Invocations of god found in early Islamic texts tends towards the spur-of-the-moment, or those informed by pre-Islamic rituals and practices. Quranic recitation is more often practiced as a form of invocation and supplication than any other. However, this use of the Qur’an as invocation begins to change in the medieval period; and one easy method of measuring this change is with the increasing popularity of manuals involving supplication(du’a). Nowhere else is this more apparent than in the proliferation of Shi’a du’a manuals. However, while there is an acknowledgment of the importance of du’a in the Shi’a tradition, there is little study on how it is transmitted and practiced. More often, there is a gesture to the importance of du’a in practice, with little sustained study as to the structure and content of both individual du’a and du’a manuals. This study aims to rectify that lack of scholarship by adopting the methods used in historical analysis of pilgrimage (ziyara) texts, as well as the methods used in the study of the history of Christianity. First, there is an increasing awareness of the centrality of pilgrimage for the Shi’a community, and how that is expressed formally through ziyara manuals. Second, studies of Christian prayers and prayer manuals allows scholars to recreate the use of ritual in communal boundaries and performative practice in the history of Christianity. The methods used by these fields provides a method for examining the public and performative aspects of du’a in the Shi’a community, and the increasingly normative understanding of what constitutes appropriate practice. Studying the development of these manuals gives an insight into the development of a normative supplication system, its authorities, and its uses in the community. By tracing their development, from the Fada’il al-Ashhur al-Thalatha (The Benefits of the Three Months) of al-Shaykh al-Saduq (d. 381/991) to the to the Mafatih al-Jinan of Shaykh Abbas Qummi (d.1359/1940), this paper will examine how supplication manuals function as a site of justifying authority, reiterating common practice, and encouraging communal boundaries through ritual.

While ample academic attention is devoted to Qur’anic hermeneutics in Islamic studies, the study of prayer supplications (du’a), aside from a few scattered encyclopedic entries, has received almost no consideration. This is despite the fact that prayer supplications form a crucial aspect of pietistic practice and spiritual orientation for Twelver Shi’a. Commentaries (shuruh) on these supplications by clerical scholars function as conduits for the latter’s comprehension and are composed in a manner intelligible to the laity who might otherwise not have the time or acumen for religious education. This article attempts to redress the absent scholarship on Shi’i devotional texts, by focusing on a commentary authored by the Qajari philosopher and poet, Mulla Hadi Sabzivari (d. 1873). Sabzivari’s commentary on the supplication Du’a al-Sabah, ascribed to Imam Ali b. Abi Talib, offers a view of Mulla Sadra-inspired metaphysics and theosophy. Du’a al-Sabah contains a series of refrains addressed to God, recognizing His superlative qualities, including, inter alia, generosity (karam), grace (lutf), and divine power (qudra). It takes the form of a repeated petition to receive a small portion of these desirable attributes from the source of their most perfect quintessence, viz. God, and a plea for forgiveness for the follies of humankind. Sabzivari’s commentary is fecund with gnostic and philosophical insight, drawing upon the supplication’s implications for ontology, the soul, God, and the Shi’a Imams, facets we analyze with regards to the supplication’s unique vernacular. I argue that where philosophical content may be otherwise impersonal and normatively inert, it becomes a direct and personal enterprise when revealed or “read into” devotional prayer. Our study suggests that prayer supplications can become conceptual channels, important for promoting particular theological themes that clerical figures wish to emphasize. In this regard, the supplications’ believed benefits (thawab) are twofold, offering comprehension of an ideal religious orientation for the supplicant and an elaboration of theocentric philosophy (hikma).

In this paper, I explore the formation of religious language in the sermon of Hussayn ibn Ali at Karbala. Using Rowan Williams’ framework of “religious language” as “a language under pressure”, I will examine the sermons of Imam Hussayn in his confrontation with the army of Yazid ibn Mu’awiyah in Karbala, Iraq. More than an ordinary sermon, this speech is a prayer and a direct engagement with the participants of the opposing army, who had betrayed their promises of support to him. This sermon provides a case in point for my analysis because of the significant pressure placed on the speech and linguistic potential of the Imam. In a situation that is otherwise traumatic and can lead to silence, the Imam engages in a dialogic encounter on two levels - one with God, the other with his opponents. I argue that the opening prayer and engagement with the opponents showcase the formation of a language that becomes "religious" not only under the "pressure" of a tragic situation at hand, but the pressure of address to God as well. The format of prayer brings out a pressure of its own on language; one that not only acknowledges the desperation of a tragic situation at hand, but by referencing an infinite interlocutor (God), is able to give to the speaker a semblance of moral agency in a fraught situation. Language is made religious through the pressure of a self that while encountering utter limitation is able to overcome the limitations through the infinitude of the Deity.

What is the function of duʿa in Imami Shiʿi intellectual and spiritual life? How does it correspond to other dimensions of Imami religiosity, e.g., the legal (fiqhi), theological (kalāmi), and literary (adab) discourses? This paper will explore these questions through a close reading of the famous compilation of Shaykh al-Ṭāʾifah al-Ṭūsī (d. 1067), Misbāḥ al-Mutahajjid. The Miṣbāḥ presents duʿa (supplication) as an extension of a Muslim’s legal obligation, first enumerating the various mandatory acts and their conditions throughout the Islamic calendar, e.g., the canonical prayer or the Ramadan fast, then presenting duʿas in terms of those obligations. Hence, this text neither fits the genre of the legal nor the prayer manual, rather unites the two in a continuum of praxis. This also hints at the internal logic at work in a prayer manual: the author presents abridged chains of transmitters to give a sense of authenticity, but does not fixate on proper chains; he provides different recensions of a single duʿa; and he includes ziyārāt (pilgrimage) formulas alongside duʿas. This evinces a particular internal logic to the Miṣbāḥ, and raises a number of questions: According to al-Ṭūsī, does a prayer have to be authentic? Why? And what are the requirements to attain authenticity? These lead us to a more fundamental question: what place did duʿa have viz-a-viz theology, particularly with respect to al-Ṭūsī’s theological position as a member of the more rationalist school of Imami kalām? Indeed, on one later reworking, the Minhāj al-Ṣalāḥ of “Allamah” Ibn Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī (d. 1325), the Miṣbāḥ becomes a launching point for a theological discourse according to Imami creed. How does this prayer manual help us understand a different side to Imami theology as expressed by al-Ṭūsī and al-Ḥillī, a theology that could not be expressed in terms of the genre of discursive theology (kalām)?