Mourning through Simulation: Comparative Study of Muharram Mourning Symbols in India and Iran

People have long called cities and regions in the Subcontinent as Mini Iran or so for the reason that they contain a large number of Shia Muslims. However, the very essence of Shi’ism, the mourning ceremonies of Moharram appear not very helpful in confirming the above view. The Shia global community although commemorates the martyrdom of Hussain and his companions worldwide in much the same way yet here and there the cultures in which Shia communities have imbibed themselves appear to make a profound effect on the way these ceremonies take place. This paper deals with a part of these ceremonies i.e. the symbols used during mourning rituals, and attempts through ethnographic study and symbol analysis to establish the difference between the mourning symbols in the subcontinent and the symbols used in the Middle East. It also does an epistemological enquiry into cause of the differences and at the end tries to work through the differences and their causes to the implication and effect of these on the society in which they emerged and the society in which they are still preserved.