Edith Szanto, "Twelver Shi'i Self-flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria: Mourning Sayyida Zaynab" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)

New Books in Religion · May 7, 2026 · 1h 49m

Edith Szanto’s Twelver Shi'i Self-Flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria: Mourning Sayyida Zaynab (Edinburgh UP, 2025) is a striking and deeply immersive ethnographic study that takes the reader into the shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab in Syria. This town was a vibrant center of Shi‘i life, pilgrimage, and healing, especially for Iraqi refugees until the 2011 Syrian uprising. By combining meticulous fieldwork conducted between 2004 and 2010 with rich historical and social context, Szanto shows how these contested rituals served as both spiritual expression and pathways to worldly and…