” in Subaltern Studies VII, 32.
69. See Coppola, “Urdu Poetry,” throughout.
70. Ali Sardar Jafri, Interview with author, Mumbai, India, January 15, 1999.
71. Nathanvı̄lāl Wahfi shı̄, Fikr-e Rasā, ed. Jābir Hfi usain, (Patna: Bihar Foundation,
1996), 16.
72. Wahfi shı̄, Fikr-e Rasā, 22.
75. The Prophet Muhammad, his daughter Fatima, her husband Ali, and the two
grandsons of the Prophet, Hasan and Husain, are considered “People of the Cloak,”
or ahl-e kisa, see chapter 3.
80. K. L. Narang Saqi, ed., Kulliyāt-e Sahfi ar.
81. K. L. Narang Saqi, ed., Kulliyāt-e Sahfi ar 395.
82. Jafar H fi usain Kfi hān, ed., Risāı̄ Adab meñ Hindū oñ kā H
fi isfisfia (Lucknow: Sol
Agent Urdu Publishers, 1983), 202.
83. Nazrul Islam’s Bengali poetry had been translated into Urdu by none other
than Akhtar Husain Raipuri, under the title “Payām-e Shabāb” or the “Message of
Youth.” See Raj Bahadurfi Gourfi, Adabı̄ Jāize (Delhi: Dunyā), 91. In a conversation with
the author, Ali Sardar Jafri also credits Nazrul Islam with having a strong influence of
Urdu Progressive Literature.
84. Muhfi ammad Wasfi ı̄ Kfi hān, H fi usain H fi usain. Vol. 2, 134
85. Mizanur Rahman, Nazrul Islam (Dacca: n.p., 1966), 152.
86. For Sajjad Zahir’s own account of this movement, see Sajjād Z 3 ahı̄r,
Raushnāı̄ (New Delhi: Sı̄ma, 1985).
87. Coppola, “Urdu Poetry,” 39–55.
88. Coppola, “Urdu Poetry,” 64.
89. Coppola, “Urdu Poetry,” 17–36.
90. Jawaharlal Nehru, “Taraqqı̄ Pasañd Musfisfianafı̄n” in Nayā Adab aur Kalı̄m, ed.
Josh Malihabadi, vol. 4, January-February 1941, 65.
91. Nehru, “Taraqqı̄ Pasañd Musfi sfi anafı̄n,” 65.
92. Ali Sardar Jafri, interview with author, Mumbai, India, 16 January, 1999.
3 ahı̄r, “Ghalib and Progressive Urdu Literature,” in International Ghalib
93. Z
Seminar (New Delhi: All India Ghalib Centenary Committee, 1969–1970), 110–120.
94. See Ralph Russell, “Ghalib: A Self-Portrait,” in Ghalib: The Poet and His Age.
ed. Ralph Russell (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1972), 9–35. Russell in this
“portrait” quotes the words that Ghalib, the poet laureate of the last Mughal court,
wrote to the British monarch, Queen Victoria: “And so your poet and panegyrist seeks
a title bestowed by the imperial tongue, and a robe of honour conferred by the impe-
rial command, and a crust of bread from the imperial table.” 20.
95. See Alt3āf H fi usain H fi ali, Yādgār-e Ġhālib (New Delhi: Ghalib Institute, 1986
[1897]).
96. Muhfi sin Kiyānı̄, Divān-e Ġhālib Dihlavı̄, (Farsi) (Tehran: Rawzanh, 1997), 67.
97. Kiyānı̄, Divān-e Ġhālib Dihalvı̄, 120.
98. Kiyānı̄, Divān-e Ġhālib Dihalvı̄, 67.
99. The Ravi and the Ganga are two sacred rivers of the subcontinent, the for-
mer in today’s Pakistan and the latter in India.
100. Shimr is the one who murdered Husain.
101. Hurmula murdered Husain’s six-month-old son, Ali Asghar.
102. This is a reference to Farhad, the legendary lover of Indo-Persian literature,
who was willing to carve a river through mountains in order to win over his beloved
Shirin. Thus the “mountain hewer” image signifies any determined lover.
103. Jām-e Jam, or the goblet of Jamshid (the legendary Persian king), signifies
wisdom and gnosis, for it is within it that the real events of the world are reflected. In
order to see through this goblet, one has to receive spiritual training and guidance.
Āsūdagān-e Jām-e Jam, signifies those who are spiritually handicapped and thus can-
not see through this goblet.
104. Ali Sardar Jafri, Mushāira 86: Bayād-e Faizfi (Recorded in Dubai 1986), video-
cassette.
105. Ali Sardar Jafri, Lakhnau kı̄ Pañch Rāteñ (Delhi: Mir, 1964), 22.
106. Ali Sardar Jafri, Mushāira 86.
107. Ali Sardar Jafri, interview with author, Boston, May 2, 1999.
108. Coppola, “Urdu Poetry,” 64.
109. See Gourfi, Adabı̄ Jāize, 60.
110. Faiz, Nuskfi haha-e Vafā, 698.
111. Hfi abı̄b Jālib, Kulliyāt-e H fi abı̄b Jālib (Lahore: Māwara Publishers, 1993), 216.
112. Shahab Ahmed, “The Politics of Solidarity: Palestine in Modern Urdu Po-
etry,” in Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. 18, 1998, 29–64.
113. Faizfi , Nuskfi hhfi ahā-e Vafā, 567–568.
114. Quoted in Gopichand Narang, Sānahfi ae Karbalā Bat3aur Shirı̄ Istiāra, 68.
115. Ahfi mad Farāz, Nābı̄nā Shahr meñ Āı̄na (Karachi: Az3ı̄m Publishers, 1983), 41.
116. Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Gopichand Narang have both commented on Arif ’s
fondness for the symbol of Karbala. See Iftikfi hār Arif, Mehr-e do Nı̄m (Karachi: Dan-
yal, 1983), 5–10 and 23.
117. See Iftikfi hār Arif, Mehr-e do Nı̄m, 67.
118. Parvı̄n Shākir, Sfi adbarg, in Māh-e Tamām (Delhi: Educational Publishing
House, 1995), 131–132.
119. Narañg, Sānahfi ae Karbalā, 85.
120. Naz3mı̄, Reg-e Surkfi h, 201
121. Vahid Akhtar has also drawn similarities between the Islamic revolution of
Iran and the uprising of the Imam Husain at Karbala. See Sayyid Vahid Akhtar, “Kar-
bala, an Enduring Paradigm of Islamic Revivalism,” Al-Tawhid 13 (1996): 113–125.
122. Akhtar, “Karbala,” 158–159.
123. Vahid Akhtar, Karbalā tā Karbalā (Aligarh: Sayyid Vahid Akhtar, 1991), 168.
124. Akhtar, Karbalā tā Karbalā, 175.
125. Ismat Chughtai, Ek Qat3rah-e Kfi hūn (Bombay: Fan aur Fankar, 1976), Foreword.
126. See James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1990). Although Manto and Chughtai both identified with the Pro-
gressive agenda to a great extent, it must be pointed out that their relationship with
some of their other Progressive comrades was tense at times: While the general tenor
within the Progressive Movement was to privilege the issues of class and economics,
war and imperialism, Chughtai and Manto unabashedly laced their themes with is-
sues dealing with sexuality and this made many of their colleagues uncomfortable.
127. Sadat Hasan Manto, Yazı̄d (Lahore: Maktaba-e Sher-o Adab, 1975), 5–21.
128. Sadat Hasan Manto, Yazı̄d, 7.
133. Sadat Hasan Manto, Yazı̄d, 20–21.
134. Gayatri Spivak, interview by Stu Dawrs, South Asia News, Center for South
Asian Studies, University of Hawaii Newsletter, Spring 2003, 1.
135. Khwaja Shamsuddin Muhfi ammad-i-Hafiz-i-Shirazi, The Divan, Edited and
Translated by H. Wilberforce Clarke, Volume 1 (New York: Samuel Weiser Inc., 1970),
4.
136. Shakı̄l Anjum Dehlavı̄, ed., Behtā lahū jalte jism: gujrāt ke haulnāk fasādāt ke
pas manz3ar men manz3ūm majmūa [Flowing blood, burning bodies: a versified anthol-
ogy in the aftermath of Gujarat’s frightening riots] (New Delhi: Shakı̄l Anjum Deh-
lavı̄, 2002), 73–74.
137. See Syed Akbar Hyder, “Urdu’s Progressive Wit: Sulaiman Khatib, Sarvar
Danda, and the Subaltern Satirists Who Spoke Up,” in The Annual of Urdu Studies,
no. 20, 2005, 99–126.
138. Ali Sardar Jafri, interview with author, Boston, May 2, 1999.
139. Faiz, Nuskfi hhfi ahāi Vafā, 265.
140. Muhiuddin, Bisāt3-e Raqsfi, 196.
conclusion
1. The first poetic epigraph for this chapter is from Mahdı̄ Naz3mi, Reg-e Surkfi h,
96. The second is from Saeed Shahidi Saeed, Kfi hāk-e Shafā (Karachi: Ghulam Abbas,
1982), 16.
2. Frances Pritchett, Nets of Awareness, 199.
3. Mahr, Navā-e Sarosh, 996. This couplet also exists in a different version but
since it is not the subject of my analysis here, I am only giving the version that Saeed
Shahidi gave me.
5. Qais is the legendary Romeo-like character of Arabic literature whose love for
Laila renders him insane (majnūn). Among the many images of Qais that have been
conjured up by writers and artists is the one in which the world has enchained him
so as to keep him away from Laila.
6. Saeed Shahidi Saeed, interview by author, Hyderabad, India, January 1, 1999.
I also interviewed a member of this mushaira audience, who was a professor of Urdu
at Osmania University, Hyderabad: Akbar Beg, interview by author, Hyderabad, India,
January 2, 1999.
7. Saeed, interview by author, Hyderabad, India, January 2, 1999.
Bibliography
books and journals

Abbas, S. G. The Immortal Poetry of Mir Anis. Karachi: Majlis-e Millı̄, 1983.
Abbāsı̄, Mahfi mūd Ahfi mad. Kfi hilāfat-e Muāwiya o Yazı̄d. Karachi: Mahfi mūd
Abbāsı̄, 1964.
Abdullāh, Sayyid. Mubāhfi iṡ: D fi āktfiar Sayyid Abdullāh ke Tahfi qı̄qı̄ aur Tanqı̄dı̄
Mazfi āmı̄n. Lahore: Majlis Taraqqı̄-e Urdū Adab, 1965.
Ābid, Shaukat Alı̄. H fi usain sab kā. Hyderabad: Must3afa, 1985.
Āfandi, Najm. H fi usain aur Hindustān kā sambañdh. Lucknow: Sarfarāz,
1960.
Ahmad, Imtiaz. Ritual and Religion among Muslims in India. New Delhi: Ma-
nohar, 1981.
Ahfi mad, Merāj. Surūr-e Ruhfi ānı̄. Delhi: Maktaba Rābit3a, 1998.
Ahfi mad, Z 3 ahı̄r. Iqbāl aur Kfi hūdı̄. Hyderabad: Etemād, 1971.
Ahmed, Shahab. “The Politics of Solidarity: Palestine in Modern Urdu Po-
etry.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. 18 (1998): 29–64.
Akhtar, Sayyid Vahid. “Karbala, an Enduring Paradigm of Islamic Revival-
ism.” Al-Tawhfi ı̄d 13 (1996): 113–25.
———. Karbalā tā Karbalā. Aligarh: Sayyid Vahı̄d Akfi htar, 1991.
Alam, Muzaffar. The Language of Political Islam in India c. 1200–1800. Delhi:
Permanent Black, 2004.
Ali, Ahmed. Husain: The Saviour of Islam. Baldwin, New York: Anjumane
Aza Khana-Az-Zahra, n.d.
Ali, Meer Hassan. Observations on the Mussalmans of India. Edited by W.
Crooke. Karachi: Oxford University, 1974 [1832].
Alı̄ābādı̄, Sayyid Alı̄ Ashraf. Miṡālı̄ Azādārı̄ Kaise Manā’eñ. Karachi: Dārul-
saqāfa Islāmiya Pākistān, 1996.
All India Ghalib Centenary Committee. International Ghalib Seminar (1969
New Delhi). New Delhi: All India Ghalib Centenary Committee, 1969–
1970.
240 bibliography
Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Translated by Ben Brewster.
London: New Left Books, 1971.
Ameed, Syed Mohammed. The Importance of Weeping and Wailing. Karachi: Peerma-
homed Ebrahim Trust, 1974.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1991.
Anı̄s, Mı̄r. Anı̄s ke Salām. Edited by Ali Javad Zaidi. New Delhi: Taraqqı̄ Urdu Bureau,
1981.
———. Dabistān-e Anı̄s Rāwalpindfi ı̄ kā Yādgār Majla Basilsila-e Sfi ad Sala Barsı̄ 10 De-
cember 1974. Rawalpindi: Nasim Printing Press, 1974.
———. Marṡiya dar H fi āl-e Ṡani-e Zahra H fi azfi rat Zainab Kubrā. Hyderabad: Aijaz
Printing Press, n.d.
Anqirawı̄, Muhfi ammad. Sharhfi -e Kabı̄r-e Bar Maṡnavı̄-e Mawlavı̄. Tabriz: Kitābfurushı̄-e
Hfi ikmat, 1970.
Ansfi ārı̄, Z3 oe, ed. Maṡnaviyāt-e Ġhālib asfil Fārsı̄ ma Urdū Tarjuma. New Delhi: Ghalib
Institute, 1983.
Arif, Iftikfi hār. Mehr-e do Nı̄m. Karachi: Danyal, 1983.
Arifı̄, Āmir. Shahr Āshūb: Ek Tajziya. Delhi: Delhi University, 1994.
Aristotle. Aristotle’s Poetics. Translated by S. H. Butcher. New York: Hill and Wang,
1961.
Arjomand, Said Amir, ed. Authority and Political Culture in Shi’ism. New York: State
University of New York Press, 1988.
“Arshı̄,” Imtiyāz Alı̄, ed. Dı̄vān-e Ġhālib Urdū: Nuskfi ha-e Arshı̄. Lahore: Majlis Taraqqı̄-
e Adab, 1992.
Asani, Ali. “Marthiya: Imam Husayn’s Conversation with God.” In Windows on the
House of Islam: Muslim Sources on Spirituality and Religious Life. Edited by John
Renard. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Ashraf, Sayyid Dāud. H fi arf-e Itibār. Hyderabad: Shagufa, 2001.
At33t ār, Farı̄duddı̄n. Musfiı̄batnāmah. Tehran: Kitābfurushı̄ Zavvār, 1958.
Ayoub, Mahmoud. The Crisis of Muslim History: Religion and Politics in Early Islam.
Oxford: Oneworld, 2003.
———. Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of Ashura in
Twelver Shi ism. New York: Mouton, 1978.
Āzād, Abul Kalām. Shahādat-e H fi usain. New Delhi: Eteqād, 1987.
Āzād, Muhfi ammad H fi usain. Āb-e H fi ayāt: Shaping the Canon of Urdu Poetry. Translated
and edited by Frances Pritchett. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Babayan, Kathryn. Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Mod-
ern Iran. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Babb, Lawrence and Susan Wadley, eds. Media and Transformation of Religion in South
Asia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.
Bailie, T. Graham. A History of Urdu Literature. Lahore: al-Biruni, 1977.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination. Translated by Caryl Emerson and
Michael Holquist. Edited by Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press,
1981.
Bard, Amy. “Value and Vitality in a Literary Tradition: Female Poets and the Urdu
Marsiyah.” The Annual of Urdu Studies 15 (2000): 323–35.
Barrier, Norman G. Banned: Controversial Literature and Political Control in British In-
dia, 1907–1947. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974.
Bhagavan, Manu. Sovereign Spheres: Princes, Education and Empire in Colonial India.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003.
bibliography 241
Bhutto, Benazir. Daughter of Destiny: An Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schus-
ter, 1989.
Bilgirāmı̄, Hosh. Mushāhidāt. Lahore: Maktaba-e Dār-ul-Kitāb.
Biyābānı̄, Ashraf. Maṡnavı̄ Nausarhār. Edited by Afsar Siddı̄qı̄. Karachi: Anjuman-e
Taraqqı̄-e Urdū Pākistān, 1982.
Brown, Daniel. Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1996.
Browne, E. G. Literary History of Persia. Vol. 2. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal,
1997.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Provincializing Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2000.
Chaman, Amı̄r H fi usain, ed. Miñbar kā dūsrā nām. Karachi: Print Media Publications,
2000.
Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and Its Fragments. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1993.
Chatterjee, Partha and Gyanendra Pandey, eds. Subaltern Studies VII: Writings on
South Asian History and Society. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Chelkowski, Peter, ed. Taziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran. New York: New York Uni-
versity Press, 1979.
Chishtı̄, Muı̄nuddı̄n H fi asan. Divān-e Kfi hwājah-e Kfi hwājagān Ġharı̄b Navāz Muı̄nuddı̄n
Ajmerı̄ Chishtı̄. Translated by Abdul Qādir Chishtı̄. Dhanbad: Abdul Qādir
Chishtı̄, 1984.
Chishtı̄, Yūsuf. Asrār-e Kfi hūdı̄ Masharhfi . New Delhi: Eteqād, 1998.
Chittick, William. The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi. Albany: State
Chughtai, Ismat. Ek Qat3rah-e Kfi hūn. Bombay: Fan aur Fankār, 1976.
Clarke, H. Wilberforce, ed. The Divan. New York: Samuel Weiser, 1970.
Cole, Juan. Roots of North Indian Shi’ism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh,
1722–1859. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989.
Coppola, Carlo. “Urdu Poetry, 1935–1970: The Progressive Episode.” Ph.D. diss. Uni-
versity of Chicago, 1975.
Cormack, Margaret, ed. Sacrificing the Self: Perspectives on Martyrdom and Religion.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Dabashi, Hamid. Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revo-
lution in Iran. New York: New York University Press, 1993.
Das, Veena. Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India.
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Dehlavı̄, Shakı̄l Anjum, ed. Behtā Lahū Jalte Jism: Gujrāt ke Haulnāk Fasādāt ke Pas
Manz3ar men Manz3ūm Majmūa. New Delhi: Shakı̄l Anjum Dehlavı̄, 2002.
Demirel, Hamid. The Poet Fuzfi ūlı̄: His Works, Study of His Turkish, Persian and Arabic
Divans. Ankara: Ministry of Culture, 1991.
Donner, Fred. Narratives of Islamic Origins: The Beginning of Islamic Historical Writing.
Princeton: Darwin, 1998.
D’Souza, Diane. “In the Presence of the Martyrs: The Alam in Popular Shii Piety.”
The Muslim World 88, no. 1 (1998): 67–80.
Dunham, Mary Francis. Jārı̄gān: The Muslim Folk Epic of East Bengal. Dacca: Oxford
University Press, 1997.
242 bibliography
Eaton, Richard. Sufis of Bijapur, 1300–1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.
Ehrlich, Dimitri. Inside the Music: Conversation with Contemporary Musicians About
Spirituality, Creativity, and Consciousness. Boston: Shambhala, 1997.
Enayat, Hamid. Modern Islamic Political Thought. Austin: University of Texas Press,
1982.
Ernst, Carl W. and Bruce Lawrence. Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South
Asia and Beyond. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Esposito, John. Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2002.
Faizfi , Faizfi Ahfi mad. Nuskfi hhahā-e Vafā. Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 1992.
Farāz, Ahfi mad. Nābı̄nā Shahr Meñ Ā’ı̄na. Karachi: Az3ı̄m Publishers, 1983.
Farrel, Gerry. Indian Music and the West. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Faruqi, Shamsur Rahman. Early Urdu Literary Culture and History. New Delhi: Oxford
———. Urdū Ġhazal ke Aham Morfi. New Delhi: Ghalib Academy, 1997.
Fārūqı̄, Żākir Hfi usain. Dabistān-e Dabı̄r. Lucknow: Nası̄m Book Depot, 1966.
Fazfi li, Fazfi al Alı̄. “Karbal Kathā.” Edited by Mālik Rām and Mukfi htāruddı̄n Ahfi mad.
Patna: Idāra-e Tehfi qı̄qāt-e Urdū, 1965.
Fischer, Michael. Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1980.
Fischer, Michael and Mehdi Abedi. Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in Postmod-
ernity and Tradition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.
Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.
Freitag, Sandria. Collective Action and Community: Public Arenas and the Emergence
of Communalism in North India. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1989.
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1972.
“Ġhālib,” Mirzā Asadullāh Khān. Dı̄vān-e Ġhālib. Edited by Imtiyāz Alı̄ Kfi hān Arshı̄.
Lahore: Majlis Tarraqı̄-e Adab, 1992.
Ghosh, Amitav. The Imam and the Indian. Delhi: Ravi Dayal and Permanent Black,
2002.
Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Edited by
David Womersley. London: Penguin, 1994.
Gopal, Madan. Munshi Premchand: A Literary Biography. New York: Asia, 1964.
Gordon, Stewart, ed. Robes of Honor: Khil’at in Pre-Colonial and Colonial India. New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Gourfi, Rāj Bahādur. Adabı̄ Jā’ize. Delhi: Dunyā, n.d.
Graff, Violette, ed. Lucknow: Memories of a City. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Guindi, Fadwa El. Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance. Oxford: Berg, 1999.
Gupta, Charu. Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims, and the Hindu Pub-
lic in Colonial India. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001.
Hfi aidarābādı̄, Akmal. Qawwālı̄: Amı̄r Khusro se Shakı̄la Bāno Tak. New Delhi: Idāra-e
Shama, 1982.
Hfi aidarı̄, Akbar, ed. Intikfi hāb-e Marāṡi-e Mirzā Dabı̄r. Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Urdu
Academy, 1980.
Hfi aidarı̄, Sayyid Anı̄s Jahān. Guldastah-e Murād. Bombay: H fi aidarı̄ Kutub Kfi hāna, n.d.
Hfi aidarı̄, Sayyid Iz3hār H fi usain. Mukfi htār Nāma, Asfialı̄ o Qadı̄m. Bombay: H fi aidarı̄ Kutub
Kfi hana, 1993.
bibliography 243
Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. Translated by Lewis Coser. Chicago: Uni-

versity of Chicago Press, 1992.
“Hfi ali,” Alt3āf Hfi usain. Muqaddamah-e Sher o Shāirı̄. Allahabad: Rā’i Sāhfi ab Lāla Rām
Dayāl, 1964.
———. Yādgār-e Ġhālib. New Delhi: Ghalib Institute, 1986.
Hasan, Hadi. A Golden Treasury of Persian Poetry. Edited by M. S. Israel. New Delhi:
Indian Council for Cultural Relations, 1972.
Hasan, Mushirul. From Pluralism to Separatism: Qasbas in Colonial Awadh. Delhi: Ox-
ford University Press, 2004.
Hfi asan, Sayyad, ed. Mumtāzul Majālis. Lucknow: Ihfi bāb, 1962.
Hasnain, Nadeem and Abrar Husain. Shias and Shia Islam in India: A Study in Soci-
ety and Culture. New Delhi: Harnam, 1988.
Hawley, John. “Authorship and Authority in Bhakti Poetry of North India.” Journal of
Asian Studies 47 (1988): 269–90.
Hawting, G. R. The Umayyad Caliphate, A.D. 661–750. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
Hejazi, Sayyed and A. S. Hashim, eds. Ahlul Bayt Assembly of America: Abstract of
Proceedings Convention of 1996. Potomac, MD: Ahlul-Bayt Assembly of America,
1997.
Hjortshoj, Keith Guy. “Kerbala in Context: A Study of Muharram in Lucknow.” Ph.D.
diss. Cornell University, 1977.
Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civi-
lization. 3 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.
Hoffman-Ladd, Valerie. “Devotion to the Prophet and His Family in Egyptian Su-
fism.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992): 615–37.
Hollister, John Norman. The Shi’a of India. 2nd ed. New Delhi: Oriental Books Re-
print Corp, 1979.
Huntington, Samuel. The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order. New
York: Touchstone, 1997.
Hfi usain, Ihfi tishām and Ması̄hfi Uz zamān. eds. Intikfi hāb-e Josh. Allahabad: Allahabad
University, 1967.
Hfi usain, Int3ezār. “Anı̄s ke Marṡiye meñ Shahr.” In Anı̄s Shināsı̄. Edited by Gopichañd
Narañg. Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 1981.
———. “Hindu Contribution to the Marsiya.” Dawn, March 24, 2002.
Hfi usain, Sfi ālehfi a Ābid. Kfi havātı̄n-e Karbalā Kalām-e Anı̄s ke Ā’ı̄ne Meñ. New Delhi:
Maktaba Jāmia, 1973.
———, ed. Anı̄s ke Marṡiye. 2 vols. New Delhi: Taraqqı̄ Urdū Board, 1977.
Hfi usain, Sayyid Ashraf. Tahfi affuzfi -e Shı̄at. Lucknow: Tanzfi ı̄m-e Millat-e Lucknow, n.d.
Hfi usain, Sayyid H fi āmid. Urdū Shāirı̄ meñ Mustamal Talmı̄hfi āt o Musfi3aleh
t fi āt. Bhopal,
1977.
Hussain, Ali J. “A Developmental Analysis of Depictions of the Event of Karbala in
Early Islamic History.” Ph.D. diss. University of Chicago, 2001.
Hfi ussaini, Sayyid Muhfi ammad Akbar, ed. Jafi wāme al-Kalām: Malfuz3āt-e Kfi hwāja Bande
Nawāz Gesūdarāz. Delhi: Adabı̄ Dunyā, 2000.
Hfi ussām, H fi akı̄m Shaykfi h Abulqāsim, ed. Hilāl-e Muhfi arram. Hyderabad: Kutubkfi hāna-
eH fi aidarı̄, 1995.
Hyder, Syed Akbar. “Iqbal and Karbala: Re-Reading the Episteme of Martyrdom for a
Poetics of Appropriation.” Cultural Dynamics 13 (2001): 339–62.
———. “To Die and Yet Live: Karbala in Urdu Discursive Landscapes.” Ph.D. diss.
Harvard University, 2000.
244 bibliography
———. “Urdu’s Progressive Wit: Sulaiman Khatib, Sarvar Danda, and the Subaltern
Satirists Who Spoke Up.” The Annual of Urdu Studies 20 (2005): 99–126.
Ibn Khaldun. The Muqaddimah, An Introduction to History. Translated by Franz Ro-
senthal. Edited by N. J. Dawood. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Imrānı̄, Sayyid Ahfi san. Iqbāl dar Madhfi -e Muhfi ammad va āl-e Muhfi ammad. Lahore:
Hfi aqq Brothers, n.d.
Iqbāl, Muhfi ammad. Kulliyāt-e Iqbāl (Urdu). Aligarh: Educational Book House, 1992.
———. The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Lahore: SH. Muhammad
Ashraf, 1988.
Israel, Milton and N. K. Wagle, ed. Islamic Society and Culture: Essays in Honor of Pro-
fessor Aziz Ahmad. New Delhi: Manohar, 1983.
Jafar, Sayyadah. Yūsuf Zulaikfi hā. Hyderabad: n.p., 1983.
Jafri, Ali Sardār. Lakhnau kı̄ pānch rāteñ. Delhi: Mir, 1964.
———. “Tahfi rı̄k-e Jamāliyat aur Siyāsat.” In Taraqqı̄ Pasañd Adab, Pachās Sāla Safar.
Edited by Qamar Rais and Sayyid Ashur Kazmi. Delhi: Educational Publishing
House, 1994.
Jafri, S. Husain. Origins and Early Development of Shia Islam. London: Longman,
1979.
Jalal, Ayesha. Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam
since 1850. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.
Jālib, H fi abı̄b. Kulliyāt-e Hfi abı̄b Jālib. Lahore: Māwara, 1993.
Jalı̄l, Sehvānı̄, ed. Al-Shehbāz: Savānihfi H fi azfi rat Qalandar Lal Shahbāz. Sehvan:
fi ayāt H
Idāra-e Shahbāz, 2001.
Jāmı̄, Nūr al-Dı̄n Abd al-Rahfi mān. Dı̄vān-e Kāmil-e Jāmı̄. Edited by Hāshim Razfi ı̄. Teh-
ran: Chāpkfi hāna-e Pı̄rūz, 1962.
Jārchavı̄, Sayyid Ibn-e H fi asan. Chaudah Majālis. Lucknow: Sarfarāz Qaumı̄, 1965.
Jauhar, Muhfi ammad Alı̄. Sukfi han-e Jauhar. Edited by Bastavı̄ Akfi htar. Lucknow: Uttar
Pradesh Urdu Academy, 1983.
Jawad, Rana. “632 Fell Prey to Sectarian Killings in Punjab in Nine Years.” News In-
ternational Pakistan. http://www.best.com/⬃karachi/news/sectarian2.html. Ac-
cessed January 19, 1999.
Kāshfı̄, Sayyid Abul Kfi hayr. Urdu Shāirı̄ kā Siyāsı̄ aur Tārı̄kfi hı̄ pas manz3ar, 1707 se 1857
tak. Karachi: Adabı̄ Publishers, 1975.
Kāshifı̄, H fi usain Wāiz3. Rawzfi at al-Shuhadā. Kanpur: Naval Kishor, 1911.
Kashmı̄rı̄, Akbar H fi aidar. Avadh meñ Urdū Marṡiye kā Irtiqā. Lucknow: Nusrat, 1981.
Keddie, Nikki and Beth Baron, eds. Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Bounda-
ries in Sex and Gender. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
Khameneı̄, Sayyid Alı̄. Falsafa-e Āshūra aur Azādārı̄ kı̄ ahmiyyat. Hyderabad: n.p.,
1994.
Kfi hān, Jafar H fi usain. Risā’ı̄ Adab meñ Hindū’oñ kā H fi isfisfia. Lucknow: Sol Agent Urdu
Publishers, 1983.
Kfi hān, Muhfi ammad Wasfi ı̄. H fi usain H fi usain. 2 vols. Karachi: Mehfi fil-e H fi aidarı̄ Naz3imā-
bād, 1981.
Khusraw, Amir. Seventh Centenary Celebrtion, February 11–13, 1972. Hyderabad: Abul
Kalam Azad Oriental Research Institute, 1976.
Kiyānı̄, Muhfi sin, ed. Divān-e Ġhālib Dihlavı̄ (Farsi). Tehran: Rawzanh, 1997.
Kohlberg, Etan. “Shahı̄d.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. 9. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997:203–
207.
Korom, Frank J. Hosay Trinidad: Muharram Performances in an Indo-Carribean Dias-
pora. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.
bibliography 245
Kraemer, Joel L. Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival During the
Buyid Age. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986.
Lal, Vinay. The History of History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern India. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2003.
Lev, Yaacov. State and Society in Fatimid Egypt. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991.
Lewinstein, Keith. “The Revaluation of Martyrdom in Early Islam.” In Sacrificing the
Self: Perspectives on Martrydom and Religion, edited by Margaret Cormack. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Lindsay, James. “Caliphal and Moral Exemplar? Alı̄ ibn Asākir’s Portrait of Yazı̄d b.
Muāwiya.” Der Islam 72 (1997): 250–78.
Madelung, Wilfred. The Succession to Muhammad. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997.
Mahr, Ġhulām Rasūl, ed. Navā-e Sarosh. Lahore: Shaykh Ghulam and Sons, n.d.
Majlisı̄, Muhfi ammad Bāqir al-. Bihfi ār al-Anwār. Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Wafā, 1983.
Malı̄hfi ābādı̄, Ismat, ed. Josh kı̄ Inqilābı̄ Naz3meñ. Lucknow: Ismat Malı̄hfi ābādı̄, 1982.
Malı̄hfi ābādı̄, Josh. Intikfi hāb-e Kalām-e Josh. Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy,
1983.
———. Samūm o Sfi abā. Delhi: Munshi Gulab Singh, 1950.
———. Sho’la o Shabnam. Delhi: Himalaya Book House [1969?].
Mamdani, Mahmood. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: Islam, the USA, and the Global War
against Terror. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004.
Mani, Lata. Contentious Traditions: The Debate of Sati in Colonial India. Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1998.
Manto, Sadat Hasan. Yazı̄d. Lahore: Maktaba-e Sher-o Adab, 1975.
Manuel, Peter. Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Marlow, Louise. Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1997.
Masselos, Jim. “Change and Custom in the Format of the Bombay Mohurram During
the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian
Studies 5, no. 2 (1982): 46–67.
Masūd, Naiyar. Marṡiyah Kfi hvānı̄ kā Fan. Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy, 1990.
Mawdūdı̄, Abu al-Alā. Kfi hilāfat o Mulūkiyyat. New Delhi: Markazı̄ Islāmı̄ Publishers,
2003.
McCarthy, Rory. “Religion and Violence in Pakistan’s Streets.” Guardian Unlimited,
2001. http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,469439,00
.html. Accessed May 8, 2001.
McDonough, Sheila. Gandhi’s Response to Islam. New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1994.
Memon, Muhammad Umar, ed. Studies in the Urdu Gazal and Prose Fiction. Madison:
University of Wisconsin, 1979.
Metcalf, Barbara Daly. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1982.
———. “The Reformist Ulama: Muslim Religious Leadership in India, 1860–1900.”
Ph.D. diss. University of California at Berkeley, 1974.
———, ed. Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1996.
Minault, Gail. The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbols and Political Mobilization in
India. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
“Mı̄r,” Mı̄r Taqı̄. Kulliyāt-e Mı̄r. Edited by Z 3 ill-e Abbās Abbāsı̄. New Delhi: Taraqqı̄
Urdu Bureau, 1968.
246 bibliography
Modarressi, Hossein. Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shiite Islam.
Princeton: Darwin, 1993.
Moezzi, Mohammad Ali Amir. The Divine Guide in Early Shiism. New York: State
Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shii Islam. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1985.
Mottahedeh, Roy. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran. New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1985.
Mufı̄d, Shaykfi h al-. Kitāb al-Irshād. Translated by I. K. A. Howard. Elmhurst, NY: Tah-
rike Tarsile Qur’an, 1981.
Muhammadi Trust of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Al-Sfi erāt: Papers from the
Imām H fi usain Conference—London, July 1984. Vol. 12. London: The Muhammadi
Trust of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1986.
Muhfi iuddin, Makfi hdūm. Bisāt3-e Raqsfi. Hyderabad: Urdu Academy Andhra Pradesh,
1986.
Mūsawı̄, Rashı̄d. Dakkan meñ Marṡiya aur Azādārı̄: 1857 tā 1957. Hyderabad: Adabı̄
Book Stall, 1970.
Mutahharı̄, Murtada. “Āshūra: History and Popular Legend.” Al-Tawhfi ı̄d 13, no. 3 (Fall
1996): 41–74.
Najafı̄, Sayyid ibn H fi asan, ed. Siddı̄qa-e Kubrā H fi azfi rat Fāt3ima Zahrā ke Basfiirat Afroz
Kfi hut3bāt. Karachi: Idāra-e Tamaddun-e Islam, n.d.
Nakash, Yitzhak. The Shi’is of Iraq. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Naqvı̄, Hfi usain. Dāstān-e Karbalā. Hyderabad: Turābiya, n.d.
Naqvi, Sadiq. Muslim Religious Institutions and Their Role under the Qutb Shahs. Hy-
derabad: Bab-ul-ilm Society, 1993.
Naqvı̄, Sayyid Afzfi al H fi usain. Midhfi at-e āl-e Muhfi ammad aur Iqbāl. Karachi: Anjuman-e
Safina-e Adab, 1977.
Naqvı̄, Sayyid Alı̄ Naqi. Mujāhida-e Karbalā. Lucknow: Sarfaraz Qaumi, n.d.
———. Rahnumāyān-e Islām. Lucknow: Sarfaraz, n.d.
———. Sajdagāh. Aligarh: Aligarh Muslim University, 1968.
———. Shahı̄d-e Insāniyat. Lahore: Maktaba-e Imāmiya Mission Trust, 1991.
Naqvı̄, Shāhid. Azādārı̄: Tahżı̄bi, Adabı̄ aur Ṡaqafatı̄ Manz3arnāme meñ. Lahore: Iz3hār
Sanz, 2002.
Naqvı̄, Zfi amı̄r Akfi htar, ed. Josh Malı̄hfi ābādı̄ ke Marṡiye. Karachi: Idarah-e Faiz-e Adab,
1980.
———. Urdū Ġhazal aur Karbalā. Karachi: Markaz-e Ūlūm-e Islāmiya, 1988.
Nārañg, Gopı̄chañd. Sānihfi a-e Karbalā Bat3aur Shiri Istiara: Urdū Shāirı̄ kā ek Takfi hlı̄qı̄
Rujhfi ān. Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 1986.
———. Urdū Tanqı̄d aur Uslūbiyāt. Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 1989.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity. New York:
HarperSanFrancisco, 2004.
———. Sufi Essays. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.
———, ed. Islamic Spirituality. 2 vols. New York: Crossroads, 1987.
Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jamaat-i Islami of
Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Naz3mı̄, Mahdı̄. Reg-e Surkfi h. New Delhi: Abu Talib Academy, 1984.
Nehru, Jawaharlal. “Taraqqı̄ Pasañd Musfi annifı̄n.” Nayā Adab aur Kalı̄m 4 (1941): 59–
65.
Nicholson, Reynold, trans. A Rumi Anthology. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2000.
bibliography 247
Nigam, Sri Narain, ed. Yādgār-e Jashn-e Sfi ad Sāla Munshı̄ Dayā Nara’in Nigam. Luck-
now: Sri Narain Nigam, 1981.
Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad. “Early Indo-Muslim Mystics and Their Attitude Towards the
State.” Islamic Culture: The Hyderabad Quarterly Review 23 (1949): 13–21.
———. Tarikh-e Mashaikh-e Chisthti. Delhi: Idara-e Adabiyat-e Dilli, 1980.
Niz3āmı̄, Khwāja H fi asan. “Urdū Hiñdı̄ aur Risāla-e Zamāna.” In Yādgār-e Jashn-e Sfi ad
Sāla Munshı̄ Dayā Nara’in Nigam, edited by Sri Narain Nigam. Lucknow: Sri
Nara’in Nigam, 1981.
Numānı̄, Muhfi ammad Shibli. Muwāzanah-e Anı̄s o Dabı̄r. Allahabad: Rām Narain Lāl
Uran Kumār, 1987.
Petievich, Carla. Assemby of Rivals: Delhi, Lucknow, and the Urdu Ghazal. Delhi: Mano-
har, 1992.
Pinault, David. Horse of Karbala. New York: St. Martin’s, 2001.
———. The Shiites: Ritual and Popular Piety in a Muslim Community. New York: St.
Martin’s, 1992.
Platts, John T. A Dictionary of Urdū, Classical Hindı̄, and English. New Delhi: Mun-
shiram Manoharlal, 1997 [1884].
Pollock, Sheldon, ed. Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
Pooya, Mirza Mahdi. Essence of the Holy Quran. Edited by Syed Muhammad Murtuza
and Husain P. Taylor. New Jersey: Imam Sahebuz Zaman Associaton, 1990.
Premchand, Munshi. Chitfifithi Patr [Correspondence] Vol. 1. Allahabad: Hamsa Praka-
sana, 1978–1985.
———. Karbalā (Hindi). Delhi: Saraswati, 1985.
———. Premchand: A Miscellany, Selections from the Monthly Zamāna (Kanpur) 1903–
1942. Patna: Kfi huda Bakfi hsh Oriental Public Library, 1995.
Pritchett, Frances. Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and its Critics. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1994.
Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale. 2nd ed. Translated by Laurence Scott.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1958.
Qaumi Council Press. Dars-e Balāġhat. New Delhi: Qaumı̄ Council Press Barā’e Furūġh-e
Urdū Zabān.
Qureshi, Regula Burckhardt. “Islamic Music in an Indian Environment: The Shia
Majlis.” Ethnomusicology 25 (1981): 41–71.
———. Sufi Music of India and Pakistan: Sound, Context and Meaning in Qawwali.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Rahman, Mizanur. Nazrul Islam. Dacca: n.p., 1966.
Rā’ipūrı̄, Akfi htar Hfi usain. Adab aur Inqilāb. Karachi: Nafı̄s Academy, 1989.
Rame, Muhfi ammad. Iqbāl aur Soshalizam. Lahore: Albayān, 1970.
Rizfi vı̄, Mı̄r Saādat. Ādil Shāhı̄ Marṡiye. Hyderabad: Abulkalam Azad Oriental Re-
search Institute, 1980.
Rizvi, Saiyid Athar Abbas. A History of Sufism in India. New Delhi: Munshiram Ma-
noharlal Publishers, 1986.
———. A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isna ‘Ashari Shi’is in India. 2 vols. New
Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1986.
Rizfi vı̄, Sardār. Hfi usain Sab Kā. Lahore: Nūr Publications, 1999.
Rizfi vı̄, Sayyid Masūd H fi asan. Anı̄siyat: Mı̄r Anı̄s par Mazfi āmı̄n va Maqālāt. Lucknow:
Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy, 1976.
———. Rūhfi -e Anı̄s. Lucknow: Kitab Nagar, 1964.
248 bibliography
Rizfi vı̄, Sayyid Muhfi ammad Aqı̄l. Marṡiye kı̄ Samājiyat. Lucknow: Nusrat, 1993.
Rizfi vı̄, Sayyid Turāb Alı̄, ed. Fuġhān-e Azādārāñ. Hyderabad: Maktabah-e Turabiya.
Rizvi, Syed Saeed. The Life of Muhammad: The Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him. Stanmore:
The World Federation of Khoja Shia Ithna-Asheri Muslim Communities, 1999.
Rogers, J. M. “The Genesis of Safawid Religious Painting.” Iran: Journal of the British
Institute of Persian Studies 8 (1970):125–139.
Rudaulvı̄, Shārib, ed. Urdu Marṡiya: Seminār meñ Parfihe Ga’e Maqālāt. New Delhi:
Urdu Academy, 1991.
Russell, Ralph, ed. Ghalib: The Poet and His Age. London: George Allen and Unwin,
1972.
Sachedina, Abdulaziz Abdulhussein. The Just Ruler in Shiite Islam. New York: Oxford
Sadiq, Muhammad. A History of Urdu Literature. Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1984.
Saeed, Saeed Shahidi. Kfi hāk-e Shafā. Karachi: Ghulam Abbas, 1982.
Sfi afı̄pūrı̄, Shahı̄d. Shahı̄d-e Z 3 ulm. Lucknow: United India, 1970.
“Sahfi ar,” Kuñwar Mahendra Siñgh Bedı̄. Kulliyāt-e Sahfi ar: Kuñwar Mahendra Siñgh
Bedı̄ Sahfi ar. Edited by K. L. Nārañg Sāqı̄. New Delhi: Kunwar Mahendra Singh
Bedi Committee, 1992.
Saudā, Mirzā Muhfi ammad Rafı̄. Intikfi hāb az Marāṡi-ye Mirzā Saudā. Allahabad: Ram
Narain Lal Beni Madhu, 1962.
Schimmel, Annemarie. Islam in the Indian Subcontinent. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980.
———. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1975.
———. A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry. Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1992.
Schubel, Vernon. Religious Performance in Contemporary Islam: Shii Devotional Rituals
in South Asia. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993.
Scott, James. Domination and the Arts of Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1990.
Sehvani, Jalil, ed. Al-Shehbaz: Savanih Hayat Hazrat Qalandar La l Shahbaz. Sehvan
Sharif, Sindh: Idara-e Shahbaz, 2001.
Shabbı̄r, H fi āmid bin. Kalimatul H fi aqq. Delhi: Samar Offset Printers, 1985.
Shabistarı̄, Mahfi mūd. Gulshan-e Rāz. Islamabad: Iran Pakistan Issues of Persian Stud-
ies, 1978.
Shākir, Parvı̄n. Māh-e Tamām. Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 1995.
Sharar, Maulānā Abdul H fi alı̄m. Lucknow: The Last Phase of an Oriental Culture. Trans-
lated and edited by E. S. Harcourt and Fakhir Hussain. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1976.
Sharı̄atı̄, Alı̄. “A Manifestation of Self-reconstruction and Reformation.” http://www
.shariati.com/iqbal.html.
Shirāzı̄, “H fi afiz3.” Diwān-e Hfi āfiz3. Translated by Ibādullāh Akfi htar. Lahore: Al-Kitāb,
1979.
Shustarı̄, Nūrullāh. Majālis al-Muminı̄n. Translated by Muhfi ammad H fi asan Jafarı̄. Ka-
rachi: Akbar H fi usain Jivānı̄ Trust.
Siddı̄qı̄, Manz3ar. Sı̄māb Akbarābādı̄. Lahore: Feroz Sons, 1968.
Sijzı̄, H fi asan. Divān-e H fi asan Sijzı̄ Dihlavı̄. Hyderabad: Ibrāhı̄m, 1933.
Spellberg, Denise. Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of Aisha Bint Abi
Bakr. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Suhaili, Mahdi and Nasr Allah Taqavi, eds. Dı̄vān-e Ashār-e H fi akı̄m Abū Muı̄n Hfi amı̄d
bibliography 249
al-Din Nāsfiir ibn Kfi husraw Qubādı̄yānı̄. Isfahan: Intishārāt-e Kitāb Furūshı̄-e

Tay’id, 1960.
3 abarı̄, Abu Jafar Muhfi ammad b. Jarı̄r al-. The History of al-T
T 3 abarı̄. Translated by
I. K. A. Howard. Vol. 19. New York: State University of New York Press, 1990.
Thackston, Wheeler. A Millennium of Classical Persian Poetry: A Guide to the Reading
and Understanding of Persian Poetry from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century. Be-
thesda, MD: Iranbooks, 1994.
Thursby, Gene. Hindu-Muslim Relations in British India: A Study of Controversy. Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1974.
Tinker, Hugh. The Banyan Tree: Overseas Emigrants from India and Pakistan. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1977.
Todorov, Tzvetan. Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical Principle. Translated by Wlad God-
zich. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.
Turābı̄, Rashı̄d. Majālis-e Turābı̄. Volume 1. Edited by Sayyid Z 3 amı̄r Akfi htar Naqvı̄. Ka-
rachi: Mahfi fūz3 Book Agency, 1987.
———. Majālis-e Turābı̄. Volume 2. Edited by Sayyid Z 3 amı̄r Akfi htar Naqvı̄. Karachi:
Mahfi fūz3 Book Agency, 1991.
———. Majālis-e Turābı̄. Volume 3. Edited by Sayyid Żulfiqār H fi usain “H fi usnı̄”. Kara-
chi: Mahfi fūz3 Book Agency, 1993.
———. T 3 ariqat al-Ārifı̄n: Majālis-e Shām-e Ġharı̄bāñ. Transcribed by Sayyid H fi aidar
Mahdı̄. Hyderabad: Al Riyaz Foundation, 2005.
Turner, Victor. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ith-
aca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974.
———. From Ritual to Theater and Back: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York:
PAJ, 1982.
University of Hawaii. “Death of a Discipline: A Roundtable Discussion on the State of
Humanities.” South Asia News, Center for South Asian Studies, University of Ha-
waii, Spring 2003.
Uz zamān, Ması̄hfi . Urdū Marṡiye kā Irtiqā. Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy,
1992.
Valiuddin, Mir. Love of God: A Sufi Approach. Surrey, England: Sufi, 1972.
Vāst3ı̄, Nasfi ı̄r Imām. Mukfi htārnāma: Qātilān-e Hfi usain se Janāb Mukfi htār kı̄ Bahadur Jañ-
geñ. Bombay: Haidari Kutub Khana, 1993.
Vazı̄rābādı̄, Anjum. H fi usain Dūsroñ kı̄ Naz3ar meñ. Lahore: Maktaba-e Ahfi bāb, n.d..
Wahfi shı̄, Nathanvı̄lāl. Fikr-e rasā. Edited by Jābir H fi usain. Patna: Bihar Foundation,
1996.
“Wāsfi if,” Wāsfi if Alı̄. Guftagū. Lahore: Kashif Ali Publications, 1996.
Waugh, Earle, ed. Muslim Families in North America. Edmonton: University of Alberta
Press, 1991.
White, Hayden. Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1985.
Young, Robert, ed. Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader. London: Routledge,
1981.
3 ahı̄r, Sajjād. Raushnā’ı̄. New Delhi: Sı̄ma Publications, 1985.
Z
Zaidı̄, Alı̄ Muhfi ammad. Al Azā. Lucknow: Jamı̄l alH fi asan, 1970.
Zaidı̄, S. M. A. Iqbāl aur H fi ubb-e Ahl-e Bait. Lahore: Shaykh Ghulam Ali and Sons,
1965.
Zaidı̄, Sayyid H fi asan Abbās, ed. Soz-e Karbalā. Karachi: Ahfi mad Book Depot, 1983.
Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. The Ulama in Contemporary Pakistan: Custodians of
Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.
250 bibliography
Zizek, Slavoj. The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology. London and
New York: Verso, 1999.
newspapers
Awadh Punch, February 20–July 20, 1908.
Irish Times 1997:http://www.seraj.org/Irishr.htm.
The Siasat Daily, February 11–April 1, 2005.
The Times of India, (Bombay) April 5–April 10, 1968.
audio recordings
Hyder, Syed Akbar, ed. On the Zephyr’s Wings: Muslim Devotional Melodies. New Delhi:
Kabir Series in Spirituality, 2005. Compact disc.
Khan, Nusrat Fateh Ali. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Et Son Ensemble En Concert a Paris,
1985, vol. 2. Paris: Ocora, 1987. Compact disc.
Sfi ābrı̄, Ġhulām Farı̄d and Maqbūl Ahfi mad Sfi abrı̄. Qawwālı̄, Volume 8. Karachi: Maria
Gold Production. audiocassette.
Tūrābı̄, Rashı̄d. Majālis. Karachi (1971): Private and televised recordings.
Wāraṡı̄, Azı̄z Ahfi mad Kfi hān. Qawwālis, Volumes 1–15. Hyderabad: Private Recordings.
Compact disc.
television broadcasts
Sfi ada-e Karbalā, ETV Urdu, Television Broadcast in India, February 11–February 20,
2005.
video recordings
Ali Sardar Jafri at Harvard. April 30, 1999.
Mounayer, Mouna, dir. The Living Martyr: Hizbollah Unveiled. Films for the Humani-
ties and Sciences, 2001.
Ali Sardar Jafri. Mushāira 86: Bayād-e Faizfi . Recorded in Dubai, 1986.
web sites
http://www.amaana.org/ali/ismaali.html#The%20Different (March 10, 2005).
http://www.azadari.com/ (March 5, 2005).
http://www.best.com/⬃karachi/news/sectarian2.html (May 28, 2001).
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_naim_hypermasc
.html (January 2004).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,469439,00.html(May
28, 2001).
http://www.jarachipage.com/news/sectarian2.html (May 25, 2005).
http://www.seraj.org/Irishr.htm (May 28, 2001).
http://www.shariati.com/iqbal.html (May 28, 2001).
Index
Aaron (the Prophet), 79 Akhtar, Vahid, 184, 193, 195

Abbas b. Ali (Husain’s brother), 14– and Zainab, 195–96
15, 43, 91–92, 131 alam(s) (standard), 14–17, 46, 69,
Abbasi, Mahmood, 84, 86, 154 92
Abbasid dynasty, 20 with Qasim’s wedding, 55
Abdul Aziz, Shah, 84 use of alams in US, 62–63
Abdul Latif, Shah, 123 Alam, Muzaffar, 115
Āb-e H fi ayāt (Water of Life), 36 alāva(s) (site of commemoration), 16
abjad (numerical value of Arabic Alchemy of Happiness, 118
letters), 144 Ali Akbar, 14–15, 36, 47, 89–91, 131
Abraham (the Prophet), 19, 94, 119, Ali Asghar, 14–15, 31–32, 37, 45–46,
124–25, 145, 205 92–93
Abu Bakr, 5, 75–77, 79, 87, 97, 99 Ali b. Abi Talib, 5, 27, 47, 53, 65, 77–
Abu Sufyan, 90, 98–99 79, 86, 129, 140, 144
Abu Talib, 90 and Abbas, 154
Abu Zarr, 109, 112, 123 allegiance to Abu Bakr, 101–3
adab (ettiquette), 28 combating Umayyads, 81
Adam (the Prophet), 19, 41, 124 completion of Fatima’s kfi hut3ba, 97
adl (God’s just nature), 53 forbear of Islamic spirituality, 133
ahd-e 3iflı̄
t (childhood promise), 25 infallible successor to Prophet
ahl al-bait (the Prophet Muhammad, 53, 78, 87, 111–12
Muhammad’s family), 88, 134 invocation to, 121
Ahmadis, 152–53 letter to Malik Ashtar, 81
Ahmed, Meraj, 106–7, 112, 117–18 as Lion of God, 95, 98
Ahmed, Shahab, 191–92 number of children, 154
Aisha, 80, 82, 100 as saqı̄, 114
Akbar, Jalaluddin (Mughal emperor), virtues of, 81, 112, 139, 154, 155
18, 84, 115 Ali b. Husain. See Zain al-Abedin
Akbarabadi, Simab, 117, 128 ālim (religious authority), 73
akfi hlāq (ethics), 28 Allahabadi, Akbar, 85
252 index
āmad (arrival of hero on battlefield), Bakhtin, Mikhail, 65

31 baqā (subsistence), 10, 112
amr bil marūf (enjoining others to Bara Imambara, 55
do good), 53 Barthes, Roland, 8
Amrohavi, Azim, 199–200 baya (allegiance), 87
Anand, Mulk Raj, 183 bayān. See żikr
Anderson, Ben, 178 Bhagavad Gita, 170, 181
Angāre (Embers), 183 bhakti (Hindu devotional tradition), 33,
Anis, Mir, 25, 30, 33–40, 63, 95, 166, 174– 117
75, 188, 206 Bhutto, Benazir– and Karbala, 58
Anokhı̄ Rāt (film, A Rare Night), 117 bı̄bı̄ kāalam (Hyderabad’s standard), 47–
anti-colonial struggle / movement, 67, 49
69, 137–38, 149, 165, 168–70, 183 bida (innovation), 69
aqı̄dah (devotion / faith), 206 Bijapur, 22
aql (intellect), 140 Biyabani, Ashraf, Maṡnavı̄-e Nausarhār,
Arif, Iftikhar, 184, 193–94 22
ārsı̄ musfihfi af (ritual of “mirror and book”), Bollywood, 43–44, 115, 117–18
28 British colonial rule, 137–38
Arya Samaj (Hindu reformist Buyid, Shii dynasty, 20
organization), 171
āshūra (tenth day of Muharram), 20, 47– caliph(s), 4, 76–77, 79–80, 83, 86
48, 53, 61, 95, 107 Camel, Battle of the, 80
focus on Zainab, 96 Chatterjee, Partha, 179
in Houston, 70 chehrā (introductory section of marṡiya),
āshūrkfi hāna(s), 16, 57, 66 30
Asif Jahi (dynasty that ruled Hyderabad), Chelkowski, Peter, 179
25, 47 Chishti order, 111, 115, 119, 125
Astarabadi, Mir Momin, 115 Chishti, Muinuddin, 105, 115, 123–25,
Athar, Maulana Muhammad, 91 132, 141, 150
Attar, Fariduddin, 122, 141–42 Chishti, Salimuddin, 115, 126, 129
Aurangzeb (Mughal ruler), 92, 173 Chughtai, Ismat, 184, 197
Awadh, North Indian state of, 30, 36, Ek Qat3rah-e Kfi hūn (A Drop of Blood),
39 197
Awadh Punch, 85 Connerton, Paul, 75
Awliya, Nizamuddin, 118–19, 126 counterdiscourse, 74, 135
ayyām-e azā (days of mourning), 9, 14,
82 Dabir, Mirza, 27, 30–33, 36–39, 63, 206
azā dārı̄ (institutionalized devotion and Damascus, 96, 181
mourning), 9 as variant of Karbala, 95
Azad, Maulana Abul Kalam, 138, 150, dargāh (āshūrkfi hāna), 16
207 dars (lesson), 102
Shahādat-e H fi usain (The Martyrdom of darshan (vision), 15
Husain), 150 Data Ganj Bakhsh / Data Sahab. See
Azad, Muhammad Husain, 36, 151 Hujwiri, Abul-Hasan Ali al-
Āb-e H fi ayāt (Water of Life), 36 Day of Judgment, 15, 20, 27
Azimi, Kaifi, 192 Deobandis, 84
devtās (divine incarnations), 172
Badshahi Ashurkhana, 17 diaspora, Shias in, 62
Bailie, Graham, 33 role in dispersing qawwālı̄s, 127
bain (laments), 31 dı̄niyāt (Islamic studies), 52
index 253
duā (supplication), 31 Ghayur, Abid Ali Ghayur, 46

dunyā (this life), 31 ġhazal (love lyric), 21, 33–37, 41–42, 64–
durūd (call for blessings), 23 65, 116, 163–64, 204–6
Dutt Brahmans (Mohiyals), 175 Ghazali, Abu Hamid al-, 118, 151
Alchemy of Happiness, 118
Eaton, Richard, 115 Ghosh, Amitav, 61
Ek Qat3rah-e Kfi hūn (A Drop of Blood), 197 Gibbon, Edward, 154–55
Emre, Yunus, 122 girah bandi (knot-tying), 116–17, 129
gnosis, 114
Goethe, 149
Fadak garden, 79 Golconda, 16, 22
Faiz, Faiz Ahmad, 157, 184, 191–93 Gorky, Maxim, 165
fanā (annihilation), 10, 112, 144 Gour, Raj Bahadur, 161–62
fāqa (day of poverty and hunger), 50 Guindi, Fadwa El-, 98
faqı̄r(s) (beggar), 15 Gujarat, Hindu-Muslim violence, 199
faqr (poverty), 15, 115, 147 Gujarati, Vali, 126
of the Prophet Muhammad, 15 Gulshan-e Rāz (Rosegarden of Mystery),
Faraz, Ahmad, 157, 184, 192–93 113
Faridun, 174
Fatima, 9, 15, 20, 42, 47, 75–76, 78–80, Hfi adı̄qat al-Suada (The Garden of the
86, 94, 97, 99, 139–40, 144 Blessed), 22
as model of female empowerment, hfi adı̄ṡ. See żikr
100–1 hfi adı̄ṡ-e kisā (tradition of the cloak), 78
presence in majlis, 80, 101 Hafiz, Khwaja Shamsuddin, 110, 119,
Fatima Kubra, 15, 22, 28 163, 199
Fatimid state, 21 Hafsa, 77
fazfi āil (merits, of Prophet’s household), hfi ajj (pilgrimage), 16, 53
23, 40 hfi āl (spiritually ecstatic state), 118
Fazli, Fazal Ali, 29–30 Hali, Altaf Husain, 164–66
film songs, 117 Madd o Jazr-e Islām (The Ebb and Flow
Firdawsi, Abul Qasim, 36 of Islam), 164
fire-walking, 54–55 Muqaddamah-e Shir o Shāirı̄
Fischer, Michael, 70 (Introduction to Poetry and Poetics),
Fish, Stanley, 9 164
Forster, E. M., 85, 183 Hallaj, Husain Mansur al-, 108, 112–13,
Freitag, Sandria, 83 121–22
Futrus (angel), 24 Kitāb al-Tfi āwası̄n, 122
Fuzuli, Mehmed b. Suleyman, 22 hfi amd (praise of Allah), 31
Hamdanid state, 21
Gabriel (archangel), 20, 121 Hfi aqq (Truth), 145
Gandhi, Mahatma, 11, 91, 149, 169–70 Haqq, General Zia ul, 153, 191–92
and Husain, 170 Haram (House of God), 145
and Karbala, 209 Hasan b. Ali, 78–79, 82, 87, 118
salt march, 170 Hasan, Mushirul, 170
Geertz, Clifford, 56 Hezbollah, 170
Ghadir Khumm, 79 and Gandhi, 209
Ghalib, Mirza, vii, 13, 61, 65, 110, 114, Hindah (Yazid’s wife), 174
119–20, 122, 161, 164, 184–85, 204– Hindi-Urdu, language rivalries, 173
6 Hindu festival, 82
and Progressives, 185 Hindu-Muslim categorization, 177–78
254 index
Hindu-Muslim conflict / violence, 171– hfi usn-e ta lı̄l (poetical etiology), 34

73, 199–200 Hussain, Ali, 74
Hindus, 15, 33, 153 Hussein, Saddam, 69, 92, 95
and Muharram, 54, 172 incarnation of Yazid, 69
in Premchand’s Karbala, 176 Hyderabad, āshūrkfi hānas in, 16
on Sufi shrines, 126
Hobson-Jobson, 54 Iblis (Satan), 41
Hoffman-Ladd, Valerie, 134 Ibn Khaldun, 76
horse, as a symbol, 34–35 Ibn Ziyad, 88, 95
houris, promised to the pious, 35 ı̄fā-e ahad (fulfillment of promise), 25
Hujwiri, Abul-Hasan Ali al- (Data Ganj ijma (consensus), 5
Bakhsh / Data Sahab), 124 imām jāir (tyrant ruler), 96
Kashf al-Mahfi jūb li-Arbāb al-Qulūb (The imāmat (part of Shii faith), 53
Unveiling of the Veiled for the Lords of imamate, 76, 133
the Heart), 124 imāmbārfias (Shii commemoration site),
Hunayn, Battle of, 163 16, 57
Hurr b. Yazid al-Tamimi, vii, 88–89 Imams, Shii, 5, 24, 82
Husain b. Ali, 4, 66, 79, 82, 102, 105, in Sunni view of history, 77
118, 132–33, 145, 207 interpretive community, 9, 42, 74, 101,
and Ali Asghar, 92–93 117, 206
as cosmic force (Iqbal), 140 intertextuality, 8–9, 25, 44, 74, 107, 116–
calamities, 42 17, 202–4, 207–8
completion of Abraham’s sacrifice, 205 Iqbal, Muhammad, 11, 41, 80, 119–21,
direction of worship, 23–24 137–38, 149, 151, 167, 183, 188, 206–
and Hurr, 89 7
intercession, 133 and Husain, 41
and Jesus, 163 and Karbala, 158
and kfi hūdı̄, 144, 147 Karbala and Islamic reform, 146
martyrdom, 123, 163 and kfi hūdı̄, 144
position in Sufi tradition, 106 and martyrdom, 158
in Progressive literature, 188 as modernist, 138
in qawwālı̄s, 130 Reconstruction of Religious Thought in
and Sakina, 27 Islam, 149
savior of Islamic faith, 80 Secrets of the Self, 139
sayyid al-shuhadā (prince / lord of as a Shii voice, 152
martyrs), 3 as a socioreligious reformist, 157
Shii ontology of, 24 on Ali’s virtues, 155–56
and Shimr, 27–28 Iran, 67, 70
speaking Quran, 24 Islamic revolution, 44, 67, 158
universalized struggle, 80 postrevolutionary, 158
virtues of, 40–41, 78 Shah of, 16
vs. ruling authority, 94 Iranians in the US, 70
Wariṡ-e Ibrāhı̄m (Heir of Ibrahim), 205 Iran-Iraq war, 69
water and thirst, 43, 109 irfān (gnosis), 112
and Yazid, 77–78, 84, 87–88, 91–92, Isa ibn Maryam. See Jesus (the Prophet)
141–44, 147, 151, 181 ishq (love), 140
Husain, Intizar, 166 Islamicate, 7
Husaini Brahmans, 175 Ismail, 19, 94, 119, 124, 145, 205
Husainian intervention, 129 istiāra (metaphor), 35
index 255
jadı̄d marṡiya (new marsiya), 169 Kashi (Banaras), 118

Jafar al-Sadiq (sixth Shii Imam), 146 Kashifi, Husain Waiz, 21–22
Jafri, Ali Sardar, 157–58, 184–85, 187–91 Kashmir, 67
Karbala, 185–87 Kaviraj, Sudipta, 179
and secularism, 188 khāk-e shafā (soil from Karbala), 51
Jalal, Ayesha, 152 Khan, Mehboob Ali “Asif ”, 25
Jalalvi, Qamar, 117 Khan, Nusrat Fateh Ali, 107, 127–29
Jalib, Habib, 191–92 Khani, Baqar Amanat, 66
Jamal, Anwar (filmmaker), 59 khanqah (sufi residences), 147
Jami, Nuruddin Abdur Rahman, 143 khilafat, 149
Jan Sangh (right-wing Hindu party), 83 Khilafat movement, 149, 169
jañg (battle), 31 kfi hirqa (cloak of spirituality), 139
Jarachvi, Sayyid Ibn Hasan, 91 Khomeini, Ayatollah, 67
Jauhar, Muhammad Ali, 138, 149–51, 182, kfi hūdı̄ (ego, self ), 132, 138–39, 144–45,
207 207
Jesus (the Prophet), 19, 54, 80, 109, 122, and Karbala, 147–49
124, 162–63, 169 kfi hums (almsgiving), 53
jihād, 3, 24, 53, 92, 112, 151, 209 Khusraw, Amir, 116–21, 125
Job (the Prophet), 93, 109, 123–24 Khusraw, Nasir-e, 87
kfi hut3ba (sermon), 97
Kaba, 23–24, 108, 115, 118, 128, 143, 145– King, Martin Luther, Jr., 162–63, 189,
46 199
Kaba-temple juxtaposition (haram- Kitāb al-Tfi awāsı̄n, 122
kanisht), 181 Kufa, 78, 81–82, 88, 145, 181
kāfir (infidel), 142 Kulsum, 14, 45
Kaki, Khwaja Qutb al-Din Bakhtiyar, 150
Kalb-e Jawwad, 91 lā ilaha illā Llāh (there is no deity but
kalimat Allāh (Word of God), 122 Allah), 123
Kant, Immanuel, 149 lahfi n (melodic tune), 23
Karbal Kathā, 29 Lebanon, Karbala and, 191–92
Karbala, 88, 125, 154 Lenin, 148–49
alternative history, 90 Levinas, Emmanuel, 199
and Benazir Bhutto, 58 Lucknow
for burial, 18 Juan Cole, historian of, 33
celebration of, 143 and marṡiyas, 30, 39
and the feminine, 197 Muharram, 85
legacy of, 62–63, 93 and Sunni-Shii violence, 83
multiple readings, 73
narratives as fantastical, 74 Madd o Jazr-e Islām (The Ebb and Flow of
paradigm of, 44, 67 Islam), 164
Premchand’s play, 172–73 madhfi -e muwajja (implied praise), 35
and Quran, 20 madhfi -e sfiahfi āba (praise of the
religious identity and language, 173 companions), 83–84
as social and economic critique, 56 Madı̄nat al-Nabı̄ (City of the Prophet),
wedding of Qasim, 28 5
Zainab’s central role, 99–100 Magian elders / sages, 107, 113
Kashf al-Mahfi jūb li-Arbāb al-Qulūb (The Mahabharata, 170, 173, 181
Unveiling of the Veiled for the Lords of Mahdi, the, 53
the Heart), 124 Mahmud of Ghazna, 92
256 index
mājara (incident that introduces the mashhad (place of martyrdom), 143

virtues of the main character), 31 maṡnavı̄ (narrative poem comprised of
majlis (commemorative assemblies), 9, rhyming couplets), 116
14, 16, 18, 19, 62, 73, 206 Maṡnavı̄. See Rumi, Jalaluddin
to articulate Shii history, 84 Maṡnavı̄-e Nausarhār, 22
as catharses, 57 Masud, Naiyar, 38–39
counterdiscourse (produces), 74–76 masfiūm (immune from sin), 24, 46, 52–
criticism / stereotyping of, 55–56 54
education and teaching, 102 mātam, Sunnis and, 52
Fatima’s presence, 101 maulvı̄ fisāhfi ab (elderly teacher), 52
as forum for Shii agenda, 153 maulvı̄s (religious leaders), 51
as forum for Shii-Sunni polemics, 84 mawlid (birthday), 134
in Houston, 64–65, 70 maz3lūm (oppressed, wronged), 24
instituted by Zainab, 101 mazfi mūn āfirı̄nı̄ (theme creation and
introduction to, 23 refashioning), 37
mātam, 52 Mecca, 5
mourning in, 50 Metcalf, Barbara, 84
nauhfi a, 45, 47 migrants, 65
place for identity assertions, 86 millat (social collective), 148
soz, 23 Minault, Gail, 8, 149
space of sectarian differences, 157 miñbar (pulpit), 73, 102
stages of, 22 minority issues, 157, 178–79
technology, 129 Mir, Mir Taqi, 41, 206
Thursdays, weddings, housewarmings, Modarressi, Hossein, 77
18 Moezzi, Amir, 93
types of, 55 momin (true believer), 140
Zainab as subject, 99 Moses (the Prophet), 41, 79, 109, 114,
żikr, 40 122–123, 167
Makhdum. See Muhiuddin, Makhdum Mottahedeh, Roy, 54
malfūz3āt (oral discourses), 115 Muawiya, 24, 54, 77, 80–82, 87–88, 90
Malihabadi, Josh, 51, 56, 166–68, 170, mubki (pathos-laden components of
183 marṡiya), 31, 44
Karbala as prototype for revolutionary Mufid, Shaykh al-, 21
struggle, 168 Mughal (dynasty), 30, 74, 92, 115, 137–38
marṡiyas as metaphor of revolutionary Muġhal-e Āzam (Bollywood movie), 115
struggle, 169 Muhammad (the Prophet), 75, 124, 196
Mani, Lata, 29 Ali as successor to, 79
manqabat (praise of Ali and the Imams), model of virtue (uswa hfi asana), 111
31 as sāqı̄, 114
Mansur. See Hallaj, Mansur al- succession to, 76–78, 87
Manto, Sadat Hasan, 184, 197–99 and widows, 30
maqātil (narrative literature), 20 Muharram, 9, 12, 14–16, 18, 46, 50–51,
marṡiya, 22–23, 26–28, 30–40, 65, 95, 61, 63
164, 166 cursing / tabarrā, 82
martyrdom, 18, 112, 143, 158, 209 in Houston, 62–64, 69
martyrs, 141 in Hyderabad, 49
Marx, Karl, 148, 158, 167, 187 and mātam, 52–53
and Progressive Movement, 184 newlyweds in, 63
Marxist aesthetics, 165 ninth and tenth of, 47, 94
masfiāib (hardships), 40 plays, 39
index 257
in precolonial times, 85 Nigam, Munshi Daya Narain, 177

processions, 64 Nizami, Khwaja Hasan, 177–78
in relation to British colonial process, Nizamuddin Awliya. See Awliya,
85 Nizamuddin
tamāshā (Muhammad as spectacle), 49 Noah (the Prophet), 19, 124
violence in, 153 Non-Cooperation movement, 169
Muhiuddin, Makhdum, 162–64, 169, Numani, Shibli, 36
182, 184, 189
Muizz al-Dawlah (Buyid ruler), 20 Orientalism, 189–90
mujaddid (renewer), 84 Orientalist(s), 91
mujtahid (high religious authority), 37–38 Islam as a religion of the sword, 91
mukfi hammas (five-line stanza), 23, 116 on Muharram processions, 54
Mukhtar (avenger of Husain), 82 Ottomans, 74
Mulk, Burhanul (ruler of Awadh), 30
Muqaddamah-e Shir o Shāirı̄ Palestine, 67, 191–92
(Introduction to Poetry and Poetics), and Karbala, 192
164 pan-Islamic / pan-Islamism, 11, 64, 67,
Murtuza, Sayyid Muhammad, 83 138, 158
musaddas (six-line stanza), 23 pan-Shiism, 64
mushāira (poetic recitation), 8, 169, 193 Paradise, 19, 24, 51
Mutahhari, Murtada, 44 Parshad, Maharaja Kishan, 85
partition-related violence, 198
nafs (soul), 141 Persian poetic knot, 132
types of, 112 Persian verses in qawwālı̄s, 106, 116–17
nahı̄an al-munkar (forbidding others pı̄r (Sufi master), 105, 114
from doing evil), 53 pı̄r-e muġhān (spiritual master), 113
Naidu, Sarojini, 183 poet, as vocation (Iqbal), 152
Naim, C. M., 65–66 Pooya, Ayatollah Haji Mirza Mahdi, 83
namāz (prayer), 52 postcolonial / postcolonialism, 11, 84, 158
Naqvi, Sayyid Ali Naqi (“Naqqan Saheb”), post-Prophetic community, 86
80, 99–100, 102 Premchand, Munshi (Dhanpat Rai
Shahı̄d-e Insāniyat (The Martyr of Shrivastava), 11, 171–73, 177–78, 180,
Humanity), 80 183–84, 207
Naqvi, Zamir Akhtar, 169 and Karbala, 174–78
Narang, Gopichand, 195 Karbala as nationalist allegory, 179
naṡr ke Anı̄s (Anis of prose), 40 Progressive literature, 11, 157, 164
Nasrallah, Sayed Hasan, 170 Progressive writers, 11, 164, 184–85, 190,
nat (poetry that honors the Prophet), 26, 201
31 Progressive Writers’ Movement /
nauhfi a (dirge), 23, 45–46, 203–4 Association, 157, 164–66, 168, 171,
navı̄ñ kı̄ ı̄d (ninth day of third Islamic 180, 183–84, 201, 207
month / day of celebration for prophets, 43, 142
Shias), 82 relation to Husain, 19
nażar (gift), 37 Propp, Vladimir, 42
Nazmi, Mahdi, 203 prostration, 41, 132
nazr (monetary reward), 128 under sword, 41–42
Nazrul Islam, Qazi, 182 purification, for prayer, 53
nāzuk kfi hayālı̄ (“delicacy of thought”), 33
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 170, 183, 198 Qaida, al-, 91
Nietzsche, 149 Qalandar, Lal Shahbaz, 124–25
258 index
Qarani, Uwais al-, 26 rawzfi a kfi hwānı̄ (Karbala narrations), 21

qasfiida (panegyric), 36 Rawzfi at al-Shuhadā (The Garden of the
Qasim b. Hasan, 14–15, 22, 28–29, 45, Martyrs), 21, 28–29, 44
91 Reconstruction of Religious Thought in
wedding of, 55 Islam, 149
qawl (saying), 111–12 religious language, reclaiming, 201
qawm (social collective), 148 Revolt of 1857, 165–66
qawmı̄yyat (spirit of solidarity), 164 rightly-guided caliphs, 77
qawwāl(s), x, 109 Rizvi, Masud Hasan, 38
as authors of qawwālı̄s, 117 Rosenbergs, 163
creative autonomy, 134 roza (fast), 49, 53
interaction with audience, 128 rubāı̄ (quatrain), 23, 116
popular (Nusrat and others), 126 rukfi hsfiat (hero’s farewell), 31
qawwālı̄(s) (Sufi songs and musical Rumi, Jalaluddin, 110, 114, 137, 141–43,
assemblies of South Asia), 10, 11, 43, 155–56, 209
106–9, 112, 114–16, 141, 206 Maṡnavı̄, 114, 143, 155
and Bollywood, 118 Rustam, 36
celebratory appeal, 134–35
influence on Islamicate literatures, 135 sfiabā (gentle breeze from the east /
and majlis tradition, 107, 134 zephyr), 26
mass marketing of, 128–29 Sabri Brothers, 127, 129
and mystical culture, 134 Sadiq, Muhammad, 32–33
redemptive nature of Husain’s Saeed, Saeed Shahidi, 203–6
struggle, 133 Safar, 9, 18
similarities to majlis, 132 Safavid dynasty, 21, 74, 82
and technology, 128–29 Sahar, Kunwar Mahendar Singh Bedi,
qiblah (direction of worship), 24 157, 181–82
qiyāmat (resurrection and Judgment Said, Edward, 189–90
Day), 53 Orientalism, 189–90
Quran, ix, 3, 4, 23–24, 40–41, 43, 93, 111– sajda (prostration), 41
12, 119, 132, 140, 145–46, 149 Sakina, 14, 15, 26–27, 92, 131, 175
compilation of (and Usman), 77 Salafis, 69
Qureshi, Regula, 116 salām (non-linear monorhymed
Qutb Shahi (Shii dynasty), 16, 47–48, narrative), 23, 25–26, 44
92, 115 sfialavāt (call for blessings), 23, 42
Salman, 109, 112, 123
rabt3 (internal harmony of diction), 35 samā (listening, audition), 125
rāgās (classical Indian melodies), 28 Sambhi, Syed Ahsan Ali, 177
Raipuri, Akhtar Husain, 165–67 Sanai, Abul-Majd Majiduddin b. Adam,
rajaz (battle cry), 31, 188–89 132, 141–42
Rakhsh (Rustam’s horse), 36 saqı̄ / sāqı̄yā (spiritual guide), 114
rākib-e dosh-e nabı̄ (Rider of the Prophet’s Saqı̄fa Banı̄ Saı̄da, 79, 87
Shoulders), 35 sāqı̄nāma (a genre of Persian literature),
Ramadan, 49, 53 114
Ramayana, 173, 180–81 sarāpā (description of main character),
Ram-Ravan polarity, 181 31
Rangı̄lā Rasūl (Merry Prophet), 171 sarnāmah (introduction to the żikr or
rāshidūn (rightly-guided leaders), 77 bayān), 40
rasūl Allāh (messenger of God), 5 Saroush, Abdol Karim, 158
ravānı̄ (flow), 35 sati (widow-burning), 29
index 259
satyagraha (nonviolent resistance), 91, as minority, 50, 64, 69, 80, 83, 151,
209 153, 157
Sauda, Mirza Muhammad Rafi, 28–30, population distribution, 39, 64
166, 175 and Sunni disputes, 75
and widowhood, 29 redefined, 150
Savarkar, Veer, 172 view of Karbala, 140
sayyid al-shuhadā (prince / lord of shı̄at Alı̄ (party of Ali), 5, 79
martyrs), 3 Shii Wahhabis, 69
Schimmel, Annemarie, 113, 121, 123 Shimr, 27–28, 141–42
Secrets of the Self, 139 shirk (polytheism), 69
sectarian violence, Sunni-Shii, 82–83 shokfi hı̄ (playfulness), 204
secular / vocabulary, 188, 190 Shuddhi movement, 172
sehra (veil of flowers on wedding day), 28 Shustari, Qazi Nurullah (Shahı̄d-e Ṡāliṡ),
self-flagellation, 53 18
and Hindus, 54 Siffin, Battle of, 24
September 11 attacks, 91–92 Sijzi, Amir Hasan, 110, 118
Shabbar (another name for Hasan), 79 sı̄na zanı̄ (rhythmic chest-beating), 46
Shabbir (another name for Husain), 79, Sinai, 109, 114, 122, 162–63
89, 108–9, 123, 131, 147, 156, 167 Sirhindi, Shaykh Ahmad, 84, 86
shabı̄h(s) (visual depictions of Karbala), soz (lamentation poetry), 23–24, 44
66, 68 Spivak, Gayatri, 199
Shabistari, Mahmud, Gulshan-e Rāz subhfi -e H fi unayn (morning of the Battle of
(Rosegarden of Mystery), 113 Hunayn), 163
shafāat (intercession), 114 Sufi(s), 6, 111, 121
Shafii, Muhammad b. Idris al-, 21 and Iqbal, 139
shahādat (witnessing), 4, 123 poetry, 110
Shahādat-e H fi usain (The Martyrdom of reverence of Shii imams, 133
Husain), 150 shrines, 126, 133
shahı̄d (witness), 4 view of Karbala, 151
Shahı̄d-e Insāniyat (The Martyr of Sufism, 10, 105, 111, 135
Humanity), 80 in Egypt, 134
Shahı̄d-e Ṡālı̄ṡ. See Shustari, Qazi sunnah (customs of the Prophet
Nurullah Muhammad), 5
Shāhnāma (Book of Kings), 36 Sunni(s), 5
shahr āshūb (lament for the city), 166 and āshūra, 49
Shahr Bano, 31–32, 45 attacks on legitimacy of Shii faith,
Shakir, Parvin, 193–95 102
shām (evening, Syria), 27 critical of minority Shias, 153
shām-e ġharı̄bān (night of the and mātam, 21
dispossessed), 94, 163, 194 and mourning ceremonies, 21
Shamsuddin of Tabriz, 114 and Muharram, 50
shaqshaqiyya (sermon), 97 popular view of history, 76–77
sharı̄āt (exoteric, legal path), 125 on Sufi shrines, 126
Shariati, Ali, 158 view of Karbala, 140
Sharma, Pandit Kalicharan, 171 Sunni-Shii tension, 82–83
Shiān-e H fi usain (partisans of Husain) 150 Sūrat al-Ikfi hlāsfi, 140
Shia(s), 5 Sūrat Maryam, 40
beliefs of, 53 Sūrat Yūsuf, 20
history (origins and development), 76, Swaraj (film, Self-Government), 58
83 sword of Ali. See Żūlfiqār
260 index
tabarrā (condemnation of the enemies of uswa hfi asana (beautiful model of

the Prophet Muhammad’s family), conduct), 3
53, 82–83
tabarruk (consecrated foods or juices), Varma, Banarsi Lal, 182
47, 56 veiling, 98
Tagore, Rabindranath, 7, 170–71, 183 Vichitra Jı̄van (A Strange Life), 171
tahfi rı̄f (distortion), 44 Vietnam, 162–63
tahfi t al-lafz3 (recitation without melodic Virgin Mary, 80, 101
tunes), 28
tajnı̄s (word play), 27 Wafa, Taqi Hasan, 84
Taliban, 69, 91 wahfi dat al-wujūd (unity of being), 119
massacre of Shias, 69 Wahhabis, 69, 126
tā lı̄m (educational training), 206 Wahshi, Nathanvilal, 180–81
tamāshā (spectacle), 49 wajd (high level of consciousness /
taqiyya (dissimulation), 90 ecstasy), 118
t fi (a pattern or model / verse), 204
3arah walı̄ (friend of God), 93
tārı̄kfi h (history, date), 73 Waliullah, Shah, 84, 86
t
3ariqat (prayer out of loving desire / Warasi, Aziz Ahmad Khan, 128
mystical path), 125 Wariṡ-e Ibrāhı̄m (Heir of Ibrahim), 205
tasfiawwūf (Sufism), 111 Wasif, Wasif Ali, 125
tasbı̄hfi (s) (prayer beads), 18 White, Hayden, 13
tashbı̄h (simile), 35 wine, 107–10, 113, 115, 119, 121–24, 134
taslı̄m (surrender), 125, 150
tawallā (love for the Prophet’s family and Yazdan, 144
emulation of their deeds), 53 Yazid b. Muawiya, 14, 22, 24, 47, 54, 56,
tawhfi ı̄d (absolute monotheism), 53, 105, 66, 69, 84, 87–88, 96, 102, 105–6,
111 109, 124, 140–42, 145, 169, 174
tāwı̄l (hermeneutics), 24 Sunni view of, 77–78
taziyeh (passion play), 39, 55, 172, 179 as a terrorist, 91–92
tażkirah (secondary hagiography), 115 and Zainab, 97–100
tazfi mı̄n (rhetorical device), 116, 163 Yazı̄diat, 96
Telangana (region of South India), 161
Turabi, Rashid, 40–42, 63, 65, 81, 90, Zafar, Bahadur Shah, 166, 204–6
94, 96–99, 154, 196 Zahhak, 174
on Ali, 156 Zahir, Sajjad, 183
on Fatima and Zainab, 99, 101 Angāre (Embers), 183–84
majlises, 209 Zain al-Abedin (fourth Shii imam, also
on Shii history, 154–55 known as Ali b. Husain), 46, 88, 95,
Tusi, Nasir al-Din, 21 124
Twelvers, 20 Zainab, 10, 14, 45, 74, 89, 94–96, 118,
174–75, 193–97, 203, 207
Uhud, Battle of, 98 heroism, 209
ulamā (scholars), 45, 151 her jihād, 96–100
Umar b. al-Khattab, 77, 80–81, 87, 124 language of Quran, 97
Umar b. Sad, 88 as model of female empowerment,
Umayyad dynasty, 20, 81–82, 93, 111 100–1
urs (wedding day), 112 shrine of, 95–96
Usman, 77, 80, 87 and Yazid, 95
usfiūl-e dı̄n (fundamental principles of zāirı̄n (pilgrims), 16
faith), 53 zakāt (almsgiving), 53
index 261
żākir / żākira, 40, 42–45, 51, 87, 101–2, żikr (prose narrative of tragedy, also
168 called bayān and hfi adı̄ṡ), 23, 40–45,
in Houston, 63–64 63
negative role of, 51 Ziyad, Kumayl b., 112
żākirı̄ (sermonizing), 40 ziyārat (religious visitation), 15–16, 31,
Zaman, Muhammad Qasim, 153 46, 96
Zamāna, 177 Zizek, Slavoj, 54
zfi amānat (protection), 15 Zor, Mohiuddin Qadri, 166
zamı̄n (meter-rhyme structure), 204 Zoroastrians. See Magian elders / sages
Zamir, Mir, 30 Żul hfi ijja (last Islamic month), 205
zephyr (sfiabā, a gentle breeze from east), Żūlfiqār (sword of Ali), 108, 120–21
26 Żuljinahfi (Husain’s horse in Karbala),
Zia, General. See Haqq, General Zia ul- 46

Reliving Karbala

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Reliving Karbala

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Reliving Karbala

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Reliving Karbala

syed akbar hyder

Oxford New York

Copyright 䉷 2006 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hyder, Syed Akbar.

Printed in the United States of America

Merı̄ tamı̄r meñ muzfi mar hai ik sfi ūrat kfi harābı̄ kı̄

Karbala is not only a part of my academic heritage; it is also part of

Professor Patrick Olivelle, as an exemplary scholar, mentor, and friend, pro-

1. Visions and Re-visions of Karbala, 13

2. Mourning in Migrant Spaces, 61

3. Commemorative Politics and Poetics, 73

4. Lyrical Martyrdom, 105

5. Iqbal and Karbala, 137

6. From Communal to Ecumenical, 161

For simplicity’s sake, personal names, place names, and natural-

Do not think of those who are slain in God’s way as dead.

In 680 c.e., Husain b. Ali, the younger grandson of the Prophet

of interlocking communal, religious, and literary identities; and to offer an

Abraham, Moses, and Jesus had chosen Muhammad as a messenger through

Poetry, Poetics, and Karbala

Islamicate poetry has been embraced by discourses ranging from politics to

It is very difﬁcult for someone from a different culture to grasp the

Poetry employs its own apparatus—an apparatus constituted by particular

Bits of code, formulae, rhythmic models, fragments of social languages, etc.

Part I: Commemoration of Karbala

For the majority of Shii Muslims,11Karbala is the cornerstone of institutional-

Part II: Celebration of Karbala

Suﬁsm also supplies us with discourses of resistance, although this resistance

Part III: Emulation of Karbala

Hai kahāñ tamannā kā dūsrā qadam yā rab

In my view, history as a discipline is in bad shape today because it

The Beginning—A Vision of the Crescent

ibtidā-e azā hai vāvailā

Antecedents of the Hyderabadi Majlis

sured the perpetuity of the commemorative gatherings for Husain. According

Sﬁ alavāt: The Introduction to the Majlis

Segment 1 of the Majlis: The Soz

Segment 2 of the Majlis: The Salam

The soz is followed by a salam (salutation/benediction), a lyrical elegy wherein

Greetings to he whose name is Husain

Segment 3 of the Majlis: The Marsiya

Hush little one, ask not, for this is a mighty calamity

An ocean washes away blackness

The mother of [Qasim’s] bride would lament and say:

Widows who commit sati burn to death on the pyre

In Fazli’s verses, Muslim women endured far greater hardships leading a

Awadh and the Evolution of the Marsiya Tradition

Bano weeps for Asghar as night draws to a close

Alas! I am at home while my dear child is in the jungle

By assigning such a large place to pathos the poets as well as their

Any discussion of Dabir in South Asia is usually accompanied by comparisons

Anis and Dabir: Two of a Kind

peshkash lāsha-e Asﬁ ġhar hı̄ bhalā lāe H ﬁ usain

Has the wealth of talent ever been safe from thieves?

The Art of Marsiya Recitation

pı̄rı̄ āı̄ iżār be nūr hūe

cussed in more detail in chapter 3.) The tradition of żākirı̄ (sermonizing) in