Karbala paradigm

Muharram rituals and the implications of the acts of Husayn ibn Ali and his companions in the battle of Karbala have been frequently a favorite topic of discussion among religious exegetes, anthropologists, and political experts. Michael Fischer was the first to coin the phrase the Karbala Paradigm in 1981 to launch a comparative study between Shi'a practices in Muslim territories during the month of Muharram and those of the Catholic Christendom. According to Fischer, the paradigm "provides models for living and a mnemonic for thinking about how to live."

In 1983, historian Nikki Keddie regenerated the discussion in her book Religion and Politics in Iran: ShiÊ»ism from Quietism to Revolution to imply a notion of duality through which scholars and intellectuals came to understand the Karbala Paradigm. Mary Elaine Hegland by altering the subtitle of Keddie's edited volume as "accommodation and revolution," made it more referential to political discourses. Around the same time, the anthropologist Michael Gilsenan focusing more on the modes of Shi'a Muharram rituals specifically in Iran and Lebanon noticed that two underlying modes of affect are seen in all examples: "quietist versus revolutionary" modes or "passive" versus "active" modes of piety.

According to recent studies accomplished by Kamran Aghaie, Lara Deeb, and Sophia Pandya who have adopted a political approach in their analysis of the Karbala Paradigm, there has been a gradual shift over the second half of the twentieth century from "traditional" and "salvific" interpretations to "modern" and "revolutionary" inferences.

Shi'a pundits in countries such as Iran, Lebanon, and Bahrain at first supported "traditional" views and deemed it necessary to participate in all forms of mourning in order gain salvation in the hereafter as well as during the lifetime. However, following political tensions, they changed their mind and began to promote "modern" and "revolutionary" interpretations, according to which Shi'a should strive for "modern" values, such as education, progress, political awareness, and social involvement.
The reverberations of revolutionary mode is largely seen in the works and speeches of religious Iranian ideologues such as who in the decades prior to the Islamic Revolution had turned the Karbala narrative into a "revolutionary manifesto." As viewed by Shari'ati there are two types of Shi'ism: the first type was the "pure, just, and populist" in accordance with Shi'ism of , the first Imam. The second was "Safavid Shi'ism, the worldly, complacent, and corrupt piety of the scholarly elite, the ulema." and represented Husayn's uprising as the "model for rebellion against the Shah and the foreign imperialist powers."<ref nameaghaie2004 /> More attracted by Shari'ati's revolutionary standpoints, interpreters say, he transformed the Battle of Karbala from a "religio-historical" account, identified with "soteriological practices," into a moral and political obligation to revolt against Taghut or injustice.<ref nameaghaie2004 />

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