Reading Practices of the Arabic mawlid

Weinrich, Ines

Abstract

Mawlid, short for mawlid an-nabī, the Prophet’s birthday, is nowadays commonly understood as the events that commemorate and celebrate the anniversary of the Prophet’s birth. However, mawlid is also the designation for a short prosimetric composition which was read during the commemorative event. Analysing reading practices on a macro-level, the chapter demonstrates that the reading of a mawlid (qirāʾat al-mawlid) became a central element of mawlid ceremonies in various geographic contexts and social occasions. Turning to the micro-level, the author deduces concrete reading practices from the mawlid text’s structure, the materiality of manuscripts, and the poetic forms.