Todo dia é Ashura, toda terra é Karbala: a construção do território islâmico na cidade de São Paulo

Nesta pesquisa foi analisado um ritual religioso com particularidades relevantes ao campo da ciência geográfica. A investigação procurou compreender como o Sagrado se manifesta em seu território, considerando a particularidade do objeto de pesquisa. A partir do aprofundamento conceitual em tela, as perspectivas acerca da acepção de território, apoiadas em um embasamento sócio-antropológico, buscam descrever, analisar e classificar, dentro da Geografia Humana, especificamente da Geografia Cultural Renovada, uma performance ritualística cultural e religiosa de grande expressividade demográfica e ainda pouco divulgada. Portanto, o conhecimento deste ritual islâmico agrega, de maneira abrangente e oportuna, novas possibilidades de interpretar o lugar e o território, ampliando seu significado e propondo novas formas de apropriação dos conceitos, ultrapassando assim, o recorte espacial da pesquisa, a cidade de São Paulo, e adentrando na subjetividade com a territorialidade móvel através da Terra Imaginalis. Os geossímbolos exponenciados em sua representatividade como alicerce e estandarte de um aparato ideológico, ganham nesta pesquisa, foco e relevância. Através dessa nova construção territorial observam-se novos desdobramentos de grande impacto social, como as construções de novas identidades e a manutenção de uma comunidade oriunda de uma grande massa migratória pós 1880, e que hoje, compõe a sociedade brasileira em contínuo processo de assimilação. Para um maior aprofundamento da prática religiosa da comunidade islâmica analisada, fez-se necessário e adequado o método etnográfico de coleta e análise de dados. Dessa forma o material audiovisual e fotográfico coletado serviram de substrato para um melhor embasamento da pesquisa bibliográfica. As conclusões parciais observadas até então, nos induzem à continuidade da pesquisa e á constatação inequívoca da plasticidade profícua e necessária às ciências humanas em geral, e especificamente, à Geografia Cultural, visto que as possibilidades de reinterpretar os conceitos geográficos á luz dos fenômenos religiosos são infinitas

New Meanings to Old Rituals : The Emergence of Mourning Rituals in Shiʿite Islam

This paper will discuss the emergence of Shiʿite mourning rituals around the grave of Husayn b. ʿAli. After the killing of Husayn at Karbala’ in 61/680, a number of men in Kufa feel deep regret for their neglect to come to the help of the grand­son of the Prophet. They gather and discuss how they can best make penitence for this crime. Eventually, they decide to take to arms and go against the Umayyad army – to kill those that killed Husayn, or be killed them­selves in the attempt to find revenge for him. Thus, they are called the Penitents (Ar. Tawwābūn). On their way to the battlefield they stop at Husayn’s tomb at Karbala’, dedicat­ing themselves to remorseful prayer, crying and wailing over the fate of Husayn and their own sin. When the Penitents perform certain ritual acts, such as weeping and wailing over the death of Husayn, visiting his grave, asking for God’s mercy upon him on the Day of Judgment, demand blood revenge for him etc., they enter into already existing rituals in the pre-Islamic Arab and early Muslim context. That is, they enter into rituals that were traditionally performed at the death of a person. What is new is that the rituals that the Penitents perform have partially received a new content. As described, the rituals are performed out of loyalty towards Husayn and the family of the Prophet. The lack of loyalty in connection with the death of Husayn is conceived of as a sin that has to be atoned. Blood revenge thus be­comes not only a pure action of revenge to restore honor, but equally an expression for true religious conversion and penitence. Humphrey and Laidlaw argue that ritual actions in themselves are not bearers of meaning, but that they are filled with mean­ing by the performer. Accord­ing to them, ritual actions are apprehensible, i.e. they can be, and should be filled with meaning, and the people who perform them try to do so within the context where the ritual is performed. The story of the Penitents is a clear example of mourning rituals as actions that survive from earlier times, but that are now filled with new meaning when they are performed in a new and developing move­ment with a different ideology. In later Shiʿism, these rituals are elaborated and become a main tenet of this form of Islam.

The hand of God is over their hands (Q. 48:10) : on the notion of covenant in al-Ṭabarī’s account of Karbalāʾ

This article is an analysis of the story of the killing of Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī at Karbalāʾ in 61/680, as it is presented by Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923). The main argument is that the notion of the divine covenant, which permeates the Qur’an, constitutes a framework through which al-Ṭabarī views this event. The Qur’anic idea of the covenant is read in structural/thematic continuity with the Hebrew Bible account of the covenant between Yahweh and the Hebrew people, which has, in turn, been traced back in its basic form to Late Bronze Era treaties between rulers and their vassals.   The present study focusses on four speeches ascribed to Ḥusayn during the encounter he and his group had with the vanguard of the Kūfan army led by al-Ḥurr. These are analysed in accordance with their use of Qur’anic covenant vocabulary. They are also categorised within the broader framework of the eight standard characteristics of Ancient West Asian and Biblical covenants, as presented by George Mendenhall and Gary Herion, which have recently been developed in a Qur’anic context by Rosalind Ward Gwynne. This article argues that al-Ṭabarī’s Karbalāʾ narrative presents the pact of loyalty to Ḥusayn as a clear extension of the divine covenant.

Zerbrochene Spiegel /1

Der Beitrag beschreibt eine doppelte, verfremdete und letztendlich tragische Spiegelung in der Wahrnehmung von Architektur zwischen Europa und Indien: zwischen 1780 und 1856 entstanden in der nordindischen Stadt Lucknow mehrere große Baukomplexe, die von den indisch-islamischen Herrschern der Stadt in europäisch-klassizistischen Formen gestaltet wurden. Nach dem indischen Aufstand, der in den Jahren 1857 und 1858 gegen die britische Herrschaft in Lucknow losbrach, wurden diese Bauten zum Gegenstand einer scharfen europäischen Architekturkritik. Der erste Abschnitt – "Das Eigene und das Fremde" – betrachtet die westliche Rezeption dieser europäisch-klassizistischen Bauten, die über Jahrzehnte durch ein Negativurteil bestimmt war, das sich aus der politischen Interpretation des indischen Aufstands erklärt. Der zweite Abschnitt – "Kopie und Synthese" – geht auf die Suche nach den Zusammenhängen für die positive Europarezeption in Lucknow und für die negative Kritik dieser Bauten in Europa. Es erweist sich, dass die Praxis von Architekturkopie und die Wahrnehmung europäischer Stilformen bei der Übernahme klassizistischer Motive in Indien deutlich anders war als das exakte und moralisch überhöhte Verständnis von Stilformen im Europa nach 1850.

Zerbrochene Spiegel /2

Der Beitrag beschreibt eine doppelte, verfremdete und letztendlich tragische Spiegelung in der Wahrnehmung von Architektur zwischen Europa und Indien: zwischen 1780 und 1856 entstanden in der nordindischen Stadt Lucknow mehre-re große Baukomplexe, die von den indisch-islamischen Herrschern der Stadt in europäisch-klassizistischen Formen gestaltet wurden. Nach dem indischen Auf-stand, der in den Jahren 1857 und 1858 gegen die britische Herrschaft in Lucknow losbrach, wurden diese Bauten zum Gegenstand einer scharfen europäi-scher Architekturkritik. Der erste Abschnitt – "Das Eigene und das Fremde" – betrachtet die westliche Rezeption dieser europäisch-klassizistischen Bauten, die über Jahrzehnte durch ein Negativurteil bestimmt war, das sich aus der politischen Interpretation des indischen Aufstands erklärt. Der zweite Abschnitt – "Kopie und Synthese" – geht auf die Suche nach den Zusammenhängen für die positive Europarezeption in Lucknow und für die negative Kritik dieser Bauten in Europa. Es erweist sich, dass die Praxis von Architekturkopie und die Wahrnehmung europäischer Stilfor-men bei der Übernahme klassizistischer Motive in Indien deutlich anders war als das exakte und moralisch überhöhte Verständnis von Stilformen im Europa nach 1850.

Dīvān-i farīd ʾal-ʾaqṭār va vaḥīd ʾal-ʾasrār ḥakīm-i māhir va suk︠h︡an sanj-i sāḥir ... Ḥakīm Qāʾānī Mīrzā Ḥabīb S︠h︡īrāzī.

Lithographed.