Reflections from a Feminist Majlis

On Friday 26^th July 2024 we held a Feminist Community Majlis online. As people arrived, we listened quietly to Du’a Jawshan Kabir, a long prayer that exalts the names of Allah and conceptualises our relationship to Her: Oh Provider in my hardship, Oh Source of Hope in my misfortune, Oh Companion in my isolation, Oh Fellow Traveler on my journey…

We began with a grounding exercise delivered by one of our volunteer imams, Saimma Dyer, who reminded us that this community majlis is an opportunity to empty ourselves and be present to this moment. To remember Allah swt, our friend and sustainer as we head into what will be a heavy discussion. We shared the usual IMI introduction reminding us all that it is our shared and individual responsibility to make sure sectarianism, ableism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia etc are not normalised at our events. The reminder emphasised that disabled people, Shi’a people, Black people, Queer and Trans people are valued here.

Honouring Sayyida Zainab (ra)

We were very fortunate to have Huda Jawad sharing a piece she’d written about Sayyida Zainab (ra), honouring her as a person of marginalised gender experiencing violent oppression, standing against tyranny. She talked about Sayyida Zainab as a manifestation of the impact of Rasullulah who taught his daughter Fatima (ra) who taught her daughter Zainab (ra). She reminded us that Sayyida Zainab (ra) is often spoken about as a mountain that bore calamity after calamity without crumbling. She was courageous and a truth seeker and Rasulullah would have expected nothing less of her.

Everything she achieved, she achieved while enduring grief, hunger and humiliation. She demanded Yazid’s attention. She was unapologetic about who she was, defying the sometimes celebrated images of women in the prophet’s family dwelling quietly in their holy households, figures of grief and sadness. These reductive images of the women of the prophet’s family unwittingly erases the richness of their existence and their powerful political relevance. Zainabb (ra) giving her testimony in the court of Yazid is one of the most enduring images we have of a woman in the prophet’s household and the narration of her story – given by her, then shared by billions of people over fourteen centuries – is why we still have Islam today.

As many have said before us, she is the preserver of Islam without whom we wouldn’t have such monumental events as the pilgrimage that is the Arba’een Walk to Karbala. Huda ended her reading by reflecting on how she came to know Sayyida Zainab and asking us how we have come to know Sayyida Zainab. How will we encourage the next generation to know her and what care is required in that since the history Zainab (ra) preserved is a very violent one? We spent some time reflecting on what Sayyida Zainab would think today of the many thousands of people suffering similar oppression: enforced hunger and dehydration, state violence and systemic gender-based violence. How are we showing up for our fellow humans in our time?

We discussed two pieces shared as part of the resources list for this majlis. One was beautiful poem imagining the scenes of Ashura called ‘The Night Before Ashura’ by Zehra Naqvi. We discussed the relevance and power of religious imagination i.e. our ability to feel impassioned about events we weren’t there for an can only imagine.

Communal Grief is a Radical Act

We also discussed the disruptive power of the majlis as described by Shereen Yusuf in her essay Decolonial Practice of Majalis and its Potential for Community Healing, where she writes:

“These oppressive systems have instructed us to question the legitimacy of our voices, blunt the pain of not feeling valued or rendered invisible, and to pity vulnerability as a sign of weakness. What I find so de-colonizing about majalis (gatherings of communal mourning), is that our communal grief serves as a radical act of defying these modes of “living” and “being” that are so oppressive to our communities. I find that tears can heal the communal body as they would an individual body, in that tears garner the potential to cleanse us of the toxins named fear, shame, doubt, anxiety and guilt, that reside in the crevices of our minds, hearts, and souls. In fact, these very emotions of inferiority are what permits these modes of domination over us to begin with, and it is tears grant us the space to heal from them.”

The conversation then opened up to the whole group who shared their experiences of growing up Shi’a. People described having mixed feelings about common majlis practices including experiences of religious trauma, especially when attending majlis as children or young people. Some Shi’a’ Muslims in the group talked about feeling disconnected from Muharram practices that meant a lot to their parents. They shared their efforts to find ways to connect to the parts of Muharram that are important to them e.g. being more conscientious about injustice, their efforts to resist injustice and increase their awareness of complicity in injustice.

Some folks discussed the cathartic nature of majalis and being around other people so we can bear witness to injustice as a collective, with the energy and somatic relevance of being in a gathering including in our childhoods. We discussed gatherings as places to tap into other kinds of grief and resist the erasure of massive injustice for example, as places to remember the hundreds of thousands of Covid deaths and resist the pressure to move on. Part of the function of Majalis is to collectively bear witness and part of the way this is done is through sharing our oral histories in stages over time, learning more and more about historical events by attending majlis year after year. These spaces have the potential to educate, preserve and hold us accountable as a community but we have to proactively create them so that they achieve these objectives.

Yazid, an enduring example of an oppressor, was a Muslim

One person asked everyone how we hold ourselves to account especially when it is us that is part of the oppression. This was especially relevant to Sunni Muslims in the group who continue the minimisation and erasure of Shi’a Islam and Shi’a Muslims. Another person said “The fact that Yazid was Muslim is important and makes me question my own complicity – how do we unlearn all of this?” We talked about concepts central to Abolitionist thought including the idea that in any dynamic (between individuals and communities) harm is inevitable and all of us are capable of harm. We need to hold each other accountable for the harm we do. Others said they find it very powerful that Yazid is Muslim and not ‘other’ – with it comes the reminder that Yazid can be our very own selves. Another person pointed out that Sayyida Zainab’s act of naming oppression provides the opportunity for at least some of the people in Yazid’s court to learn to see oppression.

This led us to consider what it means to put ourselves in the shoes of the people in the court of Yazid i.e. people for whom oppressive acts against their fellow humans are normalised, who believe propaganda. It should lead us to consider ‘who am I oppressing at this time? Who am I leaving out? Who am I not thinking about? What have I been fed that is not true?’

Re-thinking ‘Masculine Mourning’

We spoke a lot about the elements of observing Muharram and marking the events of Ashura that don’t align with values we believe Imam Hussain and Sayyida Zainab held, such as equality. We talked about gendered mourning which can feel like a very masculine display with shirts off and visible bleeding as signs of toughness although vulnerability, discipline, and perseverance are all present in these moments too. We spoke about self-flagellation as a way of connecting with the divine through our bodies and connecting with our corporeal existence. It is part of many different cultures and religious practices all attempting to honour our relationship with God. And we acknowledged that inflicting physical harm on ourselves in public as part of religious practice requires containment, context and an option not to view it, for it not to be triggering or traumatising. Many people in the group felt the same way about graphic narrations of the deaths of children and babies – how do we preserve these and not sanitise the brutal realities of war without causing emotional and mental harm by sharing them without casually exposing people to traumatising things?

There’s so much that is beautiful about majalis practices but also things that are harmful and it can feel so disrespectful to say openly that some parts of Muslim practices don’t feel right or noble. When, for Shi’a Muslims, this leads to distancing oneself from long preserved traditions, it can compound already existing feelings of loneliness. For example, when Sunni Muslims don’t understand the richness of majalis, white British communities see it as spectacle and fellow Shi’a Muslims may not be open to critique. Where can one go?

There was enthusiasm among the group to put together our own lamentation for Ashura in 2025 and do it in a way that reflects our values, evolves our understanding and honours our long-preserved traditions.

After such an emotional conversation we closed by quietly acknowledging the responses in our bodies to what we had discussed. Paying attention to our breath and taking some time to feel. Saimma quoted the Omid Safi essay on dying  with honour where he writes: “Where does Imam Hussain bleed today? Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.”  And in addition to that Saimma offered: “Where does Zainab (ra) speak today? Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.”

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