Beyond Karbala: New Approaches to Shiʿi Materiality and Material Religion

Examining manifestations and transformations of multi-sensorial expressions and experiences of Shiʿi Islam, Beyond Karbala demonstrates how material 'things' and less thing-like materialities make the praesentia and potential of the sacred tangible, cultivate intimate relations between human and more-than-human beings, and act as tangible links and gateways to the Elsewhere and Otherworldly. This book examines material and multi-sensorial expressions of Shiʿi Islam in diverse, and understudied demographic and geographic contexts.It engages with conceptual debates and makes several propositions that push the frontiers of scholarship on Islamic and Religious Studies, Material Religion, Heritage Studies, and Anthropology and Sociology of Religion.The contributions presented in this volume demonstrate how material things and less thing-like materialities make the praesentia and potentia of the Sacred tangible, how they cultivate intimate relations between human and more-than-human beings, and how they act as links and gateways to the Elsewhere and Otherworldly. The volume posits that materialities of religion are integral to processes of heritagization shaped by competing social and political actors involved in the construction and canonization of religious—in this case, Shiʿi—heritage.