Volume 5, Issue 3, 2017
Religion and Struggle
Abby Kulisz
Pages 274-290
https://doi.org/10.5840/jrv20181543
Trauma Unending
Sh¨©?¨© Islam and the Experience of Trauma
This paper explores the ways communities reexperience traumatic events. Previous studies have made important contributions by observing that communities, in contrast to individuals, often use a traumatic event to construct their identity; and trauma is not always painful but sometimes desired. To further investigate these dimensions of traumatization, I focus on the performance of m¨¡tam or self-flagellation, which is practiced by a small minority of the world¡¯s Sh¨©?¨© Muslim population on the Day of ??sh¨±r¨¡?. For many Sh¨©?a, particularly Twelvers, ?usayn b. ?Al¨©¡¯s death at the battle of Karbala in 680?C.E. is a collectively traumatic event. Not only does Karbala embody a collective tragedy for Sh¨©?¨© Muslims, it defines and shapes their interpretation of history. During the practice of m¨¡tam, the mourner enacts the trauma of Karbala on one¡¯s body, thus reliving and preserving the collective trauma.