Ritual, Blood, andShiite Identity

Ashura in Nabatiyya, Lebanon

Augustus Richard Norton

What you see here is the real Islam. Islam is not found in books, it is here.

Nabatiyya resident,Ashura 2000

Lebanon is a small country, roughly the size of Connecticut, but the venerablesouthern city of al-Nabatiyya seems a continent away from the fussy lifestyles, thebustling restaurants, and the Hard Rock Cafes of cosmopolitan Beirut. The -minute or so drive from Beirut to Nabatiyya is not just a departure from the cap-itals sensual delights but a sojourn to a part of the country that lived in the vortexof conict for more than three decades. Many Beiruti bon vivants are aghast at theprospect of making the southward trek. Yet, for Lebanons largest sect, the . mil-lion or so Shiite Muslims (about percent of the total population), Nabatiyya isthe commercial center in Jabal Amil, the Shiite heartland that extends from thewadis and hills of southern Lebanon to the southern Biqa valley. In fact, everyweekend there is what seems a tidal ow of people from the overwhelmingly Shi-ite Muslim suburbs of Beirut southward as Shiites head to the al-daiah, the vil-lage, which is usually taken to mean going to the countryside where life is simple,wholesome, and unblemished by urban vices. Except during the bone-chilling,often icy winter in Jabal Amil, when people stay in Beirut and its environs, hun-dreds of thousands of people move back and forth weekly. From the s to thes, the ow often reversed as the people of the South sought refuge from bom-bardment and conict with relatives in the comparative safety of the city.

While the precise advent of Shiism in Jabal Amil is in dispute, there is no ques-tion that the community predates the introduction of Shiism to Persia (Iran) in theth century. Certainly, Jabal Amil was a center for scholarship at least by the lateth century. Indeed, scholars from Jabal Amil (as well as from Iraq and Bahrain)assisted in the installation of Shiite Islam in Safavid Persia (). This waswell before the Persian cities of Mashhad, Shiraz, or Qum emerged as major cen-ters of Shiite scholarship. Jabal Amil has long been eclipsed by al-Najaf and Kar-bala in Iraq, the two great Iraqi shrine cities, and since the th century by thenow famous Persian (Iranian) cities of Shiite learning. Regardless, Jabal Amil con-tinues to be revered by Shiites, especially during Muharram, the rst month of theMuslim calendar.

The Drama Review 49, 4 (T188),Winter 2005. 2005New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In Beirut, where members of Lebanons recognized sects palaver, work, andlive cheek to jowl, religious practice and ritual, as opposed to sectarian identity, isoften tucked away from public view in mixed areas. Lebanese are astute in discern-ing cues and clues that reveal an interlocutors sectarian roots and cultural identitybut at least until recent decades public religious ritual was often spurned in orderto avoid provoking intersectarian tension. Although public and private mourningof Imam Hussein (azah al-Hussein) and the tragic events (masaib) of Karbala,have long occurred in Shiite communities, public commemorations of Ashura, theth day of Muharram, are relatively recent phenomena in the southern suburbsof Beirut (known as al-dahiyah), where they began less than years ago.

The practice was introduced to the Beirut suburbs by a migrant from Baalbak,al-Hajj Ahmed al-Khansa, after he made pilgrimages (ziyyarat, but literally vis-its) to Najaf and Karbala, where he witnessed a number of public ceremoniesduring Muharram in . When he returned to Beirut, he instituted publicmourning not simply as a display of communal piety but as a vehicle for mobi-lizing recent migrants to the city. Not surprisingly, longtime residents and well-established Shiites resisted ostentatious commemorations of Ashura, which theyfeared might alienate their Christian neighbors who then politically controlledthese areas (Khuri :). Hajj al-Khansa built such a powerful foundationamong the new urban residents that he eventually became a leading local politi-cian. Today the al-Khansas are the largest and most inuential clan in the south-ern suburbs of Beirut, and especially in the teeming municipality of al-Ghubayri(Ghobierre). The clans husseiniyeh, the communal building that serves as the rit-ual site for marking Husseins martyrdom on Ashura, is the largest in al-dahiyah.

In recent years, major public commemorations of Ashura have taken place inseveral parts of Lebanon, including Beirut suburbs; in the Biqa valley, especiallyin the city of Baalbak; the southern coastal city of Tyre; and across Jabal Amil. Asmany as half a million people either participate in or watch the military-styleAshura parades dominated by Hezballah (the Party of God) in the al-dahiyah.Much smaller, less tightly organized processions are held in Baalbak and in Tyre,with representation from a variety of political and social organizations. In villagessmall-scale processions are conducted and timed to precede larger commemora-tions in nearby towns and cities.

The most sensational commemorations are in the overwhelmingly Shiite city,Nabatiyya. In this city of , people the event has a very special character. Whilepublic Ashura rituals were repressed by the Ottomans until their defeat in , an-nual mourning processions became popular in the s, featuring auto-agellationand ritualized bleeding to mark the culmination of the Karbala tragedy.

Although the predominantly male events attract considerable controversy anddebate among Shiite clerics and laypeople, these popular religious rituals haveproven to be remarkably persistent despite the disapproval of otherwise highly re-spected Shiite mujtahids (clerics qualied to independently interpret Islamic law).In addition, the ceremonies are an occasion for competing political organizationsto contend variants of the rituals in order to exemplify piety and mobilize fur-ther support, as Ahmad al-Khansa once had done. In this sense, the rituals oer noless than a public performance of ideology. For the past two decades or more, therituals explicitly cast Israel in the role of Caliph Yazid, the Ummayad ruler whoseauthority was challenged by the Imam Hussein and whose army exterminatedHussein and his followers over , years ago. Indeed, the villains of Karbala,such as the much despised Shemr who decapitated the slain hero so that his headcould be carried in tribute to Yazid in Damascus, are recollected in contempo-rary performance in order to allude to the Israeli army.

Obviously, the history of Lebanon and Israel has been entangled in violencesince the late s, when Palestinian guerrillas became a major presence in

Ashura in Lebanon

southern Lebanon. After Israels Litani Operation waslaunched in to create a buer zone from Palestin-ian attacks and terrorism, Israel became an eectiveoccupation power, though initially it worked throughLebanese proxy forces. The PLO was the dominant mil-itary force in Jabal Amil until and it found manyLebanese allies in Nabatiyya.

While the Shiite Muslims of Lebanon largely casttheir fate with the Palestinians in the Lebanese civil warthat erupted in , by the early s support for thePLO waned. The Palestinians came to be resented forplacing southern Lebanon in the Israeli-Palestinian cross-re. Concurrently, the Iranian revolution provided anexemplar for Shiite political consciousness and distinc-

tively Shiite political movements gained momentum and clashes grew in intensityas the Shiites tired of PLO domination (Norton ).

Especially following the massive Israeli invasion of , Nabatiyya sueredfrom its proximity to Israel. The city was occupied until when Israeli forcesredeployed to what Israel euphemistically termed their Security Zone, whichencompassed about percent of all Lebanese territory. Israeli and allied militiaforces routinely conducted forays across the landscape of Jabal Amil until Israelunilaterally withdrew its forces in May under pressure from a highly success-ful resistance campaign in which Hezballah came to play the leading role.

The nearby Chateau de Beaufort, the looming but now partially ruined Crusader-era fortress that once was liberated by Saladinand in recent decades changedhands between the PLO and Israel before returning to Lebanese control in serves as a constant reminder of the periodic invasions that help to dene the his-tory of Jabal Amil. The older portion of Nabatiyya may predate de Beaufortcastle by more than a millennium although the ancestors of the Arab inhabitantsmay not have settled in Jabal Amil until the th century. Local historians tracethe Arab inhabitants to Yemen.

In the last two decades, two rival Shiite organizationsAmal and Hezballahhave vied for popular support and their participation in the annual Ashura ritualsprovides a fascinating lens through which to observe their political agendas as wellas their patterns of recruitment. Amal (an Arabic acronym for the LebaneseResistance Detachments, but the word also means hope) is a reformist Shiitemovement initially created in that has kept its distance from Iran while align-ing politically with Syria. Amals roots lie deep in the awakening of the LebaneseShiites during the s and s. The Iranian-inspired Hezballah, which emergedfollowing Israels invasion, proudly concedes its fealty to the supreme au-thority, the leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In gen-eral, Amal sustains a following in the rural villages of southern Lebanon and theBiqa valley, as well as in and around the ancient city of Tyre (Sur). Nevertheless,Hezballah is increasingly the dominant Shiite organization, as signied by theshift in the orientation of many middle-class professionals who were an impor-tant support base for Amal but who have long tired of Amals patronage politicsand corruption and now lend their support to Hezballah.

Both Amal and Hezballah have won support in the city, but momentum lieswith Hezballah as signied by their capture, in , of all municipal seats in localelections. The Shiites comprise about percent of Nabatiyyas population withthe remainder being a stable Christian population. Residents take pride in thefact that their Christian neighbors never ed Nabatiyya and they report taking spe-cial precautions to preserve intercommunal relations, including protecting theChristian quarter and the church from violence or damage. Although Nabatiyya

Augustus Richard Norton

1. A husseiniyeh, one of the centers for the observanceof Husseins martyrdom,where readings of taziyehoccur before the festival,and the gathering andculminating point during the Ashura processions.This husseiniyeh is in aprosperous southern villageclose to Nabatiyya, 1 March2004. (Photo by Ali Safa 2004 A.R.N.)

can hardly be described as cosmopolitan, it does enjoy a reputation for toleratinga variety of political perspectives, as well as more cultural variations than the out-sider might imagine. While the skintight leopard-patterned slacks that I noticeda couple of Nabatiyyan women wearing during Ashura in are hardlycommonwomen in town typically dress much more conservativelythe widediversity of womens dress is a clue that no simple generalization captures thiscommunity.

So, while the arrival of Muharram inspires a communal mood of somber reli-giosity, among some people in town and Lebanese visitors from outside it is simplya time of reunion and spectaclea time of fantastic visual and oral events. Soalong with the recollection of Imam Husseins courage and suering (al-masaib),there is also an aspect of carnival to Muharram, particularly the th and th days(al-tasua and al-ashura).

About to percent of all Muslims in the world are Shiites. The ProphetMuhammad is the al-Rasul or the Messenger of Allah, the man chosen by Godto transmit His Word, and the Shiites and Sunnites all accord special, central rev-erence to his memory, his deeds, and his actions. All Muslims believe thatMuhammad was the last and most important Prophet. He is considered to be theSeal of the Prophets.

There are several doctrinal and legal issues that separate the minority Shiitesfrom the Sunnite majority, but at the core of their dierences resides a funda-mental disagreement over succession after the death of the Prophet Muhammad(in .. or ..). Only Ali, the fourth and last of the four Rashiduntherightly-guided successors or caliphsis considered legitimate by both theShiites and the Sunnites. Caliph Ali, the son-in-law and cousin of Muhammad,served for four years until his assassination in Kufa (in .. in modern-dayIraq). Ali had waited nearly a quarter century to become caliph and, of course,the Shiites believe that he should have been the immediate successor to the ProphetMuhammad.

Alis death in Kufa, while mourned, has not made the deepest mark on Shiism.The event that has most shaped the ethos of Shiites is called Ashura, which refersto the fate of the grandson of the Prophet, Imam Hussein. Since the Shiites be-lieve that the successor should derive from the House of the Prophet, the sons ofAli and the Prophets daughter Fatemeh were favored. Two sons, Hassan and Hus-sein, are accepted by all Shiites as leaders or imams of the Muslim community. (Athird son of Ali by a dierent mother, Abbas is a gure of military prowess andvalor in Shiite history and he plays a leading role in the story of Karbala.)

Imam Hussein captures the Shiite imagination and serves as an exemplar ofcourage, self-sacrice, and compassion. He is truly a beloved gure. When calledby the people of Kufa in .. ( .) to become their leader, Imam Husseinaccepted the invitation and described his journey from Mecca as a mission to re-store my grandfathers community of Muslims. His decision to go to Kufa pro-voked a response from his adversary in Damascus, the Ummayad Caliph Yazid,whose father Muawiyah succeeded Caliph Ali, Husseins father.

The lessons of religion are captured in the dramas and tragedies of its heroes.The events at Karbala during the rst days of Muharram, provide rich materialfor Shiism. The story of Husseins defeat at the hands of Yazids massive army is astirring but sad drama. Surrounded, and refusing to submit to Yazids authorityand thereby surrender his claim to be the successor to the Prophet Muhammad,Imam Husseins fate was sealed. The confrontation transpired over the course of blisteringly hot days on the plain of Karbala (in modern-day Iraq). The de-nouement of the battle was Husseins martyrdom on the th day of the month,hence the term Ashura, derived from the Arabic word for th. Shiite Muslimsaround the world commemorate the event. Thus, in major Shiite communities in

Ashura in Lebanon

Bahrain, Iran, India, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Europe, andNorth America, as well as in smaller communities in the Persian Gulf, in Turkey,and even in the Caribbean, Ashura is a time for reection and worship. Weddingsand other joyous events are not held during Ashura because this is a time of mourn-ing not celebration.

While Shiite religious leaders have attempted to prescribe and specify the ap-propriate manner for remembering Ashura, local practice varies widely. ManyShiites meld aspects of formal Islam with popular customs and traditions. Thismultilayered interpretation of religions is obviously not unique to Shiite Islam.Parallel examples may be found in Christian ritual observances of Good Friday.In parts of the Philippines and in Mexico, for instance, Christians scourge them-selves with whips, endure crucixions, or practice other forms of emphatic andredemptive suering in order to taste viscerally the pain that Christ endured (seeWikepedia ).

Among Shiites, ritual processions sometimes include ailing oneself with chains,metal whips, swords, or intentionally nicking the skin on the forehead to inducebleeding (ritual practices that are collectively referred to locally as tatbir), as well asthe more common practice of rhythmically beating ones chest with a balled st(matam). Obviously, opinions vary widely among Shiites as to what is the rightway to remember Husseins sacrice, and some Shiites prefer quiet contempla-tion and prayer to public performance. Hundreds of thousands of Shiites turn outin Lebanon to publicly participate in the commemoration of Ashura. One of themost fascinating Ashura traditions is found in Nabatiyya where bleeding is an im-portant aspect of the ritual for many but by no means all of the participants.

From the rst day of Muharram, which I have observed periodically since in southern Lebanon, black banners are draped on buildings and hung across thestreets of Nabatiyya, as throughout the Shiite areas of Lebanon (by way of con-trast, when I visited Tehran during Ashura such public signage was strikingly

Augustus Richard Norton

2. Celebrants affiliated withthe Shiite Amal movement.Nabatiyya, 14 and 15 April2000. (Photo by AugustusRichard Norton 2000 A.R.N.)

less common). In , the banners in Nabatiyya proclaim, Everyone is callingfor Hussein; Every day is Ashura and every land is Karbala; Crying for Hus-sein is a victory of the oppressed over the oppressor; and a variety of similar mes-sages. Black pennants are fastened to power and utility poles invoking Hussein,the Awaited One,Abbas, or Haidar, meaning lion, a reference to Imam Ali,the son-in-law of the Prophet who is revered for his wisdom.

During Muharram, entrepreneurs open roadside stands and impromptu Ashurasouvenir shops to sell tapes and books of readings from the saga of Ashura and thekilling (al-maqtal ) of Hussein, as well as cassettes of mourning lamentations, but-tons, banners, paperweights, posters, and other keepsakes. A variety of clothingis oered, including T-shirts for youngsters and adults, and baseball caps withAshura slogans. Many of these Ashura mementos are now manufactured in Iran andimported by enterprising Lebanese traders attracted by Irans bargain-basementprices. Shiite men and women dress in subdued clothing, and many men wearblack trousers and shirts to mark this period of ritual mourning. In addition, thetwo rival political organizations compete, handing out an array of scarves, vests,head- and wristbands, caps, and pennantsall emblazoned with the logos of Amalor Hezballah in distinctive color combinations (green, red, and white for Amal;black, red, and especially yellow for Hezballah).

For the rst days of the Muharram, readings of the terrible events of Karbala(masaib, singular masaba) occur in private homes and in husseiniyehs. The usualpattern is for readings in the home or with neighbors to be followed by an eveningvisit to the husseiniyeh (often there are separate ones for men and women and,if not, women retreat to a separate section of the mens husseiniyeh). In theselatter gatherings (majalis), skilled readers are often hired to relate the masaib andrecite taziyeh, the lamentations of mourning (which are also read to mourn thedeath of a loved one in contemporary Lebanon). The fate of Hussein and his fol-lowers is of course well known: all the men and boys will die, save Husseins sonAli Zayn al-Abdin, who carries on the Imamate, and the surviving women willsuer horrible humiliation and suering at the hand of Yazid, Husseins trium-phant rival. Listeners often respond with tears, and crying is mustahhab, or com-mendable. A variety of Shiite sources, including the succeeding imams, emphasize

Ashura in Lebanon

3. Small numbers of womenparticipate in tatbir (ritualbleeding practices). (Photo 2000 Ali Safa)

that the weeping for Hussein and his family brings a re-ward in the hereafter and that tears (and prayers) oeredin this context will be rewarded at the Day of Judgment(Ayoub ). Readings often continue throughout themonth, focusing especially on the tribulations of thewomen captives.

Sitt Zainab, Husseins sister, is honored as a stronggure. Her endurance of suering and her courage tospeak truth to power when she was brought in captiv-ity to the court of Yazid in Damascus is now regarded asan exemplar for women. Women usually gather sepa-rately from men in private homes or, as noted above, ina separate husseiniyeh. In one prosperous village, just

outside of Nabatiyya, there is lovely womens husseiniyeh built a decade ago bya wealthy resident who shared the consensus of the community that a womenshusseiniyeh was the most important community need. I asked a woman fromBeirut who visits the village regularly whether there had always been a womenshusseiniyeh in the village? She responded, yes, but it used to be [switching to English] shitty. Her comment hints at the transformation that has occurred inrecent years among Lebanese Shiite women, who are much less inclined than inthe past to derive a counsel of despair from Ashura. Just as the larger meaning ofAshura has changed in recent decades to encompass more activist interpretations,so Zainabs example provides encouragement for Shiite women to move deci-sively and courageously in society (see Deeb still forthcoming).

Throughout Muharram, but especially during the rst days of the month,Shiite religious authorities, or mujtahids, deliver addresses to the faithful. Tens ofthousands turn out to listen, and multitudes of others watch captivated on tele-vision. For the past several years, attention has turned to al-Sayyid Hasan Nas-rallah, a relatively junior cleric but Hezballahs Secretary General. Nasrallah is apopular speaker and often riveting and compelling. Those who do not attend inperson may watch Hezballahs television channel, al-Manar (the Beacon), whereNasrallahs nightly Muharram sermons are featured. Among other topics, heprobes the real meaning of Ashura, analyzes why death is not to be feared, andadds a more explicitly political commentary. In fact, sermons routinely have twoparts, one more or less religious and the other political. This is especially the caseon the weekly day of communal prayer, Friday, but also throughout Muharram,because each of the two sermons substitutes for a part of otherwise prescribeddaily prayers. Nasrallah routinely castigates the United States for its policies in theMiddle East, but he sometimes comments on America in more general terms, asin March , when one of his sermons was a scathing critique of America andits social problems (spurred, as he implicitly conceded, by the dream of many Shi-ites to emigrate to America).

Prior to Israels May unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Nas-rallahs Muharram sermons were major political statements listened to carefullyby a wide swath of apprehensive Lebanese for hints about whether chaos or orderwould follow the impending unilateral withdrawal of Israeli occupation forcesfrom Lebanon. He astutely anticipated that there would be little disorder. What-ever one thinks about his views, Nasrallah is an impressive speaker and he hasused the occasion of Muharram to further legitimize Hezballah as a social andpolitical phenomenon among the Shiites. The party is still riding a wave of sup-port for its leading role in ghting Israel and creating the pressure that promptedits withdrawal. In contrast to Lebanons elected political leaders, who seemedthoroughly ummoxed by Israels declared intention to leave southern Lebanon

Augustus Richard Norton

4. Many parents introducechildren to the rituals ofAshura at an early age,but they usually remainspectators until they becometeenagers. Nabatiyya, 14 and15 April 2000. (Photo byAugustus Richard Norton 2000 A.R.N.)

with or without an agreement with Syria, Nasrallah came across as tough andclearheaded. Speaking in front of an Ashura Muharram crowd of , core-ligionists a week before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March , he addressed theU.S.:Dont expect the people of this region will welcome you with owers, rice,and perfume. The people of this region will receive you with ries, blood, arms,martyrdom, and martyrdom operations (Reuters ).

Many other clerical voices enjoy a wide audience during Muharram. A scoreof other mujtahids speak routinely during Muharram. One of the most respectedvoices, until his death from cancer in , was the Ayatollah Muhammad MahdiShams al-Din, the President of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, a major fo-rum for middle-class professionals and particularly members of the establishedShiite bourgeois. Shams al-Din is revered for his advocacy of interfaith dialogue.Like many of his contemporary Shiite clerics he urged that Imam Husseins sac-rice must be understood ethically and normatively, and not simply as an occa-sion for demonstrative tears or sensational rituals (Shams al-Din [] ).

Other clerics lend voice to parallel arguments, including the plainly spokenAbdul Amir Qabalan, formerly the Jafari Mufti al-Mumtaz (chief legal author-ity for Lebanese Shiism) and now the successor to Shams al-Din; and the broadlypopular and highly respected (and Najaf born) Ayatollah Muhammad HusseinFadlallah, who enjoys wide respect in the world of Shiite Islam. Fadlallahs nightlysermons at his mosque in Bir Hassan during Ashura rival Nasrallahs in popular-ity, but Fadlallah is taken much more seriously as a religious authority. Like manyof his colleagues, Fadlallah argues that the blood rituals of Nabatiyya are improperpragmatically because they put Shiite Muslims in a bad light in the eyes of non-Shiites; and they violate religious law because a Muslim is not permitted to injureor kill himself or herself. Instead, these events must be understood as a model foran intellectual revolution.

Along similar lines, the Iranian leader, Hojjat al-Islam Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa (an authoritative religious edict) condemning bloodshed during Mu-harram rituals and underlining the negative image that the rituals project to non-Muslims. He ruled that the Ashura rituals, as practiced in Nabatiyya and manyother parts of the Shiite world, were not Islamic practices but secular traditions.Lebanons Shaikh Qabalan has also made the same argument in his criticisms oftatbir. Khamenei is accepted as the supreme Shiite leader by Hezballah, which hasembraced and promoted his perspective.

Nonetheless, opinion is by no means unanimousabout the blood rituals. The Imam, or religious leader,of Nabatiyya, Shaikh Abd al-Hussein al-Sadiq argues,accurately, that the ritual does not cause serious injury(no one is known to have died from the ritual and thereare no reports of permanent injury). Shaikh MudFarhat defends the practice as a way for people to revereand remember Hussein, but his voice and other clericsdefending the practice enjoy far more limited respectthan the opposing ones. In fact, virtually every impor-tant Shiite cleric has condemned and forbidden thepractice in recent years and issued fatawa (plural of fatwa)calling on Shiites to abjure from participating.

So it is fascinating that despite authoritative voices inopposition, the venerable Nabatiyya Muharram ritualssurvive robustly. As one articulate resident of the citytold me, What you see here is the real Islam. Islam isnot found in books, it is here. As men trot through the

Ashura in Lebanon

5. Since the 1990s, severalpublic health organizations,as well as Hezballah, havecalled upon people to makeblood donations rather than inflict bleeding uponthemselves.This youngvolunteer helped collect blood and then joined theritual. Nabatiyya, 14 and 15 April 2000. (Photo 2000 Ali Safa)

streets, they sometimes simply chant haidar, haidar, haidar... as they strike theirforeheads with their open palms or occasionally with a blade. Local historianstrace the tradition to Ibrahim al-Mirza, who emigrated from Persia in the sec-ond half of the th century (Mazraani :). Following al-Mirza, otherPersian immigrants began to publicly practice haidar in the beginning of the thcentury, perhaps as early as . The Ottoman rulers viewed the Shiites as du-bious Muslims who were serving as a cats-paw for Persia, the Ottoman rival. Theimported tradition of hitting haidar or tatbir was therefore perceived as a threatto their rule and as a result Ashura organizations (hayat ) and processions weresuppressed. The practice did not resume until , the year after the demise ofthe Ottoman Empire. By the mid-s Persian Muharram mourning lamenta-tions (taziyeh) were translated into Arabic, which helped to cement the annualtradition.

In contrast to other sites in Lebanon, the processions in Nabatiyya last for twofull days, encompassing both the th and th days of Muharram. Nabatiyyas pop-ulation swells during Muharram as Shiites from Nabatiyya and throughout south-ern Lebanon close in on the city to mark the event. Shiites living outside ofLebanon often return for the event, including rich Shiites who work abroad,bringing with them friends and relatives. In , Hajj Majid Rihan, a wealthyNabatiyyan who lives and works in Gabon ew coreligionists from West Africa toLebanon on a charter jet to take part in the Muharram rituals. Accurate crowdestimates are always a challenge, but I estimate that as many as , people an-nually crowd into Nabatiyya. Most participants are Lebanese, but in recent yearsthere have been contingents of Shiites from Iraq; few Iranian have participated inthe past few years.

On the th and th days of Muharram, many hundreds of men, boys, andeven infants, as well as a handful of young women, embrace the suering of Imam

Augustus Richard Norton

6. Hezballah processiondepicting two revered leaders: Abbas al-Musawi,Hezballah secretary-general,who was assassinated byIsraeli helicopter gunships in1992; and Musa al-Sadr,who disappeared in Libya in 1978. Nabatiyya, 14 and15 April 2000. (Photo byAugustus Richard Norton 2000 A.R.N.)

Hussein by shedding their blood in the memory of his martyrdom. Since thes, several public health organizations, as well as Hezballah, have been callingupon people to make blood donations rather than inict bleeding upon them-selves. A blood collection station positioned near the husseiniyeh enjoys a steadyclientele. It is not uncommon for darribeen (those who hit strike themselves) tobleed ritually and also give blood, and even workers at the blood donor stationjoin the ritual.

Ashura is not merely the grassroots practice of a religion, it is also a politicalevent, an opportunity for rivals Amal and Hezballah to show their strength anddemonstrate their solidarity. In Nabatiyya, Amal supporters, many from southernLebanese villages were everywhere in evidence and were more numerous thanHezballahis in . Both groups were represented by thousands of supporters,many of whom participated in the parades or processions on both days, whilemany others were simply spectators. Whereas the Amal marchers seemed to beloosely organized but not unruly, the Hezballahis marched with military precisionand organized very eective cordons for crowd control. The contrast between theloosely organized, populist Amal and the tightly disciplined Hezballah was quiteobvious. Both groups marshaled men, women, and children for their processions,and the children were so numerous that they seemed be organized by age orgrade. Even women with babies in their arms or pushing baby strollers were en-listed to march.

The Lebanese army and police are usually in evidence but there are sometimesconfrontations with a political avor. At one point in , the army red a fewshots in the air to disperse some shoving matches between participants whoseadrenaline overpowered their good judgment. The same year, a van carrying menfrom a pro-Amal village was turned away from the entrance to Nabatiyya whensoldiers discovered the men were armed, leading to an altercation in which anarmy ocer was slugged. The soldiers prevailed.

More serious clashes occurred in , when people were injured anddozens of cars were damaged in showdowns between angry Amal and Hezballahmembers. The Amalists were angry that the Hezballah parade ran overtime anddelayed their processions (masirat) by an hour. Hezballah boycotted Nabatiyya in, and its widely watched al-Manar television channel stopped covering thetatbir ritual.

Ashura in Lebanon

7. Hezballah motorcyclistsduring Ashura. Clashesbetween the more organicAmal processions and moreregimented Hezballahparades at times manifest in political tensions.Nabatiyya, 14 and 15 April2000. (Photo by AugustusRichard Norton 2000A.R.N.)

Notwithstanding the clashes between rival hotheads, the mood in Nabatiyyais friendly and welcoming. Despite the heavy stench of blood, particularly on thesecond day, Ashura, when the majority of bleeding occurs, there is a carnival-likeatmosphere. After participating in the processions, shabab, or young men, casu-ally walk the street showing o their blood-splattered clothes as testimony totheir delity to Shiism and their bravado. Teenaged girls enjoy themselves, some-times ogling their male contemporaries and giggling. A handful of young womenparticipate in the bloodletting, but they did not number more than a few dozen,at most, when I was there in . Street vendors sell snacks and drinks but manypeople purchase cases of juice and water to be dispensed to anyone who wishedto quench their thirst. In , a local restaurant owner cooked dozens of sheepand fed hundreds of people. Shiites believe that acts of generosity carried out inthe name of Imam Hussein are especially commendable.

Perhaps most important, Ashura is a family holiday and an occasion for re-unions and feasts. Ashura is also the occasion for special foods, and some of thefaithful work late into the night preparing tens of kilos or food for free distribu-tion. Women spend days preparing foods that are associated with Ashura. Themost common is harisa, for which wheat is soaked and softened overnight, andthen cooked for three or four hours before combining the puddinglike wheatwith shredded chicken. The harisa is seasoned with cinnamon and cloves andoered to family and visitors or to anyone passing by. Elsewhere, harisa is sweet-enedin Iraq for instance, but not in Lebanon. Qima, a dish imported from Na-jaf in Iraq, is also prepared, but less commonly. It features chickpeas, tomatoes,and cooked red meat, and some say that its bright red color is a reminder of theblood sacrice of Hussein and his followers.

Participating in the bleeding ritual is an individual choice, although manyyoung boys are clearly encouraged to take part by their parents. Many of the par-ticipants start their participation at the husseiniyeh where a heaving crowd ofthousands gathers. Using a straight razor, or mouss, and deft icks of his wrist anobliging barber inicts shallow cuts on the upper forehead. One or two is su-cient to induce some bleeding, but some wish to bleed more demonstrably andwill have ve, ten, or even more cuts made or do it themselves. (Health consciousmiddle-class darribeen bring their own razors, which can be purchased inexpen-sively for about a dollar.) One then joins a group and follows a prescribed route

Augustus Richard Norton

8. & 9. After the ritualsparticipants often socializewith friends. Shabab (youngmen) walk the streetsshowing off their blood-splattered clothes astestimony to their fidelity to Shiism and their bravado.Young women may also participate in thebloodletting. Nabatiyya,14 and 15 April 2000.(Photos by AugustusRichard Norton 2000 A.R.N.)

past the bidar, or eld, where the Ashura events are dramatized and around themain streets of the town, culminating at the husseiniyeh.

Everyone has their own Hussein, says Ali Safa, a respected professor inBeirut whose natal village is nearby. Some people participate in the ritual all theirlives and cannot imagine missing it, such as the gentleman from Gabon who ewin his West African friends. Others do so to fulll a nithir or pledge. Raid Muqal-lid is a local optometrist who lost his son Ahmad in during a picnic, a daybefore his fth birthday, when the boy picked up an unexploded cluster bombdropped in the eld by Israeli military (the small bombs look like toys). He par-ticipates in the ritual in tribute to his deceased son, and his friends join him toshow support and share his personal tragedy. Muqallid has also been a civic leaderactively involved in eorts to work with international NGOs to clear mines fromsouthern Lebanon. Even a few Christians get involved in the ritual, either out ofcommunity spirit or to fulll their own pledge, perhaps to mark the recovery ofan ill relative, or a reversal of their fortunes.

The mood is infectious, and it is common to see onlookers impulsively jointhe bloodletting. A couple of Lebanese policemen and soldiers did just that, slip-ping on civilian shirts and returning to don their uniforms with blood-stainedbandages secure on their foreheads. Aid stations do a robust business, applyingbandages and reviving those who have fainted from heat exhaustion or loss ofblood. In winter or early spring the weather is usually comfortable, but whenAshura falls in the hot months of summer there are many more casualties fromheat and dehydration. Nonetheless, there have not been any reported deaths fromthe ritual. Some health ocials and clerics have pointed to the dangers of diseasetransmitted by blood but the warnings have not yet signicantly aected thepopular enthusiasm for the blood rituals in Nabatiyya.

The dramatization of Ashura, the timthiliyya (a play or performance), takesplace on the bidar in front of the citys large husseiniyeh. The scripts vary fromyear to year, but rendition of the timthiliyya often lasts over three hours. Thou-sands of people crowd around the eld or on the roofs of neighboring buildingsto watch the event. Yazids soldiers wear lurid orescent costumes in yellow andred, whereas Husseins troop decamps at a green-rimmed tent after entering theeld on camels and parading before the crowd. A large Islamic standard waves tomark the camp of the Prophets grandson. A narrator reads a script, but the play-

Ashura in Lebanon

ers themselves, including Hussein, often recite their lines, much to the displeas-ure of clerics, such as Shaykh Qabalan who emphasized, I do not approve of theplay at all (). He was specically objecting to the idea that any person couldportray Hussein.

Husseins group was cut o from water, and heroic battles are fought to reachthe Euphrates River, in this case represented by a small concrete pond on thebidar. Husseins half-brother Abbas, a brilliant warrior and Husseins standard-bearer, succeeds in reaching the water twice. The rst time, never taking a siphimself, he watches helplessly as the hard-won water spills onto the sands as thirstyand anxious children attempt to open the hide water bag. The second time, hefails to return. The crowd is transxed by the erce mock battle in which Abbascombats a dozen of the enemy, only to be eventually defeated when one and thenboth of his hands are severed at the wrists. The ka Abbas, literally the palms ofAbbas, are depicted in life-size papier-mch as one of the central motifs in pa-rade oats and displays throughout the day.

The drama takes it toll on the crowd, a number of woman faint, exhausted bythe emotionally wrenching play and fatigued from standing in place for hours. Atparticularly poignant moments, such as the death of Husseins son Ali Akbar, whois said to have resembled his great grandfather Muhammad, women are sobbingloudly. The death of an infant in Husseins arms evokes a similar chorus of sobs.The play is punctuated by long soliloquies from Hussein and by his entreaties to the enemy. He oers to withdraw from Karbala, but refuses to pay homage toYazid, hence his fate is cast. Imam Hussein reects on injustice, on the price ofloyalty to Islam, on the need to confront our own death bravely and to sacriceour own esh and blood in order to see Allah. He is the last man to die. He is slainwhile badly wounded and in prayer. While the play ends with Husseins death, theaudience knows that his severed head will be carried to Damascus in tribute to theCaliph Yazid. His body is left to be trampled along with the corpses of his fol-lowers by the enemy horsemen. The women of Husseins camp are marched ointo the misery of captivity in Damascus, and throughout the remaining days ofthe month of Muharram Shiites gather to recall the martyrs, the suering of thecaptives, and in recent years the courage of the women, especially Zainab, Hus-seins sister. Variants of the timthiliyya are performed annually, and lessons of themartyrdom of Hussein are often invoked in a political context.

Augustus Richard Norton

10.The performance of the tragedy of Ashura inNabatiyya, 14 and 15 April2000. (Photo by AugustusRichard Norton 2000 A.R.N.)

In , just as the drama was being performed and the masirat (processions)of blood-splattered celebrants were milling about in front of the husseiniyeh, aninept Israeli patrol of trucks lled with armed soldiers attempted to bully its waythrough the crowd. The incident stemmed from incompetent map reading by ahapless Israeli Defense Forces lieutenant who had been ordered to avoid the townon Ashura but took the wrong road. The scene is easy enough to imagine, andthe eortless transfer of the label Yazid to the Israeli occupiers was instant. Thecrowd was ugly. The soldiers responded to stones with ries and grenades andseveral Shiites lay dead as a result. The incident was a turning point in the resist-ance to Israels occupation, especially since it was instrumental in mobilizingmany heretofore fence-sitting Shiites to the resistance (Norton :). In many participants in the Nabatiyya events recalled the incident in or-der to emphasize Israels lack of respect for Islam and the arrogance of the Israelioccupation.

Another event that is still very much on peoples minds is the massacrein Qana, the southern Lebanese town where about people were killed in theIsraeli shelling of the UNIFIL base in Qana (a United Nations investigation con-cluded with diplomatic circumspection that the shelling was unlikely to have beenan accident [United Nations :]). Many oats in the parade emphasizedanti-Israel themes, recalling Qana and memorializing the resistance. Most Shiiteparticipants made the same connection that was made by the crowds, namelythat the modern forces of Yazid are the Israeli occupiers. But the Shiites hadlearned from Karbala and, in contrast to the tragedy of Hussein, they were con-fronting and defeating Yazid. Until recent decades, the rituals of Muharram inLebanon reied and armed the status quo, and taught quiescence. Half a cen-tury ago, the renowned anthropologist Emyrs Peters studied a Shiite village inJabal Amil where he found that the play (the timthiliyya) was a conservative de-vice, sustaining not challenging the existing order:

What the Play did was to give the vast audience a glimpse of the kind ofworld they could anticipate when evil triumphs. What was depicted was aworld of madness, a world of complete unreason, a world without orderof any sort. It did not depict a revolutionary situation of one group sup-planting anotherindeed, the peasantry could never supplant the Learned

Ashura in Lebanon

11. Local residents vie forparts in the timthiliyya;some play enemy soldiers.Nabatiyya, 14 and 15 April2000. (Photo by AugustusRichard Norton 2000 A.R.N.)

Families in this sense, for the peasants are far too numerous. What itshowed was the chaos that would result if the Learned Families lost theircontrol of village aairs. (Peters :)

In contrast, the contemporary Ashura rituals exemplify and, indeed, encour-age a heightened and widespread sense of politicization that often challenges theexisting political order and confronts oppression. Lebanese politicians, such as theleaders of Amal and Hezballah, work hard to advantageously harness these senti-ments, often with impressive successas in the resistance to the Israeli occupa-tion of southern Lebanon. Leading Shiite religious authorities emphasize theimportance of Imam Husseins sacrice as an exemplar of courage and a model foractivism and self-empowerment in the interest of the greater good. These au-thoritative voices often cast disapproval on the popular blood rituals of Nabatiyya,but the rituals persist, and their persistence is a reection of the dispersal of au-thority in contemporary Shiism and the rich variety of alternative interpretationsof what it means to be a pious Muslim.

Notes

. This comment was made to the author by a Nabatiyyan optometrist in .. The denite article, al-, is dropped after the rst occurrence in proper nouns, since non-

specialist Western readers are not used to seeing the article used.. Ali Safa, a Lebanese colleague, shared his extensive photo archive from the commem-

orations in Nabatiyya, which reveals a consistency of ritual practices since , my last ob-servation of Ashura in Nabatiyya. Most of the Ashura photos presented here were taken inNabatiyya or southern Lebanon on and April by the author or by Ali Safa, acherished friend and a professor at the Lebanese University in Beirut.

References

Ayoub, Mahmoud Redemptive Suering in Islam:A Study of the Devotional Aspects of Ashura in Twelver

Shiism. The Hague: Mouton.Deeb, Laraforthcoming An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shii South Beirut. Princeton:

Princeton University Press.

Khuri, Fuad I. From Village to Suburb:Order and Change in Greater Beirut. Chicago:University of Chi-

cago Press.

Mazraani, Ali Hussein al-Nabatiyya al-Thaakira. Beirut: privately published.

Peters, Emrys L. Aspects of Rank and Status Among Muslims in a Lebanese Village. In People and

Culture of the Middle East, edited by L.E. Sweet, . Garden City, NY: Nat-ural History Press.

Norton, Augustus Richard Amal and the Shia: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon. Austin: University of Texas

Press.

Qabalan, Shaykh Television interview.

Reuters Untitled. Al-Intiqad, March.

Augustus Richard Norton

Shams al-Din, Ayatollah Muhammad Mahdi [] The Rising of al-Husayn: Its Impact on the Consciousness of Muslim Society [based on

Thawrat al-Husayn: Zurufuha al-Ijtimaaiyya wa-al-Athaaruha al-Insaniyya, thed.], London: Muhammadi Trust of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

United Nations Report of the Secretary Generals Military Advisor concerning the shelling of the United

Nations compound at Qana on 18 April 1996 [Letter with report as annex from theSecretary General to the Security Council, S//].

Wikepedia ( July).

Augustus Richard Norton is a Professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Inter-national Relations at Boston University.His writings on Shiism in Lebanon reflect a quar-ter century of research and fieldwork that began in 1980. He is author of Amal and theShia: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon (University of Texas Press, 1987), a seminalstudy of the political mobilization of the Lebanese Shiites, and Hizballah: From RadicalIdealism to Mundane Politics (1999), a monograph published by the Council on For-eign Relations in New York.

Ashura in Lebanon