The Shi'i Islamic Martyrdom Narratives of Imam al-Ḥusayn

Download or read book The Shi'i Islamic Martyrdom Narratives of Imam al-Ḥusayn written by Muhammad-Reza Fakhr-Rohani and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-14 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martyrdom narratives (maqtals) represent a prominent genre of Islamic, particularly Shiʽi, literature. In this genre, the heart-rending aspects of the martyrdom scenes of religiously prominent people are depicted graphically. Although not exclusively limited to the martyrdom accounts of Imam al-Ḥusayn and his companions, who were martyred on the plain of Karbala, Iraq, a great majority of Islamic martyrdom narratives deal with the Ashura episodes. As the first book-length treatment of this genre in English, this text takes the reader from the dawn of Islam in ancient Arabia, exploring the background of the Battle of Karbala and giving a view of the various maqtals and several related studies. Although examining Arabic and Persian sources, this book presupposes little background knowledge on the part of the reader.