Senses of Mourning: Moharram Performances in Shiʿi Iran from the Qajar to the Covid Era

— —

Babak Rahimi

Senses of Mourning

Name: Senses of Mourning
Price: 185 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9781512828344

Moharram Performances in Shiʿi Iran from the Qajar to the Covid Era

Babak Rahimi

$185

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

University of Pennsylvania Press
06 January 2026

Middle Eastern history; Islam; Islamic life & practice; Islamic studies

A multisensory approach to the study of Shiʿi Iran that examines how devotional Moharram performances changed over time

The mourning traditions of Moharram comprise a body of Shiʿi Muslim devotional performances commemorating the martyrdom of Hosayn ibn ʿAli, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and the Third Imam of the Shiʿi, in 680 CE. These traditional rites are performed during a period of communal mourning when Shiʿis remember Hosayn's sacrifice and affirm their allegiance to him and to the Prophet's family. Through remembering the martyrs of Karbala, Shiʿi Muslims reflect on their own afflictions and aspirations, and how these bear consequences for everyday ethical and devotional conduct.

Babak Rahimi analyzes Moharram in Iran through the five senses—sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste—with an emphasis on the relationship between religious practices as embodied experiences and how these performances—and practitioners' experiences of them—have changed over time.

Rahimi begins his investigation in the nineteenth-century Qajar period, when Moharram became a pervasive urban communal practice across most of Iran. He covers the Qajar-era dramatic performances of taʿziyeh, their transformation into cultural spectacles during the Pahlavi era, the public processions in the form of urban street protests in 1978, the tent-burning rituals in the southern city of Bushehr in 2006, and, lastly, the votive performances during Moharram in the digital sphere during the pandemic in 2020.

Through the study of mourning in terms of the senses in a specific historical and social context, Senses of Mourning not only shows the changing embodied dimensions of religious practices that have played an integral role in the complex lifeworld of Shiʿi Iranians but also details the transformation of Moharram within the broader history of Shiʿi Iran in an increasingly interconnected global era. The book's multisensory approach sheds new light on the performativity of embodied practices, in which spiritualities, materialities, and the politics of the sacred are articulated through lived performances over time.

By: Babak Rahimi
Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781512828344
ISBN 10: 1512828343
Pages: 416
Publication Date: 06 January 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Babak Rahimi is Associate Professor of Culture, Religion, and Technology and the Director of the Program for the Study of Religion at the University of California, San Diego

Reviews for Senses of Mourning: Moharram Performances in Shiʿi Iran from the Qajar to the Covid Era

""Senses of Mourning is a compelling and theoretically insightful examination of the Shi'ite theodicy of suffering and its contemporary transformations.""-- ""Said Arjomand, State University of New York"" ""Babak Rahimi's Senses of Mourning is a spell-bindingly immersive, intersensorial study that will be required reading for any scholar of Shiʿi material and sensory cultures.""-- ""Karen Ruffle, University of Toronto""