Visiting Speaker - Dr Yafa Shanneik, University of Birmingham

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 women’s lamentation poetry recited in women-only religious gatherings (majalis) in Kuwait and Bahrain. It analyses the reception of this poetry and the emotional affect on women of various backgrounds residing in contexts that are different in geographical, political and migratory terms. Yet these gathering use similar symbolic imageries during Ashura rituals which date back to pre- and early Islamic poetry.

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.

Yafa Shanneik is Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Birmingham. She researches the dynamics and trajectories of gender in Islam within the context of contemporary diasporic and transnational Muslim women’s spaces. She works on Sunni and Shia women communities in Europe and their transnational links to the Middle East. She also has a particular research interest in the authority and leadership of Muslim women and the changing nature of women’s participation in religious practices in Europe and the Middle East. She has published several articles on gender and Islam and migrant identities in Europe such as: ‘Remembering Karbala in the Diaspora: Religious Rituals among Iraqi Shii Women in Ireland’ (Religion, 2015) and ‘Religion and Diasporic Dwelling: Algerian Muslim Women in Ireland’ (Religion and Gender, 2012).