Grief as Theology, Ritual as Resistance: Zaynab bint Ali and the Future of Ritual Agency in Islam

This paper examines how ritual practices emerging from the aftermath of Karbala, particularly lamentation, sermon, and pilgrimage, function as modes of theological production and moral agency in Shii Islam. Centering Zaynab bint Ali’s sermon in Yazid’s court and the ritual traditions that followed it, the paper argues that grief operates not merely as commemoration but as a future-oriented ethical practice that preserves and reconfigures power after mass violence. Drawing on ritual theory, feminist studies of religion, and historical analysis, the paper challenges dominant assumptions that ritual primarily stabilizes tradition or expresses submission. Instead, it demonstrates how Zaynab’s ritualized speech and mourning inaugurate a form of “devotional resistance” in which memory and endurance generate moral authority. By tracing how these practices continue in rituals such as Arbaeen, the paper shows how ritual connects past trauma to future ethical possibility, offering a model for studying ritual as both preservation and transformation.