Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ Between Taqiyya and Tabarrī | Part 3: Was Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ Altered?
Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ Between Taqiyya and Tabarrī | Part 3: Was Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ Altered?
In Part 3 of this six-part lecture series, Ḥujjat al-Islām Sayyid Mahdī Maḥmoudī addresses one of the most widely discussed contemporary objections concerning Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ: were its closing phrases added centuries after the time of the Imams (ʿa)?
Examining the origins of this claim, Sayyid Mahmoudi explains why some researchers have argued that the final passages containing explicit expressions of tabarrī (disassociation) are absent from certain early manuscripts. He introduces the principal manuscript evidence cited in support of this view, including the famous 502 AH manuscript of Miṣbāḥ al-Mutahajjid and the manuscript tradition of Kāmil al-Ziyārāt, while setting the stage for the manuscript analysis that follows in the remainder of the series.
Rather than responding to every objection immediately, this episode carefully presents the argument as its proponents make it, preparing viewers for the evidence-based response in the subsequent videos.
In this episode:
The contemporary claim that Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ was altered
Why the closing phrases became the focus of debate
The significance of wilāya and barāʾa in Shiʿi belief
The earliest manuscript evidence cited by proponents of textual alteration
Why these manuscripts require closer historical and textual analysis
About the speaker
Ḥujjat al-Islām Sayyid Mahdī Maḥmoudī is a researcher specialising in Shiʿi manuscript studies and the textual history of Imāmī devotional literature.
He is the author of numerous studies on Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ, including Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ: From Its Origins to the Present Day, which received a commendation at the 40th Islamic Republic of Iran Book of the Year Award and was recognised at the 2nd Biennial of ʿĀshūrāʾ Books.
This lecture series accompanies ICAIR’s newly published English translation of Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ Between Taqiyya and Tabarrī: A Study on Manuscript Transmission, which draws on over one hundred manuscripts and historical sources to examine the textual history of one of Shiʿism’s most important devotional texts.
📖 Order the book:
https://icair.ac/ziyarat-ashura-book
