RAWZA-KHANI

A rawza-khani is a Shi˓ite ritual sermon recounting and mourning the seventh-century tragedy of Karbala, which was a battle in which the Prophet's grandson Husayn was martyred (in what is viewed by the Shi˓a as a heroic struggle against religious tyranny and corruption). The primary catalyst in the emergence of this ritual was the appearance of Hosayn Vaez Kashifi's 1502 composition entitled Rawzat al-shuhada˒ (The garden of martyrs). Rawza-khanis are performed in homes, mosques, takiyas, husayniyas, religious sites, and even in the streets and bazaars of cities. The rawza-khani is a ritual in which a sermon is given based on a text like the Rawzat alshuhada˒, with a great deal of improvisation on the part of the specially trained speaker. The objective of the speaker is to move the audience to tears through his recitation of the tragic details of the Battle of Karbala. In addition to serving social, political, and psychological functions, this type of mourning ritual has been viewed by Shi˓a as a means of achieving salvation. This belief is illustrated by the often-repeated Shi˓ite quotation, "Anyone who cries for Husayn or causes someone to cry for Husayn shall go directly to paradise."

See alsoTa˓ziya.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ayoub, Mahmoud. Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of ˓Ashura in Twelver Shi˓ism. The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton Publishers, 1978.

Schubel, Vernon James. Religious Performance in Contemporary Islam: Shi˓i Devotional Rituals in South Asia. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993.

Kamran Aghaie