Paper short abstract:

Against the background of a minority demonstration of ritual mourning in Pakistan, this paper asks how do material, visual, digital, and sonic mediums and modes of circulation come together to create mass-mediated periods of moral exception?

Paper long abstract:

During the first ten days of the Islamic month of Muharram the minority Twelver Shi’i branch of Islam observe a period mourning for Imam Hussain and the family of the Prophet Muhammad killed or humiliated the Battle of Karbala in 680CE. In Pakistan, the Shi’a make up around a fifth of the population, so the public unfolding and moral atmosphere of Muharram is heavily reliant on the participation, empathy, or ambivalence of denominational others, who in many cases observe the period of mourning as they would do for a neighbour grieving a lost family member. Music, films, celebrations such as weddings, and the act of starting anything afresh, such as opening a new deck of cards, are all avoided.

Muharram is shaped by Shi’i theology and practice that considers mourning divine exemplars to be a form of protest against worldly forms of tyranny and injustice. Unlike other kinds of public ritual, the aim of the commemorations is not the reassertion of the status quo. Rather, its aim is the elicitation of a sensory domain that is open to all and characterized by emotional vulnerability. That is, the vulnerability to be outraged by tyranny and affectively stirred by injustice. This paper asks, how are the moods that characterise the ten days of Muharram mediated to those outside of Shi’i communities in ways that elicit emotional and political solidarity? How do material, visual, digital, and sonic mediums and modes of circulation come together to create mass-mediated periods of moral exception?