Paper short abstract:

In this presentation I will focus on the role of Ashara Mubaraka in community development within Dubai and among Bohras globally. In 2004 this international event, commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, took place in Dubai, generating new urban and community development in the area.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation I will focus on the role of Ashara Mubaraka in community development within Dubai and among Bohras globally. Ashara Mubaraka is a particular way of the Bohras to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, as a siginificant marker of Shia Islam. For the Bohras, the annual Ashara Muburaka is an international event, where as many from the community as possible travel to one particular place where the dai spiritual leader has decided to be for the commemoration. In 2004, this event took place in Dubai, for the first and only time in the Gulf (other places have been various cities in India, East Africa, the US and in 2022 London). At this time, a new mosque was just inaugurated in a new and scarsely populated area in the then outskirts of Dubai city, and the gathering took place around this mosque. This also prompted many Bohras from India and elsewhere to decide to move to Dubai, and Bohras thus took part in developing this new area. Today there is also one Bohra school and a residential complex built by the community and specifically for Bohras in the neighborhood. In the presentation I will discuss what such infrastructure – mosque, schools and residences – mean to the community, and how this builds on the event of Ashara Mubaraka as generative (following Kapferer 2015), and as a social technology of community development.