Home / All / Twelver Shia in Edinburgh: Marking Muharram, Mourning Husayn (AS)

Twelver Shia in Edinburgh: Marking Muharram, Mourning Husayn (AS)

By closely examining Twelver Shia’ public performance of Islam, this article offers a case study of an alternative narrative of Muslims in Britain and sheds new light on the rituals and experience of the Twelver Shia in Scotland.

Research on the Shia in Scotland and of their spaces of worship and gathering continues to be under-represented in the research field of Muslims in Britain. According to the 2011 census, there are just under 77,000 Muslims in Scotland, with Edinburgh, its capital, home to about 12,400. This article aims to fill in some of these gaps by focusing on a Muharram procession emerging out of a Twelver Shia imambargah in Edinburgh. Drawing from fieldwork conducted from 2011 to 2013, the article provides an ethnographic account of this annual jaloos (ritual procession) in Leith district, examines its evolution, and analyses the jaloos’s signage and related proclamations in English and Urdu. In juxtaposing these elements, I argue that even as the procession is a normative means to commemorate and transmit the core values of the Twelver Shia through the events of Karbala, it actively engages with and responds to stereotypes about Muslims in the West and thus serves simultaneously as a wider public presentation on, and defence of, Islam. By closely examining these Muslims’ public performance of Islam, this article offers a case study of an alternative narrative of Muslims in Britain and sheds new light on the rituals and experience of the Twelver Shia in Scotland.

Bibliographic Information

Title: Twelver Shia in Edinburgh: Marking Muharram, Mourning Husayn (AS)

Author(s): Fayaz S. Alibhai

Published in: Contemporary Islam, (13), 3, October 2019.

 Language: English

Length: 24 Pages

Twelver Shia in Edinburgh

About Ali Teymoori

Check Also

Fatimah al-Zahra (ʻA) At Her Father’s Side

Fatima (615 – 632 A.D.), mother of the Imams (ع), is the daughter of the Messenger of Allah (ص) by his first wife, Khadija daughter of Khuwaylid, may the Almighty be pleased with her. Fatima was born in Mecca on a Friday, the 20th of Jumada II in the fifth year after the declaration of the Prophetic message which corresponds, according to the.....

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Google Analytics Alternative