Twelver Shi’i Self-flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria

Edith Szanto is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Alabama. She received her PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto in 2012. She has written several articles on Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan, ranging from Shi‘i ritual and seminaries, jinn and magical healing, to interfaith dialogue, Zoroastrianism conversions, as well as Kurdish film.

• List of FiguresList of CharactersGlossary1. Introduction: A Twelver Shi‘i community in Syria2. Institutionalising Piety3. Learning Shi‘ism4. Affective Relationships with Saints5. Media(ting) Piety6. ‘Ashura: Carnivalising Piety7. Shi‘i Esotericism8. Living Islam9. Epilogue: After the Syrian UprisingBibliographyIndex

At several points reading this text I experienced what I can only describe as joy. This is the model of an academic work. As associate editor for a journal in North Africa, I read a great deal of current academic work in English and French: this is the best of the best. The fieldwork is exemplary and the book is well worth reading on this basis alone. In addition, references to Foucault’s heterotopia, Michael Fischer’s “Karbala Paradigm” and Bakhtin’s notion of the carnival are enlightening and send a thoughtful reader back to the original texts.