Flagellation and Fundamentalism_Pakistan_Women [1998]

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Flagellation and Fundamentalism: (Trans)Forming Meaning, Identity, and Gender Through

Pakistani Women's Rituals of MourningAuthor(s): Mary Elaine HeglandSource: American Ethnologist, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May, 1998), pp. 240-266Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/646694Accessed: 04/11/2010 12:55

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as a model for emulation (Hegland 1983a, 1983b). With this revised interpretation, he IranianMuharramprocessions of December 1978 were turned into rituals of revolution, and markedthe shift of majoritysupport rom the Shah's regimeto the revolutionary orces. Shortly hereafter,the Shah fled the country, his government was overthrown, and Ayatollah Khomeini flew intoTeheran to proclaimthe Islamic Republic.Iwas curious to see whether a similarreworkingof symbolic meaning mightbe taking placein Pakistan.InPeshawarIdiscovered that many Shi'a found the analogy of ImamHusein's small

7th-century band-aligned against the much larger forces of the corrupt and unjust Ca-liph-relevant at several political levels: Pakistani Shi'a as a mistreatedand threatened minority,IraqiShi'a as beleaguered by brutal Saddam Husein, and in general Muslims under attack bythe West. Muharrammourningritualsbecame a means to rallyPeshawar Shi'aof variousethnicand linguistic backgroundsinto a more united front,as well as to connect them with the nationaland transnationalfundamentalist Shi'a community.At the same time, dawning changes inthe attitudes and activities of females in Peshawar werebeginning to emerge in ritualparticipation.Women contributed significantlyto the season ofmourning, despite the fact that Peshawarwomen-in the heartland of the gender-conservativePukhtunethnic group-were heavily secluded. Inseparatemen's houses or roomswith separateentrances, men could entertain male guests away from household womenfolk. Girls, thuscarefully secluded, had no opportunities to meet young men. Their marriageswere arrangedby their families. Expectedto stay in the house, they could go out only forcompelling reasons.Then they had to cover themselves with enveloping veils hidingthe face or all but the eyes, andbe chaperoned by their husbands or other male relatives. Women did not go to mosques. Formost females, schooling did notdisrupt heir seclusion either:only some three percentof femalesin the North-West Frontier Province were literate. Students at the University of Peshawar'ssex-segregated College of Home Economics, and even women faculty, came to campus in asex-segregated bus, or were driven to the walled-in college by watchful husbands or brothers.Only afterthey had passed throughthe heavy gates opened by armed guardsdid they unveil.

Fearingharm to their reputationsor well-being, Peshawar females were generally reluctantto venture outside the home even when their male supervisorsgave them permission. Kidnap-ping and rapeof opponents' womenfolk are partof the historyof Pakistanipolitical competition.Perpetrators f such violence againstwomen need not fearlegal repercussions. Inorder to securea conviction forrape,a prosecutormust produce fourmale eyewitnesses to testifythat the sexualencounter was indeed rape-and not consensual; otherwise, the female victim will be pun-ished.2 The atmosphere for women in Peshawar is conveyed by the ominous Pukhtunsayingabout women's rightfulplace: "Women-either the house or the grave."Forwomen, then, homeis both fortress and cage.The dominant Pukhtunculture in Peshawarinfluences the lives of even non-Pukhtunwomen.Pukhtun men, with their conservative expectations about a proper female's comportment,populate Peshawar's streets. Women who dress or behave inappropriately are subject topenetratingstares and worse. Because of the war in Afghanistanand the presence in Peshawarof so many Afghan Pukhtunrefugees and warring political factions, Peshawar women experi-ence discomfort and fear away from home. Several nurses were kidnapped by an Afghanpolitical group shortlyaftermy arrivalin Peshawar.Given these attitudes and concerns, Shi'a women's daily travels around the city to attend around of Muharramrituals took me by surprise. Particularlyastounding were the competitiveand loudly energetic commemorative performances by young, educated women. Among themshone Shahida (a pseudonym), a M.S. student from my social science classes at the University'sCollege of Home Economics.Faced with Peshawar'srestrictivegender boundaries, Shi'a women found intheir Muharramritualsa means for self-expression,self-definition,and personalempowerment,and for implicitly

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questioning gender ideology. The contradictory implications for women's power in the 1991Muharramreligiousritualswere striking.In hese ritualsmen ordered, admonished, and berated,while women alternatelycomplied, ignored, or discreetlycontradicted views of women's roles.Because of their binding attachments to patriarchal family, religious community, and Shi'aspirituality, Peshawar Shi'a women were unable to voice resistance through direct verbaldiscourse. Rather, hey developed and expressed gender resistance implicitly throughthe body,and specifically through its engagement in ritual activity. Through Shi'a ritual practices, inconjunction with changing conditions and perceptions,women formed, transformed,and subtlycontested meaning, identity, and gender.

the Shi'a, their Muharram rituals, and political processThe Shi'a have become well-known on the world stage through the 1978-79 IranianRevolutionand the subsequent creation of the Islamic Republic. Iranis the only nation where

Shi'a form the political majorityand control the government.3 Estimatesof the Pakistani Shi'apopulation vary according to the source. A reasonable estimate is 15-20 percent of the totalpopulation of roughly a hundred million (see Ahmed 1987). Many studies on the Shi'a areavailable,4 although information about Pakistani Shi'a is scarce.5 Most literature about Shi'amourningrituals relatesmen's activities.6Inquiries nto women's lamentationsare much harderto find.7Inthis study Ihope to provide new insightsinto how PakistaniShi'a women have usedmourningritualsto develop agency and identities that subtly contest gender regulations.Shi'a rituals commemorating the passion of Imam Husein have often furnished sites forcontestation over power and change. Gustav Thaiss, analyzing religion and politics amongTeheran religious clerics and bazaar merchantsduringthe late 1960s, found that the symbolicmultivocality of Husein's passion provided "an idiom for the communication of conflictingclaims over resources and power particularly under conditions of social change" (Thaiss1972:111, 119).8

As David Kerzter 1988) pointsout, ritualscan provide political impetusto supportan existingregimeor to rebel against a center of control. With itspotential forconveying powerful politicalconnotations, the Muharramparadigm has often been efficacious in bringing about politicaloutcomes. Political leaders may bolstertheir political legitimacy by sponsoring and controllingcommemorative rituals. Dissenters may use the rituals to question an incumbent's politicallegitimacy. Most dramatically, the 1978-79 IranianRevolution followed the recasting of theDecember 1978 Muharramprocessions from rituals of mourning into rituals of revolution(Chelkowski 1980; Fischer1980; Hegland 1983a, 1983b; Thaiss 1973).Although scholars have investigated connections between Muharramrituals and politicalprocess, no attention has been given to the Imam Husein commemorations as sites of gendercontestation. InPeshawar Ifound that contradictory messages about femininity were availablein Muharramrituals,permittingwomen to resist negative lessons by foregrounding their ownpositive ritualpractice experiences. Inaddition to the multiple and nuanced meanings in ritualsymbolism noted by Thaiss, meanings created throughpersonal experience and social interac-tion in ritualpracticealso lend themselvesto the divergentaims of differentgroupsand individuals.

Shi'a women's mourning rituals in the 1991 Peshawar settingPeshawar,site of my researchon the women's majles (plural,majales [commemorative ritual

gathering]),is the capital of the Pukhtun-dominatedNorth-West FrontierProvince of Pakistan,9close to the KhyberPass leading to neighboringAfghanistan.Peshawar'spopulation is approxi-mately three million. Rather han declining, as they had been in modernizing Iranof the 1960s

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and early 1970s (Hegland 1983a; Thaiss 1973), Peshawar Muharramrituals in general werebecoming more numerous and larger. More families were constructing home imambargah,shrine-roomsdedicated to ImamHusein.'OMen and women attended Shi'a ritualsoutside theirown neighborhoods, and even traveled to other villages or towns for majales. Particularlynoteworthy was the crossing of ethnic lines among those who attended majales. PeshawarShi'a-a diverse group including Muhajir migrants rom India),Pukhtun,and Persian-speakingQizilbash-were inthe process of constructinga common tradition, identity,and community.11The flourishingMuharramrituals were connected to a growing sense of Shi'a identity interna-tionally and the desire of Shi'a-a minorityin Pakistan-for a cohesive network to defend Shi'ainterests.

This intensification of Shi'a sensibility and unity was linked to the intensification of Shi'afundamentalism. Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr (1994, 1995) has argued that many aspects of currentIslamic fundamentalism originated during the partition process of Pakistan from India. Nasrcredits Pakistani theologian and ideologue Mawlana Mawdudi with developing a Muslimfundamentalist perspective to safeguardthe interests of Muslims within the Muslim state ofPakistan. At partitioning,religious identitywas emphasized ratherthan ethnic. The process isrepeating itself in Pakistan as religious dichotomization between Sunni and Shi'a (Hegland1997b).12

Women, as is so often the case (Moghadam 1994), were central as symbols and means inthis process of Shi'areligiousand culturalassertion. Peshawar women's deepening involvementin the majles was partof a largerShi'a patternof religious nationalism and transnationalism.Realizingtheir political usefulness, Shi'a leaders commented positively on Peshawar women'sritualperformancesand encouraged their mourning gatherings.

Duringtheir majales, Shi'a women lamented the sufferingand death of Imam Husein-theShi'a community's third imam after the Prophet'sdeath in A.D. 632. Imam Husein and someseventy of his male followers were killed on the Karbalaplains, south of Baghdadin present-dayIraq,in battle against the reigning Caliph's army in A.D.680. The band's womenfolk were thentaken as captives to the Caliph's seat of power at Damascus. According to tradition, thecourageous lamentations and recounting of the Karbalatragedy by the captive Zaynab, sisterof ImamHusein, initiatedthe mourningcommemorations of weeping, telling storiesabout theKarbalamartyrs,and acting them out in passion plays.

Nothing had prepared me for the intense dedication of many Peshawar women to thecontemporary mourning ritualsmodeled on Zaynab's grieving. Commonly, marriedwomen inShahida's neighborhood rose early to rushthrough housework before beginning a remarkableextended round of majales at differenthomes, attending five-to-eight rituals,each lastingoneor two hours. At night, women might sit behind a curtain for the men's longer majles at thecommunity imambargah or Huseiniyyah (building for mourning Husein). Women's involve-ment in these communal mourning ritualsduring the Muslim months of Safarand Muharramwas increasing when I conducted my 1991 Peshawar research. In addition to the growingnumber of imambargah and majales in their own neighborhoods, women's new custom ofattending majales in other city sections, ethnic groups, and even other cities made their ritualschedules all the more hectic. Before 1991, according to informants, unmarried girls mightattend a majlesthreetimes throughoutthe whole Shi'amourningseason. By1991, they attendedas many as four or five a day for the entiretwo-and-a-half months of mourning.At a home majles, the gathered women and girls sang marsia(mourning hymns), listened toa female preacher outline their obligations as pious Muslim women and recite the Karbalatragedy,beat theirchests ingriefwhile chanting noha (mourning couplets), and prayed(Hegland1995, 1997a, 1997b). After the formal proceedings, the hostess often served refreshments,conceived as offeringsto the Karbala aints, while the women conversed.



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Throughthese assemblies, the fundamentalistmessages of female segregation, modesty, andobedience were reaching ever more women. As their ritual involvement expanded, however,Peshawar Shi'a women still managed to disregard many messages inherent in the Muharramritualsabout female inferiority,dependency, anddisruptiveness. Paradoxically, instead of takingthese messages to heart, furtherconcealing their bodies and restrictingtheir behavior, somewomen used the gatheringsas a medium forassertiveness and self-expression, a vehicle throughwhich they could excel, and an arena for building self-affirmationand female as well as Shi'asolidarity. Inspite of overwhelming gender constraints,some female participantscreated frommajles practices definitions of valuable female religious contributions and strong self-conceptsas gendered agents. As actors and audience simultaneously, the Shi'a women muffled dispar-aging ritualpronouncements about women by devising more vital communications from theirown ritualexperiences.

Tasu'a (the ninth) of Muharram, 1991Thefollowing is an account of the firstwomen's majlesthatIattended: a largeTasu'agatheringand procession at the Huseiniyyah Hall in Peshawar's SadarBazaar area. July 21, the date of

my arrivalin Peshawar, was also the eighth day of the month of Muharram.The ninth (Tasu'ain Arabic) was commemorated by Shi'a Muslims as the eve of the tragic Battle of Karbala.AttendingTasu'a rituals confronted me with dramatic and unfamiliar ritualbehavior, my ownawkward irresolution about how to comport myself at rituals,my shame about the Americandevastation of Iraq, and my fear of entering spaces potentially filled with extremist Shi'adistraughtabout the fate of IraqiShi'a following the U.S. bombing of Iraq.13I went with Shahida, who was dressed in black shalwar (loose pants), kamis (knee-lengthtunic),and dupata (long rectangularscarfalways worn bywomen as partof theirdress).Shahidagave me a large black dupata embroidered with colored dots to drape over my black shalwarand kamis. She put on her black chador (large, rectangular veil for maintaining purdah orseclusion while outside of the home) and lent me a black chador edged with rust-coloredembroidery. Then we startedout for the Huseiniyyah, the public complex in the Sadar Bazaararea for mourning Husein. As a Shi'a woman, she would not be allowed to watch the men'sprocession, Shahida told me, but if Iwished Icould do so.At the Huseiniyyah, Shahida's father was busy managing paperworkand collecting contributions at a table just inside the gate with severalothermen. She pointed out herbrothers,mother'sbrothers,and mother's father, all central figures in administeringthis large gathering. Womenand children, most clothed in black, streamed into the women's section. Mothers carried theirbabies, also dressed in black. People did not pay much attentionto me, Inoted with relief. Westood waiting in the doorway of a side room, instead of following the roped-off path into thesegregatedwomen's rooms. When men rushingbytold us to move back into this room, Shahidaignored them and even shooed other women further nside to affordus a better view.

Finally he men's procession began. Men handed the alams, long bamboo poles, each toppedwith a metal hand and wrapped with many women's dupatas, to the other males coming outof the courtyardin front of us and moving throughthe passageway toward the street. Stringsofflowers hung fromthe tops of the alams. Chantingand slapping their chests vigorously, men inblack marched by us, some holding little boys, also in mourningclothes, by the hand.When the men had all gone out to the street, we walked straight-ahead into the emptiedcourtyard.Shahida told me to remove my chador. The rooms designated for women were now

opened up to the courtyard, and we stepped in. I was pleased to spot another of my formerstudents and watched as Shahida and Nasreen beat their chests-right hand to left side, andleft hand to rightside-in time to the chanting. With the reassuringpresence of Shahida andNasreen and recalling my years of residence and research in Shi'a Iran, I began to feel more



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comfortable. Shahida acted confidently and as though in charge. Nasreen was quieter, moreeasygoing, and less managerial.

Feeling foolish as the sole exception, Itold Nasreen at my right n the circle of flagellantsthatIwanted to learn to do sineh-zani (chest-beating)and, when she nodded, began to imitate her.In the middle of our circle of flagellants, a mother sat cross-legged on the floor, beating herchest and chanting while nursingher child. A young woman at our left startedcalling out chantsin a loud voice, the girl next to her holding a booklet up for both of them. The girls in our circlegave the answering verses forcefully, and others in the area joined in too. We seemed to becompeting with the older woman and hergrouptoward the right.The girls prevailed and othersstartedjoining our chant.Shahida arrangedfor her grandfather o take me outside to the procession. Policemen wereall around, some holding up the rope barrierssurroundingthe entire procession area. Liftingthe rope for me to pass, the grandfather brought me into the parade area. Reins in hand,Shahida's fatherand uncle stood formallyat either side of the horse representingImamHusein'ssteed, Zuljinnah. Offerings of orange, yellow, and white blossoms and bright-hued, frothywomen's dupatas were piled high on his neck and saddle. People bestowed loving attentionon the horse. One young man held an umbrella to shade his head and another kept liftingthewhite battle dress spotted with imitation human blood, fanning the horse's body underneath.Two teenagers splashed water, cooled by chunks of ice, from a pail onto the horse, the hotpavement, and mourners'bare feet. Women-probably SunniMuslims, covered with light-col-ored chadors14-crowded around the horse, touching and kissing it, and extending theiropenpalms toward it in prayerand supplication.Furtheron, different circles and rows of men, bared to the waist, were energetically beatingthemselves on the chest in rhythmwith theirchanting. They stayed in place for some time andthen moved up a shortway before stopping again. Whenever the sound of clanging metalarose,people ran in the direction of the noise to see men strikingtheir backs with chain flails endingin knives, for the few moments before others forced them to quit their bloody self-mortification.As men cut away at their backs, blood randown, soaking their shalwar sometimes even to theankles and showing up in strikingred contrast against their pure, white cotton pants.When I made my way back to the Huseiniyyah, my two students were holding hands withother young women to form a barrierarounda side doorway inthe courtyard.Young unmarriedmen, excused from purdah restrictionsfor majles service, carried out several layersof stainlesssteel trays at a time, tan-colored rice pushed down flat on each. Standing behind the youngwomen's barricade,they handed traysto the outstretched arms of impatientlywaiting women.The young people looked as if they were enjoying themselves distributingthe food.Shahida's brotherswere among the men distributing he traysof rice. Dressed in blood-stainedwhite shalwar with black kamis, they had clearly performedzangir-zani (beatingthe back withchains) not long before. They looked vigorous and active and never winced while they worked.Flagellantswere not to supposed to show any discomfort; in fact, one girl told me, they do notfeel pain.Some women struggledto get the traysof rice. One obviously poor older woman complainedthat no one would give her any rice. "Thesepeople," one of the girlscommented, "putthe ricein their bags and take it home."Insteadof eating atthe Huseiniyyah, we walked to Shahida's uncle's home, climbinga narrowstairway to a room where women were eating around a tablecloth spread on the floor. Wegreeted the hostess and sank down at the space carved out for us. Soon word reached us thatanother contingent of women was arrivingand, to make room for them, we returned to theHuseiniyyah.

There, Shahida's aunt (MZ)was delivering a sermon. Nearing the end of the emotional storyof martyrdom,she raspedout a phrase, stopped to gasp a breath,and then raspedout another.



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Atthe finaltragicconclusion, her voice reached a sobbingcrescendo and then abruptly stopped.Shahida took a central role in directing the subsequent activities of the women.We stood and began chanting and beating our chests. Shortly,a greatcommotion erupted toour left and the horse was broughtin. The entrance of the horse was a recreation of the A.D.680return of Zuljinnah to the encamped women; the empty saddle on his back testifying to thedeath of his master, Imam Husein. In response, the women startedrapidly hitting their headswith their hands in agitation. They cried out their distraughtgrief to Zuljinnah in verse withlouder voices. The reverberation of their fists knocking their heads rangout sharply, replacingthe hollow sound made by the thump, thump, thump of hundreds of palms whacking chests.Several times the horse's handler led him to standjust in frontof the shrine, effecting a poignantpilgrimageto the replica of his master's tomb, then rushed him to the left again through thefranticallysorrowing women. Women tried to touch the horse while also staying clear of histumbling hoofs. The whole room was tense with excitement. Finally, the horse was takenthroughthe doorway in front of us, back to the room fromwhere he had firstemerged. Facingthe doorway throughwhich the horse haddeparted,the women chanted theirgrieving farewel swhile beating themselves. We continued chanting and striking our chests, calming downgradually.At one pointthe flagellation mode changed back from head to chest beating. Slowingdown littleby little,the beatingand chanting finallyended. We stood there a while. More waterand sweetened drinks were distributed. Some Pukhtunwomen came up and spoke to me; theyliked it that I had worn black and beaten myself. Shahida, evidently unhappy at my talking tothe Pukhtunwomen, led me away. The streets were quiet and calm now. On the way backthroughthe bazaar Iheard one shopkeeper say to another, "Therego the Shi'a."

the majales and limiting messages about femininitymale domination over sermons, process, and symbols Throughritualparticipation,Shi'awomen faced a deluge of messages about female dependency and religious, social, and physicalinadequacy. Ritual sermons disseminated messages of male authority and advised greaterrestrictions orwomen. Male preachersat the men's rituals-which women attended in silencebehind doors or curtains-and female preachers at the women's rituals exhorted women tofollow Islamic laws, cover themselves strictly, obey their husbands completely, and stay awayfrom unrelated men.

As well as permeating ritualsermons, male dominance pervaded ritualprocess. Men tookpositions as ritual masters, while women assumed positions as ritual managers. Womenconducted their own rituals, but with male approval and encouragement. Men took overwhenever they were present. Although women planned, administered, and performed in theirown rituals,they remained out of sight when attending male rituals.There, they were not tochant or pray aloud or even weep or strike themselves loudly enough to be heard by men.Women's inability to participate visibly or audibly in male rituals demonstrated their inferiorposition.

Among the most rituallyactive women were female relatives of male officers in the Shi'aorganizations. Shireen, the female rozahkhwana (reciterof Muharramaccounts), was the wifeof a central figure, who was also a rozahkhwan. An outstanding marsia singer-the mother ofShahida-and Mahreen, the female preacher, were sisters of the president of the local Shi'aorganization. Outstanding female performers had been encouraged and taught by malerelatives. Shireen, the rozahkhwana from the Old City, which was home to many Shi'adescendants of Persianized Anatolian Qizilbash, had been trained by her husband. When otherfemale rozahkhwana could no longer sing owing to their advanced age, he had told her thatshe should replace them. Mahreen was encouraged by her brother, the president of thePeshawar Shi'a organization. He had written a speech for her when she was a student. Ithad



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been a very good speech, he told me, but she had not been able to deliver it at school. She wasdisappointed. "Never mind," he told her. "Youcan give it at the Huseiniyyah Hall." She did,and so was launched on her preaching career. Realizingwhat useful resources female majlesactivists were for their own power struggles, male leaders supported their female dependents'prominence in majales.

Inspite of the avowed unity and equality of all Shi'a, these male politicians were contendingfor power, not only with the Sunni government and demographic majority,but also within theShi'a population. The well-to-do Mohajir and Qizilbash Shi'a, successful merchants andfinanciers, dominated Shi'a political organizations and ritual activity alike. Although theyattempted to curb these attitudes in public, Mohajir and Qizilbash Shi'a looked down onPukhtun Shi'a. These Shi'a, a minority among the otherwise Sunni Pukhtun,were of ruraloriginand lacked the sophistication, education, and-most often-wealth of the Mohajirand Qizil-bash Shi'a.

Shi'a women and, moreobviously, Shi'amen competed with each other for ritualand politicalprominence, which was closely related to economic success. Sponsoring ritualswas expensivebut necessary for Shi'a political power. For Shi'a political leaders, having a good number offemale relatives active in majales was a prerequisite orsuccess. These female relativesenjoyedadvantages that made their ritual preeminence possible. They had the space and money forhosting many majales, class-induced self-confidence, and the literacy necessary for preparingsermons, conducting ritualreadings, and transcribingand learningall the new marsia and nohain orderto have the largest,most up-to-date ritualrepertoires.'5As these women were crucial political resources, the men took care to control them. Gossipsuggested that Mahreen's brother had refused all her suitors in order to keep her outstandingpreaching abilities under his own management. He owned the courtyardand rooms where shelived with her two unmarried sisters and where she held her many majales. Whenever he wasin Mahreen's courtyard,he took charge. One evening after a women's majles, the sisters and Iwere sitting in the calm of the courtyardenjoying the evening, drinkingtea, and chatting withthe small group of women who had stayed on. Their brother brusquely ordered us into thecurtained-off rooms; men were startingto arriveforthe men's majles to follow. We did as wewere told.

When Mahreen hosted women's majales at her home, this brother and other male relativescarried in the huge kettleof food. In a display combining cooperation and control, they dishedit into plattersdistributedby women and unmarriedgirls.Theirphysical strengthin carryingtheheavy kettle,financial power infundingthe meal, and social and culturalauthority n monitoringwomen's behavior highlighted female subordination and dependency.Even among themselves, women did not escape supervision. Women served as agents ofpatriarchalauthority.They pressuredothers to attend majales, formingeffective social controlunits. If one missed a meeting, her relatives were queried. The absentee was also directlyinterrogatedat the next opportunity. Pressuredid not stop at proddingothers to attend majales.Older women monitored self-flagellatingzeal and were quick to reproach lethargy. Duringoneall-night majles, after hours of beating my sore chest, I slapped a thigh in time to the marsiainstead. When that thigh started to sting, Islapped the other thigh. Finally, Ijust sat, exhausted;itwas two in the morning. One of the informalleaders came by, picked up my hand, stretchedithigh into the air,and then slammed it back against my chest. The message was clear; Inumblystartedthumping my chest again. The group of women who spent so much time together fortwo-and-a-half months exerted social control as well as social support.Inaddition to ritualsermons and ritualprocess, men controlled the most significant symboliccomplexes. As a climax to the majales dedicated to Hazrat-e Abbas (younger half-brother ofHusein), one or more alams were broughtfromthe shrine room into the assembly. The femalescried out in sorrow, and their self-flagellation grew more frenzied. A number of alams also



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headed men's mourning processions watched by less strictly secluded women. The alamsrepresentedthe battle flag held by Hazrat-eAbbas when he was martyredat Karbala.Hazrat-eAbbas had been a protectorof women, Iwas told;thiswas why women's dupatas (long scarves)were tied to his alams.

When Imam Husein died in battle, his horse, Zuljinnah,was wounded. According to legend,the riderless horse returned to the waiting womenfolk, thereby announcing his master'smartyrdomand throwing the women into paroxysms of grief. A white horse representingZuljinnah,decorated with flowers and women's scarves, walked in each male procession. Mentrained the horses taking this role; women could not handle Zuljinnah, Iwas informed. Afterprocessions, one or two men broughthim into the largeroom or courtyard, bringingthe waitingwomen to a climax of sorrow. Women crowded around the central symbolic complexes of themourning rituals-both of them male-touching or clinging to them in hopes of spiritual helpin their sufferingand adversity.

bloodshed: male martyrs-female filth and frailty Women devoted far more time thanmen to meritoriousmourning-because they had nothingelse to do, both women and men toldme. The most dramatic, painful, and, therefore, meritorious mourning practices, however,belonged to men. To conclude the large majales for men, some men bared their upper bodiesupon the entrance of Zuljinnah and lashed their backs with chains ending in knives (zangir-zani). Inanticipation of this event, women jockeyed on hidden balconies or behind curtains forgood vantage positions, then pushed and shoved to see the flaying arms, clanging metal, andnaked backs streamingwith blood, the scene ending aftera few short momentsof pandemonium.Beforeshe and her brother left me at the door of such a gathering, a student friend-herselfprevented fromattending by her strictfamily-warned me to pull no punches in elbowing andjostlingmy way to the front of the women's balcony to get a good view of the men's zangir-zani:"Being polite will get you nowhere!" At processions in the Old City's narrow alleyways, myQizilbash companions crowded in, craning their necks. They urged me into a well-placedcorner to view the retiring lagellants striding pastto go and rinse off theirbacks, awash in brightred blood.

Mothersdid notexpress concern about theirflagellantsons but were heartened bytheirmanlycourage. One afternoon, as Isatwith Shireen,the Qizilbash rozahkhwana,duringthe intermis-sion of her relatives' ritual,she called to her sons in the courtyard,proudlydrawing the curtainaside to let them enter. They had just renderedzangir-zani. Stepping in, they turned around ather requestto display their bloody backs.

Boys begin swinging the chain-and-knife scourges at an early age. I saw boys as young asfive or six grasp a wooden handle and awkwardly jerkthe scourge in a half-circle to fling thechains toward their backs. The knives fastened to the end links cut at their young shoulders fora few moments before older boys broughtthe novice flagellants' session to a close. Teenagersand young men more vigorously whipped the scourges around one side and then the other,knives fleetingly slicing their backs, new dribbles of blood sprouting with each stroke. Afterfriends forced an end to their frenzied devotion, they bathed and donned white tunics. Whenthey reappeared, the red stains slowly spreadingover the backs of their snowy clean garmentswere dramatic badges telling of sacrifice and spiritualzeal.Afterabout 40 years of age, men no longer possess the vitality for the arduous zangir-zanipracticed by virile youth, but their backs still carrythe marks of the severe thrashing.When Ileftthe SadarBazaarHuseiniyyah to watch the 1991 Tasu'a men's streetprocession, a circle ofmiddle-aged men beat their bare chests with one fist and then the other in time to mourningchants as Iwalked by. On the bared backs turned in my direction Icould see long, slashing,crisscrossingscars, notarizing years of zangir-zani. The jagged blazes, sculpted in raisedwelts,were ineradicable, embodied testimony to their Shi'a identityand devotion.



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But women are not allowed the meritoriouszangir-zani. Because of modesty requirements,women cannot bare their backs for zangir-zani, as they patiently explained. Also, they claimthat menstruation makes women too weak to lose more blood. Thus, women are disqualifiedfromthe most laudable and spectacular manner of veneration.Male bloodshed is a precious gift to the Imam and a sign of readiness for martyrdom;butrepositories of sacredness, by contrast, abhor feminine bloodshed. When the white horseentered the assembly of women, reenacting Zuljinnah's telling riderless appearance at theKarbalacamp, menstrual bloodshed would be despicable to him. Zuljinnah would becomeangrywith any menstruatingwoman in the crowd, my students told me, and would tryto strikeher with his hoofs. She should not have exposed his holy presence to her pollution.

the body as site of the power of resistance: women's unworthiness The body isgenerallyseen as the ultimate site for the demonstrationof political might. Dorinda Outramcallsthe physical body "the most basic political resource" (1989:1). The abilityto control another'sbody, to mark it, act in violence against it, or force it to go through prescribed motions, is themost effective sign of power. Whereas the oppressor subjugates the other's body and denies itautonomous subjectivity, the lattergrasps at even small opportunities to retain subtle "objec-tionable" viewpoints, minute behavioraldeviations, or a modicum of self-controlover the body.

Through self-flagellation, Shi'a Muslims are in a sense reinterpretingpast, present, andpotential violence against themselves, construing it to signify their ability and willingness tosuffer bodily harm. They are sending messages, written on their very flesh, to Imam Huseinabout their loyalty and reverence, to other Shi'a about their credentials and adherence, and toenemies about their courage and conviction.16 By striking themselves, Shi'a men preemptoppressors' blows to theirbodies, acting out their strengthand resolution inthe face of possibleassault. Nothing done to their bodies will defeat them. Quite to the contrary,even in death theywill find life; they are preparedto follow in the footsteps of Imam Husein, to become martyrsfor him and his cause of defeating tyrannyand pursuingjustice.Shi'a Muslims' self-mortification reminds us that the body is not only a site for inscriptionofoppressors' messages; it is also a site forself-inscriptionof messages by rebels and resisters.'7Itis thus a site for contestation over meaning and power. Shi'a men, through zangir-zani, tookback their bodies from present or potential oppressors and used them to convey their ownmeanings. By carving badges of blood and crisscrossing scars on their bodies, they transformedtheir very bodies into units of communication. Through self-inscription with scourges, theytestified to their capacity and willingness to be martyred,should there be the call.

Incontrast to men's zangir-zani, Peshawar women's self-flagellation seemed more a sign ofreadiness for suffering and grieving for the dead than a readiness to face death as martyrsthemselves. Women's Muharrampractice of beating theirchests with their hands and weepingand moaning fits a more general idiom of mourning for the dead in the Middle East and SouthAsia. The lack of demand fortheir blood paralleledthe assumptionthat women were unqualifiedto become martyrs.Shi'a men, by inscribing bloody badges and scars on their bodies throughself-flagellation, could turn their bodies into "words" (de Certeau 1988:149) of consummatespiritual meaning, thereby earning the greatest reward. Women, although embodying holymeanings of willingness to suffer loss, were not able to convert their bodies into signs ofmartyrdom n imitation of ImamHusein.18

Ironically, perhaps,the prohibitionagainstwomen shedding blood and scarring lesh throughscourging their backs as an offeringto Imam Husein served as yet another powerful messageabout their lack of worth. Yetthey managed to turn the Muharrammajles,the source of so muchsubduing imagery and commentary on femininity, into a forum for developing self-worth.Women's weak, menstruating bodies and expected self-abnegation were symbols of theirreligious unworthiness and dependency. Yet on this occasion when the men, through bodily



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practice,also expressed self-abnegation, the women could achieve a sense of redemption-andagency-through parallel bodily practices.

restraints on agency: the ties that bindties thatbind-family affiliation Peshawar hi'awomenwereinnopositionodispute heseoppressive ritual statements on femininity in any overt manner. The family, religious, andspiritualattachmentsthey perceived as vital for their well-being affected their agency, quietedfrank protests, and limited their methods of resistance to experiential, practical, or artfulassertions.

Unlike otheroppressed groups, women aregenerally on intimateterms with theiroppressors,sharing familyties, love, sexual relationships,economic and political interests,religious beliefsand affiliation, residence, and long years of personal history with those who most directlydominate them. Women are therefore reluctantto relinquishrelationshipstarnished by gender-based subordination(see also Hochschild 1990; Zavella 1990). Such is particularly he case inMiddle Easterncountries, where some women often feel so family-connected that they do notreport sensing an autonomous identity. A Middle Eastern woman generally understandsseparationfrom family-her source of security if also of bondage (Joseph1982)-to be nearlyimpossible.19Pakistaniwomen similarlytend to judge it best to accept the "patriarchalbargain"(Kandiyoti1988) of dependency in exchange for protection, economic support, and sociallegitimacy.20ties that bind-religious affiliation: construction of community and evolution of reli-gious transnationalism The threatened, minoritystatus of Pakistani Shi'a and their relatedpolitical mobilization significantlyaffected Shi'a women's agency as well, deterring open revoltagainst male privilege and power. Pakistani Shi'a were becoming more politicized andconscious of Shi'a identity as well as discrimination and violence against Shi'a. With easytransportation, ontacts with Shi'a communities in Indiawere common. Peshawar Shi'atraveledto Iranas well. Thegreat majoritywith whom Ispoke were delighted with the Iranianrevolutionof 1978-79 and its subsequent developments. They were devoted to the memory of AyatollahKhomeini. Women spoke to me enthusiasticallyof their pilgrimagesto shrines in Iranand theirguest visits, accompanied by male relatives, at the 1991 commemorations of AyatollahKhomeini's death. Shi'a anguished over the violence against Muslims in Kashmir,an areacontrolled by Indiaalthough populated by a Muslim majority.After the Gulf Warthey turnedagainst Saddam Husein because of his treatment of IraqiShi'a and collected funds to assist thedevastated IraqiShi'a.Inaddition to the impact of internationalevents, internalpolitics incensed the Shi'a commu-nity and bound it closer together. People spoke about job discrimination against Shi'a. Shi'atold me indistressthatthey had seen, paintedon walls, the words "Shi'aare kafar[unbelievers]."The unpunished 1988 assassination in Peshawar of the highest rankingPakistaniShi'a cleric,Arifal-Hussaini, enraged Shi'a. Said one man, "You know how people say, 'Live like Ali anddie like Husein'?21Now we say, 'Live like Khomeini and die like Hussaini.' "Other Pakistani Shi'a martyrs were plentiful. Violence against Shi'a during Muharrammourning processions was common. Shi'awere assaultedduringprocessions in 1991, includingsome in Parachinar, a northwest frontier province town, who were killed by the very po-lice-members of the Sunni majority-assigned to protect their procession! Elsewhere inPakistan, Shi'a were murdered by explosives thrown into ritual gatherings.22In the face ofgrowing Sunni extremism and Saudi influence,23Shi'a felt forced to unite and lobby forsecurityduring ritualpractices.



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The Shi'a found much in current events to make them feel like a besieged minority,reminiscent of Imam Husein's small band fighting a caliph they considered to be a corruptinterloper.24Shi'a women shared the men's anger, fear, and increased Shi'a sensibility, andavoided obvious gender-based dissension that might have precipitated a debilitating rift.ties that bind-spiritual affiliation: the Karbala morality tale and its experiential portrayalsThe battle on the Karbala plains generated the central Shi'a paradigm, with its profoundsignificance for Shi'a spirituality and sensibility. Several anthropologists have scrutinizedprocessual paradigms-key enculturatedconcepts that represent, explain, and order the courseof events in human history.25Membersof a culture distill root paradigmsor culturalmodels andforge the concepts and attached emotions and predispositions into representationsor experien-tial portrayalsthrough ritual-"cultural performances" (Singer 1958) or a culture's "formalstatements"(Ortner1987:1).

For Shi'a Muslims, the Karbalamyth is a potent processual paradigm, root metaphor, orcultural script. Its ritualrepresentationsand enactments-rozah (narratives),ta'ziyeh (passionplays), processions, majales, sineh-zani (chest-beating), zangir-zani, marsia, and noha-arefundamental to Shi'aspiritual,emotional, social, cultural,and political life. Formost Shi'a,ImamHusein and the Prophet's family and descendants are not only spiritual figuresbut are also seenas intimate associates or close familymembers (Betteridge1985, 1989). The paradigmaticmythof male martyrdomand female captivity at Karbala is not desiccated history but immediatetragedy, suffering,and grief with profound relevance for life today. Fordevotees, the spiritualworld has become one with the physical through this focal parable. By lamenting the Karbalamartyrsand captives, Shi'a connect themselves to the Sacred, the Prophetand his Holy Family,the cosmos, and all others in the community of believers throughout historywho have likewisemourned and remembered. By mourning Imam Husein, Shi'a seek redemption.

Throughtheir ritualperformancesShi'awomen are seeking a relationshipof reciprocitywithspiritualfigures, with consequences for both the next world and their cares and wishes in thisone.26Aftera mourningritual,women have told me, they feel spirituallycleansed and purified;they feel lighter.The rituals are an emotional outlet, helping them to release tension. Becauseof theirspiritualand emotional attachments to the Karbalamartyrsand rootparadigm,PeshawarShi'a women would be loath to forego the rituals, nor would they bluntly challenge ritualinstructions about the character and place of women. No woman criticized religious pro-nouncements about gender in my presence.27Women were thus not willing to go beyond permitted parametersto develop their sense ofagency and gendered self-worth. Other than the majles, they had virtually no suitable forumfor competition and assertiveness, public performance, travel to far-flung neighborhoods,development of a large social network,enjoyable companionship, or the gaining of fame andreputation. Shi'a women did not forgo the rituals, explicitly deny their gender messages, orquestion the validity of these beloved rites. Rather, they muffled belittling messages aboutgender by amplifyingtheir achievements and capabilities in ritualpractice.

women's ritual practice: agency despite constraintIn considering the connections between their ritual performances and the Shi'a women's

gendered agency and subjectivities, I am reminded of Muharram ritualsin the IranianRevolu-tion. In Iran he Imam Husein mourningrituals served as a crucible for transformingmeaning,subjectivities, and, ultimately, political power. In the years leading up to the revolution,increasing numbers of people practiced the same traditional Muharramrituals-but with anevolving meaning, a "hiddentranscript" Scott 1990) circulated behind the scenes, of the needto imitate Imam Husein's courage in struggling against unjust authority.Ultimatelythe Iranian



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revolutionarieswere able to unveil their opposition-nurtured under the protective curtain oftraditional ritual-in open protest duringthe transformed December 1978 Tasu'a and 3Ashura(the tenth) processions (Hegland 1983a, 1983b). This strategyof transformingmeaning, world-view, and subjectivity under the camouflage of traditional ritual,through bodily rather thanverbal discourse, can also be applied to gender politics.28majles performances: creating meaning through ritual practice Shi'a women ofPeshawar influenced the meaning of the Husein root paradigmand its cultural performancesfor themselves in the only way they could: through their enactment practices. As Schieffelin(1985) and Brenneis(1987) argue, ritualaudience members are not passive recipients of a rigidand uniform ritual package but instead are actively involved in the social construction andresulting meaning of a ritual.29This argumentapplies powerfullyto majles performersand theircreativity.At a majleseveryone is both performerand audience. Through heirindividualactionsand the meaning they choose to foreground, all participantsinfluence their ritualexperiencesand their significance forthem.Although, according to Schieffelin, "the performance is bound to mean different things todifferent people" (1985:722), majles participantsare not unrestrainedin what they can makeof ritual exts and symbols.30Further, s Catherine Bell pointsout, "onemightretainone's limitedand negotiated involvement in the activities of ritual, but bowing or singing in unison imper-ceptibly schools the social body in the pleasures of and schemes foracting in accordance withassumptions that remain far from conscious or articulate"(1992:21 5).

Nevertheless, participants help construct a ritual and its ambience, action, and significance.The meanings andeffects fromritualframing,personal input,and interactionamong participantscan be as influentialas, or even more so than, the meanings and effects officially derived fromformal majles texts. Action constantly re-creates and modifies cultural structures hat simulta-neously channel it.31All action is marked by the influence of culturalconstraints and thus insome ways entails accommodation, serving to reinforce existing structures.At the same time,actions cannot be exact replications of cultural structures.Agency and the consequent possi-bilityof resistance are intertwined,even merged, with accommodation. Enactmentsof culturalrepresentationsthus simultaneouslyenable (allow agency and creativity)and constrain(channelexperience and meaning)(see Coombe 1989:90).32While acting out theirprofoundattachmentto Imam Husein through the Muharramrituals, the women simultaneously "subverted" theritualsfor additional aims and meanings.33

social construction of ritual experience Shi'a women attemptedto use their empoweringritualexperiences to contrive a protective shield against gender disdain.34 Women aimed toattend as many ritualsas possible, and were quietly proud of their eminence as performers;afew younger women even boasted of it. They acted on their own and did backstage directing.They gained self-esteem from their capabilities and gifts to Imam Husein and to Shi'a unity(Hegland 1997a). Ritualsprovided women with a legitimate excuse to leave their houses andchores (Hegland 1997b). Men never told them not to go, an older woman claimed, and it wasapparent that women relished the two-and-a-half-month social whirl during the mourningseason. They appreciatedthe comfort of singing and chanting long-familiarverses and enjoyedthemselves withtime to eat, drink,and chat. The older Indianwomen chewed pan (apreparationincluding betel leaf).A number of single, childless, widowed, and even divorced women found in ritual anapproved outlet for theirtime and energy. Troubled women could reach out to the holy objectsand saints for assistance. They dedicated their mourning activities to Imam Husein or hisyounger half-brotherAbbas in hopes of succor. Other women sympathized with their heart-aches. In addition to the surveillance and social pressure already mentioned, women found



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group approval for their participation and seemed to sense unity with others in the mourningprocess.Women could hold respected leadership roles. Several middle-aged women, who constitutedan informaldecision-making core, subtly guided rituals,rulingon contested performance slotsand regulatingthe length of each ritualstage. When they determined that the laments shouldend, one of them chanted Husein, Husein, Husein while rapidly pounding her chest. The otherwomen immediately understood her signal to stop offering noha. Shireen, for example,described how others respected her: even her older sisters-in-law deferred to her because ofher recitals of Karbalastories and because her face flagellation was more rigorousand painfulthanthe styles performedby other women. Maturewomen also appreciatedthese opportunities.Two older women living in the Old City who were close friends held many majales; eachattended the ceremonies of the other, looking comfortable and relaxed sittingquietly together.Evenself-flagellationcould be appropriated orself-expression, performanceexcellence, andindividuality. A few women engaged in unusually energetic chest-beating, one leaving scabsand others developing bruises of which they seemed quietly proud. Isaw several women droptheir otherwise ever-present dupatas or scarves and swing from side to side in a chest-beatingroutineresemblinga dance, face upliftedandeyes closed ina trancelike state. Shireenexplainedher own face flagellation, in which she painfully beat her cheekbones, as showing greaterdevotion to Imam Husein. Taughtthat theirfemale bodies precluded the highest veneration toImam Husein, women used those same bodies to attain unusual devotion and to experienceand act out their engendered worth. Thanks to the symbolic multivocality of the "discursivebody," 35they could use their bodies not only to convey Shi'a religious, spiritual,and politicalmeanings,but also to convey gender meanings, implicitlyresistingdominant,patriarchaldogma.Women gained a sense of power from contact with the Divine and the religious strengththereby gained. Religious permission to enjoy an active life outside their homes broughtthis-worldly power through social support and freedom from household confinement. Onewoman, an outstanding performerwith a beautifulvoice, did not have children. Her Muharramsinging was her profession, her calling, another woman explained; her strenuous schedule andhighly regardedtalent helped fill her childless days. One evening she was sick. Her feet hadswollen, the soloist told me, through so much walking from one majles to another. Herhusbandscolded her, "You'regoing to get terribly ill if you don't rest. Don't go tomorrow!" She tossedher head in the midst of telling the story. "Itold him, 'I'mgoing.' And today I got up and gotready and I'mjust fine!" Inthis she even implied that, with the Imam's mystical intervention,she did not need to listen to her husband!36

Shahida's triumph Shahida's triumphantseizing of a performance opportunity in front ofhundredsof women, too, was a delicious illustrationof how females can appropriatemourningrituals-which are, after all, to the glory of the Imam-for self-aggrandizement and personalidentityformation with complete propriety.

Outstanding performerstatus brought prestige and honor to a young woman or group ofsisters, relatives, or friends. Women eagerly vied for the opportunity to earn a reputationfortheir excellence at performance. Because of time limits, however, not all who wished to performwere able to do so. At a majles, only three or four marsia could be sung before, and three orfour noha chanted after,the sermon. To seize a time slot, a group had to jump in exactly as theprevious group was drawing its marsia or noha to a close. Successful contenders for theopportunityto display their talent early on, or even to performat all, must be astute judges oftiming and shrewd negotiators of etiquette requirements-all in all, formidable strategists.At a large, multiethnicgatheringof Muhajir,Qizilbash, and Pukhtun Shi'awomen in the OldCity Huseiniyyah Hall, Iwatched Shahida and hergroup readythemselves to sing as the sermonended. An older ensemble of apparently notable women began a noha, obviously by previous



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arrangementwith the organizers. Holding their ground at the frontof the hall, Shahida and hergroup of friends stood together waiting. Before the conclusion of the firstnoha, the hostessrushed over to them with the apologetic request to wait until afteryet another noha by a groupthat she did not wish to offend. While anotherwoman led the second noha, Shahida's ensembleconcentrated on making sure that no one else would beat them to performingthe next noha.They obtained control over the microphone, firmly placing the stand in front of themselves.Theypositionedthemselves withthe air of those about to starta racethey weredetermined o win.A split second after the conclusion of the noha, Shahida's ensemble began singing in blaringvoices. Beatingthemselves with athletic swings to the chest with one hand and then the other,they piously looked up toward the heavens. Clearly, they were not preparedto see or hear anyother group that might starta noha; they would not interrupt heir singing under any circum-stances. Anothergroup did starta noha and kept up a rivalsong for a number of lines. But therewas no contest. Possession of the microphone allowed the voices of Shahida and her friends toflood over the hundreds of women crowded into the Huseiniyyah Hall. Shahida'sgroup hadwon the performanceslot and wider performance fame. The other group conceded defeat.

When I asked her why she was so active in ritual performance, Shahida unabashedlyresponded, "Ido it for fame!" She smiled with delighted pride as she told me she was the bestnoha singer inthe whole city. Her uncle confirmed herassertions:"Everyone n Peshawar,Sunnior Shi'a, knows of herbecause of hernoha singing."Theyoung woman was assertive and strong,competitive and self-confident-all with the approval of her uncle.The conservative, seyyid (descended from the Prophet),pir (saintly)familyof anotherstudentdid not even allow her and her female relatives to attend the segregated women's majales. Insharp contrast to those of the ritualactivists, these women's activities and personas sufferedconsiderably. The contrast showed me what a difference the opportunities allowed by a busyritual schedule can make in the lives of women who would otherwise be confined to theirhomes.Shahida's worldview and subjectivityentailed a relatively positive view of feminine contri-butions, value, and power. More than other women, Shahidaexpounded on Hazrat-eZaynab'scentralityto the Karbalaparadigm,recognizing hercourage and strengthas no less than a man'sin guiding and protectingthe other captive women and one ill male, and telling the martyrdomstory even at the Caliph's court. Without Hazrat-e Zaynab's speeches and laments, Shahidaclaimed, the Karbalaparadigmcould not have survived and "if there was no Karbala, here isno Islam."37

Shahida's engendered confidence and competence, suggested in her comments aboutZaynab's key role in preservingIslam and so apparent in her own dashing ritualperformances,carriedover into her behavior elsewhere. Whereas other studentsdisplayed shyness in frontofme, theirprofessor,Shahidaalways exuded self-assurance. This young woman, so bold in ritualperformance, was also the firstto imitate me in wrapping her chador around her body, butleaving her head and hairexposed on our daily bus tripsto the women's college. The youngwomen students crowded into our females-only bus tried, as I did, not to stare when, for thefirst ime, and with a toss of her head, she let her chador drop down to hershoulders.Shahida'spostureand expression showed her awareness of the splash she was makingand hergratificationwith her own daring. On subsequent trips, a few other students followed Shahida's exam-pie-until, worried about anger againstthe American threatsto attack Iraq,Ialso retractedmyself-display and kept my head covered, even on the bus.

agency and accommodation in Peshawar Shi'a women's ritual practice Women'sagency is closely related to their subjectivity, which is constantly evolving as the contributingfactors o women's worldviewschange and interactwitheach other.As theircomponentschanged,Shi'awomen's majles practices continuouslyevolved, producingceaselessly unfoldingmeaning,



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subjectivity, and social context. Inturn,as the ritualpractices changed, the components of thepractices evolved (see Loeffler1988:250).Their attachments to family, religious community, and Shi'a spiritualityhad a significantimpact on Peshawar Shi'a women's subjectivity, and thus on their agency. Partly n deferenceto these bonds, the women were not able to struggleovertly forgender equality in 1991. Whenopen struggle is not feasible, sometimes religious ritual provides a permitted, protectedtransformativearena in which to develop the experiences, meanings, subjectivities, capabilities,analytical frameworks,and power needed forovert resistance to patriarchalstructures.Unablein any significant degree to transcend gender rules or develop agency through direct, confron-tational verbal activity, some Peshawar Shi'a women found in ritual the opportunityto do sothrough performativeaction. Thus, finding little indication in explicit verbaldiscourse, we mustread the performativeaspects of their ritualactivity or the discursive body for implicitevidenceof their developing agency.

Perhaps, if and when circumstances permit,this developing power can be utilized to struggledirectly for change within a framework that is both confining and all-embracing, or even toventure outside it. Transformingritual experiences can help prepare participantsto take achance and face the consequences-the likely challenges, traumas, and punishments-in anattempt to bring about more equitable voice, opportunity, and evaluation for themselves andothers. While conditions prevent open political activism, ritual practice can enable ritualparticipantsto wield agency, share in creating meaning, and make more of their worlds.

conclusion: forming, reforming, and transforming experience,meaning, and self

What women make of their majles ritual experiences is inspired by the ongoing dialecticbetween themselves and theirsurroundingsocial structure(Loeffler 1988). "Socialtheory musttake into account the contributions agents make in constructing the view of the social world(and thereby in constructing this world) by means of the representational activity that theyconstantly perform,for it is in such activity that power lies" (Coombe 1989:103).The Peshawar women found power in majles performances.While enacting mourningrituals,Shi'a women added their own personal, emotional reasons to the official purposesof the majlesmeetings. Inritualperformance,they attended to their own concerns as gendered agents as wellas to the concerns of theirwider religious community. Theirpractices and interactionsprovidedsome with more potent meaning about theirgendered power than the ritual exts, symbols, andfundamentalistsermons.Indeed, women in general did not seem to take fundamentalist admonitions very seriously.When the visiting cleric from Karachi rebuked women for their lapses in purdah and inobedience to their husbands during his men's majles sermon, they chuckled quietly in theircurtained-off rooms. Their muted laughter-a muffled sign of resistance-indicated howuntroubledthey were about such alleged deficiencies.From what I saw in the summer of 1991, their wider arena of ritualactivity brought somebenefits to the otherwise quite restrictedPeshawar Shi'a women. At the time of my research,Peshawar Shi'a women managed to blend accommodation and agency so as to construct aworld offeringsome social support,autonomy, and individuation, even as they operated withinan ultimately male-controlled framework. Drawing from cultural and religious resources,changing social circumstances, and their own personalities and creativity, they formed,reformed,and-to a degree-transformed ritualexperiences, meanings, and subjectivities.Willtheir proliferatingritualopportunities to develop leadership, self-confidence, social support,and assertiveness graduallyenable them to do more? Itis hardto imagine the dynamic studentShahida failing to seize any available opportunity. Or, acting as they did within permitted



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parameters, if their increasingly fundamentalist supervisorscurtail those parameters,will theShi'a women have to go back to attemptingto gestate selves in more restrictiveenclosures?To address this question, we must take more than one level of action into account. Ananalytical approach informedby practice theoryenables us to see the lively agency of PeshawarShi'a women in making what they can of a limitingworld and finding ways to question thoselimits without riskingtoo much. Women's agency, however, is not the only force influencingtheir immuringwalls. The majestic audacity of Shahida's gestureof uncovering her head on abus testifies not only to her agency, but also reveals much about the overwhelming power oflarger structures and the attendant difficulty of women's resistance in Peshawar's severelyconservative environment.38We must recognize the level of confinement that leaves PeshawarShi'a women little option but to spend their agency and creativity in attempting to transformself-flagellation, phallocentric rituals,and a fundamentalist movement into constructive incu-bators for self, gender, and community. With regardto both Shi'awomen's heavy involvementin majles rituals and Shahida's bold move to bare her head, we must "take into account thebrutallyrestrictedrange of options within which this particularchoice is seen as rational and'free' (and, indeed, defiant)" (Seaman 1992:308).Women's innovative agency is a necessary but insufficient factor for decisive gendertransformation.39Women's agency in ritualpractice may indeed partiallytransformmeaningsand subjectivities,and these inturnmayfurtheraffectagency. When they express theirmodifiedworldviews, women make these ingredients available to others (Loeffler 1988). As Loefflerreminds us, however, "thespread of these 'mutations' is then more than anything else a matterof power, access to distributionnetworks,and the abilityto presentthem with such persuasionthat they come to be perceived as eminently true"(1988:252). What these Shi'a women willbe able to do with their transformationsof oppressive ritualdogma intoaffirming,self-enhancingexperiences and meanings is uncertain. Whether women's agential creativity, effort, andsacrifice will lead to significant gender transformation is not under their sole control. Changealso depends on social, economic, and political forces from the local to the international level.

notesAcknowledgments.hisarticle volved rompaperspresentedtthepanel"Women ndPolitics:CreatingandCriticizing radition"t the MiddleEastStudiesAssociation onference n November1991 and theinvited essionon "Gender ndReligiousFundamentalismross-Culturally,"ponsored ythe Associationof FeministAnthropologistsndtheGeneralAnthropologyectionat the AnnualMeeting f the AmericanAnthropological ssociationn November1993. The efforts f organizers,hairs,discussants, nd otherpresenters re much appreciated.Forfundingmy research n Pakistan am grateful o the FulbrightCommission,ndfortheirgenerositynallowingmea yearof leaveandprovidingme withsupplementaryresearch unds,I thankthe administrationnd membersof my department t Santa ClaraUniversity.Althoughheirnameshavebeenchanged oprotectheirprivacy,owe much omyPeshawar hi'a riendsfortheircordialassistanceandfellowship.Fortheircreative,constructiveomments,proddingme intofurther evelopmentand enhancedexpressionof my ideas,I amgratefulo CatherineBell,SimaFahid,MarilynFernandez,DorotheaFrench,Erika riedl,ShahinGerami,ShahlaHaeri,PatriciaHiggins,DianeJonte-Pace,NancyLindisfarne,arbaraMolony,CarolMukhopadhyay,eyyedValiRezaNasr,NayerehTohidi,GeorgeWestermark,AmericanEthnologistditor MichaelHerzfeldand the AE anonymousreviewers, ndespecially o Diane Dreher ndJeanHeglandwhogenerously avededicated upport nddetailedattention o severaldrafts.To my wonderfulresearchassistants,MichelleBrunetand CapriceScarborough, any hanks!1. Sunni themajorityn most Muslimcountries) ndShi'aare the two maingroupsof Muslims.LikeCatholicChristians,hi'abelieve nintercession etweenGodandhumanity-in hiscasethroughhefamilyof the Prophet, mams successors o the Prophet),and imamzadeh descendants f the Imams).LikeProtestanthristians,rthodoxSunnido notacceptmediation rspiritual ierarchy, lthoughmanySunniindividualso.2. SeeAhmed1994, Haeri1995b,and Mehdi1990.3. Shi'aarea minoritynmostotherMuslim ountries,uchas Bahrain,Kuwait, audiArabia,Pakistan,Lebanon, ndAfghanistan.lthoughmostIraqis reShi'a about55 percent),hegovernmentscontrolled



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by Sunni. Shi'a are the majority n newly independentAzerbaijan,formerlya republicof the USSR,althoughthe government is secular. A large minorityin Tajikistan s Shi'a as well.4. See, forexample, Ajami1986, Cole 1988, Cole and Keddie 1986, Halawi 1992, Hasnain1988, Keddie1983, Kramer1987, Loeffler1988, Mottahedeh 1985, Nakash 1994, Norton 1988, Pinault 1992a, Ram1994, Rizvi 1986, Schubel 1993, and Wiley 1992.5. See Ahmed 1987; Keddie 1993, 1995:183-186, 208, 209; Sagaster1993; and Schubel 1993.6. Among the published works on men's mourning processions, gatherings, recited stories, theaterproductions, poetry, and hymns developed around ImamHusein's A.D.680 martyrdomare Al-Naqvi 1974;Ameed 1974; Ayoub 1978; Beeman 1981; Bogdanov 1923; Cardoza 1990; Chelkowski 1971,1979,1980,1985; Chelkowski and Korom1993; Fernea1989; Fischer and Abedi 1990:11-19; Good and Good 1988;Hjortshoj 1987; Husted 1993; Korom 1994a, 1994b; Korom and Chelkowski 1994; Lassy 1916; Lindell1974; Mahdjoub 1988; Moinuddin 1971; Nakash 1993, 1994:141-183; Naqvi 1987; Pelly 1879; Peters1956, 1972; Pinault 1992a, 1992b; Riggio 1988, 1994; Schubel 1991, 1993; Thaiss 1972, 1973, 1978,1994; and Unvala 1927.7. Informationabout Shi'a women's mourning rituals-majales (or rozeh, as they are called in Iran,andkraya in Iraq)-is rare because researchers have generally been men with access only to the public men'srituals. Other than some materialabout Shi'awomen's mourninggatherings in Bard1996; Dunham 1975,1996; Fernea1989; Fernea and Fernea1978; Friedl1989; Hegland 1986; Sagaster1993; and Torab1996a,1996b, Ihave not been able to find morethana few scattered sentences on Shi'a women's Muharram ituals.Forthe variety of ritualpractices among Shi'awomen, such as pilgrimage and sofreh (meals offered up tothe saints as thanks or pleas for assistance), see the work of Anne H. Betteridge (1985, 1989) based onfieldwork in the southwest Iranianprovincial capital, Shiraz.8. In addition to Thaiss's sagacious work in prerevolutionaryIran(1972, 1973, 1978), other studies ofMuharramritualscommemorating the passion of ImamHusein as sites of political competition, conflict, orstruggle over change are provided by Bogdanov 1923; Chelkowski 1980; Ende 1978; Freitag1989; Goodand Good 1988; Hegland 1983a, 1983b; Jayawardena1968; Kumar1989; Peters 1956, 1972; Ram1994;Richard1995; Singh 1988; Thaiss 1994; and Yousefi 1995.9. The Pukhtun,dominant in the northwest frontierprovince, arewell known to anthropologiststhroughthe writingsof Ahmed 1976; Barth1959; Grima 1992; and Lindholm 1982.10. Cole 1988, Das 1992, Naqvi 1987, and Pinault 1992a provide additional description and discussionof Shi'a shrines in India.11. Forelaboration on the earlier divergentritualpractices of the various Peshawar Shi'a ethnic groupsand the influences on the increasing uniformityof Shi'a rituals,see Hegland 1997a, 1997b.12. While PakistaniShi'a are suppressingethnic differences to strengthensectarian unity,other Pakistanisare engaging in ethnic conflict. Violence between natives and immigrantsfrom India(Muhajirs)n Karachi,for example, has produced many casualties.Discussion on the applicability of the term fundamentalism to Middle Eastern or South Asian Islamicreligious movements can be found elsewhere. (See, e.g., Contention 1995a and Contention 1995b.) Itis, Ibelieve, the best term available to referto a reemphasis on religion, including a return to what adherentsconsider to be the fundamentals or basics of the religion and recognizing the need for their application inthis-worldly life and especially to politics. Fundamentalists generally consider standardized behavior,principles of hierarchy and obedience, and the defined nature of gender and thus the sexual division oflabor to be basic to theirreligion. They claim support ortheir assertions fromholy sources. Fundamentalismswill naturallyvary in meaning and characteraccording to situation (and from person to person in spite ofthe belief thatonly one version of the truth svalid). Some people preferthe use of the term Islamistforsuchphenomena in Muslim societies. I find this term to be problematic as well, as it suggests that Muslimswhodo not adhere to such attitudes are not Muslims.13. The women's hospitalitysoon putthis fearto rest.The presence of my students also helped calm myanxiety, and the embodied memory of attendingsimilar women's gatheringswith close IranianShi'a friendslent me an even greatersense of comfortablefamiliarity.Because of my many visits to Iranand many closeIranianfriends in the United States, my attitude toward Shi'a Muslims contrasts sharply with that of themajorityof Americans.14. I assumed that these women were Sunnis because Shi'a women would have been wearing blackchadors and would not have been out in a public gatheringof this sort.15. See Hegland 1997b for furtherdiscussion of my positioning. See Hegland 1997b for discussion ofclass, ethnicity, and education as they relate to majles ritualdynamics in Peshawar.16. See also Peteet's research (1994) showing how oppressed people may resist through reinterpretingthe violence perpetratedon their bodies by the politically powerful.17. See also de Certeau 1988:139-150. Outram 1989 and Peteet 1994 also emphasize the subjectivityof subjected bodies.18. Ina similarcase, Peteet (1994), in herstudyof Israelibeatings of Palestinianyouths, found that thosefew females subjected to imprisonmentand violence did not gain the same esteem and access to politicalleadership as did young males in similarsituations.Iam here pointing out the gender politics of women's exclusion from access to valued activity-zangir-zani-and the rationale behind this restriction.I am not indicating regretthat women do not practice thebloody self-scourging of their backs.



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19. See ArleneMacLeod'sperceptive discussion of why lower-middle-class workingwomen in Cairo donot resist openly but ratherput on the veil in "accommodating protest"(MacLeod 1992b:553, 554). Seealso Al-Khayyat1990; Altorki1986; Arebi 1994; Friedl 1994; Jeffery1989; Joseph 1993, 1994; MacLeod1992a; Peteet 1991; Rugh 1984; and Tapper 1988-89, 1991.20. For nformativediscussion about the situation of Pakistaniwomen, see Eglar1960; Ewing1991; Haeri1993, 1995a, 1995b; Jalal1991; Mehdi 1990; Mumtaz 1994; Mumtaz and Shaheed 1987; Papanek 1973,1982, 1984, 1994; Rahat1981; Ramazani 1985; Rauf 1987; and Weiss 1985, 1990, 1992.21. Ali was son-in-law and cousin to the ProphetMuhammad and the Shi'a community's firstImam orleader afterProphetMuhammad's death. Husein here refers to Imam Husein.22. Sectarian bloodshed has erupted in Pakistan each Muharramsince 1991, with the worst in Punjaband then spreadingto Karachi.In 1995, the killings began even before Muharram-during Ramadan,themonth of fastingforboth Sunni and Shi'a-with yet another massacre ata KarachiShi'amosque on February5 and two more on February25. Karachiturned into a sectarian battlefield,and hundreds of people thereand in other Pakistanicities were killed in 1995 alone. Newspapers carried accounts of more mosque andsectarian massacres in 1996, 1997, and 1998.23. People talkedto me about the Saudifunding of Zia ul-Haq and his subsequent actions against Shi'a,including decimation of Shi'avillages, attacksagainsttheirmosques, and even desecration of theirQur'ans.Today, as well, they told me, the Saudi Arabian government was providingfunds to anti-Shi'a groups inPakistan. Forfurther nformation on the conflict between Zia ul-Haq and the Shi'a see Ahmed 1987 andKeddie 1993.24. Of course, not all Shi'a in Peshawar held the same views or saw the meaningof the Karbalaparadigmas instructingpolitical dissension.25. In her work with processual paradigms, SherryOrtner has utilized the concept of root paradigms,"preorganized schemes of action, symbolic programs for the staging and playing out of standard socialinteractionsina particular ulture"(1990:60). Inworking with this concept, VictorTurnerused such phrasesas "root metaphor,""root paradigm,""subjective paradigm,"and "dramaticor narrativeprocess model"(Turner1978).26. See Betteridge 1989. Richard Flores (1994) has likewise pointed out that South Texan Mexican-Americans enacting "Los Pastores"(plays about the shepherds going to Bethlehem) see themselves in arelationshipof reciprocitywith Christianholy figures.27. An illiterate,poor village woman in Iranconfided to ErikaFriedlher strongsuspicion "thatreligion,as preached and practiced,was not made by God butby men inorder to suppresswomen" (Friedl1989:133).The Shi'a women in Peshawar, because of their proximity and historywith India and their minority statusas Shi'a in largely Sunni Pakistanamong other reasons, were probably somewhat less inclined to pondercontradictions between Islamic claims of justice and mistreatment of women or to verbalize any suchreflection.28. My view of Shi'a women's resistance through ritual practice is in accord with Reed-Danahay'sperception of resistance as including fluidity, providing power for the "weak,"and serving not only "asreactions to (or resistance to) dominance, but as modes for the creation of new cultural meanings"(1993:223).

Abu-Lughod'scaution against"romanticizingresistance"(1990) andOkely'scaution (1991) againsttakingresistance to document lack of female subordination (insteadof subservience) must be applied to researchabout gender politics. Also, covert resistance has its shortcomings (Hegland 1995). Several social scientists(e.g., Comaroff 1985; de Certeau 1988; Scott 1990; Tiano 1994) have nevertheless pointed out that inoverlooking subtle, covert, undeclared, or even unknowing forms of resistancewe leave out a vast area ofpolitical activity. Specifically, in the realm of gender politics with women tied in so many ways to themutually reinforcingnetworks of forces oppressing them, and consequently often able to engage only incircumspect resistance, we must attend to these obscure and ambiguous forms of struggle. Through tinysubversive acts, alternative ranscripts,and created worlds of personal meaning and attainment,even withinthe wal Isof patriarchal tructures,women maintainresilience and mayeven build theirstrength,confidence,abilities, and subjectivities. Later, f and when circumstances change, these may be applied in other arenasto serve their interests more specifically (Hegland 1995). Therefore, as Gutmann asserts, "we must studyboth overt and covert forms [of resistance] and the relationsbetween them"for"theseformsoccur together,alternate, and transform hemselves into each other"(1993:76).29. Researchershave made similarargumentsabout media: individualconsumers do not receive printedor broadcastmaterialpassively, but bringto it their own views and reactions. Thus differentindividualswillconstructdifferentmeaningsand draw different nferencesfrom the same material see, e.g., Mankekar1993).30. Evenplaying active roles in ritualthrough self-flagellation, singing, chanting, and grieving does notmean that the women arefree to change words or actions or to mold the performanceas they wish. Likewise,women operatingwithin a fundamentalistframework can go only so far in creating an autonomous space.Foranalyses of the dangersfundamentalismspose for women see Baffoun1994, Hale 1994, Hardacre1993,Lawrence 1994, Mazumdar 1994, and Papanek 1994. Seaman (1992) presentssimilar reservationsaboutthe degree of latitude audiences have to interpretmedia.31. As RosemaryCoombe states, "while incorporating experience into our conceptual maps we modifythe map" (1989:92). Sherry Ortner also contends that "actors both manipulate their culture and areconstrained by it"(1990:63). Ortnerhas been inspired by PierreBourdieu'semphasis on actual practice asreproducing habitus-the embodiment of culture in the individual (1977). Deborah Heath writes, "As



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Bakhtin reminds us, domination, complicity, and resistance are all potentially present in every communi-cative exchange" (1994:99). Some words of Arlene MacLeod are also especially relevant here:To continue this effortof detailingthe complexities of women's part npower relations,Iarguethatwomen,even as subordinate players, always play an active part that goes beyond the dichotomy of victimiza-tion/acceptance, a dichotomy that flattens out a complex and ambiguous agency inwhich women accept,accommodate, ignore, resist,or protest-sometimes all at the same time. [1992b:534]

Reed-Danahay likewise finds that the same action can incorporate aspects of accommodation as well as ofresistance-that "powerand resistance can no more be viewed as separate processes than can structureandagency" (1993:222).32. Such is the case even for enactments of fundamentalist religious "culturalrepresentations."In thewords of Diane Jonte-Pace,"it is perfectly possible to do two thingsat the same time: live in and experience[and even bolster, I would add] patriarchaloppression and, at the same time, create a realm of freedom,creativity, activity, and agency" (personal communication, July 6, 1994). For other secular and religiousexamples see Abu-Lughod1986, 1990; Arthur1993; Cattell 1992; Guthrieand Castelnuovo 1992; Heath1994; Holland and Skinner 1995; Ingersoll 1995; Kaufman1991, 1994; Lawless 1988, 1991; MacLeod1992a, 1992b; Mankekar 1993; Moore 1993; Oldenburg 1990; Ong 1990; Raheja and Gold 1994;Reed-Danahay 1993; Stacey 1991; and Stacey and Gerard 1990.33. Inspeakingof the agency of people unable to confront those in authorityopenly, de Certeau'sconceptof "fundamental nversions" is relevant:the Indiansoften used the laws, practices, and representationsthatwere imposed on them by force or byfascination to ends other than those of their conquerors; they made something else out of them; theysubverted them fromwithin. [de Certeau 1988:32; also quoted in Coombe 1989:95]

See also Comaroff1985; Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; and Taussig 1980, 1986.34. Shahin Gerami(1994) found that middle-class Iranianwomen did not accept all of the teachings ofthe IslamicRepublicofficials about females and their place. Women rejectedsexual spatialsegregation and,with it,the belief that women should not work as they did not belong inpublic space. Apparently,the Iranianwomen who answered her survey had also found some means of resisting:umbrellas to shelter them fromthe deluge of messages fallingdown on them throughthe facilities of the IslamicRepublic and itssupporters.35. Iam indebted to BarbaraMolony for this phrase.36. For a Muslim woman charged with obeying her husband, such a sentiment would be consideredinsubordinate.Indeed,had the sermon at the majles thatshe attended been given by Mahreen, the preacherof Indianbackground,the ritualsinger would have heard much about the obligation of a pious woman tosubmit herself to her husband. Had this been the case, itwould have been ironic, for, in essence, the singerwould then have defied her husband for the opportunity to hear that she must not defy him. (I owe thisobservation to Diane Dreher.)37. Interviewwith Shahida,August8,1991. Friedl(1993) has analyzed the contradictions in IranianShi'awomen's concepts of Hazrat-e Zaynab and Hazrat-e Fateme, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad andmother of Imam Husein and Hazrat-e Zaynab.38. Here,Abu-Lughod'spoint (1990) about resistance as a useful"diagnostic" f power ringsstrikinglyrue.39. Elsewhere(Hegland 1995), Idiscuss further he centralityof women's agency and "everydayforms ofresistance"(Scott 1977, 1985, 1990) for gender transformation.

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1992 Praise the Lordand Say No to Men: Older Women Em

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