In 680 C.E., a small band of the Prophet Muhammads family and their
followers, led by his grandson, Husain, rose up in a rebellion
against the ruling caliph, Yazid. The family and its supporters,
hopelessly outnumbered, were massacred at Karbala, in modern-day
Iraq. The story of Karbala is the cornerstone of institutionalized
devotion and mourning for millions of Shii Muslims. Apart from its
appeal to the Shii community, invocations of Karbala have also come
to govern mystical and reformist discourses in the larger Muslim
world. Indeed, Karbala even serves as the archetypal resistance and
devotional symbol for many non-Muslims. Until now, though, little
scholarly attention has been given to the widespread and varied
employment of the Karbala event.
In Reliving Karbala, Syed Akbar Hyder examines the myriad ways
that the Karbala symbol has provided inspiration in South Asia,
home to the worlds largest Muslim population. Rather than a unified
reading of Islam, Hyder reveals multiple, sometimes conflicting,
understandings of the meaning of Islamic religious symbols like
Karbala. He ventures beyond traditional, scriptural interpretations
to discuss the ways in which millions of very human adherents
express and practice their beliefs. By using a panoramic array of
sources, including musical performances, interviews, nationalist
drama, and other literary forms, Hyder traces the evolution of this
story from its earliest historical origins to the beginning of the
twenty-first century.
Today, Karbala serves as a celebration of martyrdom, a source of
personal and communal identity, and even a tool for political
protest and struggle. Hyder explores how issues related to gender,
genre, popular culture, class, and migrancy bear on the cultivation
of religious symbols. He assesses the manner in which religious
language and identities are negotiated across contexts and
continents.
At a time when words like martyrdom, jihad, and Shiism are being
used and misused for political reasons, this book provides
much-needed scholarly redress. Through his multifaceted examination
of this seminal event in Islamic history, Hyder offers an original,
complex, and nuanced view of religious symbols.
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