Paper short abstract:

This paper presents a study of Twelver Shi'i Muslim rituals in Leipzig Germany. I focus on the ways Shi'i Muslims create rituals. The paper will specifically examine Muharram rituals through the lens of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO). The research presents new questions of power and relationality.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents a study of Twelver Shi'i Muslim rituals in Leipzig Germany. Based on over two years of ethnographic fieldwork, I focus on the ways Shi'i Muslims create rituals, both individually and in communal settings. The paper will specifically examine Muharram rituals through the lens of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO). By investigating Muharram rituals as an object, rather than as a socio-cultural occurrence or event, the research presents new questions of power and relationality. Furthermore, OOO starts from a flat ontology, which opens up the space to consider both human and non-human components that emerge together as elements of the ritual. This post-humanist perspective challenges traditional dichotomies between subjects and objects, nature and culture, and local and global, which calls into question the ontological precepts of the anthropology of Islam.