Degree

BS (Social Sciences & Liberal Arts)

Faculty / School

School of Economics and Social Sciences (SESS)

Department

Department of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts

Date of Award

Spring 2025

Date of Submission

2025-07-31

Advisor

Professor Aliya Iqbal Naqvi

Committee

Professor Ramsha Siddiqui

Project Type

SSLA Culminating Experience

Access Type

Open Access

Keywords

Memon, Muharram, Milad, Phenomenology, Ritualization

Abstract

This thesis is a documentation of the Oral History of the commemoration of Muharram and celebration of Eid Milad-un-Nabi (ﷺ) within the Memon community residing in Karachi. The thesis traces a shift in scale from Muharram commemorations to Eid Milad-un-Nabi (ﷺ) celebrations. Using seven oral-history interviews from Kharadar and Hussainabad, it reconstructs the rituals affiliated with Muharram and Rabi-ul-Awal and analyses their meanings through hermeneutic phenomenology. It then analyzes transformation via Van Manen’s four lifeworld existentials: spatiality, corporeality, temporality and relationality. To complement the findings of this thesis, a historical analysis of Memon community’s practices in colonial Natal and colonial Bombay has been analyzed as well using Catherine Bell’s ritualization framework. The study argues that reformist critique, urban densification, costs, street-level enforcement and new media together narrowed Muharram’s public labor while enabling Mawlid’s growth. It offers the first Karachi-grounded Memon account, and preserves a disappearing oral history. With that being said my main attempt has been to make this thesis as humane as possible.

Pages

64

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