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ABSTRACT
Shiis perform a number of rituals on the first 10 days of the Islamic month of Muḥarram to mourn the killing of the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, Husayn, in Karbala in southern Iraq in 680CE. Among the most controversial rituals is the practice of blood-letting self-flagellation (taṭbīr). This article provides a comprehensive discussion of debates around this ritual among prominent Shii clerical figures of the 20th and 21st centuries. While the vast majority of senior clerics is either sympathetic to taṭbīr or retains an indifferent attitude, clerical interventions critical of it are informed by the discursive parameters of Islamic modernism and emphasize the universal moral and socio-political message of Husayn’s revolt. These debates also point at concerns over inter-sectarian relations between Sunnis and Shiis and efforts to discard Shii ritual practices that could antagonize Sunni Muslims. Finally, these debates contain an important political dimension reflecting contestations around Iran’s aim to exercise hegemony over Shii communities across the world. The 1994 fatwa by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic ‘Ali Khamenei (b. 1939) in which he declared taṭbīr prohibited (ḥarām) has hardened existing cleavages between those supporting and those rejecting this practice, as this article illustrates.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dr Zuhair Olyabek for pointing me to relevant sources and for providing generous feedback on an earlier draft of the article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For a comprehensive historical overview, see Ali J. Hussain, ‘The Mourning of History and the History of Mourning: The Evolution of Ritual Commemoration of the Battle of Karbala’, Comparative of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 25 (2005): 78–88.
2 Mary Elaine Hegland, ‘Shi’a Women of Northwest Pakistan and Agency through Practice: Ritual, Resilience and Resistance’, Political and Legal Anthropology Review 18 (1995): 65–79. For a different view on the role of women in this ritual, see Yafa Shanneik, The Art of Resistance in Islam: The Performance of Politics among Shi’i Women in the Middle East and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 15–6.
3 For previous work referring to some of the jurisprudential contestations, see Werner Ende, ‘The Flagellations of Muḥarram and the Shi’ite “Ulamā”’, Der Islam 55 (1978): 20–36; Sabrina Mervin, ‘Les larmes et le sang des chiites: corps et pratiques rituelles lors des célébrations de ‘Âshûrâ’, Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditeranée 113–114 (2006): 153–66; Ingvild Flaskerud, ‘Ritual Creativity and Plurality: Denying Twelver Shia Blood-Letting Practices’, in The Ambivalence of Denial: Danger and Appeal of Rituals (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2016), 109–34; Edith Szanto, ‘Beyond the Karbala Paradigm: Rethinking Revolution and Redemption in Twelver Shi’a Mourning Rituals’, Journal of Shi’a Islamic Studies 6 (2013): 80–2; and Edith Szanto, ‘Challenging Transnational Shi’i Authority in Ba’th Syria’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 45 (2018): 11–12.
4 On the intellectual paradigms of Islamic modernism, see, for example, Monica M. Ringer, Islamic Modernism and the Re-Enchantment of the Sacred in the Age of History (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020).
5 Sabrina Mervin, ‘“Âshûrâ”: Some Remarks on Ritual Practices in Different Shiite Communities (Lebanon and Syria)’, in The Other Shiites: From the Mediterranean to Central Asia (Bern: Peter Lang, 2007), 146–7; and Flaskerud, ‘Ritual Creativity and Plurality’, 112–3.
6 Hasan al-Islami, ‘Al-'Azā': Sunna Dīniyya am Fi’l Ijtimā’ī’, in Jadal wa-Mawāqif fī al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya (Beirut: Dār al-Hādī, 2009), 334.
7 Mahmoud M. Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of Ashura in Twelver Shi’ism (New York: De Gruyter, 2011), 97–124.
8 S. Hussain M. Jafri, Origins and Early Development of Shi’a Islam, 2nd ed. (Qum: Ansariyan Publications, 1989), 202.
9 Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in Islam, 142–96.
10 Michael Fisher, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980).
11 Lara Deeb, ‘Living Ashura in Lebanon: From Mourning to Sacrifice’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 25 (2005): 122–37. See also Szanto, ‘Beyond the Karbala Paradigm’, 75–91.
12 Itzhak Nakash, ‘An Attempt to Trace the Origins of the Rituals of “Āshūrā”’, Die Welt des Islams 33 (1993): 161–81.
13 Flaskerud, ‘Ritual Creativity and Plurality’, 111.
14 Morteza Hashemi, ‘Could We Use Blood Donation Campaigns as Social Policy Tools?: British Shi’i Ritual of Giving Blood’, Identities (2020): 8. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2020.1856538.
15 Gerd Baumann, Contesting Culture: Discourse of Identity in Multi-ethnic London (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
16 Seán McLoughlin and John Zavos, ‘Writing Religion in British Asian Diasporas’, in Writing the City in British Asian Diasporas (London: Routledge, 2014), 161.
17 Linda Walbridge (ed.), The Most Learned of the Shiʿa: The Institution of the marjaʿ taqlid (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
18 Babak Rahimi, Theater State and the Formation of Early Modern Public Sphere in Iran (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 199–234.
19 Ibrahim Haydari, ‘The Rituals of ‘Ashura: Genealogy, Functions, Actions and Structures’, in Ayatollahs, Sufis and Ideologues: State, Religion and Social Movements in Iraq (London: Saqi, 2002), 105–7.
20 Ibn Tulun al-Salihi, I’lām al-Warā bi-man Walī Nā’iban min al-Atrāk bi-Dimashq al-Shām al-Kubrā (Cairo: Maṭba’at Jāmi’at ‘Ayn Shams, 1973), 147–8.
21 Husayn Mu’tamadi, ‘Azādārī-yi Sunnatī-yi Shī’īyān, vol. 7 (Qom: I’timād, 1383 SH [2005]), 438–40; and idem, ‘Azādārī-yi Sunnatī-yi Shī’īyān, vol. 2 (Qom: I’timād, 1379 SH [2000/1]), 578.
22 Ibrahim Haydari, Trājidiyya Karbalā’: Sūsyūlūjiyya al-Khiṭāb al-Shī’ī, 2nd ed. (London: Saqi, 2015 [1999]), 456–7; and Yitzhak Nakash, ‘Muharram Rituals and the Cult of Saints among Iraqi Shiites’, in The Other Shiites, 122–6.
23 Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi, Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 45 (Beirut: Dār Iḥyā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, n.d.), 115.
24 See Shanneik, Art of Resistance, 135–7.
25 Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi, Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 98 (Beirut: Dār Iḥyā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, n.d.), 238–9. See also Nasir al-Mansur, Al-Taṭbīr: Ḥaqīqa, lā Bid’a (n.p.: Mu’assasat Taḥqīqāt wa-Nashr Ma’ārif Ahl al-Bayt, n.d.), 20–39. For a critique of these traditions legitimizing taṭbīr, see al-Islami, ‘Al-'Azā'’, 318–32.
26 Ma’ātim al-Damm (n.p.: 1430 H [2009]), 24.
27 Robert Gleave, Scripturalist Islam: the History and Doctrines of the Akhbārī Shī’ī School (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
28 Al-Islami, ‘Al-'Azā'’, p. 317. For the explicit adoption of an akhbārī approach by a scholar supporting taṭbīr, see Muhammad Jamil Hamuda al-‘Amili, Al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya: As’ila wa-Ajwaba ḥawl al-Taṭbīr, 2nd ed. (Karbala: Mu’assat al-Imām al-Hādī, 2013), 29–32.
29 Muhsin al-Amin, Risālat al-Tanzīh li-A’māl al-Shabīh (Sidon: al-‘Irfān, 1347 H [1928/9]), 8–11.
30 Ibid., 21–2.
31 Haydarī, Trājidiyya Karbalā’, 448; Ende, ‘Flagellations of Muḥarram’, 31–2. On Shahristani, see Orit Bashkin, ‘The Iraqi Afghanis and ‘Abduhs: Debate over Reform among Shi’ite and Sunni 'ulamā' in Interwar Iraq’, in Guardians of Faith in Modern Times: ‘ulamā’ in the Middle East (Leiden, 2008), 141–69.
32 Among the most prominent rebuttals were ‘Abd al-Husayn al-Hilli, Al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya fī al-Mīzān al-Fiqhī, 2nd ed. (Damascus: Al-Ṭaff, 1995), and Hasan al-Muzaffar, Nuṣrat al-Maẓlūm (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, n.d.). See also Ende, ‘Flagellations of Muḥarram’, 30–1.
33 Max Weiss, ‘The Cultural Politics of Shi’i Modernism: Morality and Gender in Early 20th-Century Lebanon’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 39 (2007), 253–4.
34 Al-Amin, Risālat al-Tanzīh, 30.
35 Ibid., 29–30.
36 Ibid., 3.
37 Ibid., 8
38 Ibid., 14–9.
39 Quoted in Haydari, Trājidiyya Karbalā’, 451.
40 For senior clerics and their fatwas, see Rābiṭa ‘Fa-Dhakkir’ al-Thaqāfiyya, Fatāwā al-Fuqahā’ wa-l-Marāji‘ fī-l-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya (Beirut: Mu’assat al-Fikr al-Islāmī, 2016), 11–79; Ma’ātim al-Damm, 172–91.:
41 Quoted in Haydari, Trājidiyya Karbalā’, 452–3.
42 For a similar argument, see also al-Hilli, Al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya, 74–96.
43 Haydari, Trājidiyya Karbalā’, 116–7.
44 This is corroborated by one of al-Isfahani’s student, Muhammad Rida Tabasi al-Najafi. See Mu’tamadi, ‘Azādārī-yi Sunnatī-yi Shī’īyān, vol. 7, 426.
45 Haydari, Trājidiyya Karbalā’, 445–6.
46 Mu’tamadi, ‘Azādārī-yi Sunnatī-yi Shī’īyān, vol. 7, 392–3; Rābiṭa, Fatāwā al-Fuqahā’, 82–3.
47 Muhammad Rashid Rida, Al-Wahhābiyyūn wa-l-Ḥijāz (Cairo: al-Manār, 2000).
48 Ende, ‘Flagellations of Muḥarram’, 34–6.
49 Mervin, ‘Les larmes et le sang des chiites’, 2; Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi’is of Iraq, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 154–6.
50 For a representative list with facsimiles of handwritten fatwas, see Mu’tamadi, ‘Azādārī-yi Sunnatī-yi Shī’īyān, vol. 7, 392–428.
51 Rābiṭa, Fatāwā al-Fuqahā’, 11; Fasihi, Commemorating Imam Husein, 19.
52 Muhammad Husayn Kashif al-Ghita, Al-Firdaws al-A’lā (n.p.: Ẓuhūr, 1426H [2005/6]), 58.
53 Muhammad Rida al-Muzaffar, Al-‘Aqā’id al-Imāmiyya (Qom, 2001/2002 [1951]), 147–52. See also Rainer Brunner, Islamic Ecumenism in the 20th Century: The Azhar and Shiism between Rapprochement and Restraint (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 125, 213, 369.
54 Haydari, Trājidiyya Karbalā’, 447.
55 Muhammad al-Tijani, Kull al-Ḥulūl ‘inda Āl al-Rasūl, 2nd ed. (Beirut: al-Mujtabā, 1996), 150. If al-Tijani’s attribution to Baqir al-Sadr is correct, he quotes verbatim Muhsin al-Amin. See al-Amin, Risālat al-Tanzīh, 21.
56 Morteza Motahhari, Jādhiba wa-Dāfi’a-yi ‘Alī (Tehran: Nasīm-i Muṭahhar, 1971), 147.
57 Muhammad Jawad Mughniyya, Al-Shī’a fi al-Mīzān (Beirut: Dār al-Shurūq, n.d.), p. 14.
58 See also Haydari, Trājidiyya Karbalā’, 446.
59 Abu al-Qasim al-Khoie, ‘Fatāwā al-Sayyid al-Khū’ī: Masā’il Mutanawwi’a 2, Su’āl 32’, https://alseraj.net/17519/ (accessed September 17, 2021).
60 Ibid., ‘Su’āl 33’, https://alseraj.net/17519/ (accessed September 17, 2021).
61 ‘Fatāwā al-Sayyid al-Khū’ī: Masā’il Mutanawwi’a 8, Su’āl 211’, https://alseraj.net/17525/ (accessed September 17, 2021).
62 Ibid.
63 On this concept, see Norman Calder, ‘Accommodation and Revolution in Imami Shi’i Jurisprudence: Khumayni and the Classical Tradition’, Middle Eastern Studies 18 (1982): 3–20; and Hamid Enayat, ‘Iran: Khumayni’s Concept of the “Guardianship of the Jurisconsult”’, in Islam in the Political Process (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 160–80.
64 Mustafa Fasihi, Commemorating the Martyrdom of Imam Husein (as): Innovation or Tradition? (Dresden, n.d.), 24.
65 Umm al-qurrā (lit. ‘mother of dwellings’) is one of the designations for Mecca. Larankani implies here that Iran has become the new symbolic centre, the ‘new Mecca’, of the Muslim world after the Islamic Revolution.
66 Mohammad Fazel Lankarani, Jāmi‘ al-Masā’il, vol. 1 (Qom: Amīr, 1383 HS [2004/5]), 582.
67 Khomeini makes this reference in a poem that critiques the introductory couplets of Rumi’s Mathnawī:
Do not listen to the reed flute as it tells a story, listen to the heart as it narrates a tradition
…
When I see the reed flute I remember Nineveh, while the heart becomes sorrowful in the memory of Karbala
From the reed flute’s oppression my heart catches fire, if only the reed flute were to be completely subsumed by fire
On top of the reed flute Husayn’s head full of blood went, while under the reed flute was Zaynab in misery and shame
The reed flute drew blood from Husayn’s throat, while under the reed flute was Zaynab devastated
She saw the top of the reed flute and then her head worshipped the truth, she hit her head at a saddle and broke her forehead
…
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68 Ruhollah Khomeini, Istiftā’āt-i Imām Khumaynī, vol. 10 (Tehran: Mu’assasa-yi Tanẓīm wa-Nashr-i Āthār-i Imām Khumaynī, 1392 HS [2013/4]), 655.
69 Ibid., 654.
70 Khomeini already expressed critical views of excessive commemorative practices in 1944. See Ruhollah Khomeini, Kashf al-Asrār (n.p. [1944]), 173–4.
71 ‘Ali Khamenei, ‘Istiftā’āt: Marāsim-i ‘Azādārī, Su’āl 1460’, https://farsi.khamenei.ir/treatise-content?id=131#1460 (accessed September 19, 2021).
72 Ibid., ‘Su’āl 1461’, https://farsi.khamenei.ir/treatise-content?id=131#1461 (accessed September 19, 2021).
73 Ibid.
74 See also ‘Ali Aqanuri, ‘Bar-Rasī wa-Naqd-i Dīdgāh-hā-yi ‘Ālimān-i Shī’ī dar Bāb-i Laṭam wa-Qama-Zanī’, Shī’a Pazhūhī 2 (2015/6): 41–7.
75 Sajjad Rizvi, ‘The Making of a Marja‘: Sīstānī and Shi’i Religious Authority in the Contemporary Age’, Sociology of Islam 6 (2018): 165–89.
76 Saskia Gieling, ‘The marja’iya in Iran and the Nomination of Khamenei in December 1994’, Middle Eastern Studies 33 (1997): 777–87.
77 Self-flagellation was performed the last time in public in Qom in 1993. See Mu’tamadi, ‘Azādārī-yi Sunnatī, vol. 2, 91–5.
78 Mu’tamadi, ‘Azādārī-yi Sunnatī-yi Shī’īyān, vol. 7, 400.
79 Ma’ātim al-Damm, 191.
80 Fasihi, Commemorating Imam Husein, 17.
81 For his fatwa of 2013, see Rābiṭa, Fatāwā al-Fuqahā’, 128. See also Munir Khabbaz, ‘Ākhir Maqāl Taḥaddathu fīhī Samāḥat al-Sayyid ‘an al-Taṭbīr’, https://www.almoneer.org/?act=artc&id=36 (accessed September 20, 2021).
82 ‘Ali Muhsin Radi, ‘Al-Sayyid al-Sīstānī (Dāma Ẓillahū) al-Wārif wa-Qaḍiyyat al-Taṭbīr’, Buratha News Agency, October 16, 2016, http://burathanews.com/arabic/islamic/303,070 (accessed September 20, 2021).
83 Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, ‘Istiftā’āt: “Āshūrā” wa-l-Umūr al-Muta’alliqa’, http://arabic.bayynat.org/ListingFAQ2.aspx?cid=119&Language=1 (accessed September 19, 2021).
84 The Bahraini pro-taṭbīr scholar Muhammad al-Sanad (b. 1961) develops a completely different line of argumentation suggesting that, on the contrary, self-flagellation only re-enacts Husayn’s suffering if it causes harm. See Muhammad al-Sanad, Ramziyyat al-Damm fī al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya, vol. 4 (Tehran: Nashr-i Ṣādiq, 2018), 347–51.
85 Ja’far al-Shakhuri, ‘Al-Taṭbīr wa-Ḍarb al-Ẓuhūr bi-l-Salāsil: Munāqisha Fiqhiyya’, September 15, 2018, http://arabic.bayynat.org/ArticlePage.aspx?id=27282 (accessed September 17, 2021).
86 Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, ‘‘Ādāt Tasī’u ilā “Āshūrā” al-Ḥusayn’ (video), http://arabic.bayynat.org/VideoPageM.aspx?id=19,337 (accessed September 19, 2021).
87 Ibid.
88 Al-Shakhuri, ‘‘Al-Taṭbīr’.
89 Ibid.
90 Fadlallah, ‘‘Ādāt Tasī’u ilā “Āshūrā” al-Ḥusayn’.
91 Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, ‘Taṭwīr Asālīb Iḥyā’ Dhikrā ‘Āshūrā’’, November 10, 2012, http://arabic.bayynat.org/ArticlePage.aspx?id=5901 (accessed September 19, 2021).
92 Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, ‘“Āshūrā” bayna-l-Jihād wa-l-Taṭbīr’ (video), http://arabic.bayynat.org/VideoPage.Aspx?id=14,286 (accessed September 19, 2021).
93 Fadlallah, ‘‘Ādāt Tasī’u ilā “Āshūrā” al-Ḥusayn’.
94 Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, ‘Al-Imām al-Ḥusayn: Risāla Shāmila wa-Ramz li-l-Waḥda’, http://arabic.bayynat.org/ArticlePage.aspx?id=7984 (accessed September 19, 2021).
95 Augustus Richard Norton, ‘Ritual, Blood, and Shiite Identity: Ashura in Nabatiyya, Lebanon’, TDR 49 (2005), 149.
96 Vahid Khorasani, Miṣbāḥ al-Hudā, vol. 1 ([Qom?], n.d.), 246. See also Mu’tamadi, ‘Azādārī-yi Sunnatī-yi Shī’īyān, vol. 7, 397.
97 Khorasani, Miṣbāḥ al-Hudā, vol. 1, 21.
98 Vahid Khorasani, Miṣbāḥ al-Hudā, vol. 2 ([Qom?], n.d.), 34.
99 Ibid., 432.
100 Ibid., 480.
101 Ibid., 405–6.
102 Khorasani, Miṣbāḥ al-Hudā, vol. 1, 243.
103 Ibid., 284.
104 Khorasani, Miṣbāḥ al-Hudā, vol. 2, 103–5. On Darbandi and his role in popularising self-flagellation in Iran, see Muhsin Husam Zahiri, ‘Ta’rīkh al-Ma’ātim al-Ḥusayniyya fī al-‘Aṣr al-Qājārī’, in Jadal wa-Mawāqif, 72–4.
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109 Sadeq Rohani, ‘Al-Istiftā’āt al-Shar’iyya, al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya’, http://www.rohani.ir/ar/idetail/5291/%d9%87%d9%84-%d8%b1%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%a8%d9%86%d9%8a–%d8%b3%d8%af-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b0%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%ae%d8%b1%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%a7-%d9%83-%d9%88%d9%84-%d9%85%d9%88%d9%83%d8%a8-%d9%84%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b7%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d9%85%d8%b9%d8%aa (accessed September 19, 2021). For a similar argument, see also al-Muzaffar, Nuṣrat al-Maẓlūm, 75.
110 Sadeq Rohani, ‘Al-Istiftā’āt al-Shar’iyya, al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya’, http://www.rohani.ir/ar/idetail/5274/%d8%b9%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b7%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d9%88-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b1%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%8a%d8%a9–%d9%86-%d8%b2%d9%8a%d9%86%d8%a8–%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%87%d8%a7-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b3%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%85–%d8%b6%d8%b1%d8%a8%d8%aa-%d8%b1 (accessed September 19, 2021).
111 Sadeq Rohani, ‘Al-Istiftā’āt al-Shar’iyya, al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya’, http://www.rohani.ir/ar/idetail/5319/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b7%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b4%d8%b9%d8%a7-%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d8%b3%d9%8a%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d9%8a-%d8%aa%da%a9%d9%88%d9%86-%d8%b3%d8%a8%d8%a8%d8%a7-%d9%84%d8%a8%d9%82%d8%a7–%d8%a7; http://www.rohani.ir/ar/idetail/5319/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b7%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b4%d8%b9%d8%a7-%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d8%b3%d9%8a%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d9%8a-%d8%aa%da%a9%d9%88%d9%86-%d8%b3%d8%a8%d8%a8%d8%a7-%d9%84%d8%a8%d9%82%d8%a7–%d8%a7; http://www.rohani.ir/ar/idetail/5296/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b7%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d9%88-%d8%b6%d8%b1%d8%a8-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ac%d8%b3%d8%af-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b2%d9%86%d8%ac%d9%8a%d9%84-%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b4%d8%b9%d8%a7-%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d8%b3%d9%8a%d9%86%d9%8a-%d8%a9- (all accessed September 19, 2021).
112 Sadeq Rohani, ‘Al-Istiftā’āt al-Shar’iyya, al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya’, http://www.rohani.ir/ar/idetail/5248/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a8%d8%b9%d8%b6-%d9%8a%d8%af%d8%b9%d9%8a-%d8%a7%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b7%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d8%a8%d8%af%d8%b9%d8%a9———- (accessed September 19, 2021).
113 Sadeq Rohani, ‘Al-Istiftā’āt al-Shar’iyya, al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya’, http://www.rohani.ir/ar/idetail/5205/-%d8%ad%d9%83%d9%85-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b7%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%b2%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%86%d8%a7-%d9%87%d8%b0%d8%a7———- (accessed September 19, 2021).
114 Sadeq Rohani, ‘Al-Istiftā’āt al-Shar’iyya, al-Mawāqif al-Siyāsiyya’, http://www.rohani.ir/ar/idetail/6083/%d8%ad%d9%88%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84-%d9%85%d9%88%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d9%8a-%d8%aa%d8%b6%d8%b9%d9%81-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d9%83%d9%88%d9%85%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84-%d8%b3%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%85%d9%8a%d8%a9———- (accessed September 19, 2021).
115 Ibid.
116 Sadeq Rohani, ‘Al-Istiftā’āt al-Shar’iyya, al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya’, http://www.rohani.ir/ar/idetail/5203/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%85-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d8%a7%d9%83%d9%85-%d9%84%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b7%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d9%84%d8%a7-%d9%8a%d9%83%d9%88%d9%86-%d9%85%d9%84%d8%b2%d9%85%d8%a7———— (accessed September 19, 2021).
117 Sadeq Rohani, ‘Al-Istiftā’āt al-Shar’iyya, al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya’, http://www.rohani.ir/ar/idetail/5201/%d9%85%d8%a7-%d9%87%d9%8a-%d9%81%d9%84%d8%b3%d9%81%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b7%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%b1— (accessed September 19, 2021).
118 See Article 5.
119 Szanto, ‘Challenging Transnational Shi’i Authority’, 11–12.
120 Oliver Scharbrodt, ‘Khomeini and Muḥammad al-Shīrāzī: Revisiting the Origins of the “Guardianship of the Jurisconsult” (wilāyat al-faqīh)’, Die Welt des Islams 61 (2021): 9–38. On the use of taṭbīr to articulate opposition to Iran, see also Szanto, ‘Beyond the Karbala Paradigm’, 81.
121 In 2018, Sadiq al-Shirazi’s son and likely successor, Husayn al-Shirazi, was arrested by Iranian authorities after a clip of his lecture emerged on social media in which he compared Khamenei with the Qur’anic pharaoh. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr0li4zi1GU (accessed September 20, 2021).
122 Hasan al-Shirazi, Al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya, 5th ed. (n.p.: n.d. [1965]), 19.
123 Ibid., 22.
124 Ibid., 109.
125 Ibid.
126 Ibid.
127 Sajjad Rizvi, ‘Political Mobilization and the Shi’i Religious Establishment (marja’iyya)’, International Affairs 86 (2010): 1306.
128 Shanneik, Art of Resistance, pp. 128–52. For observations on the performance of taṭbīr among ‘a few dozen, at most’, of women in Lebanon, see Norton, ‘Ritual, Blood, and Shiite Identity’, 150.
129 Sadiq al-Shirazi, Ajwabat al-Masā’il al-Ḥusayniyya (Qom: Mu’assasat al-Rasūl al-Akram, n.d.), 101. See Qur’an 5:2.
130 Sadiq al-Shirazi, Ajwabat al-Masā’il al-Ḥusayniyya, 115.
131 Ibid., 112.
132 Ibid., 113.
133 Ibid., 109.
134 Al-‘Amili, Al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya, 73.
135 Ibid., 82.
136 Ma’ātim al-Damm, 7–8.
137 Kathryn Spellmann-Poots, ‘Manifestations of Ashura among Young British Shi’is’, in Ethnographies of Islam: Ritual Performances and Everyday Practices (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), 40–9; Hashemi, ‘Blood Donation Campaigns’; and Flaskerud, ‘Ritual Creativity and Plurality’.
138 The Muslim Council of Britain. ‘North London Mosque Hosts First Ever Blood Donation Day’, November 8, 2017, https://mcb.org.uk/community/north-london-mosque-hosts-first-ever-blood-donation-day/ (accessed September 20, 2021).
139 Sadeq Rohani, ‘Al-Istiftā’āt al-Shar’iyya, al-Sha’ā’ir al-Ḥusayniyya’, http://www.rohani.ir/ar/idetail/5209/%d8%a8%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b7%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%a8%d8%b1%d8%b9-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%af%d9%85———– (accessed September 19, 2021); and Sadiq al-Shirazi, Ajwabat al-Masā’il al-Ḥusayniyya, 116.