The paper focuses on the ways in which British Shi’is, mainly between the ages 18-30, have been reworking and performing Muharram rituals in the UK. Based on ethnographic and web based research it aims to demonstrate how Muharram events have become important competitive and communicative spaces for young British Shiis who come from a wide range of ethno-national backgrounds. The research closely examines the interface between embodied Muharram ritual practices and the proliferation of new types of charity events, lecture series and public relation campaigns organized by the younger generations during the month of Muharram. It will look closely at the dialogue, debates and forms of sociability that have evolved in these new spaces in relation to codes of behaviour and issues of lifestyle posited by the older generations. Taking into account the internal religious and social differences within the British Shi’I community, it will show how these spaces are used to negotiate daily life in Britain’s secular society and discuss the rise of sectarian politics and violence in locations around the world. The paper will also explore the extent to which different religious interpretations and rulings of Shi’i religious leaders (marja taqulids) in Iran and Iraq inform and legitimise Muharram events in the UK. The paper intends to address questions such as: What constitutes and marks a wider British Shia communal identity? Who decides? How are diasporic identities (such as Pakistani, Iranian, Iraqi and East African) contested and reshaped through new discourses and practices of religious ritual? The paper makes a wider argument that young British Shi’is are increasingly seeing themselves as part of an emerging, cross-ethnic British Shi’i community with diasporic and transnational dimensions. Taking a generational and gendered approach, the research is situated in sociology/anthropology of ethnicity and religion, and migration and diasporic studies.