Making spaces sacred: The Sayyeda Zaynab and Bibi Pak Daman shrines and the construction of modern Shi'a identity
[Thesis]
Noor Zehra Zaidi
Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh
University of Pennsylvania
2015
343
Committee members: Peiss, Kathy; Troutt Powell, Eve
Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-321-85227-1
Ph.D.
History
University of Pennsylvania
2015
This dissertation is a study of the Bibi Pak Daman shrine in Lahore, Pakistan and the Sayyeda Zaynab shrine in Damascus, Syria and of how these shrines were made sacred in the 20th century. Said to house the graves of Ruqayyah and Zaynab, two daughters of 'Ali ibn Abu Talib, the first Shi'a Imam, the two shrines would grow from local sites of devotion to critical pilgrimage sites in the 20th century. The dissertation will first trace hagiographies related to Zaynab and Ruqayyah and how these narratives capitalized on transnational collective memories of Karbala to reinterpret their significance to local contexts. These saints and their shrines were also increasingly interwoven into Syrian and Pakistani narratives of national exceptionalism. Secondly, these shrines emerged as important national spaces and sites onto which competing claims of authentic authority and ideology were played out. For shrine authorities, religious scholars and students, pilgrims, merchants, and activists, the Sayyeda Zaynab and Bibi Pak Daman shrines provide a window into the distinct ways that sectarianism was produced and the range of practices that constituted 'being Shi'a.'
Middle Eastern history; World History; History
Social sciences;Islam;Nationalism;Saints;Sectarianism;Shi'ism;Shrines