01537nam a2200133Ia 4500 180524s2012 CNT 000 0 und d Set in Stone: Homeless Corpses and Desecrated Graves in Modern Iran DOI: doi:10.1017/S0020743812000049 Violence toward corpses and graves, especially the unusual practice of exhuming and burning remains, persisted sporadically through the 20th century in Iran but found new dimensions in the form of mass graves and a systematic desecration of cemeteries in the period following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This paper seeks to explore the roots of cemetery violence by examining the dynamics of apostasy and the experiences and challenges Babi and Baha' converts faced in their interment practices in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This period witnessed a significant change in communal identities. Unconventional self-definitions expressed in religious conversions and in fluid or multiple communal affiliations and religious convictions defied traditional boundaries and led to tension between nonconformists and religious authorities. One way for Shi'i 'ulama and Jewish rabbis to reassert a conventional center was through the control of cemeteries, including by not allowing converts to be buried in these semisacred spaces. DESECRATION Amanat, Mehrdad International Journal of Middle East Studies 44, 257-283 PDF internal-pdf://Set in Stone Homeless Corpses and Desecrated Graves in Modern Iran.pdf 25871 25871