Everyday Shi'ism in South Asia

Karen G. Ruffle

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781119357155
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

The first textbook to focus on the history of lived Shi'ism in South Asia

Everyday Shi'ism in South Asia is an introduction to the everyday life and cultural memory of Shi'i women and men, focusing on the religious worlds of both individuals and communities at particular historical moments and places in the Indian subcontinent. Author Karen Ruffle draws upon an array primary sources, images, and ethnographic data to present topical case studies offering broad snapshots Shi'i life as well as microscopic analyses of ritual practices, material objects, architectural and artistic forms, and more.

Focusing exclusively on South Asian Shi'ism, an area mostly ignored by contemporary scholars who focus on the Arab lands of Iran and Iraq, the author shifts readers' analytical focus from the center of Islam to its periphery. Ruffle provides new perspectives on the diverse ways that the Shi'a intersect with not only South Asian religious culture and history, but also the wider Islamic humanistic tradition. Written for an academic audience, yet accessible to general readers, this unique resource:

• Explores Shi'i religious practice and the relationship between religious normativity and everyday religious life and material culture
• Contextualizes Muharram rituals, public performances, festivals, vow-making, and material objects and practices of South Asian Shi'a
• Draws from author's studies and fieldwork throughout India and Pakistan, featuring numerous color photographs
• Places Shi'i religious symbols, cultural values, and social systems in historical context
• Includes an extended survey of scholarship on South Asian Shi'ism from the seventeenth century to the present

Everyday Shi'ism in South Asia is an important resource for scholars and students in disciplines including Islamic studies, South Asian studies, religious studies, anthropology, art history, material culture studies, history, and gender studies, and for English-speaking members of South Asian Shi'i communities.

1
South Asian “Lovers” of the Ahl‐e Bait: Hindu and Non‐Shiʿi Muslim Traditions of Devotion

Who are devotees of the Imams and Ahl‐e Bait in South Asia? Do we count only the Shiʿa as active participants in Muharram and other rituals dedicated to Imam Husain and his family? Who are the authors of mourning poetry and stories commemorating the battle of Karbala? As in other parts of the Islamic world, non‐Shiʿi communities have long shared in traditions of venerating the Imams and Ahl‐e Bait, actively participating in Muharram through the construction of replicas of Imam Husain’s shrine‐tomb at Karbala (taʿziya), and have been celebrated authors of mourning poems in the epic marsiyah and the episodic nauhah genres that are just as grief‐inducing as those written by Shiʿi authors.

In the religious imagination of devotees in diverse locales in the subcontinent, from the Telugu‐ and Kannada‐speaking regions of the Deccan plateau in South India to Panjab and the “Hindi‐belt” of North India, the Imams and Ahl‐e Bait have been absorbed into the pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses. Likewise, the cosmic battle fought between Imam Husain and the ʿUmayyad caliph Yazid’s army at Karbala – the ultimate clash between the “good” of preserving the original prophetic message of Muhammad and the “evil” of hereditary kingship divorced from religion – has been reimagined by South Asian Hindus and Muslims as a complement to the great Indic epic traditions narrating tales of duty (dharma) and just leadership (rajadharma), the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

Muharram beyond Shiʿism: The “Composite Culture” of Commemorating Karbala in South Asia

With the arrival of Sufis and Shiʿa in the Indian subcontinent beginning at least as early as the eleventh century, Muharram became a distinctly South Asian religious event and ritual. Nadeem Hasnain and Abrar Husain, two sociologists specializing in Shiʿi social practices and institutions, describe Imam Husain as the first satyagrahi whose non‐violent resistance to Yazid’s political tyranny inspired Mahatma Gandhi’s anti‐colonial movement (1988, 155). According to Hasnain and Husain, traditions of Sunni and Hindu devotion to “Husain baba” reflect the “common heritage and composite culture of our pluralistic society” (1988, 156). In this chapter, the inclusive nature of Muharram ritual, as a tradition shared and shaped by multiple religious communities, will be demonstrated. The religious conviviality that contributed to the formation of South Asian Muharram ritual, literary traditions, and material practices is often conceived as an expression of a “composite culture” of shared practices of shrine visitation, saint veneration, and their propitiation. This compositeness is usually articulated through the riverine imagery of “Ganga‐Yamuni tahzib” (culture), a religio‐political discourse affirming Indian culture and religion as conducive to positive and deep interreligious encounter. Ganga‐Yamuni tahzib, a term used by both Hindus and Muslims, incorporates an implicit reference to the Triveni Sangam in Allahabad, one of India’s most sacred sites, at which the confluence of the Ganga (symbolizing Hinduism) and the Yamuna (referring to Islam and the Muslim dynasties) Rivers converge with the mythical Saraswati River. The significance of the riverine imagery of the Ganga‐Yamuna Rivers invoked in this concept of a composite culture based on the principle of the sangam (meeting point, confluence) means that while diverse religious communities participate in and contribute to events such as Muharram, the fundamental integrity and identity of each constituent religious tradition is maintained (Ruffle 2016, 59–60).

Despite the appearance of the convergence of culture and religious practice in the concept of Ganga‐Yamuni tahzib, I do not classify everyday South Asian Shiʿism or non‐Shiʿi practices of ʿAlid devotion as “syncretic.” Ganga‐Yamuni tahzib does not conform to the prevailing models, such as alchemical syncretism, also known as colloidal suspension, that have prevailed in religious studies scholarship to explain the participation of Hindus and Muslims in one another’s religious activities in South Asia (Burman 2002; Das 2003; Kassam 1995; Mayaram 1997; Roy 1983; Talib and Mitra 2017; Waseem 2003). A colloidal suspension is the result of two irreconcilable substances coming into contact that will inevitably separate with time; an example of this would be oil and vinegar. As Tony K. Stewart and Carl W. Ernst observe in their discussion of syncretism, “in this model, religious or cultural essence triumphs over history” (2003, 587). Such a syncretic model privileges the notion of the intrinsic purity and original essence of a religious tradition that is immune to change. The problem with syncretism as a heuristic model is that it is ahistorical, essentialist, and presumes a pure “root” tradition (Stewart and Ernst 2003, 586).

Dr. Syed Akbar Naqvi (d. 2016), a Pakistani art critic, framed the religio‐cultural context of South Asian religious pluralism in which Muharram has been shaped by Shiʿi, Hindu, and Sunni communities as one of tolerance (rawadari). According to Naqvi, rawadari is an integral element of the culture of al‐Hind, by which he refers to the religio‐cultural and historical heritage of the Indian subcontinent’s diverse communities (2010, xxix–xxxi). Naqvi’s concept of rawadari, while in some respects reflecting the spirit of Ganga‐Yamuni tahzib, harkens back to the Mughal ethos of sulh‐e kull, the practice of balance and compromise that promotes harmony and respect toward the non‐Muslim “other” (Kinra 2013, 261).

You might wonder why I have included a separate chapter in this book that focuses on non‐Shiʿi devotees to the Imams and Ahl‐e Bait and their participation in ritual events such as Muharram. In both India and Pakistan, the rhetoric of political and religious actors since the second half of the nineteenth century has emphasized communal and sectarian polarization and the creation of Muslim‐Shiʿi “others,” causing shared traditions of devotion to fade to the background of public discourse and belying the realities of everyday religious life for practitioners from diverse religious communities – Shiʿi, Sunni, Hindu, and others. The case studies and examples that I present in this chapter point to a more complex religio‐cultural history in South Asia in which Shiʿi heroic figures are acclaimed through song, poetry, and stories, and venerated through rituals of offering and vow‐making. Their memory is invoked and made present through an astonishing diversity of material objects.

The Husaini Brahmins: Hindu Devotees of Imam Husain

Wah Dutt Sultan,	Oh, King Dutt
Hindu ka Dharm	A follower of the Hindu religion
Musalman ka Iman,	And the Muslim faith,
Adha Hindu, Adha Musalman.	Half Hindu, half Muslim.

Attributed to the mischief‐making Sufi chess player of the eleventh century, Wahun Pir, this praise poem is popularly invoked to valorize a group known as the Husaini Brahmins. This caste of brahmins trace their origins to the Gandhara region, located in contempo...