Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ Between Taqiyya and Tabarrī | Part 5: Explaining the Variations in the Manuscripts
Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ Between Taqiyya and Tabarrī | Part 5: Explaining the Variations in the Manuscripts
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In Part 5 of this six-part video series, Ḥujjat al-Islām Sayyid Mahdī Maḥmoudī continues his examination of the manuscript evidence surrounding Ziyārat ʿĀshūrāʾ, focusing on the remarkable variations found in the closing passages of the ziyārah.
Drawing on a collection of more than 140 manuscripts of Miṣbāḥ al-Mutahajjid and Mukhtaṣar al-Miṣbāḥ, Sayyid Mahmoudi argues that these differences cannot simply be explained as scribal mistakes or variant readings. Instead, he presents evidence that copyists intentionally altered, abbreviated, or specified certain phrases as a means of taqiyya (dissimulation), allowing these devotional texts to be preserved during periods of political and sectarian pressure.
This video explores several categories of manuscript variation and explains why they point towards deliberate textual modification motivated by historical circumstances rather than later interpolation.
In this episode:
Evidence from over 140 manuscripts of Miṣbāḥ al-Mutahajjid and Mukhtaṣar al-Miṣbāḥ
Why some manuscripts identify “the first, the second, the third, and the fourth” with alternative historical figures
The phenomenon of “disparity in transmission” (iḍṭirāb fī al-naql) and “disparity in transcription” (iḍṭirāb fī al-kitāba)
More than ten different manuscript versions of the closing passage
Why the consistent omission of the phrase “then curse the second, the third, and the fourth” points to taqiyya rather than scribal error
About the speaker
Ḥujjat al-Islām Sayyid Mahdī Maḥmūdī 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
