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I shot the photographs during my trip to Karbala in 2004, and they reflect ‘Ashura rituals, installations, pilgrims and the city center. My approach was invoked by my encounter with the women in my family in Baghdad, and later in Karbala during the month of Muharram (2004), when ‘Ashura is commemorated. I documented the ritual through film and photography; it was the first ‘Ashura celebrated with this magnitude in decades as it was banned under Saddam Husayn’s regime for over thirty years. It was there that I understood that people chose creative and spiritual practices to express their struggles in the face of random violence and organized gruesome repression. These expressions include, but are not limited to: Ta’ziyeh, the theatrical ritual; the ritual of Qirayeh, mourning gatherings that eulogize ahl-al-bayt (the House of the Prophet); the creation of religious and political murals, posters, installations, altars, and mass political protests, among others. These practices are steeped in the tradition of commemoration of the battle of Karbala; they express the trauma that ahl-al-bayt experienced and reflect the manner in which this trauma shaped Shi‘i identity and politics. 

The Karbala narratives epitomize Shi’i history;  ‘Ashura rituals gather the believers to relive the experiences of the battle of Karbala through narration performances which include lamentation and eulogizing techniques—building emotionally-charged and evocative mental images.  The events that took place in 680 A.D. in Karbala become the lens through which the present narrative is articulated and retold by rituals, narrations, murals, installations, and other creative practices.  The result is an experience where time and space are collapsed since believers are thrown into what Victor Turner has termed a “liminal” (in-between limbo state) experience, where they relive the events of the battle of Karbala through what they hear, witness, and chant in the present. ‘Ashura is characterized by its epic and tragic quality, dramatizing symbols that arouse strong emotions of suffering, and also charge the believers into mass mobilization against injustices thereby strengthening their solidarity, sense of belonging, identity, and community. ‘Ashura’s eternal significance as an expression of the perpetual conflict between oppressed and oppressor, as an epic of hope and revolution, may be employed against injustices people undergo in various parts of the world.  This can be seen through the images, sounds, and rituals of the meta-narrative revolving around the story of Karbala, ‘Ashura, and Imam Husayn.  The participants can only lament the Imam, and feel the pain of his martyrdom through reliving, remembering and articulating the past, which produces a sense of catharsis. The cathartic impact of the ritual and narration works through the powerful emotions it creates. Their encounter with the past becomes a reflection of their present reality, shedding light on people’s daily struggles and sufferings.

Dena Al-Adeeb 2004
Photographs