Twelver Shi’i Self-flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria
Mourning Sayyida Zaynab
$49.30
- Paperback
272 pages
- Release Date
31 January 2027
Summary
This book examines contested Muharram practices, as well as the institutions and authorities that promoted or condemned them until 2011, when most Shi‘is fled Syria.
For 40 years, the Syrian shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab was a place of miracles, where violence engendered healing. To experience miraculous healing, Shi‘is attended mourning gatherings, studied at seminaries, self-flagellated, and frequented spiritual healers. Supported by the political establishment, Shi‘i institutions a…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781399548311 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 139954831X |
| Author: | Dr Edith Szanto |
| Publisher: | Edinburgh University Press |
| Imprint: | Edinburgh University Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 272 |
| Release Date: | 31 January 2027 |
| Dimensions: | 156mm x 234mm |
| Series: | Advances in the Study of Islam |
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Critics Review
At several points reading this text I experienced what I can only describe as joy. This is the model of an academic work. As associate editor for a journal in North Africa, I read a great deal of current academic work in English and French: this is the best of the best. The fieldwork is exemplary and the book is well worth reading on this basis alone. In addition, references to Foucault’s heterotopia, Michael Fischer’s “Karbala Paradigm” and Bakhtin’s notion of the carnival are enlightening and send a thoughtful reader back to the original texts. – Elizabeth Bishop, American University of Iraq - Baghdad
Dr Edith Szanto
Edith Szanto is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Alabama. She received her PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto in 2012. She has written several articles on Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan, ranging from Shi‘i ritual and seminaries, jinn and magical healing, to interfaith dialogue, Zoroastrianism conversions, as well as Kurdish film.
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