Karamah (‘marvel’): an exploration of the literal and ethnographic meaning of miracles among Shi`a female artists in Kuwait

Abstract

This position paper examines new forms of painted artworks made by pious Shi`a female artists in Kuwait, which treat imagery and experience known as Karamah (sing.) and Karamat (pl.), commonly understood as ‘miracle'. I examine current anthropological considerations of ‘miracle' and I find that the most suitable translation of the Arabic word Karamah may be ‘marvel', rather than ‘miracle', although how Shi`a use and understand ‘Karamah' may differ regionally. Fieldwork interviews and ethnography reveal that the paintings objectify the relationship between people and the family members of the Prophet Mohammed known as Ahl Al-Bayt. I argue that the new forms and, increasingly, exhibitions comprise important forms of ‘service’ dedicated to Ahl Al-Bayt.

Keywords:

• miracles
• karamat
• Karamah; Shi`a art
• Kuwait
• Ahl Al-Bayt
• Islamic art
• materiality Ahl Al-Bayt
• religious art

Notes on contributor

Nada Al-Hudaid is a research fellow in the department of theology and religion at the University of Birmingham. She obtained her PhD in Social Anthropology (with visual media) at the University of Manchester. Her research is on Shi`a religious art and female artists in Kuwait. Currently, she is researching dreams and miracles among Shia in Kuwait. Her research interests are in the anthropology of materiality, religion, art and gender. She is also a filmmaker specialising in ethnographic and documentary filmmaking.

ORCID

Nada Al-Hudaid http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7426-2319

Notes

1 Granddaughter of Prophet Mohammed.

2 The day grandson of Prophet Mohammed, Hussein, was slaughtered in Karbala, Iraq.

3 Retired school art teacher and owner of the art studio.

4 Family member of Prophet Mohammed.

5 The research presented in this essay is based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork on Shi`a artists in Kuwait in 2015 for my doctoral thesis.

6 See Bigliardi (2013) for more in-depth analysis and overview on the literature about studies of miracles.

7 URL: www.e.gov.kw, official Kuwaiti government website, accessed 1 February 2019.

8 ‘A.H.’ stands for After Hijra (migration) and it denotes the date when the Prophet migrated from Mecca to Madina.

9 Umm Khalid is in her mid-sixties and a retired nurse and public servant. She is one of the most well-known religious statue artists in Kuwait since 2004. Her statues are made from flexible iron wires and cotton rolls. Her statues are incorporated in religious sermons as part of her demonstration of specific incidents that happen to Ahl Al-Bayt. She also makes statue exhibitions of individual members of Ahl Al-Bayt, like Zaynab (The Prophet’s granddaughter), which focus on showing the different episodes of their lives (e.g. birth to death).

10 The Fatimi art studio (meaning the studio of Lady Fatima, daughter of Prophet Mohammed) is a large room (7 × 5 m) located on the third floor of Umm Mohammed’s house which exclusively for Shi’a women who want to learn how to paint for Ahl Al-Bayt. Umm Mohammed is a mid-forties retired school art teacher who dedicated her time to teaching other Shi’a women how to paint for Ahl Al-Bayt free of charge.