The Shiites : ritual and popular piety in a Muslim community

this Book Describes What Shiism Means To Those Who Actually Practice It And Serves As Both An Excellent Introduction To The Subject And An Original Work Of Scholarship. booknews pinault (religion And Islamic Studies, Colgate U.) Describes Shiism As A Religion Rather Than As The Political Movement That Most People Think Of It As. He Outlines The History Of The Sect, The Similarities And Differences Between It And Sunni Traditions, Esoteric Dimensions, Regional Variations, And Worldviews. He Then Focuses On A Particular Community, In Hyderabad, India, Exploring Ritual, Beliefs, Community Structure, Relations With Hindus, And Other Aspects. Annotation C. Book News, Inc., Portland, Or (booknews.com) Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Shiism: An Overview....Pages 3-10 Essentials of Islam Common to the Shiite and Sunni Traditions....Pages 11-26 Shiite Ta’wil: The Esoteric Dimension of Quranic Scripture....Pages 27-46 Variations on the Esoteric Tradition in Poetry and Theosophy: Examples from Attar, Hafez, and Suhrawardi of Aleppo....Pages 47-52 The Patterns that Inform History: Shiite Worldviews and the Understanding of Past and Future....Pages 53-57 Shiism in India: Historical Background and Cultural Influences....Pages 59-62 Representations of Muharram in British Fiction and Memoirs from the Raj....Pages 63-76 Front Matter....Pages 77-77 Shiite Shrines of the Old City....Pages 79-82 Shiite Men’s Guilds of Hyderabad: An Overview....Pages 83-98 Lamentation Rituals: Shiite Justifications for Matam (Acts of Mourning and Self-mortification)....Pages 99-108 Lamentation Rituals: Liturgical Forms of Matam....Pages 109-114 The Majlis Liturgy: Sermon Topics and Shiite Self-definition....Pages 115-120 The Role of Liturgy in Reinforcing Communal Identity....Pages 121-124 Preparations for the Muharram Season: Rehearsal Sessions and the Training of the Chorus in a Shiite Men’s Guild....Pages 125-130 Liturgy as Drama: The Seventh of Muharram and the Bridegroom of Karbala’s Procession....Pages 131-135 Cooperation and Competition Among the Men’s Guilds....Pages 137-145 Criticisms Directed Against the Men’s Guilds....Pages 147-151 Muharram Liturgies and Hindu-Muslim Relations in Hyderabad....Pages 153-165 Front Matter....Pages 167-167 Hyderabad and the World Community of Shiite Islam....Pages 169-175 Back Matter....Pages 177-210 Shiite Islam is one of the world's major religions, with millions of adherents throughout the Middle East and South Asia. In the West, however, Shiite Islam has too often been misrepresented as a political movement. David Pinault's The Shiites describes what Shiism means to those who actually practice it and serves as both an excellent introduction to the subject and an original work of scholarship. The author starts by outlining the defining events of early Shiite. History--the struggle for the caliphate after the defeat of Muhammad, the battle of Karbala, and the persecution of the Imams--and explores how these events were interpreted by later generations of Muslim religious authorities to form a distinctive Shiite theology. The second half of The Shiites looks at the particular example of the Shiite community in Hyderabad, India. Drawing on personal observations of the most important liturgies and extensive interviews with the. Participants, Dr. Pinault shows how the great rituals of Muharram--the public processions and self-mortification in honor of the Imam Husain, slain at the battle of Karbala--help define communal identity and illuminate Shiite cosmology and beliefs about the nature of voluntary suffering. Particular attention is given to the important role of the men's guilds that supervise the rituals. All textual sources have been fully translated from Arabic, Persian, and Urdu into. English. The Shiites is a uniquely accessible work of enormous value both to the general reader and to the specialist in Islamic studies.