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Ashura: This Blood Spilled in My Veins
Author(s): Jalal Toufic (Author)
- Publisher: Forthcoming Books
- Publication Date: July 22, 2005
- Edition: First Edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 107 pages
- ISBN-10: 9953004609
- ISBN-13: 9789953004600
Book Description
Al-Husayn, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad and the son of the first Shi'ite imam, 'Alî, was slaughtered alongside many members of his family in the desert in 680. This memory is torture to me. But, basically, one can say "this memory is torture to me" of every memory, since each reminiscence envelops at some level the memory of the origin of memory, the torture that had to be inflicted on humans in order to make them remember (Nietzsche). The memory that the yearly commemoration of 'Âshûrâ' is trying to maintain is not only that of the past, but also and mainly the memory of the future, namely the promise of the Parousia of the twelfth imam, the long-awaited Mahdî--notwithstanding the passage of a millennium since his occultation--as well as the corresponding promise of Twelver Shi'ites to wait for him. 'Âshûrâ': a condition of possibility of an unconditional promise.
Editorial Reviews
From the Author
Al-Husayn, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad and the son of the first Shi'ite imam, 'Alî, was slaughtered alongside many members of his family in the desert in 680. This memory is torture to me. But, basically, one can say "this memory is torture to me" of every memory, since each reminiscence envelops at some level the memory of the origin of memory, the torture that had to be inflicted on humans in order to make them remember (Nietzsche). The memory that the yearly commemoration of 'Âshûrâ' is trying to maintain is not only that of the past, but also and mainly the memory of the future, namely the promise of the Parousia of the twelfth imam, the long-awaited Mahdî--notwithstanding the passage of a millennium since his occultation--as well as the corresponding promise of Twelver Shi'ites to wait for him. 'Âshûrâ': a condition of possibility of an unconditional promise.
About the Author
Jalal Toufic is a thinker and a mortal to death. He is the author of Distracted (1991; 2nd ed., 2003), (Vampires): An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film (1993; 2nd ed., 2003), Over-Sensitivity (1996; 2nd ed., 2009), Forthcoming (2000), Undying Love, or Love Dies (2002), Two or Three Things I'm Dying to Tell You (2005), 'Âshûrâ': This Blood Spilled in My Veins (2005), Undeserving Lebanon (2007), The Withdrawal of Tradition Past a Surpassing Disaster (2009) and Graziella: The Corrected Edition (2009). Several of his books are available for download at his website: jalaltoufic.com.
