The Matter which may be: Sectarian Dilemmas of Materiality in Bahrain

Abstract

This article discusses different approaches to materiality and material expressions of cultural identity in contemporary Bahrain, a small Arab Gulf state. Various Islamic traditions have different understandings of materiality and its ontological qualities. In the contemporary Gulf this difference is often understood as a sectarian difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims, a division that has gained increasing political importance in recent years. In this article I discuss how these traditions view materiality in religion, in particular focusing on the role of material mediation for Shia Muslims, exemplified by the use and meaning of the turba prayer stone. With this as a point of departure I discuss two other forms of materiality—political graffiti and martyr images—that in the wake of the uprising in 2011 have also been imbued with sectarian meanings, but where this is less clear. I therefore argue that vernacular understandings of material culture show ambiguous identifications that challenge the clear dichotomies with which people—locally and analytically —often operate.

Keywords:

• Bahrain
• objectification
• Shia Islam
• sectarianism
• Arab uprisings

Acknowledgments

Earlier versions of parts of this article have been presented at the Gulf Studies Symposium, American University of Kuwait, March 2017, and at two seminars at Aarhus University: Sacred Objects (December 2015) and Sectarian Materialities (May 2017). The author would like to thank participants in these events for their useful comments. Thanks are also due to Vinni B⊘gelund, who contributed to the fieldwork in particular with the focus on turba prayer stones, and to the editors and reviewers of this journal issue.

Notes

1 And also inspired by an exhibition entitled The Presence of Absence, on the commemoration of the dead in Denmark and Cyprus, at Moesgaard Museum in 2017.

2 Hadith are records of the deeds and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, and among Shia also the Imams.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas Fibiger

Thomas Fibiger is an anthropologist at Aarhus University, currently teaching in the Arab and Islamic studies program. He has done fieldwork in Bahrain since 2003 and is part of the collective research project “Sectarianism in the Wake of the Arab Revolts.” [email protected]