An intimate prayer with the dead.

This article explores how listening to monājāt (Islamic sung prayer) creates dynamic and unsettling imaginative spaces for Amir—a paraplegic veteran of the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War—to be‐with Sohrab, his comrade killed in combat. Amir, who both witnessed Sohrab's tragic death and endured severe physi...

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Published in:Anthropology & Humanism Vol. 49; no. 2; pp. 127 - 142
Main Author: Amoozegar, Farzad
Format: Article
Published: Wiley-Blackwell Dec2024
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        au: Amoozegar, Farzad
        affil: Hunter College & Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York New York, , USA
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        Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988
        Prayer
        Nostalgia
        Veterans
        Psychology
        Ritual
        Spiritualism
        Listening
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          Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988
          Prayer
          Nostalgia
          Veterans
          Psychology
          Ritual
          Spiritualism
          Listening
      keyword:
        death
        ethics
        Islam
        listening
        responsibility
      ab: This article explores how listening to monājāt (Islamic sung prayer) creates dynamic and unsettling imaginative spaces for Amir—a paraplegic veteran of the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War—to be‐with Sohrab, his comrade killed in combat. Amir, who both witnessed Sohrab's tragic death and endured severe physical trauma himself, engages in a profound, nonreciprocal relationship with Sohrab through the act of listening to the sung prayer. Monājāt is a collective experience that derives its power from Amir's imagined world where he finds himself whispering the prayers alongside Sohrab. This participatory mode of listening allows the living to host and welcome the dead. Monājāt creates a nonreciprocal relationship with the dead, a place where Amir hears what is otherwise inaudible. In this imaginary world, Amir finds proximity to be‐with his dead friend. Listening is a mode of being‐in‐the‐world that challenges one to not neglect the other's needs. For Amir, monājāt provides both images of Sohrab in heaven (the radiant face with the angels) and a disturbance by alerting him to recall Sohrab's suffering and the injured face. Listening, then, becomes a response and obligation to care for the dead; a way to attend to and be responsible for Sohrab which for Amir is both healing and haunting.
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