6 - The Power of the Word

Summary

Chapter 6 focuses on the production of art in the form of poetry and sermons but also material and visual culture expressed through banners, posters, and graffiti as a form of resistance and reordering of the political system. In the context of Twelver Shi‘a Islam, writing elegies and performing them in mourning rituals has been a central element in lamenting the death of Imam Husayn. The lachrymal expressions and descriptions that characterize this lamentation poetry have the religious and ritualistic function of metaphorically identifying the participants with Imam Husayn and uniting believers in the fight for his cause. This chapter focuses mainly on lamentation poetry written by men but performed by women during women-only majalis in Kuwait and London. It discusses how poetry, as an artistic production, is politicized locally but its impact is transnationally transmitted. The chapter also examines women’s use of forms of resistance art to articulate their own definition of power and authority within both private and public spaces in Bahrain.