The Anatomy of Shi'i Shrine Cities: Pivots in World Politics

Abstract

This thesis is about the enduring importance of Shi'i shrine cities in world politics. Shrines are important sites of religious identity that are often analysed from a single perspective of conflict, clerical authority, or collective identity in the literature. This thesis overcomes this gap in various ways. It argues that shrines are constructed as 'pivots' in world politics through both clerical authority and collective identity. Semantically, it accepts a dual meaning of 'pivot' as both a generative noun and an agential verb. It presents a conceptual understanding of power with spatial and temporal dimensions. To demonstrate this process, it uses the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala as case studies. The case studies reveal how clerical authority is the most salient temporal pivot in Najaf and collective identity is the most salient spatial pivot in Karbala. The empirical analyses are respectively dedicated to understanding how Najaf's sacred authority 'pivots' world politics in an agential way during 'critical temporalities', and how Karbala's sacred spaces and Ashura-oriented rituals and textual cosmologies have a generative power, which constructs it as a spatial 'pivot' in world politics through its reproduction of collective Shi'i identity. Chapter One provides an historical overview of Najaf and Karbala and traces the evolution of collective Shi'i identity in shrine cities. Chapter Two details the theoretical framework which draws on theories of clerical authority, temporality, and spatiality. While chapters Three and Four demonstrate the agential power of Najaf's clerical authority using a temporal approach, chapters Five and Six take a spatial approach to illustrate Karbala's generative power as a representation and reminder of Ashura. By adopting this multidimensional approach, the thesis provides a comprehensive understanding how Shi'i shrine cities are constructed as pivots in world politics.