Review by Choice Review
As part of the recent scholarly interest in Shi'a ritual, D'Souza (Mission Institute Episcopal Divinity School) focuses her richly textured, detailed ethnography on the ritual practices of Twelver Shi'a women in Hyderabad, India. Chapters explore communal space marked as sacred through and during rituals; commemoration practices and events, including Muharram; diverse forms of women's religious leadership; ritual objects; and the particular significance of blessings and intercession for Hyderabadi Shi'a Muslims. A skilled ethnographer, the author provides thick description and carefully elaborated detail and offers multisensorial insights--from sight to sound, touch, and taste. Though she claims to offer a "gendered perspective," D'Souza focuses on women, thus offering only part of such analysis; she does not explore men's rituals as gendered and intersecting in spaces and events. D'Souza's persistent critique of existing work as devaluing women's ritual and thus marginalizing it appears outdated, as does her quest for the origins of rituals and their textual foundation that lends itself to essentialism. In the end, the book joins recent scholarship but does not transcend it. Still, D'Souza contributes to an ongoing and exciting conversation. Summing Up: Recommended. With reservations. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Juliane Hammer, UNC Chapel Hill
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
