“O, Zaria! You Have Become Just Like Karbala” : Race, Redemptive Suffering, and Affect in Shi‘i Devotional Liturgy

Abstract

This article examines a Farsi-/Arabic-language devotional poem, which commemorates victims of violent clashes between the Nigerian army and members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria in Zaria in December 2015. In addition to comparing the persecution of Nigerian Shi‘is with the plight of Muslim hagiographic figures, the poem is significant in its emphasis on race. The article probes the role of Blackness in the constitution of affective bonds around narratives of redemptive suffering. I arguet hat purveyors of the devotional poem invoke Blackness to construct a narrative that is both particularly African and universally Shi‘i. This does not only kindle emotions of sympathy, but also triumphantly celebrates the spread of Shi‘ism beyond Islam’s historical heartlands. By contextualizing the narrative in relation to the globalized hyper-politicization of intra-Islamic sectarian identities, I argue that the emphasis on race is not part of a pro-Black shift, but a literary exemplification of Shi‘i triumphalism and an attempt to make sense of and cope with the “fear of small numbers” (Appadurai 2006) and the globalization of anti-Shi‘a sectarian violence.