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

Year 2017, Volume: 8 Issue: 1, 65 - 93, 24.06.2017
https://doi.org/10.12730/13091719.2017.81.159

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.

References

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  • Arjomand, Said Amir, ed. 1988. Authority and Political Culture in Shiʿism. Albany: State University of New York Press.
  • Assmann, Jan. 2011. Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Re-membrance, and Political Imagination. New York: Cambridge Uni-versity Press. .https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511996306
  • Ayoub, Mahmoud M. 1978. Redemptive Suffering in Islām: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of ʿĀshūrāʾ in Twelver Shīʿism. The Hague: Mouton Publishers. .https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110803310
  • Aytaş, C. 2014. “Büyük Felaket.” http://tr.abna24.com/608348/print.html
  • Babaei, Habibollah. 2010. “A Shiite Theology of Solidarity through the Remem-brance of Liberative Suffering.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 45 (4): 615-631.
  • Cole, Juan. 2002. Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shīʿite Islam. London & New York, NY: I. B. Tauris.
  • Cole, Juan R. I. and Nikki R. Keddie, eds. 1986. Shiʿism and Social Pro-test. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  • Dabashi, Hamid. 2011. Shiʿism: A Religion of Protest. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
  • Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
  • Giesen, Bernhard. 2013. “Cultural Trauma and Religious Identity.” https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2013/SOC564/um/41746051/Brno2013-cultural_trauma_and_religious_identity.pdf
  • Halm, Heinz. 1991. Shiʿism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  • Hanson, Eric O. 2006. Religion and Politics in the International System Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511616457
  • Hassan, Farzana. 2008. Prophecy and the Fundamentalist Quest: An Inte-grative Study of Christian and Muslim Apocalyptic Religion. Jeffer-son, N.C. & London: McFarland.
  • Ibn Kathīr, Abū l-Fidāʾ ʿImād al-Dīn Ismāʿīl ibn Shihāb al-Dīn ʿUmar. 1408 AH. al-Bidāyah wa-l-nihāyah. 14 Vols. Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī.
  • al-Īrāwānī, Muḥammad B. 1420 AH. al-Imām al-Mahdī. Qom: Markaz al-Abḥāth al-ʿAqāʾidiyyah.
  • “İslami Uyanış.” 2012 December 19. “M. Ayetullah Mutahhari’nin Filistin hakkındaki tarihi konuşması.” [video file]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j53tbdhAQto
  • Jafri, Husain S. M. 1979. Origins and Early Development of Shiʿa Islam. London: Longman & Beirut: Librairie du Liban.
  • Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Āl. 1990. Aṣl al-Shīʿah wa-uṣūluhā: Muqāranah maʿa l-madhāhib al-arbaʿah. Beirut: Dār al-Aḍwāʾ.
  • Khomeinī, Ruhollah. 1358 HS. Sahifa-yi nur. 22 vols. http://lib.eshia.ir/50080/9/57/%D9%83%D9%84_%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%85
  • al-Kulaynī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb. 1968. al-Uṣūl min al-Kāfī. 8 vols. Edited by ʿAlī Akbar al-Ghaffārī. Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyyah.
  • al-Kulaynī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb. 1999. Kitāb al-Kāfī. Translated by M. Sarwar. http://holybooks.lichtenbergpress.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/Al-Kafi.pdf?2b92fd
  • al-Majlisī, Muḥammad Bāqir ibn Muḥammad Taqī. 1983. Biḥār al-anwār al-jāmiʿah li-durar akhbār al-aʾimmah al-aṭhār. 110 vols. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Wafāʾ.
  • Moghadam, Assaf. 2007. “Mayhem, Myths, and Martyrdom: The Shi’a Concep-tion of Jihad.” Terrorism and Political Violence 19/1: 125-143. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546550601079656
  • Momen, Moojan. 1987. An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shiʿism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  • Muṭahharī, Murtaḍá. 1426 AH. Adl-i Ilāhī. Tehran: Intishārāt-i Ṣadrā.
  • Nakash, Yitzhak. 2006. Reaching for Power: The Shiʿa in the Modern Arab World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. 2007. The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam will Shape the Future. New York: W. W. Norton.
  • al-Qummī, Abū l-Qāsim Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad Ibn Qawlawayh. 1417 AH. Kāmil al-ziyārāt. Qom: Muʾassasat Nashr al-Faqāhah.
  • Sachedina, Abdulaziz A. 1981. Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi in Twelver Shiʿism. Albany: State University of New York Press.
  • Sachedina, Abdulaziz A. 1988. The Just Ruler in Shiʿite Islam, New York: Oxford Univer-sity Press.
  • al-Ṣadūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī. 1361 HS. Maʿānī l-akhbār. Edited by ʿAlī Akbar al-Ghaffārī. Qom: Intishārāt-i Islāmī.
  • al-Ṣadūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī. 1368 HS. Thawāb al-aʿmāl. Qom: Manshūrāt al-Raḍī.
  • al-Ṣadūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī. 1386 HS. ʿIlal al-sharāʾiʿ. 2 vols. Najaf: al-Maktabah al-Ḥaydariyyah.
  • al-Ṣadūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī. 1404 AH. ʿUyūn akhbār al-Riḍā. 2 vols. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlamī li-l-Matbūʿāt.
  • al-Ṣadūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī. 1405 AH. Kamāl al-dīn wa-tamām al-niʿmah. Edited by ʿAlī Akbar al-Ghaffārī. Qom: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī.
  • al-Ṣaffār, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Qummī. 1362 HS. Baṣāʾir al-darajāt al-kubrá fī faḍāʾil āl Muḥammad. Edited by Mīrzā Muḥsin Kūjahbāghī. Tehran: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlamī.
  • al-Shīrāzī, Ṣādiq. n.d. “Istiftāʾāt.” http://www.alshirazi.net/istftaa/30.htm
  • Sīstānī, ʿAlī. “Istiftāʾāt.” http://www.sistani.org/index.php?p=297396&id=2120 http://www.sistani.org/index.php?p=297396&id=385&page=2&perpage=10
  • al-Subḥānī, Jaʿfar. 1421 AH. Aḍwāʾ ʿalá ʿaqāʾid al-Shīʿah al-Imāmiyyah wa-taʾrīkhihim. Tehran: Dār Mashʿar.
  • al-Ṭabarsī, Abū ʿAlī al-Faḍl ibn al-Ḥasan. 1415 AH. Majmaʿ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān. 10 vols. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlamī li-l-Matbūʿāt.
  • al-Ṭabarsī, Abū ʿAlī al-Faḍl ibn al-Ḥasan. 1979. Iʿlām al-wará bi-aʿlām al-hudá. Edited by ʿAlī Akbar al-Ghaffārī. Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifah.
Year 2017, Volume: 8 Issue: 1, 65 - 93, 24.06.2017
https://doi.org/10.12730/13091719.2017.81.159

Abstract

References

  • Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2012. Trauma: A Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.
  • Arjomand, Said Amir, ed. 1988. Authority and Political Culture in Shiʿism. Albany: State University of New York Press.
  • Assmann, Jan. 2011. Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Re-membrance, and Political Imagination. New York: Cambridge Uni-versity Press. .https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511996306
  • Ayoub, Mahmoud M. 1978. Redemptive Suffering in Islām: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of ʿĀshūrāʾ in Twelver Shīʿism. The Hague: Mouton Publishers. .https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110803310
  • Aytaş, C. 2014. “Büyük Felaket.” http://tr.abna24.com/608348/print.html
  • Babaei, Habibollah. 2010. “A Shiite Theology of Solidarity through the Remem-brance of Liberative Suffering.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 45 (4): 615-631.
  • Cole, Juan. 2002. Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shīʿite Islam. London & New York, NY: I. B. Tauris.
  • Cole, Juan R. I. and Nikki R. Keddie, eds. 1986. Shiʿism and Social Pro-test. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  • Dabashi, Hamid. 2011. Shiʿism: A Religion of Protest. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
  • Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
  • Giesen, Bernhard. 2013. “Cultural Trauma and Religious Identity.” https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2013/SOC564/um/41746051/Brno2013-cultural_trauma_and_religious_identity.pdf
  • Halm, Heinz. 1991. Shiʿism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
  • Hanson, Eric O. 2006. Religion and Politics in the International System Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511616457
  • Hassan, Farzana. 2008. Prophecy and the Fundamentalist Quest: An Inte-grative Study of Christian and Muslim Apocalyptic Religion. Jeffer-son, N.C. & London: McFarland.
  • Ibn Kathīr, Abū l-Fidāʾ ʿImād al-Dīn Ismāʿīl ibn Shihāb al-Dīn ʿUmar. 1408 AH. al-Bidāyah wa-l-nihāyah. 14 Vols. Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī.
  • al-Īrāwānī, Muḥammad B. 1420 AH. al-Imām al-Mahdī. Qom: Markaz al-Abḥāth al-ʿAqāʾidiyyah.
  • “İslami Uyanış.” 2012 December 19. “M. Ayetullah Mutahhari’nin Filistin hakkındaki tarihi konuşması.” [video file]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j53tbdhAQto
  • Jafri, Husain S. M. 1979. Origins and Early Development of Shiʿa Islam. London: Longman & Beirut: Librairie du Liban.
  • Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Āl. 1990. Aṣl al-Shīʿah wa-uṣūluhā: Muqāranah maʿa l-madhāhib al-arbaʿah. Beirut: Dār al-Aḍwāʾ.
  • Khomeinī, Ruhollah. 1358 HS. Sahifa-yi nur. 22 vols. http://lib.eshia.ir/50080/9/57/%D9%83%D9%84_%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%85
  • al-Kulaynī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb. 1968. al-Uṣūl min al-Kāfī. 8 vols. Edited by ʿAlī Akbar al-Ghaffārī. Tehran: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyyah.
  • al-Kulaynī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb. 1999. Kitāb al-Kāfī. Translated by M. Sarwar. http://holybooks.lichtenbergpress.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/Al-Kafi.pdf?2b92fd
  • al-Majlisī, Muḥammad Bāqir ibn Muḥammad Taqī. 1983. Biḥār al-anwār al-jāmiʿah li-durar akhbār al-aʾimmah al-aṭhār. 110 vols. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Wafāʾ.
  • Moghadam, Assaf. 2007. “Mayhem, Myths, and Martyrdom: The Shi’a Concep-tion of Jihad.” Terrorism and Political Violence 19/1: 125-143. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546550601079656
  • Momen, Moojan. 1987. An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shiʿism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  • Muṭahharī, Murtaḍá. 1426 AH. Adl-i Ilāhī. Tehran: Intishārāt-i Ṣadrā.
  • Nakash, Yitzhak. 2006. Reaching for Power: The Shiʿa in the Modern Arab World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. 2007. The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam will Shape the Future. New York: W. W. Norton.
  • al-Qummī, Abū l-Qāsim Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad Ibn Qawlawayh. 1417 AH. Kāmil al-ziyārāt. Qom: Muʾassasat Nashr al-Faqāhah.
  • Sachedina, Abdulaziz A. 1981. Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi in Twelver Shiʿism. Albany: State University of New York Press.
  • Sachedina, Abdulaziz A. 1988. The Just Ruler in Shiʿite Islam, New York: Oxford Univer-sity Press.
  • al-Ṣadūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī. 1361 HS. Maʿānī l-akhbār. Edited by ʿAlī Akbar al-Ghaffārī. Qom: Intishārāt-i Islāmī.
  • al-Ṣadūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī. 1368 HS. Thawāb al-aʿmāl. Qom: Manshūrāt al-Raḍī.
  • al-Ṣadūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī. 1386 HS. ʿIlal al-sharāʾiʿ. 2 vols. Najaf: al-Maktabah al-Ḥaydariyyah.
  • al-Ṣadūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī. 1404 AH. ʿUyūn akhbār al-Riḍā. 2 vols. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlamī li-l-Matbūʿāt.
  • al-Ṣadūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī. 1405 AH. Kamāl al-dīn wa-tamām al-niʿmah. Edited by ʿAlī Akbar al-Ghaffārī. Qom: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islāmī.
  • al-Ṣaffār, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Qummī. 1362 HS. Baṣāʾir al-darajāt al-kubrá fī faḍāʾil āl Muḥammad. Edited by Mīrzā Muḥsin Kūjahbāghī. Tehran: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlamī.
  • al-Shīrāzī, Ṣādiq. n.d. “Istiftāʾāt.” http://www.alshirazi.net/istftaa/30.htm
  • Sīstānī, ʿAlī. “Istiftāʾāt.” http://www.sistani.org/index.php?p=297396&id=2120 http://www.sistani.org/index.php?p=297396&id=385&page=2&perpage=10
  • al-Subḥānī, Jaʿfar. 1421 AH. Aḍwāʾ ʿalá ʿaqāʾid al-Shīʿah al-Imāmiyyah wa-taʾrīkhihim. Tehran: Dār Mashʿar.
  • al-Ṭabarsī, Abū ʿAlī al-Faḍl ibn al-Ḥasan. 1415 AH. Majmaʿ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān. 10 vols. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlamī li-l-Matbūʿāt.
  • al-Ṭabarsī, Abū ʿAlī al-Faḍl ibn al-Ḥasan. 1979. Iʿlām al-wará bi-aʿlām al-hudá. Edited by ʿAlī Akbar al-Ghaffārī. Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifah.
There are 42 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Religious Studies
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

Behram Hasanov 0000-0002-0717-173X

Agil Shirinov This is me 0000-0001-6835-8429

Publication Date June 24, 2017
Submission Date April 25, 2017
Published in Issue Year 2017 Volume: 8 Issue: 1

Cite

ISNAD Hasanov, Behram - Shirinov, Agil. “Suffering for the Sake of Cosmic Order: Twelver Shīʿah Islam’s Coping With Trauma”. Ilahiyat Studies 8/1 (June 2017), 65-93. https://doi.org/10.12730/13091719.2017.81.159.
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