The mourning rituals of Muharram, a set of practices to commemorate the martyrdom of the third Shi’ite Imam, has been one the most significant ceremonies to propagate a religio-nationalistic identity following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. While these rituals were historically organized by ordinary individuals and performed by amateur religious singers (known as Maddah), over the last forty years, the Iranian state has invested in a broad range of ways to increase the popularity of these rituals. Distributing funds, procuring supplies, training performers, and establishing a state-sponsored network of singers have made Muharram rituals an uncontested cultural site. Tracing performative and discursive transformations of Muharram rituals from the early days of the Iranian Revolution, this paper analyzes how these rituals have become the bedrock of a nationalistic politics and creating a moral and affective consensus between state and citizenry. Based on textual and discourse analysis of Muharram dirges, poetries, and audiovisual representations, this paper brings Gramscian notion of hegemony into conversation with affect theory to explain how the Iranian state employs the affective, and visceral power of these rituals to create a shared experience of mourning.
