Iterations of Lament: Anachronism and Affect in a Shi‘I Islamic Revival in Turkey

KABIR TAMBAR Stanford University Iterations of lament: Anachronism and affect in a Shi‘i Islamic revival in Turkey ABSTRACT n January 2006, I joined a small group of Alevis—members of a Mus- Many Alevis in Turkey today view their community’s lim community in Turkey—listening to an emotional account of the traditions of ritual weeping as anachronistic in the virtuous life and tragic death of Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet modern world. In this article, I situate such Muhammad. Rituals of lamentation in honor of Husayn are held ev- sensibilities within a political context in which ery year during the first ten days of the Islamic month of Muharram. Turkish state agencies have vigorously regulated IThese ten days mark the time period that Husayn and his small band of norms of public affect. I describe the efforts of one followers spent in the desert of Karbala, Iraq, in C.E. 680, culminating in a Alevi group to counter such sensibilities by battle against the tyrant Yazid. Alevis in Turkey share with the global Shi‘i cultivating a susceptibility to affective excitation in Muslim community annual rituals of weeping, which progressively inten- line with Shi‘i traditions of lamentation. The group’s sify from the first to the tenth day of Muharram, or Ashura, the day on practices are exemplary of many Islamic revival which Husayn was finally slain.1 movements, which aim simultaneously to spread a The room in which I observed these rituals of lamentation was draped in religious message and to transform the affective black cloth, punctuated with a number of signs, one of which read, “Every conditions in which that message might be received. place is Karbala, every day is Ashura.” The phrase expresses the promise of [affect, ritual, historical consciousness, Shi‘i Islam, believers not only to maintain Husayn’s memory in the present day but also Alevi Islam, Turkey] to seize on that memory at any and every opportunity. One Alevi participant explained the intent of this statement to me in the following manner: “I often think about Husayn, and not just during Muharram. At any time of the year, I might think about Husayn, and when I do, I begin to cry.” The scene of weeping and the sentiment expressed in the sign were at once expected and yet strikingly inconsonant with the surrounding socio- historical context. Like many Shi‘as around the world, Alevis in Turkey have traditionally revered Husayn and other members of the Prophet’s family as models of piety, courage, and leadership, often commemorating their lives and deaths in rituals of lamentation.2 From a historical perspective, it is not at all surprising that a group of Alevis would commemorate Husayn’s valor through emotional narrations of the Battle of Karbala. Moreover, since the late 1980s, Alevi public intellectuals have written social histories of their community for a mass audience, oftentimes including in these accounts descriptions of Alevi understandings of early Islamic history. The events of Karbala and the figure of Husayn are topics given central importance in such published work. With the recent rise of such communal histories, Alevi narratives of early Islam have acquired a new mode of public in- scription, achieving a wider audience than ever before. Given the recent AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 484–500, ISSN 0094-0496, online ISSN 1548-1425. C 2011 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1425.2011.01318.x Iterations of lament American Ethnologist expansion of the narrative’s textual circulation, one might mourning Husayn’s death experience considerable difficul- expect an upsurge in the scale and frequency of devotional ties in weeping at other points in the calendar year. I sug- narrations such as the one I witnessed. gest that such difficulties in weeping for moral exemplars Yet participation in ritual lamentation is relatively low, in times and places that exceed the formal ritual moment and there are few organizations in provincial Anatolian reveal the lasting imprint of state-enforced norms of public towns, such as the one in which I conducted fieldwork, con- sociability. cerned with sponsoring these events.3 WhenIquestioned The emotive challenges faced by the cemaat raise cer- Alevis who were not participants in devotional commemo- tain questions, often elided in the study of ritual affect, con- rations of Husayn’s death, I was often told that weeping for cerning the social and institutional processes involved in Husayn was common one or two generations earlier, when developing and deepening affective capacities. An interro- Alevis still lived largely in rural settings, but that it is no gation of such processes requires ethnographic attention longer relevant in the present day. Indeed, many urban Alevi to the iterability of affect—that is, the possibility of incit- youth view ritual lamentation as anachronistic in the mod- ing emotive sensibilities across empirically variable con- ern age, incongruent with and irrelevant to the social and texts in ways that permit their repetition, recognition, and political contexts of the contemporary world. I should em- cultivation. Analyses of lamentation practice that center on phasize that this widespread sense of anachronism does not its social functions (Durkheim 1995; Radcliffe-Brown 1948), involve a repudiation of the narrative itself—a narrative that its variable cultural and discursive anchors (Abu-Lughod is being produced in the form of written texts at a faster pace 1993; Feld 1990a), and its potential for either the contes- than ever before; nor is the primary concern centered on a tation or consolidation of reigning sociopolitical ideologies dispute over textual interpretations of the narrative, as has (Goluboff 2008; Seremetakis 1991)—studies that other- happened in Iran and Lebanon (Aghaie 2004; Rosiny 2001). wise pursue differing, if sometimes overlapping, analytical Rather, the sense that such practices are anachronistic en- ends—share a tendency to posit rather than analyze the tails skepticism about the ongoing relevance and propriety practices that facilitate the repetition and excitation of af- of the emotions and disciplines that shape traditional acts fect from one context to another. Work that has, in fact, de- of narration. In an era that has witnessed not a decline but, scribed processes of “recontextualization” across events fo- rather, the resurgence of Islamic piety throughout the Mus- cuses on how texts from prior settings are reported, cited, or lim world, what is one to make of this estrangement of the parodied in acts of lament (Briggs 1992; Wilce 2005). While narrative text from its ritual narration? demonstrating the indexical, interdiscursive connections In this article, I explore the social and political dimen- forged by textual iteration—connections that are crucial el- sions of the feeling, pervasive among urban Alevis, that rit- ements of the events described here—such work nonethe- uals of lamentation are anachronistic in the present day. I less presupposes the affective susceptibility of listeners to first examine some of the ways in which Alevis understand the lament. By contrast, I explore the often fragile and con- the ritual’s incongruence with contemporary contexts, and tingent practices that enable the spatiotemporal extension then I situate this sensibility within a political context dom- of affects, and not simply texts, into contexts that currently inated by the Turkish state’s regulation of public affect. Af- do not sustain their formal ritual staging. I examine the ter locating the formation of Alevi sensibilities toward rit- practices by which the cemaat attempts to iterate the pas- ual lament within an institutional context, I describe the ef- sion for Husayn beyond its conventional contextual circum- forts of one Alevi group to combat such dispositions. The scription. The cemaat’s effort to summon the capacity to group in question, which organized the ritual mentioned weep in diverse spaces and at diverse times invites analysis above, refers to itself not as a political organization or a so- of the ways in which the susceptibility to affective provoca- cial movement but as a cemaat (Arabic, jama‘a¯ ), that is, as tion is fostered, as new contexts of performance are engen- a congregation of pious individuals. Its efforts are directed dered. not toward explicit political ends, such as forming political Examining the cemaat’s efforts to extend the spa- parties or lobbying for changes in state policies, but, rather, tiotemporal iterations of mourning facilitates an analytical at creating contexts for the cultivation of devotional emo- rethinking of the concept of “context” in the anthropology tions, including those that are produced in the practice of of Islam. Anthropologists have long insisted that analyses ritual mourning. of Muslim societies ought to proceed not in terms of scrip- The sentiment related by a participant in the ritual, re- tural or exegetical texts but in terms of the invocations of garding the importance of crying for Husayn at any time such texts within hierarchies of political-economic author- and any place, represents an aspiration rather than a de- ity and institutionalized social relationships (e.g., Bowen scription of the cemaat. Despite the stated intent of weep- 1993; Gilsenan 1982; Lambek 1990; Launay 1992).4 Such ing whenever one is so moved, Muharram provides the only contexts shape not only the meaning of legal and pedagogi- period in which the cemaat ritually commemorates the Bat- cal texts but also their styles, genres, and functions (Messick tle of Karbala. Most individuals committed to the task of 1993; Starrett 1998). Drawing on these insights, my analysis 485 American Ethnologist Volume 38 Number 3 August 2011 examines both the contexts and the genres of ritual lamen- and Turkey’s Alevis alike—“the Karbala paradigm,” in ref- tation in contemporary Turkey.

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