Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale

Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale
Journal issue | 53 | 2017
Research Article | Literary Mirrors and the Reconstruction of the Holy Places of Shiism in Nawabi Lucknow

Literary Mirrors and the Reconstruction of the Holy Places of Shiism in Nawabi Lucknow

Abstract

The article deals with a few literary responses, in Persian and Urdu, to the reconstruction of the sacred places of Shiite Islam in the North Indian centre of Lucknow. Focusing on some lines of poetry of representative authors of the period such as Ghālib and Qatīl, the paper hints at some possible and hitherto overlooked textual paths to look at the capital of the Shiite state of Awadh as a significant literary space-time to be located in a peculiar ‘region’ of that geography of the ‘Ajam and the Indo-Persian. By adopting a loose topological approach, we show how an analysis of the poetical discourse on the city and the places of Shiite pilgrimages might help in understanding how the Nawabi architectural theatrics were received and what were the implications of the urban dissemination of Imambaras and other comparable structures.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: April 19, 2017 | Accepted: May 29, 2017 | Published June 20, 2017 | Language: en

Keywords Indo-Persian • Ghalib • Lucknow • Imambara • Shi‘a • Qatil

Copyright © 2017 Stefano Pellò. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/2385-3042/AnnOr-53-17-5


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