A Review of E.Szanto’s PhD dissertation “ Following Sayida Zaynab: Twelve Shi’ism in Contemporary Syria (2012)

The research under review is concerned with the concept of tradition as accepted and practiced at the shrine-town of Lady Zaynab in Syria through an ethnographical investigation. It analyzes of the ritual of mourning gathering by women at the shrine, the annual commemoration of Imam al-Ḥusayn in Muḥarram, and finally the spiritual healings and miracles associated with it. The study was, to some extent, based upon Talāl Asad's (1986) notion of ethnography of Islam and various iterations of Karbala emanating from Fischer’s (1981) framework of the Karbala paradigm. The present review, seeks to analyze the major issues raised by the author and propound a critical reading of the text.