In Part 4 of this six-part lecture series, Ḥujjat al-Islām Sayyid Mahdī Maḥmoudī presents the central thesis of his research: that the variations found in some manuscripts of Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ are best explained not by textual alteration, but by taqiyya (dissimulation).
In Part 4 of this six-part lecture series, Ḥujjat al-Islām Sayyid Mahdī Maḥmoudī presents the central thesis of his research: that the variations found in some manuscripts of Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ are best explained not by textual alteration, but by taqiyya (dissimulation).
After reviewing previous scholarly responses to the claim that the ziyārah was altered, Sayyid Mahmoudi explains how his research takes a different approach. Drawing on manuscript evidence gathered over many years, he argues that the omission of certain passages reflects historical circumstances in which scribes and manuscript owners concealed or removed sensitive phrases for protection, rather than evidence of later interpolation.
This lecture introduces the first categories of manuscript evidence examined in his study, including manuscripts containing deliberate erasures and others from which the pages containing Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ appear to have been removed altogether.
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A new approach to the manuscript history of Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ
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Manuscripts showing traces of scraped-away passages and censored wording
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The significance of missing pages in some copies of Miṣbāḥ al-Mutahajjid and Mukhtaṣar al-Miṣbāḥ
Ḥujjat al-Islām Sayyid Mahdī Maḥmoudī is a researcher specialising in Shiʿi manuscript studies and the textual history of Imāmī devotional literature.
He is the author of numerous studies on Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ, including Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ: From Its Origins to the Present Day, which received a commendation at the 40th Islamic Republic of Iran Book of the Year Award and was recognised at the 2nd Biennial of ʿĀshūrāʾ Books.
This lecture series accompanies ICAIR’s newly published English translation of Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ Between Taqiyya and Tabarrī: A Study on Manuscript Transmission, which draws on over one hundred manuscripts and historical sources to examine the textual history of one of Shiʿism’s most important devotional texts.
Subscribe to ICAIR to follow the complete six-part series exploring the manuscript evidence, historical context, and scholarly arguments presented in this landmark study.
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