This week, Shia muslims throughout the world celebrated Ashura, the 10th day of the month of Muharram. We asked Sabrina Mervin to tell us more about the specific role of women during this event. Mrs. Mervin is a renowned expert in contemporary Shia Islam, and a head of research at the CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Her field work in the Middle East enabled her to get a deep understanding of Shia rituals and culture.
The month of Muharram is a key event in the life of Shia muslims. “It is about recalling the battle of Karbala which, in 680, opposed the third imam of the shiites, Hussain (the grand-son of the prophet Muhammad), to the Umayyad army; there he became a martyr along with a part of his family and his companions”, Sabrina Mervin tells us. “Several practices aim to tell the story of the battle in order to preserve its memory and to pass it down, to express grief for the loss of the imam, and to mourn him. These rituals occur at the beginning of the month of Muharram; the 10th day is dedicated to the commemoration of the martyrdom of the imam, this is the day of Ashura.”
Lamentations
Rites during Muharram codify gender roles. Some celebration are performed by both genders, but remain segregated, such as lamentation sessions1 which “continue to take place in private spaces, houses, places of worship, schools, etc”, explains Mrs. Mervin. Gender segregation is required as the lamenting voice of women is considered “awrah” in Islam, meaning that it needs to be hidden for decency1. “There, women stay in areas separated from those of men. It is where they engage in latmiyyât. Some (for instance in Iraq), remove their headscarf and beat their chest or their forehead rhythmically while swinging their body forward, even going into a small trance”, she goes on to say.
During these lamentation sessions, a reciter tells the story of Karbala. While some male reciters achieved great notoriety and sell numerous CDs throughout Shia communities, female reciters cannot sell products, but still enjoy popularity among female communities1. “Female reciters can have different profiles, but they all need to have a good knowledge of the sacred history to tell the episodes of the imams’ saga, and to know how to sing, how to move the audience. Nowadays, some receive education in Islamic studies in schools”, remarks Mrs. Mervin. This knowledge enables female reciters to adapt their stories to their audience. To Lebanese and Iraqi women, for example, reciters stress the despair of the mourning family of Hussain, so that those who lost relatives in the war between Lebanon and Israel, or those who lost loved ones due to the Ba’th regime’s oppression against Shia Muslims in Iraq, can relate. The exile of Hussain’s sister, Zainad, can also be reminiscent of Iraqi women who fled their country1.
Sineh-zani and tatbîr
Other forms of celebrations are physical, such as sineh-zani. “What is referred to as sineh-zani in Persan, and latm in Arabic, is a Pre-Islamic mourning practice which involves the self-beating of the chest, the head, or the thighs when sitting”, explains Sabrina Mervin. “Believers perform them while listening to stories or songs about episodes from the battle. These basic gestures are the same everywhere.” Women can practice sineh-zani and lamentations, but remain segregated. “They practice it in private, away from any man’s view, who cannot even hear their voices”.
“In addition, you have flagellations or practices that involve drawing blood, through different techniques such as tatbîr, which is traditionally performed by men. They slice their head, and then parade in processions while hitting the zone of the cut with the flat of a sword. The blood runs down the white fabric they are wearing which is the symbol of a shroud”, Mrs. Mervin goes on to say. Tatbîr can be a rite of passage for young boys who learn it by watching men and replicating their acts with a growing assurance over time, and a demonstration of masculinity for grown men2, 3, 4.
The physical way of mourning for women seems to be mainly limited to sineh-zani but academic literature mentions rare cases of women participating in tatbîr. David Pinault, in his book The Shiites4 published in 1993, comments that he came across a few occurrences of women participating in bloody rituals in India in 1991, but that due to the notion of gender-related modesty in Islam, it was difficult to estimate the prevalence of such occurrence. Augustus Richard Norton5 witnessed “a handful of young women” performing tatbîr in Lebanon in 2000. “Tatbîr, as I described it, is originally restricted to men. Nowadays, some women, young women, want to perform it to show that they can do as the men. It is a way to express their equality, but also their piety, or to experiment too. It is rare indeed, I have witnessed it in Lebanon, but not in Iraq nor in India, for instance”, explains Sabrina Mervin, before adding that “young women who start to practice tatbîr in public processions do so within societies that can both give birth and accept such initiative (Lebanon). Nethertheless, there are debates and questions are asked to religious authorities.”
Indeed, some may wonder whether women are allowed to perform tatbîr and some refer to Zainab to allow the involvement of women in the practice. Zainab is reported to be the first person to inflict injury out of mourning. Sabrina Mervin stresses the importance of Zainab in the ceremonies of Muharram. “Zainab, Hussain’s sister, is a crucial figure in the battle of Karbala and the following events as she was one of the survivors and she then transmitted Hussain’s message to the caliph Yazîd in Damas. That is why she is named “the eloquent”. According to the tales, with the rest of her family, she returned after that to Karbala on Hussain’s grave where she engaged in the first mourning demonstrations. Therefore we trace back to her the pilgrimage tradition to Hussain’s grave, and mourning practices in general. But blood is not mentioned in the texts”, she notes.
“I keep observing these rituals frequently, for Muharram or for pilgrimages, such as the one that occurs on the fourteenth day after Ashura (Arba‘în) in Karbala, Iraq, that I filmed. For sure, women’s visibility increased, and we see them more in public processions, or in conferences. Some female sessions also became organized”, explains Sabrina Mervin. In addition to gender matters, other factors impact the ceremonies. In Iraq for example, the rituals gained in visibility after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime which was oppressive toward Shia muslims. Increased international media coverage also led to controversy regarding tatbîr. Therefore, the rituals performed to mourn Hussain are both highly codified and traditional, and yet shaped by the evolution of societies.
Sabrina Mervin wrote and contributed to numerous articles and books about Shiism, some of which were translated in English such as The Shi‘a Worlds and Iran (2010) and Najaf: Portrait of a Holy City (2017).
References
[1] Mervin, S. (2006). Les larmes et le sang des chiites : corps et pratiques rituelles lors des célébrations de ‘Âshûrâ’ (Liban, Syrie). Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerannée, 113-114, 153-166. https://doi.org/10.4000/remmm.2973
[2] Ruffle, K. G. (2015). Wounds of Devotion: Reconceiving Mātam in Shiʿi Islam. History of Religions, 55(2), 172-195. https://doi.org/10.1086/683065
[3] Scharbrodt, O. (2022). Contesting ritual practices in Twelver Shiism: modernism, sectarianism and the politics of self-flagellation (taṭbīr). British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2022.2057279
[4] Pinault, D. (1993). The Shiites: Ritual and popular piety in a Muslim community. St. Martin’s Press.
[5] Norton, A. R. (2005). Ritual, Blood, and Shiite Identity: Ashura in Nabatiyya, Lebanon. The Drama Review, 49(4), 140-155.
Exploring self-harm 