Senses of Mourning

The mourning traditions of Moharram are a body of Shi‘i Muslim devotional performances that commemorate the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Husain b. Ali, the Third Imam of Shi‘is, in 680 CE. The traditions are a period of communal mourning when Shiʿis remember Husain’s sacrifice and affirm their allegiance to him and to the family of the Prophet (ahl-e bait). And by remembering the martyrs of Karbala, Shi’i Muslims consider their afflictions and aspirations and how these bear consequences for everyday ethical and pious conduct.

Senses of Mourning: Moharram Performances in Shi'i Iran from the Qajar to the Covid Era seeks to uncover the changing sensory experiences of mourning in Muharram performances from nineteenth-century Qajar to the global pandemic, culminating in 2020. The historical emphasis on the study of mourning in terms of the senses leads readers to recognize the changing embodied dimensions of religious practices that have played an integral role in the complex lifeworld of Shi‘i Iranians since the Qajar period, when Muharram became a pervasive urban communal practice across most of Iran. From the Qajar-era dramatic performances of taʿziyeh to public processions in the form of urban street protests in 1978, from tent burning rituals in the southern city of Bushehr in 2006 to votive performances during Moharram in the digital sphere during the pandemic in 2020, Senses of Mourning presents an account of Moharram in Iranian history as fundamentally contested and fluid, but more importantly as part of the larger constellation of tangible, lived realities of Muharram performers who change their material world through the sensory practices.

Senses of Mourning tells the story of Moharram in Iran through the five senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste) with an emphasis on the interplay between the religious practices as experiences, and the major changes such relationships entailed over time. Each chapter focuses on one of the five senses in a specific historical and social context, while detailing changes in Muharram and the broader transformation of Iranian Shiʿism in an increasingly connected global era. The work ultimately introduces a new scholarly turn toward a material-sensorial approach in the study of religion. This multisensory approach sheds new light on the functions of embodied practices, in which spiritualities, materialities, and politics of sacred are articulated in a range of lived performances.