Song, Dance, and the Karbala Martyrs: Muharram Commemoration and Sunni Islam in Kachchh, Gujarat

Abstract

Abstract Sunni Muslims in Kachchh, Gujarat commemorate the Islamic month of Muharram with a variety of practices, including street processions, drumming, musical stage performances, dancing, and dhamāl (piercing the body with skewers and daggers). This article focuses on osāṇī (<ḥusainī), a song genre that is only performed during Muharram and serves as the musical foundation of the osāṇī circle dance. Osāṇī dance is noteworthy for its incorporation of a stylized form of hāth kā mātam, the chest-beating typically associated with Shiʿa Muslims’ lamentation for the Karbala martyrs, which is generally avoided and criticized by Sunnis in other areas of South Asia. Drawing attention to the affectively mixed quality of osāṇī performances, I underscore the role of maza (enjoyment, fun) in the religious life of Muslim Kachchh, thus offering a counterbalance to the focus on valorized affects that has characterized recent influential studies of self-formation and embodied religious devotion in Muslim societies. Finally, the article traces the impact of Islamic reformism, which has prompted many Sunnis associated with the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jamaʿat (“Barelvī”) movement to refrain from participating in osāṇī and other forms of Muharram commemoration over the past few decades.