Tazia Festival in Guyana has gradually lost its significance

Jul 27, 2023 Letters

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Dear Editor,

In the observation of Ashura, the 10th of Muharram, which falls on July  28, 2023, we reflect on the history  of the festival in Guyana dating back to 1866.

Tazia (Tadja) festivities were celebrated annually by the small Shia population up until the 1950s in many villages around the country. This event used to be observed on the 10^th day of Muharram which is also known as the day of Ashura or the day of mourning to honor the martyrdom of Imam Husayn ibn Ali. He was the grandson and last member of the Holy Prophet Muhammed (SAWS) family, who were beheaded by Yazid Ibn MuawiyahIbn Abu Sufyan, the sixth Sunni Caliph and the second of the Umayyad dynasty during “the Battle of Karbala” in present day Iraq, which took place on the 10^th of Muharram in the year 61 AH; this battle is central to the Shia belief.

Due to regional linguistic differences many migrants   from Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh can’t pronounce  Z, thus, Tazia becomes Taja, Nazir becomes Najeer or Zainab  becomes Jainab, etc. Among the early Hindustani that came to British Guiana, there were a handful of Muslims who were from the Shia sect, which was not unusual, especially that  North India has a large Shia population.  These Shias brought with them the practice of Tazia, but which gradually lost its religious significance over the years.

As a result, on December 4^th,1949, the Sad’r Anjuman-I-Islam and the Islamic Association of British Guiana (IABG) under the leadership of Rahaman Baksh Gajraj, Azeem Khan, Dr. Muhammad. Barrakatullah Khan, S.Shabrattee, Gool M. Khan, Karamat Mcdoom, Abdool Rayman (Rahaman), and Moulvi Muhammad Ahmad Nasir,  Abdul Daoud Hack and S. A. Sattaur,  during the Second All-Guiana Muslim Conference in 1949,  passed a resolution for the cessation of the festival. A copy of the resolution  was forwarded to the government for transmission to His Majesty in Great Britain. This historical resolution read as follows:

WHEREAS the observance of the martyrdom of Imam Hoosein and his family has lost entirely its religious significance; and

WHEREAS in this Colony persons of other religions take an active part in promoting Tazia, for the sole purpose of entertainment, debauchery and personal gain, all of which are contrary to the spirit and letter of Islamic Laws and regulations; and

WHEREAS such practices constitute a gross insult to the revered memory of the distinguished grandson of the Holy Prophet (SAWS), and are a flagrant distortion of these religious rites;

BE IT RESOLVED by this second All-Guiana Muslim Conference that Government be requested to pass legislation prohibiting the construction of such symbols, and both actual and implied, and such other indulgences falsely associated with the observance of Tazia.

Those who wrote about the event seemed fascinated by the gathering of Muslims and an increasing number of non-Muslims partaking in these festivities where the consumption of alcohol became part of the celebration that took on more of a “carnival-like” atmosphere and which gradually lost its religious significance over the years.Towards the end of the Indian Indentureship system, the festival became so secularized that its annual celebration was promoted by owners of rum shops.   On the occasion of Guyana’s independence in May 1966, Guyanese historian P.P. Dial wrote an article which briefly touched on the Tazia celebrations 100 years earlier – in 1866. He stated that in that year it was one of the biggest celebrations ever held in the colony where a growing number of Creoles took part in the revelry.

The Creoles participation in the festival was a great concern for Churchmen and Christian priests who feared that their flocks could gradually convert to the Muslim and Hindu faiths with their participation in the “East Indians religious celebrations (especially Tadjah and Holi) with the beating of the drums, singing and dancing in the streets.” It was suggested that Creoles who took part in these celebrations should be jailed and whipped, and greater efforts were made by the churches and even the government to prevent the Creoles from joining in Hindu and Muslim festivals.

In March of the same year (1866), one churchman expressed the opinion, which was also held by most Christian priests, “that they have seen the Creoles taking part in these festivals and at all events it should not be and that they cannot afford to allow the Creoles of the colony who are removed ever so little from heathenism and savagery to relapse.”

May God Bless Imam Hussein’s soul!!

Sincerely,

Shabnam  Ali

Ray Chickrie

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• Azeem Khan, Dr. Muhammad. Barrakatullah Kha, Rahaman Baksh Gajraj, Ray Chickrie, Shabnam  Ali

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