SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This article, emanating from an interdisciplinary workshop on the relationship between (cultural) memory and the concept of mental maps, deals with the question of 'sacrality' in Islam and offers an invitation to a wider debate on the issue. In the article it is argued that, unlike in Judaism and Christianity, there is no analogous concept of 'sacrality' in Islam, characterized by the presence of the Divine and backed by the authoritative, i.e. revealed texts. The argument, however, claims that in Twelver Shiite Islam there might nevertheless be a notion of 'sacrality' detected which revolves around the founding myth of the battle of Kerbala, and is backed up by the sayings of the Shiite Imams that are considered revealed by the believers. In this regard, the paper undertakes systematically to address this issue by dwelling on these Twelver Shiite works on hadīth. Furthermore, the 'sacredness' of the soil of the battlefield of Kerbala, it is argued, had been transcended into distinct ritual objects, namely the prayerseal and -beads made of clay, and ritual buildings, such as the Iranian husaynīya and the South Asian imāmbāra. Here, a variety of examples, especially from Iran and South Asia, which have been found mainly in historiographical texts, are herewith presented.