The victim and its masks : an essay on sacrifice and masquerade in the Maghreb
Abdellah Hammoudi (Author),Paula Wissing (Translator)
Each year, in a solemn Sunni Muslim feast, the Ait Mizane of southern Morocco reenact the story of Abraham as a ritual sacrifice, a symbolic observance of their submission to the divine. After this sober ceremony comes a bacchanalian masquerade which seems to violate every principle the sacrifice affirmed. Because of the apparent contradiction between sacrifice and masquerade, observers have described the two as entirely separate events. This book reunites them as a single ritual process within Islamic tradition. -- Publisher description
9780226315256, 9780226315263, 0226315258, 0226315266
27265476