Ziyarat Ashura Between Taqiyya and Tabarri - A Study on Manuscript Transmission

Ziyarat Ashura is the most widely recited Shi'i ziyara to Imam al-Husayn as, but its final passages, the disavowal of the oppressors and the hundred curses, have long been contested. The oldest extant manuscript of Shaykh al-Tusi, d 4601067, Misbah al-mutahajjid, transcribed by al-Naqqash al-Razi in 5021108, omits them, and a small group of early copies follows suit. Were these passages a later interpolation, or were they removed?

Drawing on a systematic examination of numerous manuscripts, historical sources, and related evidence, this study argues that the final passages are integral to the original text, and that they were obscured for centuries by taqiyya, the principled discretion exercised by Shi'i scribes and scholars under hostile political conditions, particularly before the Safavid period. Tracing this practice through the work of Ibn Qulawayh, d 386978, Shaykh al-Tusi, al-Tamimi al-Sabzawari, alive in 5401/145, and Allama al-Hilli, d 726/1325, the author offers the first sustained study of taqiyya in the textual transmission of Ziyarat Ashura, a careful answer to a question that has been raised on the historical authenticity of this liturgical text in recent decades, and a contribution to the wider history of how Shi'i devotional literature was preserved, copied, and quietly defended.

Sayyid Mahdi Mahmoudi is a researcher in Shi'i manuscript studies and the textual history of Imami devotional literature, with a particular interest in the transmission, editing, and preservation of classical Shi'i works.