Registration is required to attend. Register in advance here.
Please arrive 15 minutes early to register for the event and browse books. Buying a book before or after the event is a great way to support the Making Worlds project!
“The qawwali and the majlis intersect at the point of praising Husain but the qawwali inevitably emphasizes the results of Husain’s suffering, while the majlis vividly depicts the suffering alone.”
"Lyrical Martyrdom" in Reliving Karbala, Syed Akbar Hyder
The tragedy of Karbala has been told through countless mediums for centuries -- from oral traditions and written accounts to lamentations and posters to Instagram posts and research papers -- each one creating the same story anew, offering a glimpse into something previously unfelt. In this long chain of retellings, the tradition of Qawwali has also made Karbala its own by framing Imam Hussain’s martyrdom as a triumph.
Join us on Saturday, August 30th at 2pm at Making Worlds Books in Philadelphia, PA for "Reliving Karbala in Qawwali." We will gather for a guided listening session of Qawwalis that weave together a narrative of the tragedy of Karbala.
Please note that this is not a live Qawwali event.
This event will be a listening session of curated sounds from the Indian subcontinent revolving around the massacre of Karbala, an event that has inspired much of the political organizing amongst Shi'a Muslims over the last couple of centuries, including today. It will follow a similar format as the following event series: listeningwhilemuslim.com. The event will start with a description of the massacre, inviting the audience to be present as they listen and connect the political histories that tie us all together. Then, we'll move into a 30 minute listening session of qawwalis (sacred music) and delve into music as a storytelling medium of resistance. We'll end with a series of reflections from the audience.
Laila Tauqeer is a community organizer and educator working at the intersection of class, community formation, and access for marginalized communities in North America. She hopes for her work to serve as a reminder to herself and those around her to critically engage with the world and to be active participants rather than passive observers of our own lives. She has worked at Swarthmore College, Oakland Museum of California, Mufid Academic Seminary, and El-Hibri Foundation. She is a 2025 Scholar with the American Alliance of Museums and was a 2024 Archival Creators Fellow with the South Asian American Digital Archive. Laila holds a bachelor’s degree in History of Science from Harvard College.
A nod to those who inspired this event: Syed Akbar Hyder, particularly the chapter “Lyrical Martyrdom” in Reliving Karbala and the folks at Listening While Muslim for serving as inspiration for the format of this event.