lamentation for Husayn as an enactment of eventual grievances related to these multiple layers of their minoritarian status in Greece. In this paper, I demonstrate how this initial research question has been challenged by my interlocutors themselves and redirected through the fieldwork process. Reflecting on the latter as a of performances in which “nexus significant communicative events can happen” (Fabian 1999: 24) rather than as a strict data collection based on questions and answers, I propose a more complex understanding of the Ashura commemoration: it may also be an occasion that provides a time-frame out of the ordinary, within which the participants can not only enact the precariousness of their lives, but also suspend, or transgress this reality. Yafa Shanneik (University of South Wales), Shia Devotional Poetry in the 20th and 21st Century from the Gulf to Europe Writing elegies for the dead and performing them publicly is an Arab tradition dating back to the pre-Islamic period. Al-Khansa’, a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad, is one the best known poetesses who composed plaintive and melancholic poetry mourning the death of her two brothers. The style of her lamentation poetry has created and shaped the genre of Arabic lamentation poetry until the present. In the context of Twelver Shia Islam, writing elegies and performing them in mourning rituals has been a central element in lamenting the death of Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in Karbala in 680 CE. The lachrymal expressions and descriptions that characterises this lamentation poetry have the religious and ritualistic function of metaphorically identifying and uniting the participants with Imam Husayn and his cause. Yet, very little is known about Shia lamentation poetry, particularly those performed during women-only Shia ritual mourning practices. This paper examines the roots, development and transformations of Shia lamentation poetry written by Shia women in Iraq, the Gulf and Europe in the 20th century in light of dramatic geo-political and socio-religious changes within Shia communities in the Middle East and diasporic communities in Europe. Noor Zaidi (University of Pennsylvania), we long for Zaynab”: South Asian Shias and “Still the Shia Shrines The fall of Saddam Hussain in 2003 led to an explosion in pilgrimage or ziyarat to the – – Shia holy cities in Iraq, opening the doors for Shia faithful to visit sacred sites that had been
lamentation for Husayn as an enactment of eventual grievances related to these multiple layers of their minoritarian status in Greece. In this paper, I demonstrate how this initial research question has been challenged by my interlocutors themselves and redirected through the fieldwork process. Reflecting on the latter as a “nexus of performances in which significant communicative events can happen” (Fabian 1999: 24) rather than as a strict data collection based on questions and answers, I propose a more complex understanding of the Ashura commemoration: it may also be an occasion that provides a time-frame out of the ordinary, within which the participants can not only enact the precariousness of their lives, but also suspend, or transgress this reality. Yafa Shanneik (University of South Wales), Shia Devotional Poetry in the 20th and 21st Century from the Gulf to Europe Writing elegies for the dead and performing them publicly is an Arab tradition dating back to the pre-Islamic period. Al-Khansa’, a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad, is one the best known poetesses who composed plaintive and melancholic poetry mourning the death of her two brothers. The style of her lamentation poetry has created and shaped the genre of Arabic lamentation poetry until the present. In the context of Twelver Shia Islam, writing elegies and performing them in mourning rituals has been a central element in lamenting the death of Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in Karbala in 680 CE. The lachrymal expressions and descriptions that characterises this lamentation poetry have the religious and ritualistic function of metaphorically identifying and uniting the participants with Imam Husayn and his cause. Yet, very little is known about Shia lamentation poetry, particularly those performed during women-only Shia ritual mourning practices. This paper examines the roots, development and transformations of Shia lamentation poetry written by Shia women in Iraq, the Gulf and Europe in the 20th century in light of dramatic geo-political and socio-religious changes within Shia communities in the Middle East and diasporic communities in Europe. Noor Zaidi (University of Pennsylvania), “Still we long for Zaynab”: South Asian Shias and the Shia Shrines The fall of Saddam Hussain in 2003 led to an explosion in pilgrimage – or ziyarat – to the Shia holy cities in Iraq, opening the doors for Shia faithful to visit sacred sites that had been