{"product_id":"twelver-shii-self-flagellation-rites-in-contemporary-syria-mourning-sayyida-zaynab-9781399548281","title":"Twelver Shi'i Self-Flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria: Mourning Sayyida Zaynab","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis book examines contested Muharram practices, as well as the institutions and authorities that promoted or condemned them until 2011, when most Shi'is fled Syria. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFor 40 years, the Syrian shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab was a place of miracles, where violence engendered healing. To experience miraculous healing, Shi'is attended mourning gatherings, studied at seminaries, self-flagellated, and frequented spiritual healers. Supported by the political establishment, Shi'i institutions arose to serve Iraqi refugees and Iranian pilgrims. Seminaries promoted various practices, some highly controversial. Wounded, traumatized, impoverished, and oppressed, asylum seekers from Iraq who performed flagellations sought salvation - a worldly restoration requiring saintly beneficence. In Syria, where Shi'is were often asylum seekers from Iraq, daily concerns centred on the here and now, on survival, and on the bitterness they felt. They prayed for justice and retribution, as much as for physical and psychological healing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSzanto, Edith:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Edith Szanto is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Alabama. She received her PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto in 2012. She has written several articles on Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan, ranging from Shi'i ritual and seminaries, jinn and magical healing, to interfaith dialogue, Zoroastrianism conversions, as well as Kurdish film.","brand":"Edinburgh University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51572355170578,"sku":"9781399548281","price":114.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_052685fb-4122-4395-95f9-a623cbea22b7.jpg?v=1755859386","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/twelver-shii-self-flagellation-rites-in-contemporary-syria-mourning-sayyida-zaynab-9781399548281","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}