It's a great pleasure that I'm here to introduce Sotlur Fathriks Lehmann. She is currently Associate Professor at Agatan University Institute for the Study of Human and Humanist Civilizations. And she received M.C. and Ph.D. in Politics and Sociology from Weber College. Her areas of interest include gender and Islam in the Middle East and in North Africa, the Iranian diaspora and Transnational Migration Networks, Shai Islam in Europe and Gender and Religious Practices in Contemporary Indian Society. Her publications include Ethnotherapies of Islam, Ritual Performances and Everyday Practices and Religion and Nation, Iranian Local and Transnation Networks in Britain. She is currently on the editorial board of the Middle East in London Magazine and has been involved in organizations that focus on the experiences of refugees and as I mentioned in the U.K. including the Northern Italy support. And today she is here with the talk that she's going to present here. Thank you very much. Thank you for that introduction. This has been really good for me. It's forced me to put paint to paper. I think it's great. So thank you very much for the invitation to speak this evening. A few years ago I declined when I was first asked to get a lecture about Shia's living in the U.K. which was of course called British Muslims. So although I've trained our research on Iranian Shiaism and I've often came across people from Shia backgrounds from other countries, I felt uncomfortable taking on that task. One of the essential arguments of my work on Iranian Shiaism in the Networks in London was to analyze the cultural and religious forms and practices in relation to social and political processes in Iran and the diaspora past and present. So when I was asked to give the lecture, the thought about speaking about Shiaism across ethno-national divides wasn't really a proposition that appealed to me. But eventually I was persuaded to give the talk, mainly because of course it was Sunni-centric, which didn't seem quite right either. So in the end I focused mainly on the backgrounds of Shia's living in the U.K. and the development of Shia community centers and institutions. I talked about the diverse dispositions that people from Shia backgrounds have. Many of course do not prioritize religion or not spiritual in any way or have secular outlooks. So in other words I stressed the problems in the lecture of deploying Shia's or Shiaism as a sociological category. But as I prepared the lecture, I was struck by the mushroomy of Shia activities and new institutions in London and around the country, particularly being driven by the younger generations and from across ethno-national divides. For example, Shia youth organizations such as the active alubates societies known as APSOCs, which have popped up around the countries, the country of universities including here as SOAS. There's a wide range of lecture series in English that are continually an offer that are attached to new institutes of sorts which are often attached to universities. There's charity dinners and social events, group travel organized to pilgrimage sites in Iraq and Iran and formerly Syria. There's heavy traffic on social media sites, the emergence of Shia television stations such as alubates, radio stations, etc. So I also observed numerous debates and discussions on a wide range of topics among young Shias, both male and female, on subjects such as how to live moral lives in a western secular society, what's it like living in a multicultural society, with relations with Sunnis, particularly Wahhabis and prayer-bearing politics, dress and hijab, Islamophobia, chats about British popular culture, TV films, fashion, latest handbags, and certainly not least, politics, particularly secular and sectarian politics, and violence in Iraq, Bahrain, Pakistan and elsewhere. The debates on quintessential Shia rituals such as temporary marriage and Asher rituals were also prominent, as well as discussions and critiques of the culture and customs of the older generations and how they practice their faith, which I'm going to talk more about today. So with the support of the British Academy, I decided to further explore this notion of a wider British Shia community or how the lines are being redrawn in terms of communal boundaries. And this is despite of and in light of internal divisions along national, gender, ethnic and class lines. Now, it's important to note that this work is in progress in the midst of carrying out research and writing it out, so I really look forward to your comments and feedback, which I will then enter into my research. So before providing just a few demographic details, I'll just generally tell you the approach of the research. So generally I'm interested in the way that cultural and religious forms and traditions are shaped by and in turn shaped the socioeconomic and political context in which they operate. So this research starts with the conviction that religious traditions and gender dynamics are not fixed or universally defined. It considers the underlying conditions that enables British Shia men and women to negotiate and legitimize new meanings and ways to practice traditions in this country. The study relies on field research and focuses on the experiences of local actors. So at large, it's taken a generational and gendered look at how people from a range of ethno-national backgrounds are reworking Shia religious rituals in relation to the institutionalization of wider Britishism as well as the social realities and daily experience of life in this country. And I hope to show how this is being done locally and also trans-locally, meaning that religious practices are also being informed at the same time and configured by a multitude of sources of authority and contested meanings across a number of physical and mediated spaces. So whilst young Shias are conditioned by various sources of authority, I'd like to demonstrate how by looking at ritual performances in action is one way to demonstrate how people are creatively aligning or realigning themselves to others and questioning and renegotiating varying patterns of authority and social relations. So before I illustrate what I mean by all this, a bit of background information is required. So the result of the 2011 census show that the general Muslim population in the UK has risen from 1.5 million to 3 million between 2001 and 2011. So this moves the proportion of Muslims from 2% to 5% of the population. And based on the backgrounds of Muslim populations, it's thought that 15 to 20% of this figure are Shias. Now the majority of Shias are 12ers, Shias. They make up the bulk of the Shia Muslim population worldwide and are the focus of my research. So as of now, I'm not focusing on the Ismailis or other 12er Shias. Now the first substantial number of 12ers in the UK were men from South Asia and eventually their families who came as Muslim laborers after World War II. Then during the 70s and 80s, political situations in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan brought the largest numbers of Shias, followed by the Hojas who left East Africa due to the political turmoil in newly independent countries. Other 12ers include those from Lebanon, Bahrain, Saudi, Kuwait, British Congress and other places. So my research has been mainly based on interviews, some focus groups I've been doing around the country, internet-based work at ethnography, which entails spending time with networks of men and women across generations that associate themselves to varying degrees to a wider Shia community in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford, Glasgow, I'm going to go to Leicester as well and I'm still trying to work out where else I'm planning to travel to. So I've spoken to well over 115 men and women around the country who tend to be mostly but not entirely middle class. I've been spending most of my time with 18 to 30 year olds, both male and female, who are university students or employed in a wide range of jobs such as, there's a lot of optometrists like girls are optometrists and pharmacists, computer engineers, accountants, barristers, I've met prison chaplains, I'm spending time looking at Shias and prisons as well, prison chaplains, immigration officers I've met, shopkeepers, et cetera. And I've spoken to a lot of people who are actively looking for jobs as well, and I want to stress that because that is the case. I've arranged to meet people not only at religious sites or events but also in homes, cafes, universities, because I think it's essential to see how religious practice is integrated into other aspects of life. I've also conducted structured interviews with a number of Shia clerics and community leaders that are affiliated to the central Shia organizations and I've met a lot of young rising stars, young orators who are very popular in these networks. Now this research has focused on people who are actively seeing their communal identity as Shia Muslims, and they feel that this is important. So even though they might dip in and out of the various networks of activities and programs, offline and on, they actively identify with Shiaism. And I just want to add that people that have been helping me in my interviews have been so generous with their time and so helpful, so I'm really grateful to everyone that I've been meeting. Now for the older generations, religious life in the past mainly took place privately in homes, with devotees from similar regional, socio-economic and linguistic backgrounds. And there's no time to go into this, but this certainly has continued. So informal gatherings are really active and they're often tied to social networks in other locations. Connections back in Iraq or in Iran are. I think informal networks are really key. And I think it's really important to consider these informal dynamics in relation to new types of religious and social events being organized by the younger generations. Over the years, important dates on religious calendars such as events during Maharam and Ramadan are also commemorated by both men and women at programs organized by bosses and religious centers. And there's been an increasing number of Shia centers which started to appear in the 1970s and 80s. There's also been much effort in recent years to try to institutionalize and create Shia ceremonies to try to make them more uniform across the different organizations. So I'm looking at funerals, for example, and marriage ceremonies, and how they're trying to coordinate them across the centers. And this is really interesting, but I don't have time to really go into this today. Now, the religious events and programs at the mosques and centers are often critiqued by the younger generations as being antiquated and viewed with language and customs from back home when their parents is home. And it's also important to note that the supreme Shia religious leaders known as the Marjah Taqis who are based in holy cities like Iran and Iraq and formerly Lebanon, they also have international headquarters in London and they have prominent representatives here and they also have very active websites that are interactive for Shias to refer to for answers on rulings on religious matters. There's lots of them. So what we're trying to say is there's a lot of different levels of authority that young Shias are navigating through. And to try to show this, I want to focus this evening mainly on Ashura. Okay, so Ashura, which falls on the 10th day of the month of Mahara, is a significant holy day for Shias to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad. Now, although the veneration of Ashura has taken on many different forms and meanings across time and location, and there's a nice body of research that's developed on this, it's often associated with a ritualized self-flagellation of one body's in one's body in grief. And this is to express solidarity and regrets and to mourn with Hussein's suffering and those who are with him at the battle of Karbala. And this took place in 680. So stereotypically, shirtless men in voice beat their chests with a whip of chain and blades, whilst women lie in the street and observe. Now this practice is highly controversial among the Marjahs, one of the religious leaders, and groups around the globe, and several shield leaders have banned bloodletting on religious grounds. That is a small body of research that is focused on women and gender roles at Ashura rituals around the world, which I'll talk more about later. Now, although the majority of Shi'as in the UK do not carry out or are not in favor of bloodletting during the ritual, some continue with this practice at local centers around the country.  Now, although the practice was being evaluated by both Shi'as and Non-Shi'as in relation to British law, Sunni discourses, human rights discourses, and just normative codes in British society, is equally important for Shi'as young and old to critically evaluate the legitimacy of the ritual form within the Shi'a tradition.  Now, before turning to these internal contestations, I'd like to highlight two ways that Ashura and other ritual practices are being reworked or renewed by young British Shi'as. First, there are those who aim to maintain the form of the ritual, such as the procession, the procession through the street, but wish to modify the symbolic meaning of the ritual in order to find a sense of coherency with their present situation here in this country. Second, there are those who are rebuffing or challenging such customs with the form of the procession itself and by that it's irrelevant or antiquated and are actively trying new ways or other ways to commemorate or to mark Hussein and his family which are also aligned with the present situation. Note that these changes are often still supported and legitimized by the ruling of one of the marches or through the support of local leaders. So let's turn to the ethnography of the public procession. I'm going to focus on the one that goes through Hyde Park. I've attended most years since 1996, which I can't believe how old I'm kidding. So the procession was just organized over 30 years ago by a prominent family of Iraqi descent and predominantly an Arabian center known as the Holland Park Match Map. So starting at Arbor Arch and finishing at Holland Park Match Map, hundreds and in recent years, thousands of people marched three miles in the park to honor the among Hussein and the battle of Karbala. The organizers of this particular procession, and this procession is the largest one in the country, followed the rulings of prominent marches who do not condone the practice of self-harm during the public procession. Now the first time I attended the march in the 1990s, there were several hundred participants, mainly from Iraqi and Iranian backgrounds, who walked through the pards and streets holding banners written in Arabic and Persian, beating their chests in unison and chanting in grief to the rhythm of drums and cymbals and different instruments. Notable local Shia leaders and black turbines would meet the procession, followed by the rest of the men, some with shirts, some without. And the procession was entailed by a few women, mainly wearing black Chador's, and then with children of all ages who would wear the green headband with Ali's name or the same same mother. The police assisted the march while onlookers looked at the march in relative bewilderment, not knowing what was happening. Now unlike the majority of marches that are organized in Hyde Park, which aim to make an outward-facing statement, the Asherah procession was first and foremost an inward-looking communal experience that emulated customary practices from back home. What was significant for the participants was the actual form of the procession itself, as it was interrolled to the ritual performance of commemorating Asherah and in turn an explicit part of religious life for the participants. Though over the years, the procession has become larger, younger, more diverse, and thus insular. The 2010 Asherah procession, for example, brought together approximately four to five thousand Shias who live in London and are also busted from locations from around the UK. Similar to past processions, it's functionally with men playing instruments and leaders chanting emotive allergies through megaphones about the sufferings and injustices of Hussain and his entourage. But over the years, the English language is now widely spoken and seen on banners. It has quite a carnival-esque atmosphere with participants socializing with each other, talking on mobile phones, taking videos of the procession, uploading to Facebook and other networking sites. But reflecting wider patterns of Shia organizations and activities in the UK, procession has also become more structured, more institutionalized, and more inclusive. So much greater coordination and communication exist between the individual participants, the wide range of Shia organizations from different ethno-national backgrounds. The police are far more organized and work with the organizers. There's more communication with the onlookers, which I'll talk more about. And there's also a growing presence of Western and non-Western press. They have official stewards who are both males and females who assist the police in monitoring the flow of the event. And the change over the years has been that groups of youth are increasingly using the procession as a platform to promote a range of social, religious and political messages. So young men and women, they distribute English language pamphlets to the onlookers about the historical and modern interpretations of Hussein's martyrdom and to the press, of course, as well. And they talk about the need to publicize the universal lessons of the Battle of Karbala to the wider British public. Many complained that Ashura is epitomized by physical beating, crying and grief, and portrayed by the media as a violence and barbaric ritual. And similar to Laura Dieb's work, and I like her work a lot, actually, on the Beirut, some spoke about how mohar commemorations who move away from being merely ritualistic. Many spoke critically of men who mourn Hussein by self-flagellation or by women crying hysterically, arguing that they're caught up in a hollow ritual devoid of the central purpose of the remembrance of the tragedy. The main purpose, they argue, is to awaken the hearts and minds to the injustices of the world today. So people stress that it's an inward and outward facing time to commemorate Ashura. It's a time for self-reflection and personal purification, which I'll talk a bit more about. And it's a time to renew one's allegiance to Hussein's stance against root evil and societal injustices. Now the fundamental role of women during the tragic events of Karbala is also emphasized by the attendees. Many spoke particularly about Zana, the bravery of Zana, Hussein's sister. One girl noted, Remembering Zana helps me to reconnect to my faith. Her bravery and sacrifice inspires me to become a better person. Many girls stress how they too were outspoken, like Zana, not really passive observers at such events. And in addition to self-reflection, they describe their involvement in organizing the events, producing and distributing English-language educational material, and canvassing for different political and social causes. For example, some student organizations like the Alli Bates Society drawing from an episode at Karbala when Hussein's camp was prevented from taking water from the river Euphrates, used the procession to spearhead their human rights campaign to end water poverty. And they had carried the factor in stating to end water poverty is to continue Hussein's revolution. Many put forward Imam Hussein as a universal model for peace, love, and kindness. And talked about how Gandhi was inspired by Hussein and compared him to Jesus and to other prominent figures of peace, like Che Guevara and others. And this is really interesting how this discourse has led to wider campaigns of the Hussein campaign, which we can talk about during the discussion. Now, for others, the tragedy of Karbala was used as a metaphor for political injustices in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and used as a way to speak out against U.S. and Western foreign policy. Others, however, were very critical of having politics and having using politics as a metaphor for the tragedy of Karbala and argued that the march was being hijacked by political protesters. They argued that Ashera should be a day devoted to feeling and embodying Hussein's suffering and nothing more. They defended bloodletting in private quarters and they feel that it's the essential part of the Shia faith and they have their marches that support that. And they plan to attend the bloodletting rituals following the procession of different marginalisms and different centers. So, on one level, we can see the many internal conflicts and struggles about the meaning and the enactment of Ashera's commemorations. But on the other level, we can see how the organization of the events, there's also efforts being made to develop a wider sense of British Shiaism. And this is not only to other Shias of trying to realign the communal boundaries between different international groupings, but also they're outward looking to wider, you know, to the British and other publics as well. And there's some interesting parallels to Camino Verna's autobiography of Sunni processions in Manchester. So, while this is an example of trying to find a sense of coherency within pre-existing ritual forms, others expressed mixed negative feelings about the procession itself. So, during my research, outside of the procession. Many who don't partake in the procession describe it as being dated and only making sense in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and other Shia locales. They relate other ways to mark Muharram rituals that have more currency in British society or reflect an authenticated Shiaism which isn't embedded with ethnic and cultural traditions of the older generations. The most obvious example is donating blood on Ashura which has been organized by Shia youth groups such as the Islamic Unity Society in partnership with the British National Blood Service. Note that donating blood instead of, or in addition to self-illegation has become, is being practiced by many Shia populations around the world. For the youth who have set up the blood donation centers around the UK, they're Nantra, but they're encouraging people to donate blood to benefit everyone in British society because they're part of British society. And at the same time, honor the memory of Imam Hussein. So many talk about how giving blood on Ashura has provided a positive and active way equally for man and women to commemorate Hussein in the battle of Karbala. The young Shias have also been actively finding other ways or additional ways of marking Ashura events and other important dates on the religious calendar. So in contrast to the gender segregated events held at homes or programs held in Arabic, Urdu, Persian and Mosques and centers, they've been organizing lectures and dinners in places like five-star hotel banquet rooms, for instance, or conference spaces at Wembley, or at student unions or Shia institutions that are linked to universities. Now at these events, they often bring in popular young speakers, several of whom have PhDs from Exeter or SOAS or other, you know, or US universities. And they will be, you know, they're sought after, they travel around to different centers around the world at similar events. Now examples of titles of lectures given by these popular speakers are, for instance, the characteristics of the model Muslim citizen. Another one is, does Ashura have any bearing to the lives of youth today? Or can a 7th century figure be a role model in the 21st century? Or one given by a lady which was really popular, it was called Hajjab, as taught by Muhammad, reflected in Karbala, and it's role today. So such talks given by men and some women reflect and inform the self-monitoring and the pious self-cultivation of both young women and men who attend such events. So often described as being part of a wider Islamic awakening, the lessons from Karbala are used as a grounding to support and encouraging the fashioning of a more moral ethical self in the way and beyond. Now the gender roles of relations at such events, I think are important for several reasons. On the one hand, both males and females are actively involved in organizing them and programming them and attending them. So unlike mosque space, where women have little opportunity to be seen and heard, this new type of way of organizing events is more important at these events. They're more inclusive and more social. The events encourage both males and females to become more aware of their religion and their ethical compasses. And it's at such events, as well as through social media sites, that the points that I made in the introduction, such as how to live moral lives in western secular societies, discussions about Islamophobia, about sectarian tensions and violence, dress and hajjab, family life, different life passages about marriage and death, it's at these spaces that rituals, these sort of things are discussed, compared and debated. Now I think it's really interesting to examine how these discussions are then used to evaluate their parents' religious traditions and practices. Used as bargaining chips or negotiation tools for navigating micro-politics at home, which is important to stress, have their own dynamics that are shaped by particular historical and contemporary clinical and socioeconomic situations and customs that stem from the homelands. Intra-giosporic dimensions are also really key. But some examples of what people have told me that they will discuss it together and they go back home and discuss with their parents and families is ways of choosing a marital partner. Say, well, Pakistan is in this way, the Iraqis do it that way and start to discuss that. The styles of weddings, what should happen in weddings, comparing that. What happened, you know, burials, this is something that's really interesting. For South Asian girls, they're not allowed to go to actual burial where Iraqi women are. So this is something that we'll be discussing. You know, traveling and you're traveling with friends to other locations that would be something you know, like and so and so. So it's sometimes used as a negotiation tool. I'm also finding that the more awareness of one's faith and the self-monitoring and the self-cultivation and the conservatism that goes with that it has various implications for both young men and women. Girls in particular complain about backbiting and people judging each other and this is a real problem in these communities. How they worry about gossip and being in the perils of gossip. There seems to be an invisibly powerful moral police that's prevalent. And although this varies in different networks which are more or less conservative, we talk about men judging women and women judging each other about things like head job how much makeup so and so is wearing. The styles of wearing the headscarf in different ways. We're choosing not to wear the headscarf and I've come across a lot of girls who used to wear the headscarf that are not wearing the headscarf and for various reasons. And so this judging is going on or other people talk about judging for being too friendly at such events or flirtatious or outspoken in the company of men or being too flirtatious or friendly text messaging which is really important. These are different examples of transgressions which could be damaging to one's reputation which people are really concerned about. Very heated discussions about temporary marriage and about this has also emerged among these networks. Mutual marriage allows a man and woman to be legitimately married to each other for a specific period of time and in exchange for a specified amount of money or material reward for the woman. So although a social taboo for most shias Mutual marriages are legally binding for more shias as the scholars argue that Mutual marriage is sanctioned in the Quran and it was also a practice of the Prophet but historically the custom has been highly controversial for Muslims and it still is. So I met with a marriage counselor that's known in Shia networks who spoke about the marked increase in questions and queries about Mutual marriages at the center. He said that the need for Iranians to obtain official proof of their marriage if they travel back to Iran with numbers of the opposite sex they're going to get a certificate. But he said it's also become a popular option for some developed Shia men particularly among the younger generations despite the stigma attached to the custom. So he and others that I've talked to about this in the past few decades have inspired people to adhere more closely to the precepts of their faith. So in turn this has made some Shia men think twice before having unlawful premarital or extramarital relations. So this explains me that due to the high price of living here especially in house prices are forcing couples to have permanent marriages much later and the marriage counselor then explained to me that men have sexual, natural sexual needs and so we'll use Amuta arrangements with a non-Shia woman or non-Muslim woman as a temporary solution until permanent marriages are economically possible. Now many of my male and female and male many male interviewees were very vocal about how this is being abused by some men and who are entering into this contract with unethical intentions. Other men defended the practice saying that it's permissible when Shia is up and they said they talk openly with their friends about intermarriages and they sent text messages around and referred to the internet sites with tips on how to convince a woman to propose a temporary marriage. Now note that several older men I spoke to surprised that the younger generations were bothering with temporary marriages at all when they dated women as students entering into a temporary marriage was not customary in their encounters with the father so several interviewees noted that increasingly over the years since the renaissance revolution Muta has become a more popular it's been a more popular option for some Shia men for all generations by Richard Magar who's written about the popularization of Muta among Poges and Dar Salam mainly Masuni women from poor backgrounds and he explains this as being part of this religious revival and growing identification with Iran since the revolution. Now my younger interviewer said that although temporary marriage might secretly take place between fellow Shias largely speaking is taboo for Muslim women few men would dare to ask a father of a virgin for a woman's hand in Muta marriage which is required by the majority of the religious leaders with some exceptions though and they often compare this trend to Nisjar marriages among Sunnis now I've talked to many women about Muta which is really heated and it's often described as disgusting as a form of prostitution and outdated and the revival of this tradition according to many women interviewees has inadvertently reinforced the paramount value placed on women's virginity so while warranting promiscuity for both single and married men it in turn ignores and discounts women's sexuality and desires until a permanent marriage some women defend the tradition arguing that Muta has its uses when it's not abused and it's hard to it's hard for a lot of women because they know that it's part of their faith so it's a tricky one but they argue that she is are using it for the wrong reasons in their society there have also been really interesting improvisations of the Muta tradition for example Hojas and some Afghans in Pakistanis have adapted Muta marriages to accommodate life in the UK because there's been a growing concern with the rise of divorce they feel that couples need to spend more time together in order to spot personality conflicts before entering into a permanent marriage so in order to bypass formal rules of segregation it's become widely accepted that once a boy asks a hand of a girl that their parents can agree that the couple should engage in a Muta marriage with a stipulation that no sex is involved and this improvisation that has no social stigma to each other so to conclude this research is in progress and so it's premature to draw many conclusions but by trying to look at the transformation of the discourses and the experiential dimensions of a few religious practices I've tried to capture some of the internal social and political dynamics that are being played out by the younger generations in the UK so by evaluating or objectifying their parents' religious traditions and practices, young Shias are getting more confidence to question ethno-national characteristics and expectations of the older generations while in turn trying to build a British Shia communal identification this is going hand in hand with efforts to systematize Shia practices by different Shia organizations and leaders around the UK and then I have to say Shias are not embedded in family networks as well as intra-diasporic dynamics with other Iraqis Iranians, Pakistanis etc who are actively tied to social and political dynamics back in countries of origin but as young Shias are navigating through the various viewpoints of leaders, conflicting customs among the parents' generation wider discourses about Muslims in the West actively trying to make sense and to legitimize Shias in relation to their lives in Britain so I can comment there