Suffering for the sake of Cosmic Order: Twelver Shīʿah Islam’s Coping with Trauma

Abstract

The relation established in Shīʿite Islam between suffering, cosmic order, and the position attributed to the Shīʿite community in this cosmic order, is very important in terms of understanding Shīʿite-Islam identity. This article’s primary claim is that a deep investigation of Shīʿite-Islam identity should be conducted in the context of its coping with the trauma of the tragedy of Karbalāʾ. Based on Jeffrey Alexander’s definition of trauma as a “cultural construction,” we claim that the coding, weighting, and narrating of the Karbalāʾ tragedy in the course of the trauma process can provide us with important clues to understand the Shīʿite-Islam identity. This article claims that in the Shīʿite identity, the suffering experienced in Karbalāʾ is considered a guarantee that cosmic order will be maintained. Suffering is interpreted as the cost of the battle between the ḥaqq (truth) and bāṭil (falsehood) and of preserving the right way; thus, suffering is glorified and transformed into a social activity of continuous character. In this way, the Shīʿite community places itself both as “a subject of history” and as a dynamic social tradition.

Keywords

• Shīʿite Islam
• cultural trauma
• suffering
• tragedy of Karbalāʾ
• cosmic order
• cultural memory

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