The Power Paradox in Muslim Women's Majales: North-West Pakistani Mourning Rituals as Sites of Contestation over Religious Politics, Ethnicity, and Gender

Abstract

NorthWest Pakistani Mourning Rituals as Sites of Contestation over Religious Politics, Ethnicity, and Gender D uring revolutions, rebellions, and movements, women are often called on to serve contradictory roles. They are asked to perform workpolitical, communicative, networking, recruiting, military, manualthat generally goes beyond the society's usual gender restrictions. At the same time, women serve as symbols of movement identity, unity, commitment, and righteous entitlement. To fit into this idealized symbolic image, individual women must fulfill often "traditional" or even exaggerated "feminine" behavioral and attitudinal requirements, such as loyalty, obedience, selflessness, sacrifice, and "proper" deportment: all in all, they are to put aside any personal aspirations and wishes for self-fulfillment and give their all to promoting the values and interests of their nation, revolutionary movement, or social group. In serving the revolution, group, or movement, women gain skills, experience, and awareness of their own capabilities. However, they are to place all of this at the disposal of the revolutionary movement or, more precisely, its male leaders. Then, when the struggle is over and they are no longer needed, the female Algerian and Palestinian freedom fighters, the French and Iranian revolutionaries, and the American "Rosie the Riveters" For funding my research in Pakistan, I am grateful to the Fulbright Commission. For their generosity in allowing me to take a year of leave and providing me with supplementary research funds, I thank the administration and the members of my department at Santa Clara University. I owe much to my smdents at the University of Peshawar, where I taught as part of my Fulbright fellowship, and to other Peshawar Shi'a friends for their generous assistance and companionship. Their names have been changed to protect their privacy. For creative, constructive comments, I am grateful to

Voices of Strength and Struggle

“…To be overtly religious and perform religious rituals increases one's social status and is considered a sign of one's piety and "good moral character" (Hegland, 1998). Respect for some religious practices is protected by law, and nobody can dare to ridicule these practices.…”

Lost worlds

“…In contrast, the Universalist model of time sees the individual as agential and time as empty, where Karbala acts as a revolutionary paradigm and a mnemonic of insurrection (Hegland 1983(Hegland , 1998a. Here time is progressive and not depreciatory in nature; where the memory of Karbala serves as a paradigm for self-reflexivity and political awareness in consciously challenging the oppressive political and religious majority.…”

“…Khamenei's fatwa declared public self-flagellation, using sharp weapons, such as a knife (qam) or chains (zanjeer) to shed blood as unlawful and forbidden, prohibiting qama-zani as an institution of superstition and unsupported ritualism. The fatwa became immensely controversial within a certain section of Shia society in South Asia (Hegland 1998b;Pinault 1999), with the adherents of qama-zani publicly contradicting this fatwa with the justification that their practice is a public expression of tradition and community identity.…”

Identifying time‐space constraints: a neglected element of the development discourse

“…In the Pakistan context, we want to ask you to travel with us to the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan where women have been experiencing increasing and intensifying practices of constraints on their mobility (Hegland, 1998). In the context where women are constrained in their mobility in terms of cumbersome and concealing dress, in terms of the requirement for male escorts to make even the simplest of journeys and increasingly barred and banned from any commercial social space, the consequence is that the facilities necessary to make any lengthy journey in dignity such as simple toilet provisions are neither offered or afforded.…”