Chapter 6 focuses on the production of art in the form of poetry and sermons but also material and visual culture expressed through banners, posters, and graffiti as a form of resistance and reordering of the political system. In the context of Twelver Shi‘a Islam, writing elegies and performing them in mourning rituals has been a central element in lamenting the death of Imam Husayn. The lachrymal expressions and descriptions that characterize this lamentation poetry have the religious and ritualistic function of metaphorically identifying the participants with Imam Husayn and uniting believers in the fight for his cause. This chapter focuses mainly on lamentation poetry written by men but performed by women during women-only majalis in Kuwait and London. It discusses how poetry, as an artistic production, is politicized locally but its impact is transnationally transmitted. The chapter also examines women’s use of forms of resistance art to articulate their own definition of power and authority within both private and public spaces in Bahrain.

In 2014, I visited a private women-only religious gathering (majlis, pl. majālis) organized by an Iraqi Shiʿi in her house in London. When I entered, everyone was still busy preparing the majlis: some were sorting out the seating area by laying down additional cushions on the carpet while others were making food and drinks in the kitchen. The smell of black tea, cardamom, and saffron filled the house. The walls were covered in black with numerous Islamic Shiʿi embroideries in yellow, green, and red hanging throughout the rooms. Various pictures of the Prophet’s grandson, Imam Husayn, and other Shiʿi figures were displayed. The rooms were decorated in a style to aesthetically evoke a palpable atmosphere of commemoration and imageries of death, loss, and pain. It only took a few minutes until the house was filled with women. The rooms on the ground floor were all used for the majlis, and became very crowded. Once the female reciter (mullāya, pl. mullāyāt) entered, lights were dimmed in order to evoke a sad atmosphere in the room. The mullāya started her majlis by greeting the Prophet and his family (ahl al-bayt) and sending her commemoration wishes to everyone in the room in memory of the death of Imam Husayn, whom Shiʿis commemorate yearly during the month of Muharram. Such commemoration rituals involve various bodily expressions and emotional experiences such as weeping and self-beating. During such majālis, some women stand up and form a circle, rhythmically moving their bodies while beating their breasts and faces. The other women, who remain sitting, support the rhythmic self-beating of the standing women through their own loud weeping and hitting their legs, breasts, and faces in unison.

The final chapter brings the discussion back to the definitions of resistance, female agency, and the link to the aesthetization of politics. In order to understand Shi‘i women’s self-inflicted pain practices as a sign of power and resistance, we need to examine the various structures and forms of power existing within the social structures and fields within which women operate. Shi‘i women in this study share and articulate nationally and transnationally their role in contributing to the historical continuation of Shi‘i actions of resistance through the introduction of a new definition of the new Shi‘i woman, representing it as a declaration of their true "Shi‘a-ness." Shi‘i women use performativity, language, symbols, and signs to construct a new version of the "Shi‘i woman" that is able to counter and resist male hegemonic power structures. As a conclusion for the book, the chapter argues that through women’s ritual practices of self-inflicted pain, a new female aesthetization of the feminine subject is defined, produced, and articulated on and through the female body. The newly defined Shi‘i woman is a symbol of the performativity of power dynamics but also the performativity of women’s actions resisting existing power structures that lead to a female Shi‘i transnational collective reordering of power.

This chapter covers the historical and contemporary development of the rites of mourning within Shi‘i Islam. References from historical sources on the performance of mourning rituals since the Umayyad period lay the foundation for a critical discussion on what constitutes a ritual and when the performance of commemoration rituals started. Most women interviewed believed Zaynab, Husayn’s sister, to have initiated mourning practices for the first time in order to keep the memory of the killing of her brother alive. Others, mainly within Shi‘i scholarship, see the initiation of the practice as having been shaped later by men. This chapter serves as the foundation for the whole book as it introduces each ritual practice, understood as an act of resistance, with a particular focus on the role women play therein.

The chapter discusses the various forms of the performativity of the political and examines the enactment of the Karbala paradigm through theatrical performances (tashabih) and the ritual of mashy ‘ala al-jamur (walking on hot coals). The individual and collective emotions that are generated through tashabih and their effect on the body play an important role. The emotional pain caused by the oral narration together with the visual performance and enactment of historical events are interwoven with the actual physical pain that is self-imposed through Shi‘i ritual practices. The reciprocal relation between emotions, the body, and visuality is discussed in more detail through examining this particular act of resistance.

The chapter examines the historical theological and hagiographical as well as contemporary portrayal of the figure of Fatima. It analyzes the significance of Fatima’s presence in women-only majalis in the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom and Kuwait and to what extent her images and roles support women’s agency and contribute to the attainment of eschatological gender equality within Shi‘i ritual practices. Fatima is believed to be spiritually and, in some cases, physically present during commemoration ritual practices held by Shi‘i believers remembering the death of her son Imam Husayn. Fatima’s apparitions and other miraculous events during majalis are linked to the transformation of women’s empowerment within their communities. This is in addition to women’s recent increasing contribution to Shi‘i ritual practices, particularly those that traditionally have been regarded as male-dominated practices. Fatima’s apparitions are seen as a divine intervention in support of women’s transgression of these specific patriarchal religious boundaries. Women’s apparition narratives are instrumental in overcoming gender inequality in the performance of religious practices. Women’s claims for their right to participate in certain Shi‘i ritual practices is strengthened and, to a certain extent, legitimized through Fatima’s appearances.

This chapter presents the government’s economic policies and the oppression of peasants by state agents and large landowners. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the building of the modern Turkish republic was financed largely through taxes and monopoly revenues extracted from the agricultural economy. Turkey’s economy was largely based on agriculture, and accordingly, the new state relied heavily on rural resources. Oppression and coercion by state agents such as tax collectors and gendarmes and local dominants such as large landowners or village headmen accompanied the economic exploitation of peasants. This chapter gives a detailed picture of the exploitation and domination mechanisms that afflicted smallholders and the rural poor. It also sheds light on the impact of the Great Depression on Anatolian peasants.

This chapter reveals and examines the ways ordinary people expressed, disseminated and exchanged contrary views and subversive opinions. It especially focuses on three avenues through which the people’s voice and opinions were expressed and circulated: daily conversations, rumors and placards. The first and foremost thing the people were involved in was daily chats. The people expressed their contrary views when they came together in relatively safe places free from the state’s control, like houses, coffeehouses or gardens. Daily conversations were generally accompanied by rumors. Everyplace in the country was awash with numerous rumors. Rumors, mostly unfounded, expressed the hopes, desires or fantasies of people discontented with the regime, the government or a specific policy. Rumors challenged and sometimes undermined the credibility of the official propaganda and discourse. Finally, in those public places where open talks were risky, the people aired their grievances, contrary arguments and even criticisms through handwritten papers affixed on walls, trees or doors. All these operated as alternative media challenging the official propaganda of the government and its mouthpieces, the formal press.

The Hat Law is one of the hallmarks of the early republic. The nationalist-modernist new rulers attempted to fashion the Muslim population into a modern and secular nation by changing symbolic and cultural codes like clothing styles. Symbols such as headgear had conveyed important meaning since the Ottoman Empire by signaling the wearers’ religious, social and economic status. Aware of the power of clothing and particularly of headgear, the government intervened by eliminating this traditional and religious symbol with the Hat Law. The fez was discarded and the turban was limited to preachers. However, these changes generated a series of protests. Many Islamic scholars and preachers rejected the new hat. These are well-known aspects of the people’s negative response to the hat reform. In contrast to the existing literature, which focuses on well-known anti-hat protests and the religious reasons that spurred them, this chapter examines how people dealt with the hat reform by avoidance, covert disobedience or selective adaptation methods. This chapter also reveals the complex causes of the people’s hesitance to adopt Western hats instead of rendering the issue a conflict between tradition and modernity. It reveals the role of symbols like dress codes in social resistance, power rivalries and class struggles as well as in state-making.

This chapter brings out a less-known aspect of anti-veiling campaigns during the early republic of Turkey. It covers the provincial society’s negative perception of and resistance to unveiling. In contrast to the widely accepted arguments emphasizing the conflict between religiosity and modernity, this chapter reveals the socioeconomic, gender and psychological reasons that motivated the approach of men and women to unveiling. This chapter argues that despite the anti-veiling campaigns, peer pressure and local, traditional norms outweighed the state’s influence and that women did not give up veiling. This part also shows how the government dealt with the people’s insistence on veiling in a flexible manner rather than in coercive ways.