SYMPOSIA: The Graduate Student Journal of the Centre Spring 2009 for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto vol. 1, no. 1
Pedagogies of Piety: Shi’i Children’s Books, Ethics and the Emergence of the Pious Subject Edith Szanto Centre for the Study of Religion University of Toronto [email protected]
It was the last day of summer- the age of three, one should teach school at one of the dozen or so Shi‘i toddlers how to say ‗lā illāha ill allah,‘ Muslim seminaries in Syria. Female (‗there is no God but God,‘) and seven teachers dressed in black abayas were months later, how to say ‗Muhammadun running around hurriedly setting up a rasūl-Allah,‘ (‗Muhammad is God‘s little party which was going to include a Messenger‘). At the age of five, one speech, small gifts and a three-story should teach children the difference vanilla cake. I was chatting with my between left and right, as this is crucial classmate Fatima, a mid-twenties single for table manners, bathroom-hygiene from Baghdad, when the party finally and prayer. Next, children need to be started. After the girls from the first level, shown how to perform the individual who all below the age of nine, had units of daily prayer, and when they discordantly sung a religious hymn or reach six, they should be taught how to two, Um Hussayn the theology teacher pray. Just before reaching the age of and back-up mullaya also led a couple nine, daughters must be instructed on of chants as a prelude to the Islamic law how to ritually wash, so that they may instructor‘s sermon. "You can‘t expect start praying regularly when they turn your kids to pray when they get older nine. "First and foremost, however, a girl and you can‘t expect your girls to feel must be committed to the ahl al-bayt. It obliged to wear their hijāb unless you is easier for mothers if daughters pray have taught them to adhere to the ahl and wear hijāb for the sake of the ahl al- al-bayt, the Prophet‘s family and his bayt. Of course, you have to teach them 2 descendants!"1 She explained that at early!"
Note on transliteration: For the sake of non- Introduction specialist readers, diacritical marks have been restricted to a minimum throughout the Shi‘i children‘s books constitute one article. Most Arabo-Islamic terms are possible technique parents may use to defined in a short glossary at the end. teach their children pious behaviour
1 from an early age. These can be For Twelver Shi‘i Muslims the ahl al-bayt bought, for instance, in bookstores near designates the family of the Prophet the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab, the beginning with his daughter Fatima, her husband Imam ‗Ali and their (male) granddaughter of the Prophet, just 12 descendants. Imam ‗Ali is considered to be km South of Damascus. Though the the first of twelve Imams and he is followed by his sons, Hassan and Hussayn. The line the End of Time. Together, Fatima, the of Imams continues through the third Imam Prophet and the Twelve Imams are Hussayn in a succession of nine male collectively referred to as the Fourteen descendants. The last is the Hidden Imam Infallibles, as they are considered to have or the Mahdi who entered into Occultation been divinely protected from error. ca. 940 CE and is expected to return near 2 Fieldnotes, Monday, 11 August 2008.
Symposia, Spring 2009, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 62 - 78. © The Author 2009. Published by University of Toronto. All rights reserved.
Symposia 2009 Szanto, Pedagogies of Piety vol. 1, no. 1
Syrian Twelver Shi‘i community is rather attributed to the Prophet, which small, Shi‘i bookstores serve a wide encourage Muslims to seek knowledge.3 readership. Customers include Shi‘is In the eleventh century, the famous from Lebanon, Iraq, summer- theologian al-Ghazali wrote an entire vacationers from the Eastern Arabian treatise on the etiquette of teachers and Gulf, Arab expatriates on religious students in his magnum opus. The pilgrimages – and the occasional fourteenth century historian Ibn Khaldun researcher. For this study, I have included a chapter on pedagogy in his examined a selection of Shi‘i children‘s Muqaddimah. In reaction to colonialism, books I bought in Sayyida Zaynab. The numerous Muslims intellectuals such as selection includes an Arabic primer set, Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani and several series on the lives of the ahl al- Muhammad ‗Abdu struggled to reform bayt in both English and Arabic, an Islamic learning as the key to progress, Arabic series on the Mahdi, four prayer modernization and independence. More and legal manuals and four booklets on recently, Islamic schools have become "Spiritual Governance." Except for the the subject of heated debates even in primer series, which will be this article‘s Western media, where they have been first object of investigation, the books blamed for producing extremists groups are intended for roughly eight to thirteen such as the Taliban. Rather than year old children. The selection is focusing on the books‘ reception, socio- roughly representative of children‘s political effects and other potential books for sale at Sayyida Zaynab, most Austinian misfirings, however, this of which are imported from Lebanon, article examines Shi‘i children‘s books Iran or Iraq, as Syria produces few Shi‘i with regard to how they attempt to instil books. The books were all published in religious values. the last decade and most include glossy, colourful pictures which makes According to Baqir Sharif al-Qarashi, them a bit pricey, limiting their a contemporary Shi‘i intellectual and accessibility and their readership (and pedagogue whose book I acquired in by implication this study) to those one of the bookstores where I bought families who can afford them. The books children‘s books, ‗Western‘ education are sold as either complete series of has ignored religion and thus, has failed thinner booklets or as hard-back to bring about ‗true‘ progress.4 He points compilations containing similar out that while scientific progress has collections of shorter sections. Each helped humankind reach new heights, it series is organized around a central has also aided the proliferation of war theme such as ritual, doctrine, or the and mass destruction.5 In order to bring lives of the ahl al-bayt. As these are about peace, prosperity and ‗true‘ often repeated, readers re-encounter progress, children‘s education must the same basic stories from a variety of incorporate moral, ethical or religious perspectives. training – all of which are interchangeable terms for al-Qarashi Though the mass consumption of and will consequently not be strictly books specifically dedicated to children‘s religious education is a 3 Qarashi, Baqir Sharif al-. The Educational relatively recent phenomenon as it System in Islam. Trans. Badr Shahim. Qum, requires means, literacy and leisure- Iran: Ansariyan Publications, 2006, 89-93. 4 Ibid., 74. time, there has been a long-standing 5 tradition within Islamic thought and Ibid., 3-4. literature emphasizing religious education. There are numerous sayings 63
Symposia 2009 Szanto, Pedagogies of Piety vol. 1, no. 1 differentiated here either.6 Both al- sedimentation of piety? And how are we Qarashi and Shi‘i children‘s books (at to understand agency in this context? least implicitly) agree that the immediate solution is to be sought within the It should be noted that the use of the context of the family where children term ‗subject‘ and its various derivatives should be taught religious beliefs and (e.g. ‗intersubjective‘) is not meant to pious behaviour.7 The following analysis carry heavy philosophical baggage, but takes seriously the concern for a proper rather highlight how selves are pious formation and therefore examines constituted as subjects through how Shi‘i children‘s literature spells out encounters with others and disciplinary and intervenes in Shi‘i children‘s regimes, such as religious children‘s formation, especially within familial books. I draw on but also depart from settings. As mentioned above, an Butler‘s language and theory of subject evaluation of the books‘ actual impact is formation, not in order to arrive at a beyond the scope of this article, yet I thorough theory of ‗Shi‘i subjectivity‘ think it nevertheless ought to be of which would require reading more into academic interest to think about the the books than is actually there, but intimate ways in which contemporary rather in order to draw attention to religious imaginaries structure and critical convergences that speak back to transmit ethical ways of being-in-the- our own assumptions about ethics and world. pious subjectivity. For this reason, the following analysis begins with a Theoretical Considerations discussion of how Shi‘i children‘s books construct pious behaviour as an apt As part of a larger discourse on Shi‘i response to others. It thereby reverses piety and pious formation, Shi‘i Butler‘s account according to which the children‘s books demonstrate a subject is formed through encounters particular vision of how to become pious with others who impinge upon the and in this sense they are prescriptive emerging subject, which further implies rather than normative. However, as that the subject is neither autonomous pedagogical tools, Shi‘i children‘s books nor fully determined from the outside. also have disciplinary functions. For Butler, this means that the subject‘s Drawing on Judith Butler‘s philosophical capacity to act ethically cannot be insights, this article examines the books‘ grounded in autonomy but must instead disciplinary and productive aspects and be based in intersubjectivity, the asks: How do Shi‘i children‘s books subject‘s openness and capacity to describe and compel the respond to others.8 (trans)formation of emerging subjects into pious subjects? How does the In invoking close personal literature participate in the relationships such as those between mother and daughter or a little boy and 6 Following the language of Muslim thinkers his grandfather, Shi‘i books situate such as Qarashi, this article will not strictly religious knowledge and ethical distinguish between the terms ‗morals,‘ behaviour literally, metaphorically and ‗ethics,‘ ‗virtue,‘ ‗piety‘ and ‗religion.‘ For pictorially in the realm of the familial, many Muslim thinkers these terms are not within the space of Lacanian primary only interrelated, they are only possible relations. It is within this space that within the context of (ideally Islam, but more generally) revealed religion. 8 7 Qarashi, Educational System, 32-38. Butler, Judith. Giving an Account of Oneself. New York: Fordham University Press, 2005, 39. 64
Symposia 2009 Szanto, Pedagogies of Piety vol. 1, no. 1 fictional pious elders cite the exemplary and it can be (mis)used for political acts of the Prophet Muhammad and his purposes, as will be discussed below. ahl al-bayt and thereby introduce Generally, the process whereby Shi‘i children/readers to the Infallibles as books demand prescribed responses citable and therefore knowable others. from children/readers corresponds to The elder‘s performances constitute the Butler‘s theory of impingement by Shi‘i pious norm as both a ‗sedimented primary others, whereby emerging effect‘ and as a ‗productive power,‘ subjects are compelled to respond by productive of pious subjects.9 Fictional appropriating norms in order to become but familial others compel young recognizable as, for example, pious readers to relate to and to cite the ahl al- subjects. Shi‘i pious formation, however, bayt, perform the pious norm and does not stop at this point. Legal and become recognizable as pious subjects. ritual manuals for slightly older children According to Butler, the emerging subject desires to be recognized by primary others and for this reason appropriates the norm.10
Butler does not philosophize beyond the point of recognition, other than some of its misfirings, nor about what it means to appropriate the norm. Yet, these are crucial issues for Shi‘i children‘s books. There, pious subject formation begins within the space of the familial and proceeds by demanding performative contribute to the cultivation of piety by and emotional responses and emphasizing not only the importance of attachments. Books for children below responsiveness, but also the habituation the ‗age of responsibility‘11 not only of ethical practices and dispositions until introduce pious norms, but also base these become sedimented in the "slow 13 these norms in interpersonal rhythms of everyday life." Shi‘i relationships and apt forms of children‘s literature thus not only spells responsiveness. Notably, the process of out and demands what Talal Asad has 14 cultivating responsiveness continues called ‗apt behaviour‘ but also guides throughout childhood and adulthood,12 readers on how to accomplish what has been called the ‗Greater Jihad‘ – the 9 Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter. New struggle of the self for the self, the York: Routledge, 1993, 1-3, 10, 14. cultivation of piety. 10 Butler, Giving an Account, 29-30. 11 The ‗age of responsibility‘ generally Cf. Howarth, Toby M. The Twelver Shi‟a as corresponds with puberty, but has been a Muslim Minority in India: Pulpit of Tears. fixed in modern Shi‘i legal manuals at nine New York: Routledge, 2005. years for girls and fifteen for boys. 13 Hirschkind, Charles. An Ethical 12 For example, mourning the death of Imam Soundscape. New York: Columbia Hussayn is a central feature of Shi‘i ritual University Press, 2006, 26. piety. Both adults and children renew their 14 Asad, Talal. The Idea of an Anthropology relationship with the ahl al-bayt by of Islam. Occasional Papers Series. participating in ritual mourning ceremonies. Washington, DC: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1986, 15. 65
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Responsiveness as Piety minaret of a mosque. The first two stanzas of the call to prayer, the adhān, According to Shi‘i fiqh or are printed on the upper left side. Below, jurisprudence, children are not required a boy explains that "it is the voice of the to perform rituals, such as daily prayers, mu‟adhin (the one who performs the until they have reached the ‗age of adhān) which invites us to prayer." responsibility.‘ Their early participation is Through a rhetorical move from the however mustahabb (not obligatory, but mu‟adhin to ‗us,‘ ‗we‘ are called upon to be pious and respond to the call to pray.
Another page is dedicated to the feast of Ghadīr Khumm which celebrates the day Muhammad chose ‗Ali, his cousin and son-in-law, as his successor. The images reveal two robed figures, one holding up the arm of the other: "By God‘s order, the Prophet appointed ‗Ali imām and wālī upon Muslims."17 Adjacently, a smiling boy dressed in red and liked and encouraged).15 Booklets such surrounded by flowers is clearly as Munāsabāt Khālida (or "Eternal delighted by this occasion. Relations"), for example, promote children‘s participation by explaining The next page depicts the same boy how the pious should respond to the dressed in black, his hand raised to his various historical events and holidays chest suggesting a ‗light‘ form of self- that punctuate the Shi‘i calendar.16 Each flagellation. He looks up with wide-eyed page reveals a short text and two sadness unto a scene depicting images, a small colourful picture and a Hussayn, ‗Ali‘s son, lying in a pool of larger one waiting to be coloured. Each blood on the desert plain of Karbala. image has two parts: an item or scene The accompanying text has two parts. signifying a specific event and a young The first is a saying by the fifth Imam: Shi‘i child responding to the signified "Revive our [the ahl al-bayt‘s] concerns, event. The accompanying text explains may God have mercy upon him who the import of the event and names the revives our concerns." The second part appropriate physical and emotional constitutes an explanatory elaboration of reaction. the first: "The revitalization of the nights of „Ashūra during the first ten [days] of The first page of the booklet shows a Muharram and the attendance of little boy pointing his finger at the mourning gatherings for Abu ‗Abdallah al-Hussayn (peace be upon him) are 15 Cf. Deeb, Lara. An Enchanted Modern: among the most important mustahabb Gender and Public Piety in Shi‟i Lebanon. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006, 17 Countless volumes have been dedicated 104. to defining the terms imām and wālī. Suffice 16 Munāsabāt Khālida. Beirut: Al-Aalami it to say here that Imam ‗Ali, according to Est., 200?. Twelver Shi‘is, was to be the heir of the All the translations from Arabic are my own Prophet Muhammad in every field except for unless noted otherwise. prophecy.
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Symposia 2009 Szanto, Pedagogies of Piety vol. 1, no. 1 practices." The booklet thus pictorially subject‘s vulnerability to others.19 In this demonstrates and verbally explicates case, vulnerability designates the how Shi‘i Muslims should mourn in subject‘s inherent relationality or response to the death of Hussayn. More openness to others rooted in the fact generally, by calling for embodied and that the subject‘s emergence is emotional responses to specific events, irreversibly the product of intersubjective the booklet posits pious practice as apt encounters. For Butler, recognizing this responsiveness and implicitly equates vulnerability opens up a space for the pious subject with the appropriately ethical practice. She bases her responsive subject. argument on Emmanuel Levinas‘s theory of responsibility, which allows her In Lacanian terms, children to posit ‗ethical responsibility‘ in terms of encounter norms through primary social ‗responsiveness to others.‘20 It means relations, such as parents, who compel that the subject‘s openness to others children to appropriate and perform becomes the condition for ethical pious norms in order to become practice: she becomes ethically recognizable as pious subjects. This ‗responsible‘ when acting upon her means that the subject can never be vulnerability to others.21 The responses truly independent or autonomous, outlined in booklets such as Munāsabāt because the subject is not only Khālida can be described as a Butlerian constituted through her relationships ethical practice, because they constitute with others, but also because she is a mode of inhabiting and maintaining a always already ‗displaced,‘ changed and responsive relationship with the ahl al- conditioned by her primary relations. bayt. Judith Butler posits that primary relations "form lasting and recurrent Butler‘s theory can be applied both to impressions on the history of [the those relationships fictional characters subject‘s] life."18 Thus, the subject have with one another and to those remains partially opaque to herself between literary figures and readers. because she can never fully recuperate While children‘s books depict primary the conditions of her own emergence, relationships by setting instructive which bars her from attaining complete stories in the context of fictional pious autonomy. Moreover, the subject‘s families, they also create relationships relationships with others are always by demanding emotional responses already preconditioned by existing from readers to events which occurred norms, which concurrently constitute the in the lives of the Prophet and the ahl al- conditions for mutual intelligibility. In bayt. Through outlining appropriate other words, it is through norms that responses, the books define Shi‘i love people come to understand one and loyalty, which according to scholars another. Children learn norms through such as Toby Howarth and Vernon interactions with others and they Schubel constitute Shi‘i piety.22 become intelligible subjects through Structurally similar to Shi‘i Muharram their encounters with others. 19 Ibid., 19. Taking as her starting point the idea 20 Ibid., 88-93. 21 that the subject is never actually Ibid., 91. 22 autonomous, Butler theorizes that Howarth, Twelver Shi‟a, 151. ethical agency must be grounded in the Schubel, Vernon. Religious Performance in Contemporary Islam: Shi‟i Devotional Rituals 18 in South Asia. Columbia: South Carolina Butler, Giving an Account, 39. University Press, 1993, 16-17.
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Symposia 2009 Szanto, Pedagogies of Piety vol. 1, no. 1 mourning gatherings for adults, situation suitable.25 When Muslim children‘s storybooks help create reached Kufa, "he met a warm, noisy, emotional attachments by retelling the grand welcome. Thousands of people lives of the ahl al-bayt through highly took [an] oath of allegiance and offered formulaic narratives.23 They first prayers behind him."26 Convinced by describe an Imam‘s noble attributes: his this show of support, Hussayn decided illustrious background, his miraculous to heed the Kufan‘s request and left birth, his noble character, his Medina for Kufa. However, the Caliph knowledge, courage and generosity, his learned of the imminent revolt in time contributions to society and lastly, his and dispatched an army: first, in order to undeserved suffering and tragic death. intimidate the Kufans and second, to intercept Hussayn. When Hussayn A good example of an emotionally reached the desert plains of Karbala, demanding storybook is the fifth booklet around eighty kilometres from Kufa, he in the English series entitled Introduction was met and outnumbered by Yazid‘s to Infallibles. In summary, the booklet army. The Kufans never came to help recounts the life of the third Imam, and after several days of fierce fighting, Hussayn and begins with an angel Hussayn was killed on „Ashūra, the telling Prophet Muhammad that his tenth day of the Islamic month newborn grandchild should be named Muharram. According to the text, ‗Hussayn.‘24 In his early years Hussayn Hussayn had intended "to disgrace enjoyed the loving devotion of his Yazid‘s regime" and to restore justice to parents and grandfather, though his the Islamic empire.27 The text explains good fortunes were soon reversed and that Hussayn was not defeated even his mother died shortly after her own though he died, because success father, the Prophet, passed away. means "achieving one‘s… goals and Meanwhile, Hussayn‘s father Imam ‗Ali aspirations and ideology [even if] one is was denied the right to guide and rule killed. Defeat does not mean being the Muslim community. After ‗Ali was killed… it means the death and killed, Hussayn was oppressed by annihilation of objective, aspiration and Muawiyah, the Umayyad Caliph, and belief."28 The story ends describing how later by Yazid, Muawiyah‘s son and ‗people‘ (i.e. Shi‘is) began to express successor. An outspoken critic, Hussayn their love and allegiance to the ahl al- was invited [ca. 680 CE] by the people bayt by visiting their shrines, praising of Kufa (a city in southern Iraq) to lead their virtues, cherishing their memories their rebellion against Yazid. The and cursing their enemies.29 Kufans, however, had previously been unfaithful to Hussayn‘s father Imam ‗Ali Even the structure of such stories is and thus, Hussayn "sent his cousin emotionally compelling: the juxtaposition ‗Muslim‘ to Kufa so that he might of an Imam‘s virtues and his tragic death observe the whole affair closely and evokes moral outrage. This outrage invite Imam [Hussayn] if he deemed" the should be understood as an ethical potential. The booklet not only aims at 23 Howarth, Twelver Shi‟a, 136-149. transforming this outrage into pious Momen, Mojan. An Introduction to Shi‟i practice by prescribing the proper forms Islam. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1985, 23. 25 24 Ibid., 10. Ayatullahi, Syed Mehdi. The Introduction 26 Ibid. to Infallibles, no. 5, Hazrat Imam Hussain 27 Ibid., 14. (s.a.). Qum, Iran: Ansaryan Publications, 28 Ibid., 30. 2001, 3-4. 29 Ibid., 32. 68
Symposia 2009 Szanto, Pedagogies of Piety vol. 1, no. 1 it should take, but also compels readers Maryam responds: "What [do I lack], oh to establish relationships with the Imams mother?"33 "Your impending maturity through, for example, praising their requires commitment to hijāb." At first, virtues and mourning their deaths. Maryam remains ambivalent, ―you said my hair shines like gold!" "That is true ‘Ec-Static’ Inaugurations and did anyone say that the hijāb will reduce your beauty? On the contrary, it By demanding a predetermined will only enhance your prestige and normative and therefore, recognizable dignity and it will not diminish your response, primary relationships femininity."34 Suspiciously, Maryam ‗displace‘ and thereby, irreversibly asks: "Oh mother, considering how often change the emerging subject. According as you have spoken to me about hijāb, to Butler, "I am invariably transformed have you been preparing for this step?" by the encounters I undergo; recognition Softly but firmly, the mother re-directs becomes the process by which I the conversation: "Darling, it is not me become other than what I was and so who makes the hijāb obligatory upon cease to be able to return to what I you. It is a form of worship demanded was."30 The subject is displaced by her by God."35 Maryam demands proof and primary relations in the sense that she is so her mother quotes a verse from the not only de-centered and transformed Qur‘an and explains that God through her encounters, but that her ‗I‘ is commanded it for the protection of only established through impingement individuals and families.36 In order to by others from whom her emergence remains inseparable. Butler explains that the subject‘s displacement by others is a result of her desire for others and her desire to be recognized by these others. She is compelled to appropriate norms in order to be able to recognize others and in turn, to become recognizable to these others.31 In a story entitled al-Hijāb (modest dress, but here specifically the head-scarf), one of think about her mother‘s words, Maryam five stories in a hardback for adolescent goes to her room, though sleep soon girls, a mother carefully broaches the overtakes her. implications of her daughter‘s upcoming ninth lunar birthday, her ‗age of In her sleep, Maryam sees a dream. responsibility.‘32 With another piece of She is sitting in a garden as an angel hilwa (a sweetmeat), the mother tells (al-khayr) descends, offering her a gift: a her daughter, Maryam: "You‘re a good pink hijāb. The angel calls her a virtuous girl and you have excellent manners. I girl (fatah sāliha) and tells her she wonder what it is you lack?" Curiously, deserves the gift, which will protect and
30 Butler, Giving an Account, 27. 33 31 Ibid., 4. Ibid., 29-30. 34 32 Ibid., 6. ―al-Hijāb.‖ In Silsilat Bint al-Huda al- 35 Ibid., 8. Qisasiyya li-l-Nāshi‟a. Beirut: Dar al-Mahajja 36 Ibid., 8-12. al-Baydha, 200?), 2-19. 69
Symposia 2009 Szanto, Pedagogies of Piety vol. 1, no. 1 suit her innocent face. Then, Maryam her in a dream.39 The angel‘s warning, hears another voice. A black demon "if you listen to the whispering devil, you (ash-sharr) tries to persuade her not to will lose God‘s favour," finally impels cover her beauty with a piece of cloth. Maryam to act upon her desire to be The angel warns Maryam: "He is recognized as a pious subject. Her completely evil, don‘t be convinced by desire thus allows her to be impinged his words." The devil defends himself: upon by others and results in her "I‘m your friend and want what is best inauguration as a virtuous adolescent for you." But the angel insists: "If you girl (fatah sāliha). listen to the whispering devil, you will lose God‘s favour. Your beauty lies in The notion that pious subjects are your modesty, not in the display of your inaugurated as a consequence of adornments."37 While good and evil impingement by others is common continue to fight, Maryam wakes up and throughout Shi‘i children‘s literature, calls for her mother: "Are you going to which often depicts children in what the market today? I‘d like to buy a hijāb!" Butler calls ‗scenes of address.‘40 The "What has befallen you?" Maryam displacing encounter with an other is a explains that in the realm of visions, she saw a battle between good and evil, which made her recognize that hijāb is the preferable choice („arafatu in al-hijāb fadhīla) and that she desires to please God.38
Throughout the story, recognition plays an important role. Maryam is repeatedly told that she is an innocent, good girl, but she is also simultaneously called upon to become recognizable as a responsible, pious adolescent by adopting the scarf. While it is her mother who confronts Maryam with the issue, the mother makes it clear that donning hijāb is a matter of pleasing God, not a matter of pleasing parents. In a sense, Maryam already acknowledges the desirability of pleasing and being recognized by God as a pious subject by asking her mother for proof from the particularly important theme throughout Qur‘an. Nevertheless, she remains the at-Tufūlat al-Mahdawiyya series ambivalent as to whether she must ("The Mahdian Childhood Series"), really actively respond to her mother‘s wherein the characters change though words and God‘s command until the the plot generally remains the same: A urgency of the matter is impressed upon child seeks out her grandfather, her
37 aunt, an elderly neighbour or a teacher, Ibid., 12-16. and asks questions regarding the The concept of the ‗whispering devil‘ is an allusion to a well-known Qur‘anic expression 39 (e.g. Q 114:4). Dream-visions are traditionally considered 38 Ibid., 17. to be a legitimate source of divine guidance. 40 Butler, Giving an Account, 9-22.
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Mahdi, the twelfth Hidden Imam.41 In the booklet entitled al-Qā‟id al- Invariably there is a picture that Khamene‟i ("The Leader Khamene‘i") a accompanies the elder‘s textual father hangs a poster, a portrait of instructions. It shows a child and her Ayatollah Khamene‘i, on the wall. When mentor underneath a second image, his son asks about the face on the enclosed in a bubble, the subject-matter poster, the father replies: "It is the leader of their conversation. As the mentor conveys the lesson, the child is moved. She becomes ‗ec-static.‘ Her ‗ec-stasy‘ (her dis-placement, from the Greek root meaning ‗to stand outside oneself‘) marks her inauguration, which allows her to understand the other, become content and eager to follow.42
The (Mis)uses of Pious Formation
Fictional elders also open up possibilities for misfirings or (mis)appropriations where, for example, love for the ahl al-bayt is employed for the service of the state. The al-Walaya ("Spiritual Governance") series, for instance, seeks to initiate Arabic speaking Shi‘i children into an impinging relationship with Iranian religio-political authorities by employing a strategy similar to the ‗scene of address‘ in the whom we must be obedient to." The son at-Tufūlat al-Mahdawiyya series.43 responds: "How must we obey him?" Thus, the process of displacing and 44 41 See, for example: inaugurating a pious subject begins. Al-Imām al-Ghā‟ib. Silsilat at-Tufūlat al- Mahdawiyya. Ed. ‗Ali Sa‘d al-Najafi. Najaf, The last four pages of Al-Qā‟id wa Iraq: Mahdi Publications, 2006, 6-7. az-Zuhd ("The Leader and Renunciation Al-Imām al-Mahdi. Silsilat at-Tufūlat al- [or Discipline]") directly engage children. Mahdawiyya. Ed. ‗Ali Sa‘d al-Najafi. Najaf, They encourage participation through Iraq: Mahdi Publications, 2006, 5-6. activities that require reflection on the Imām al-„Asr. Silsilat at-Tufūlat al- booklet‘s meanings and messages: the Mahdawiyya. Ed. ‗Ali Sa‘d al-Najafi. Najaf, first is a list of questions that invites Iraq: Mahdi Publications, 2006, 9-10. 42 Butler, Giving an Account, 27. emerging subjects to allow themselves 43 The al-Walaya series is composed of a to be displaced. "Do want to be humble number of booklets, each of which describes like the leader? Which one is your exemplary acts by either Ayatollah Khomeini favourite story regarding or Ayatollah Khamene‘i. Crucially, these booklets were published in Lebanon where Al-Imām wa as-Salāh. Silsilat al-Walaya. both Khomeini and Khamene‘i are Beirut: Dar al-Hadi, 2000. considered official religious authorities by Al-Qā‟id al-Khamene‟i. Silsilat al-Walaya. Hezbollah. Beirut: Dar al-Hadi, 2000. Al-Imām wa al-Qā‟id. Silsilat al-Walaya. Al-Qā‟id wa az-Zuhd. Silsilat al-Walaya. Beirut: Dar al-Hadi, 2000. Beirut: Dar al-Hadi, 2000. 44 Al-Qā‟id al-Khamene‟i, 4-7.
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Symposia 2009 Szanto, Pedagogies of Piety vol. 1, no. 1 renunciation/discipline and humility? children have reached the age of What did the leader say to the soldiers responsibility and have learned how to who offered him a meal?"45 Similar to properly respond to the various events other religious booklets, the al-Walaya in the lives of the ahl al-bayt, legal and series seeks to work upon multiple ritual manuals teach and demand a registers of subjectivity and more disciplined and thorough kind of intersubjectivity and ground loyalty to responsiveness on the part of young specific Shi‘i authority figures in the Shi‘is. The following excerpt from a openness of the subject and in her children‘s legal manual addresses itself capacity to aptly respond. While these to girls above the age of nine and boys books‘ reception is beyond the scope of above the age of fifteen: this article, it would be fascinating to find out whether or not this approach which Islam forbids us from and attempts to link loyalty to the ahl al-bayt commands us to perform with loyalty to Iranian religio-political obligations and we, as Muslims, leaders is successful in the long term. [should] act according to the best Moreover, should children one day of our knowledge. Though we become disillusioned with, for example, know the principles of our Ayatollah Khamene‘i, how will this religion, [such as] how to pray impact their attachment to the ahl al- and fast, we do not know bayt? everything. Sometimes we encounter new situations, Agency and the Cultivation of Piety wherein we do not know how to act. In such cases it is important For Judith Butler, subject formation to know there is a correct Islamic ends with the appropriation of norms response to every situation, and and the recognition, which thereby that there are those who becomes possible. However, for Muslim specialize in religion and study thinkers such as Baqir Sharif al-Qarashi, and ponder such issues (darasū this is only the beginning. Becoming a wa hafathū wa tafaqqahū fī tilk pious subject is a life-long project, the al-ahkām) and who know more goal of which is to develop and practice than we or others know. We a variety of virtues including chastity, need those who study and bear willpower, courage, endurance, the responsibility for our actions generosity, etc.46 Crucially, these virtues in front of God (yatahammal al- cannot be cultivated without scholarly mas‟ūlīya a‟malna amām allah). guidance, a more detailed form of We need to follow (nahtāj ilā impingement and response.47 Once Shi‘i taqlīd) those who have studied and it is best to follow the most 45 Al-Qā‟id wa az-Zuhd, 20. knowledgeable among them.48 46 Qarashi, Educational System, 126-146. Tabataba‘i, Mohammad Hosayn. Islamic Muslim community. After the Twelfth Imam Teachings: An Overview. Trans. Robert entered into Occultation, most Shi‘i scholars Campbell (2002), 152. argued that religious rule is the responsibility 47 Governance (walaya) is a central concept of religious scholars. Ayatollah Khomeini in Twelver Shi‘ism. In short, Twelver Shi‘is went beyond the consensus when he argue that God would not leave humankind argued that even political governance without a perfect guide and ruler who is able should be taken over by religious scholars. to interpret the Qur‘an and give Islamic legal 48 Al-Fiqh al-Muyassar: Sinn at-Taklīf. Beirut: rulings. After the Prophet, there were Twelve Al-Aalami Est., 2005, 7. Imams who (at least in theory) had this function of guiding and governing the 72
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Ritual emulation or taqlīd in this Similar to the Aristotelian point of excerpt is based on the presumption view, moreover, Shi‘i moral agency is that both lay Shi‘is and Shi‘i scholars of not "a product of the critical faculty of Islamic Law are capable of reason."51 Instead, it lies in the subject‘s responsiveness. Religious scholars capacity to inhabit norms and live "a complete human life lived at its best, and the exercise of the virtues is a necessary and central part of such a life, not a mere preparatory exercise to secure such a life."52 The apt practice of virtues can be learned according to Aristotle and their repeated performance cultivates "dispositions not only to act in particular ways, but also to feel in particular ways," enabling practitioners to desire ‗the good.‘53 In contemplate and respond to questions other words, Aristotelian (and Shi‘i) posed by lay followers and thereby moral agency is a habituated, "acquired become answerable and responsible for excellence at either a moral or a the actions of those who follow them practical craft, learned through repeated regularly and habitually. Citing Shi‘i practice until that practice leaves a scholars‘ decisions, however, does not permanent mark on the character of the mean that pious subjects lack moral person."54 agency. Saba Mahmood explains that "agency [is] not simply a synonym for Shi‘i children‘s books facilitate the resistance to relations of domination, acquisition of pious habits by gradually but... a capacity for action that specific expanding and disciplining their readers‘ relations of subordination create and 49 capacity to aptly respond to others, be enable." In Butler‘s fitting words, they familiar, infallible or learned others. agency constitutes "a reiterative or Legal and ritual manuals further develop rearticulatory practice, immanent to Shi‘i children‘s ability to respond power, and not a relation of external 50 appropriately not just to primary others, opposition to power." Shi‘i moral but also to everyday situations and agency, thus, is not resistance to actions. For example, by explicating and scholarly authority but rather the demonstrating what prayers to say in capacity to act within specific relations everyday circumstances, the children‘s of power. 51 Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 25. 52 MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. 2nd ed. This is a summarized translation of the Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame original text. Press, 1984, 148-149. 49 The emphasis is from the original. Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 120-126. Mahmood, Saba. Politics of Piety: The 53 Asad, Talal. ―Remarks on the Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Anthropology of the Body.‖ In Religion and Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005, the Body. Ed. Sarah Coakley. Cambridge: 18. 50 Cambridge University Press, 1997, 46-50. Butler, Bodies that Matter, 15. 54 Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 136.
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Symposia 2009 Szanto, Pedagogies of Piety vol. 1, no. 1 version of the traditional prayer-manual, Conclusion Mafātīh al-Jinān ("The Keys of Paradise"), contributes to the process of Judith Butler‘s theory that the sedimenting pious behaviour.55 The subject‘s ethical capacity lies in her book presents the pious norm as a responsiveness, her ability to act upon citational practice and demonstrates her openness to others, in itself what prayers readers should recite constitutes a call for ethical during daily activities, such as going to responsiveness. It is a call for a general bed, leaving for school and visiting the awareness of human vulnerability and sick. The book presents each prayer the ethical possibilities inherent in this divided into segments: lines written in vulnerability. In particular, she posits red are directly followed by lines in that the US-led wars following 9/11 black, an explanatory simplified version constitute a reaction that disavows of the lines in red. A colourful picture vulnerability and openness to others and accompanies each of these segments seeks to maintain an ultimately illusory and encourages children to correlate ideal of autonomy and sovereignty.58 specific du‟a (non-obligatory, mustahabb Shi‘i children‘s books specifically, but prayers) with particular bodily also contemporary Twelver Shi‘i ritual movements, physical environments and practice generally, orient the recognition social encounters. To further assist of vulnerability primarily towards familiar memorization and the habituation and others and the ahl al-bayt. This does not sedimentation of pious practices and mean that Shi‘i forms of responsiveness dispositions, longer prayers are cannot be re-interpreted or directed reprinted undivided after each towards other others. However, in the illustrated-annotated version. Shi‘i children‘s books surveyed for this article, readers are compelled to For example, the picture above cultivate certain kinds of vulnerability, an shows a boy leaving his house, openness towards particular others and presumably on his way to school. The specific kinds of responses. illustration is surrounded by text explaining what prayer to say when In sum, the children‘s books leaving the home. The first line begins: participate in their readers‘ pious "One must say three times: ‗God is formation literally and pictorially by Greatest!‘ Three times: ‗By God I go out, explicating and demonstrating pious by God I come in and I trust in God.‘"56 norms and by shaping Shi‘i children In repeating such prayer formulas, Shi‘i emotionally through, for example, children not only acquire pious habits, juxtaposing the ahl al-bayt‘s virtues with but also the desire to act piously. their underserved suffering. The books Through repetition and a "particular co- prescribe how Shi‘i children are to relate ordination of the soul, the eye, and the to the ahl al-bayt and thereby, establish hand," prayer thus becomes rooted in piety as responsiveness to the ahl al- ordinary existence.57 bayt. Moreover, by fostering affective relations between readers, fictional elders and members of the ahl al-bayt, the books set the scene for the subject‘s cultivation of responsiveness, her ethical 55 Mafātīh al-Jinān al-Mubassat. Beirut, agency and a pre-requisite for the Lebanon: Al-Aalami Est., 2006. 56 Ibid., 4. 58 Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The 57 Hirschkind, Ethical Soundscape, 26. Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso, 2004. 74
Symposia 2009 Szanto, Pedagogies of Piety vol. 1, no. 1 practice of taqlīd. By focusing on certain Finally, this article has sought to practices, such as mourning for examine how Shi‘i children‘s books aid Hussayn and waiting for the Mahdi, the the formation of the pious subject, who books define not only pious norms, but emerges through her appropriation of also the terms by which the pious pious norms, the terms of recognition subject becomes intelligible to others as and how they contribute to and partake a pious subject. Yet, while the norm in the subject‘s displacement, dictates the terms of intelligibility, it does impingement and inauguration. The not mean that the subject is fully books thus re-enforce Imam ‗Ali‘s determined by the norm. How exactly it words, that the Shi‘i subject‘s agency, is that this process of pious formation her capacity for ethical practice and her can misfire will have to be investigated ability to inhabit norms, lies in her elsewhere. However, it is significant that willingness to respond, follow and Shi‘i children‘s books in particular seek perform taqlīd: "Look at the people of to forestall misfirings by tying pious the Prophet‘s family. Adhere to their practice to inter-subjective direction. Follow their footsteps."59 responsiveness on the one hand, and their habituation on the other. 59 Ibn Abu Talib, ‗Ali. Nahjul Balagha. Trans. Ali Reza. New York: Tahrike Tarsile Qur‘an Inc., 1985, 241.
Glossary of Arabo-Islamic Terms abaya black over-coat worn by Muslim women in Iraq and the Arab Gulf ahl al-bayt literally "people of the house"; it refers to the descendants of the Prophet: his daughter, Fatima, her husband ‗Ali who was also the first Imam, their children Hassan, Hussayn and a line of male descendants through Hussayn „Ali the first Imam, Muhammad‘s son in-law and father of Hassan, Hussayn and Zaynab „Ashūra the tenth day of Muharram, the day Hussayn was killed Ayatollah honorific title for a high-ranking Shi‘i scholar of Islamic Law du‟a non-obligatory prayer, supplication fiqh Islamic jurisprudence Ghadīr Khumm the day the Prophet elected ‗Ali as his successor hijāb modest dress in general, but the head-scarf in particular Hussayn the third Imam, brother of Zaynab; he died on „Ashūra at the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE Imam in Twelver Shi‘ism, there are twelve Imams beginning with ‗Ali; all are male descendants of ‗Ali and Fatima; they are considered infallible and the rightful heirs of Muhammad Infallibles Twelver Shi‘is believe God has protected the following fourteen from sin: the Prophet Muhammad, his daughter Fatima and her husband ‗Ali, their sons Hassan and Hussayn, and nine other male descendants, the last being the Mahdi (the Hidden Imam) Karbala in the 7th century Karbala was a desert plain in Iraq, where Hussayn and his followers fought the army of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid; since then, a shrine-city has been built around Hussayn‘s grave 75
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Kufa city in Southern Iraq mullaya a woman who chants mourning poetry in remembrance of the ahl al-bayt Muharram the name of the Islamic month during which Hussayn died mustahabb non-obligatory acts that are liked and rewarded by God Sayyida female honorific (i.e. Lady) taqlīd emulation, especially in legal and ritual matters walaya ‗spiritual governance‘; in Twelver Shi‘ism this is the prerogative of the Imams, who inherited this function from the Prophet walī patron, protector and friend Yazid the second Umayyad Caliph, he ruled from 680-683 CE and was based in Damascus Zaynab the sister of Hussayn, daughter of ‗Ali and Fatima
Works Consulted
Shi’i Children’s Books
Ahl al-Bayt (a). Silsilat al-Feta al-Muslim. Beirut, Lebanon: Al-Aalami Est., 200?. Al-‗Abudi, Hassan ‗Abd al-Hussayn. Al-Fiqh li-l-Nāsha‟īn. Qum, Iran: Bakiyat Publications, 2006. Al-Fiqh al-Muyassar: Sinn at-Taklīf. Beirut, Lebanon: Al-Aalami Est., 2005. Al-Imām wa al-Qā‟id. Silsilat al-Walaya. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar al-Hadi, 2000. Al-Imām wa as-Salāh. Silsilat al-Walaya. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar al-Hadi, 2000. al-Najafi, ‗Ali Sa‘d, ed. Imām al-„Asr. Silsilat at-Tufūla al-Mahdawiyya. Najaf, Iraq: Mahdi Publications, 2006. al-Najafi, ‗Ali Sa‘d, ed. Al-Imām al-Ghā‟ib. Silsilat at-Tufūlat al-Mahdawiyya. Najaf, Iraq: Mahdi Publications, 2006. al-Najafi, ‗Ali Sa‘d, ed. Al-Imām al-Mahdi. Silsilat at-Tufūlat al-Mahdawiyya. Najaf, Iraq: Mahdi Publications, 2006. al-Najafi, ‗Ali Sa‘d, ed. Al-Imām ash-Shahīd. Silsilat at-Tūfulat al-Mahdawiyya.. Najaf, Iraq: Mahdi Publications, 2006. al-Najafi, ‗Ali Sa‘d, ed. Khalīfat Allah. Silsilat at-Tufūlat al-Mahdawiyya. Najaf, Iraq: Mahdi Publications, 2006. Al-Qā‟id al-Khamene‟i. Silsilat al-Walaya. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar al-Hadi, 2000. Al-Qā‟id wa az-Zuhd. Silsilat al-Walaya. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar al-Hadi, 2000. Al-Qazaz, R‘ad, ed. As-Salāt al-Yawmiyya al-Musawwara. Sayyida Zaynab, Syria: ‗Ashūra Publications, 200?. As-Salāt „Umūd ad-Dīn. Silsilat al-Feta al-Muslim. Beirut, Lebanon: Al-Aalami Est., 200?. Ayatullahi, Syed Mehdi. The Introduction to Infallibles. 14 vols. Qum, Iran: Ansariyan Publications, 2001. Kayfa natwada„. Silsilat al-Feta al-Muslim. Beirut, Lebanon: Al-Aalami Est., 200?. Mafātīh al-Jinān al-Mubassat. Beirut, Lebanon: Al-Aalami Est., 2006. Munāsabāt Khālida. Silsilat al-Feta al-Muslim. Beirut, Lebanon: Al-Aalami Est., 200?. Riwa‟a Qisās al-Ma‟sumīn (as). Beirut, Lebanon: Al-Fajr Publications, 2007. Silsilat Bint al-Huda al-Qisasiyya li-l-Nāshi‟a. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar al-Mahajja al-Baydha, 200?. Silsilat as-Sabaya. 10 vols. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar al-Huda, 2002.
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Pinault, David. Horse of Karbala: Muslim Devotional Life in India. New York: Palgrave, 2001. ———. "Shia Lamentation Rituals and Reinterpretations of the Doctrine of Intercession: Two Cases from Modern India." History of Religions 38 no. 3 (1999): 285-305. Qarashi, Baqir Sharif al-. The Educational System in Islam, trans. Badr Shahim. Qum, Iran: Ansariyan Publications, 2006. Starrett, Gregory. Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics and Religious Transformation in Egypt. Berkley: University of California Press, 1998. ———. "The Hexis of Interpretation: Islam and the Body in Egyptian Popular School." American Ethnologist 22 no. 4 (1995): 953-69. Tabataba‘i, Mohammad Hosayn. Islamic Teachings: An Overview, trans. Robert Campbell. 2002. Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
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