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Chiefly on Urdu poetry.
The violent partitioning of British India along religious lines and ongoing communalist aggression have compelled Indian citizens to contend with the notion that an exclusive, fixed religious identity is fundamental to selfhood. Even so, Muslim saint shrines known as dargahs attract a religiously diverse range of pilgrims. In this accessible and groundbreaking ethnography, Carla Bellamy traces the long-term healing processes of Muslim and Hindu devotees of a complex of dargahs in northwestern India. Drawing on pilgrims’ narratives, ritual and everyday practices, archival documents, and popular publications in Hindi and Urdu, Bellamy considers questions about the nature of religion in general and Indian religion in particular. Grounded in stories from individual lives and experiences, The Powerful Ephemeral offers not only a humane, highly readable portrait of dargah culture, but also new insight into notions of selfhood and religious difference in contemporary India.
The Shias of Pakistan are the world's second largest Shia community after that of Iran, but comprise only 10-15 per cent of Pakistan's population. In recent decades Sunni extremists have increasingly targeted them with hate propaganda and terrorism, yet paradoxically Shias have always been fully integrated into all sections of political, professional and social life without suffering any discrimination. In mainstream politics, the Shia- Sunni divide has never been an issue in Pakistan. Shia politicians in Pakistan have usually downplayed their religious beliefs, but there have always been individuals and groups who emphasised their Shia identity, and who zealously campaigned for equal rights...
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 ...
Collection of articles honoring Aziz Ahmad, 1913-1978, historian of Muslim life and Culture.
Zainab, the lion hearted Lady of Karbala was the daughter of Fatima and Ali. She was the Grand daughter of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and Hasan and Hussain’s sister. She played a seminal role in safeguarding Islam and in keeping the memory of the martyrdom of the Prophet’s beloved Grandson Hussain at Karbala fresh in the minds of generations to come. She stood tall and unafraid against the Caliph Yazid who was the epitome of temporal tyranny, despotism and debauchery. The eloquent power of her sermons brought him to his knees. Hussain’s supreme sacrifice at Karbala would have long been forgotten had it not been for the courageous denouement by Zainab of the oppressive Muslim regime which ...
The importance of Lutfi al-Khuli and the intellectual circle associated with the Nasserist regime is examined here. Rami Ginat looks at al-Khuli's contribution to the short-lived yet formidable success of Arab socialism.