When you grow up in Kashmir, you encounter special forms of religious participation that are otherwise unusual. This is particularly true for Shia women during Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, which is often observed with communal mourning. This is due to the martyrdom of Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and his family in the Battle of Karbala.
I saw my mother taking part in the Muharram processions at midnight along with my aunts. While my father, a stoic middle-aged man, cried as he watched sermons broadcast live on television from some corner of the valley. All of this was often accompanied by my grandmother’s obligatory sharbat distribution at the beginning of Ashura, the tenth day of Muharram.
Muharram gives women access to the silence of early dawn, the sounds of the night, and discussions in communal spaces about everything from society to local politics, all of which blur the rigid line between private and public religious practice.
Religious expression and the gender gap between private and public
These obfuscating boundaries between private and public spheres are rare but significant when one considers that the contemporary institutions of politics, religion, state and family are based on them. In patriarchal societies, men occupy public spaces while women are relegated to the private sphere. This private-public divide also exists when it comes to religious expression. Because of this divide, men assume responsibility for carrying out “important” religious duties in public, while women’s devotion is limited to private expression.
However, in a groundbreaking article titled Gender and Religion: Deconstructing Universality, Constructing ComplexityThe sociologist D. Paul Sullins challenges this idea by critically examining the umbrella term “religiosity.” He concludes that there are no universal gender differences in religiosity. Who is more religious depends on how you measure religiosity. When religiosity is measured by private practices and devotion, women in many communities appear more religious. However, as measured by public participation in religious activities, gender patterns vary across societies.
For example, in many European societies where state and religion are separate entities, women report higher levels of church attendance and personal devotion. While living in Muslim or Jewish communities, men report equal or higher levels of participation in public religious practices. In particular, more Muslim men participate in public religious activities such as prayer in mosques than Muslim women.
One could argue that public worship spaces are largely viewed as men’s spaces to which women must negotiate existing patriarchal norms in order to gain access.
It can be argued from this that public worship spaces are largely viewed as men’s spaces to which women must negotiate existing patriarchal norms in order to gain access. This also applies to most mosques in India, where women have little or no space to pray. Furthermore, important religious roles such as that of imam (community leader) and religious symbols such as the minbar (pulpit) remain beyond the reach of women. Although there are isolated cases in which women negotiate for more space in mosques, such denial of access is a common, if not accepted, practice.
How Muharram enables women to reclaim public spaces
However, these gendered spaces need to change during Muharram to accommodate the large number of women who publicly engage with their religion. If one happens to attend a Muharram majlis (gathering), it is not unusual to see a large number of women of all ages. While domestic stresses may prevent women from participating in other community and religious activities, for the Majlis, household chores are put on hold, cooking is postponed and children are taken away. In mixed-gender majlis, the participation of women is often equal to that of men, and it is also not uncommon for the women’s sections to be more crowded than the men’s sections.
While domestic stresses may prevent women from participating in other community and religious activities, for the Majlis, household chores are put on hold, cooking is postponed and children are taken away.
In a mixed-gender majlis, men may lead the gathering by reciting Marsiya and Nowha (forms of devotional poetry and recitation), but women join with equal rigor, with both voices expressing sorrow and deep sadness. In some parts of the valley, women also accompany men in public processions (Jhaloos), making their grief, mourning and devotion a public affair.
While Minbar still remains inaccessible to women, projectors or good acoustic arrangements are made for women’s sections at mixed-gender gatherings. When these arrangements are inadequate, women make their voices and their discontent heard and ensure that organizers make appropriate arrangements each year.
With these means, Shiite women create spaces in public that would otherwise not be easily accessible to them.
In addition to the mixed-gender majlis, women also hold women-only majlis where men are prohibited from entering. Not only women take part in these majlis, but also women leaders (zakira) who narrate the events of the Battle of Karbala and lead discussions on relevant and important socio-political issues. With these means, Shiite women create spaces in public that would otherwise not be easily accessible to them.
Majlis and the Politics of Mourning and Remembrance
Given the overwhelming participation of women in the Majlis, one must ask what motivates Shia women to assert their claim to public spaces during Muharram. The answer can be found in the Battle of Karbala, more specifically in Lady Zaynab. She is the sister of Imam Hussain, who made a crucial decision: instead of staying in Medina with her husband, she traveled to Kufa with her brother along with their two sons to rally support against the tyrannical rule of the Umayyad governor Yazid I.
Zaynab’s election changed not only her own life, but also the course of Islamic history. After most of her family was massacred for resisting the autocratic rule of Yazid I, Zaynab kept the resistance movement alive as a prisoner of war. From her powerful speech against the governor to spreading reports of the structural brutality of the Umayyad Caliphate, Zaynab kept the memory of Karbala alive.
Their efforts to expose the regime’s misdeeds and gather masses in common remembrance made their imprisonment more dangerous than their freedom. Through these instruments of resistance, Zaynab gradually destroyed the regime’s carefully cultivated image, ultimately leading to its collapse. The tradition of majlis is believed to have originated here at Zaynab.
Through Majlis, Zaynab’s story is not only remembered; it is re-enacted as a political instrument of resistance.
Their significant role in immortalizing Karbala in public memory gives Shia women the impetus to do their part in continuing Zaynab’s legacy of resistance. Today, Shia women still see her as a figure of resistance and a source of inspiration to fight back against oppression. Through Majlis, Zaynab’s story is not only remembered; it is re-enacted as a political instrument of resistance.
Every now and then this spirit of resistance comes to the fore, for example when Shiite women took part Rallies against the ongoing genocide In Palestine or during the recent major event Fundraiser to support the victims of the war in Iran. By standing up against oppression, these women are carrying on Lady Zaynab’s legacy. Through them, most Shiite women assert their right to public spaces. However, thirteen centuries after Karbala, it is instrumental in encouraging them to stand up for justice and truth and against tyranny.
References
D’Souza, D. (2014). Partner of Zaynab: A Gendered Perspective of the Shia Muslim Faith. University of South Carolina Press.
Hyder, S.A. (2008). Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom in South Asian Memory. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195373028.001.0001
Madelung, W. (2004). Hosayn b. ʿAli I. Life and significance in Shiites. In Encyclopaedia Iranica (Vol. XII, Fasc. 5). Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation.
Nyhagen, L. (2019). Mosques as gendered spaces: The complexities of women’s compliance with and resistance to dominant gender norms and the importance of male allies. Religions, 10(5), Article 321. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10050321
Prickett, P.J. (2015). Negotiation of gender-specific religious spaces. Gender & Society, 29(1), 51–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243214546934
Sehar Abdullah is an Erasmus master’s student and studies Religious Diversity in a Globalized World at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, and at the University of Cordoba, Spain. Her interests span gender, religion, culture and politics and she is currently working on the politics of syncretism in Kashmir. Her work has previously appeared in The Scroll and The Wire, among others.