ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I problematize the otherwise interesting psychoanalytic reading of Shi’ism by Dabashi by taking it to its theoretical end by uncovering its intrinsic masculinist structure, which owes itself to Freud’s own theory. In doing so, I will theoretically reverse both Freud and Dabashi’s position, by asserting that the originary trauma of Shi’ism is not only at its beginning but also at its end. I will argue that indeed the repressed secret history of Islam is feminine (following Fethi Benslama’s insight), yet it is not to be sought simply in its originary narrative, but in the disavowed secret history of (Iranian) Shi’ism. So, the question to be asked here is: what is the repressed event, the traumatic event in Shi’ism par excellence (and Iranian Shi’ism in particular)? This traumatic event is none other than the emergence of the eventual revolutionary messianic Babi movement (and later the Baha’i faith) in nineteenth-century Iran. The specific trauma and ensuing guilt that is repressed in relation to the Babi movement is no longer masculine but feminine, and is related to the murder of a woman instead of a father or son, namely the death of the radical Babi female poet, philosopher, theologian, and mystic, Tahirih Qurrat al-‘Ayn. Hence at the root of the repressed traumatic event of (Iranian) Shi’i history is Qurrat al-‘Ayn’s act of unveiling vision and voice, and her eventual death by the state through the collective condemnation of the Shi’i clerical (‘ulama) order. This is the hidden underside of the trauma of (Iranian) Shi’ism that has remained repressed in the archives of (Shi’i) Islam.
