**1. Introduction**

Sometimes the house of the future is better built, lighter and larger than all the houses of the past, so that the image of the dream house is opposed to that of the childhood home ... . Maybe it is a good thing for us to keep a few dreams of a house that we shall live in later, always later, so much later, in fact, that we shall not have time to achieve it. For a house that was final, one that stood in symmetrical relation to the house we were born in, would lead to thoughts—serious, sad thoughts—and not to dreams. It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.

—Gaston Bachelard, *The Poetics of Space.* 1958, p. 61.

Bachelard's characterisation of the "house" and its impermanence relates to the way people are living simultaneously in a multiplicity of social worlds at any one time. These multiplicities of social worlds can exist in several ways and are not necessarily problematic. However, the liminality between these social worlds can become a more serious issue where migration is concerned. *Ali* is a 22-year-old businessman and sportsman of great skill living in Brisbane. He is of Afghan-Hazara heritage but was born in Quetta, Pakistan and migrated to Australia with his family in 2012. When *Ali* was 18 years old, he represented Australia at the highest junior sporting level in Europe. Before the competition, team members tricked *Ali* into entering a "red light" district.<sup>1</sup> Perturbed and disgusted, *Ali* covered his eyes and begged Imam Hussain for forgiveness: "Everything is Haram". This event

<sup>1</sup> Names have been changed as is common ethnographic practice.

was one of many disturbingly transversal conflicts in identity, problematising the multiplicity of new social settings *Ali* was forced to navigate. This paper focuses on understanding the relationship between religious belief systems, identity, and migration through lived-experiences in new social worlds. Applying a sociological ethnographic method of inquiry, this paper analyses the experiences of a cohort of individuals in order to offer some generalisations about religion, politics, and society. *Ali'*s parents, *Zaynab* and *Abdullah*, were displaced by the Taliban from their home province of Uruzgan in Afghanistan in 1996, finding liminal refuge in Quetta, Pakistan. After decades of systematic discrimination and persecution, *Abdullah* embarked on a perilous pathway to advancement for his family to Australia. *Abdullah*'s experiences in this period of liminality are beyond the scope of this paper. Fortunately, the stories of *Abdullah* and *Zaynab's* globalised children: *Ali*, *Hassan*, and *Musa,* and their experiences with alternative pathways to advancement in Australia offer the most consequential inflections of their parents' sacrifice.

#### **2. Background**

*Ali* and his family are ethnic Hazaras and ethnic Hazaras make up the vast bulk of Afghan refugees who have arrived in Australia in the last 20 years. Most Afghan Hazaras are from Hazarajat, which is in central Afghanistan. With rich cultural traditions predating Islam, Hazara culture also squared well demographically to the adoption of Shi'ism. The 8th century Arab geographer of the Islamic Golden age, al-Maqdis¯ı, named Hazarajat *Gharjistan*, meaning "mountain area ruled by chiefs" (Mousavi 1998, p.39). However, Hazaras have experienced systematic persecution and marginalisation from the political process in Afghanistan, occupying the lowest stratum in a deeply fragmented society (Barfield 2012; Rubin 1995; Maley 2002, 2008, 2016; Rashid 2002; Ibrahimi 2017). If one faces discrimination within the realm of the state, one begins looking for alternative pathways to advancement. The literature on pathways for advancement in the context of Hazara refugees identifies several pathways. One traditional pathway is personalised networks within the Hazara community. Two non-traditional pathways, which draw on the empowering features of globalisation, are education and business. Education and business represent pathways for advancement, which can create certain opportunities outside the sphere of the state. Due to the centuries of systemic oppression Hazaras endured in Afghanistan, these pathways for advancement have been historically favoured.

This family's journey took them from Uruzgan in Afghanistan, to Quetta in Pakistan, and from Quetta to Logan in Australia. Due to entrenched divisions within diasporic communities in Logan limiting perceived pathways to advancement, the family later relocated. Displaced from familiar spaces and marginalised within new diasporic communities, the family sought various pathways transcending traditional realms of advancement. A generational distinction indicates that the Hazara youth born during the era of globalisation gravitate towards education and business as means of advancement. Globalisation enhances the salience of education as a pathway of advancement in a similar way to business. Hazaras are also drawn to business due to their malleability to entrepreneurialism (Collins et al. 2017). Successful businesspeople cannot afford to be discriminatory in their actions because they tend to miss entrepreneurial opportunities themselves if they discriminate on economically irrelevant grounds, such as perceived race, ethnic background, or sectarian affiliations. Hazara identity is well-constructed to identify and avoid these distorting prejudices due to their own experiences with discrimination.

It is extremely difficult to generalise the migration experience of Afghan-Hazaras in Australia. The migration process and refugee experiences with "othering" are radically unique and inherently subjective. Therefore, this study focuses on a set of unique isolated experiences of Afghan-Hazara refugee migrants in Australia. The analysis uncovers fluid engagement with religious identity, differentiated social worlds, and divergent pathways to advancement through lived-experience. Across the participants surveyed, the theme of fluid belief systems links identity, belonging, nationalism, religiosity, and purpose with personal advancement in Australia. Interplay between belief systems and kin structures also plays a role in identity construction of participants. The study reveals that despite

being of the same family and upbringing, the three children pursue divergent pathways for advancement as a result of lived-experience. The eldest seeks meaning through religion and pilgrimage (*ziyarat*). The middle child finds purpose and identity through sports and entrepreneurialism. The youngest child becomes critical of religion and religious institutions, finding purpose and identity through individuation. The study highlights very distinct pathways not just occupationally but ideationally as well. Each engaged in a multiplicity of social worlds, where participants share different world views. This militates against any type of homogenising view of Hazaras in Australia. These do not reflect generational scale differences. Rather, different socialisation experiences in Australia demonstrate that people adjust to the social worlds they enter and are not fixed in their ways.

#### **3. Methodology: Reflexive Sociological Ethnography**

This study used a method of sociological ethnography involving extended synchronous and asynchronous, structured and semi-structured interviews, to unpack dominant themes drawn from the experiences of a deeply spiritual Shi'i Afghan-Hazara refugee family. Ethnography is a method for understanding social practices and interactions through systemic study of individual cultures. Sociological ethnography can be divided into two broad camps: Grounded theory (GT) and extended case method (ECM). GT seeks to uncover generic explanations through similarities. By contrast, ECM treats complex narratives of social worlds as "cases", analytic units for understanding an empirical phenomenon through multiplicity. According to Burawoy (1998), the ECM "applies reflexive science to ethnography in order to extract the general from the unique, to move from the "micro" to the "macro", and to connect the present to the past in anticipation of the future, all by building on pre-existing theory" (5). Therefore, ECM enables theory to illuminate a specific ethnographic case, revealing how lived-experiences in micro-level social settings relate to macro-level sociological phenomena. Describing the approach, Gluckman (1961, pp. 9–10) proposes taking:

"a series of specific incidents affecting the same persons or groups through a period of time, and showing how these incidents, theses 'cases' are related to the development and change of social relations among these persons and groups, acting as a framework within their social system and culture."

Through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with Hazara Australians, Hetz and Radford (2020) examined the negotiation of identity between Hazara (ethnic), Afghan (homeland), Muslim (religious), Australia (host nation), and refugee (former). Using a similar approach, participants in this study describe divergent pathways for advancement in differentiated social worlds. While themes of religion and culture inhere, individuation through lived-experience is the primary implication observable across the study. The ECM was implemented and iteratively refined across a three-month period involving a series of dialogues with three Afghan-Hazara male siblings, conducted over telephone and email. Central to the study were issues of religiosity, identity, individuation, and pathways to advancement in Australia. The research is significant to public policy issues, including refugee migration, diasporic communities, and cultural integration. Refugee ethnography provides instructive micro-scale observations capable of informing macro-scale policy practices. Furthermore, ethnographic refugee research plays a crucial role in balancing the securitisation of refugees in academic and political discourse. The research contributes to the scholarly literature on lived-experiences of refugees in Australia, the process of individuation, and the fluidity of identity.

#### **4. Context: Afghan-Hazara Belief Systems and the Culture Stripping Process of Migration**

#### *4.1. Diasporic Communities in Australia and the Culture Stripping Process of Migration*

In both print and digital media, politically conservative wings of Australian media, such as News Corp and its subsidiaries, frequently problematise diasporic communities. Diaspora communities are portrayed as disorderly and culturally incongruent with Australian values. Lebanese communities in western Sydney and Sudanese communities in Melbourne are constructed as groups promoting cultures incompatible with Australian values. Humphrey (1992, 2001) redresses this misconception by arguing that migration itself is a culture stripping experience. Studying Lebanese diaspora communities in Australia during the 1970s, Humphrey argues that this culture stripping process creates many of the social problems seen as flowing from a particular culture in Australia. Therefore, it is the absence of culture and authority that contributes to the social issues at play in diaspora communities. Reducing issues of diasporic social integration to a clash in cultures ignores the reality that these communities are stripped of the very culture pundits use to explain their social behaviour in Australia. This reflects a loss of cultural influence in diaspora communities, without there being an apparent substantive problem.

#### *4.2. Dimensions of Afghan Hazara Diaspora: Kinship, Masculinity, and Spirituality*

The Afghan Hazara population in Australia has its own set of culture stripping problems. The cultures of diasporic communities share a longstanding feature, which privileges patriarchal structures at home and in society. More instrumentally, belief systems play an important role in the construction and reconstruction of identity in diasporic communities. Transcending the scope of generalisations, this is deterministic yet deeply intersubjective and constructed on several levels of social mediation. The interplay between novel belief systems and kin structures is particularly deterministic in identity construction in the case of the Afghan Hazara diaspora in Australia.

For many Afghan Hazara families in Australia, the culture stripping process of migration erodes pre-existing parental authority, and the dominant position of the father as leader and decider for the family. Parents typically do not speak the local language as well as their children, nor do they learn it as fast. The erosion of authority can lead to a situation where power dynamics within families are flipped. Within this inversion, children become intermediaries between the state and the parents. Historically, the father would play this role but can no longer do so. This is not necessarily problematic. However, it can become a problem if people have a sense of being without any compass. A 2018 study prepared by the United States Institute of Peace (Ahmadi and Stanikzai 2018) found that through decades of war and violent conflicts in Afghanistan, resorting to violence has become an acceptable social norm of masculinity in Afghanistan. Through ethnographic psychodynamic investigation, Chiovenda (2020) found that war, social violence, displacement, and cultural expectations have a profound impact on the psychological and socio-cultural dynamics of masculinity norms in Afghanistan. Chiovenda's research found that across four decades of protracted war, violence became normalised as a necessary feature of masculinity in Afghanistan.

The existence of such starkly contrasting social norms in Afghan culture, clarifies how the culture stripping process of migration deprives the father of his dominant position in the family in Australia. This is not to say that Afghan Hazara men are more likely to commit violence. In fact, the experiences shared by *Abdullah*, *Ali, Hassan*, and *Musa* in this study indicate a belief-based disinclination to violence. Nonetheless, the stark contrast between norms of masculinity in Afghan society compared to Australian society forces Afghan families to revise previously accepted and internalised norms of masculinity.

#### *4.3. Religiosity and Collective Shi'i Identity*

From the participants surveyed, discrepant levels of religiosity are observable. An abstract, yet distinct, form of collective transnational Shi'i identity, with reverence to the *Ahl al-Bayt* (family of the House), and the plight of Imam Husayn arises as a recurrent theme. As a pathway for advancement, this *motif* of belonging arises in varying degrees of salience across participants over time. Central to Twelver Shi'ism is the holy month of *Muharram*, which laments and mourns the martyrdom of Imam Husayn Ali and his family at the Battle of Karbala in 680AD. *Muharram* climaxes on the 10th day known as *Ashura*. Aghaie (2007) emphasises its centrality in Shi'i ritual, noting "at the core of the symbolism of Ashura is the moral dichotomy between world injustice and corruption on the one hand and God-centred justice, piety, sacrifice and perseverance of the other" (p. 111).

*Muharram* and *Ashura* are observed around the world in various localities. From Karbala to London and from Quetta to Brisbane, the holy month is observed and expressed in a multiplicity of ways in various local contexts (Bowen 2014). Perhaps due to dislocation, migration, and relocation, the story of Imam Husayn is an important and recurrent spiritual *motif* thematic in the study. Leading global expert of *Ashura*-oriented literature, Muhammad-Reza Fakhr-Rohani, has written comprehensively on the poetics of Shi'ism through the life and plight of Imam Husayn (Fakhr-Rohani 2007, 2014). Describing the centrality of *Ashura*, Aghaie (2007) writes:

"Ashura will always remain a never-ending lesson. It has since vociferated the voice of the perennial battle between right and wrong. Darkness and light; it continues to mark the oppression of pure religious thought and noble human characteristics. In this way it reverberates the voice of religious nobility as exemplified and crystallised in the Battle of Ashura". (p. 20).

The Karbala massacre and plight of Imam Husayn and his family hold temporal relevance to the history of discrimination and persecution modern Afghan-Hazaras experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The plight and perseverance of Imam Husayn, and the poetic liminality of the Battle of Karbala, become even more relevant when squared with the culture stripping process of migration and relocation many refugees experience.

#### **5. Conceptual Framework: Obstacles and Pathways to Advancements**

#### *5.1. Belief Systems and Afghan-Hazara Culture*

A belief system is an ideology or set of principles people use to interpret and navigate social worlds. Belief systems can be influenced by factors, such as political affiliation, philosophy, or religion. Typically, belief systems form in two ways. First, through childhood upbringing and environment. Second, through lived-experience (Nescolarde-Selva and Usó-Doménech 2016). Hazara kinship is particularly unique due to the frequency of refugee and migrant experiences, as well as distinct Shi'i religiosity. Observing kinship structures, Hárdi et al. (2004) found that migration, remittances and reproductive social ties are particularly salient in the case of Hazaras. Because of the systemic discrimination Hazaras face in Afghanistan, migration and transnationalism are central elements of modern kinship (Monsutti 2005). The martyrdom of Imam Husayn also features in Hazara kinship, which entail religious practices and life-cycle ceremonies, such as *Muharram* and *Ashura* (Cole and Keddie 1986).

A central theme of this study is the role of belief systems and divergent religious outcomes during times of uncertainty. Focusing on the mobilisation of guilt in Shi'ism as a tool of manipulation and coercion within diaspora communities in Australia; this theme helps explain how new experiences prompt one to revisit earlier beliefs. *Hassan*'s experience in revisiting earlier beliefs resulted in three journeys to the holy Shi'i shrine cities Karbala, Najaf, and Mashhad. The notion that in dire extremity, one seeks God essentialises this psychological approach. People may engage in any form of dramatic religiosity to be accepted. In *The Theory of Moral Sentiments* (Smith 1759), Adam Smith argues, quite explicitly, that there is a universal human preference to be favoured rather than disfavoured by the communal group of which one wishes to be a member. This means one explanation for religiosity is not intense religious belief but a perception on the part of a given individual that those whose respect or support they crave value religious practice. One may not pray or believe in the entirety of the faith, yet still hold religious practices because the problems that would arise from abandoning them would not be worth the trouble. Therefore, it becomes difficult to make assessments of how religious a society might be by quantifying attendance at Friday prayers because it is a norm.

#### *5.2. Belief Systems in New Social Worlds*

*Ali*, *Hassan*, and *Musa*'s socialisation experience is vastly different from that of their parents. The children are products of the globalised world and likely encountered globalising experiences

before arriving in Australia. Parental authority further erodes because younger generations assimilate faster and enter new social worlds. Aspiring to adopt and emulate the values Australia has constructed as identity over the past century, *Ali*, *Hassan*, and *Musa* integrate centuries-rich Hazara culture with Twelver Shi'ism as a belief system in a variety of ways. While Shi'i Islam remains a central feature of Afghan-Hazara culture and spirituality, its forms of identity expression and performance are largely influenced by context-dependant local norms and customs.

Brubaker (2015) divides religious identity into symbolic and material dimensions. The former constitutes issues relating to values, ideals, and culture. The latter refers to economic and political factors, and how these are instrumental as resources for advancement. Accepting the transversal nature of religious identity, Brubaker argues that religion carries a unique "normative ordering power" (Brubaker 2012). The construction and instrumentalisation of religious identities are complex and cut along several dimensions of society. Identity construction begins on an individual level. It is then mediated and negotiated within religious communities, which are also affected by wider social and political norms. Because Shi'ism is the minority faith in Islam and collective identity centres on the martyrdom of Imam Husayn in Karbala, the belief system is uniquely based on grief, resistance, and victimhood. Upholding Shi'i virtues requires extreme piety in modern Australia. Within diasporic religious communities, lack of piety can be mobilised to cast shame and guilt on those who strive for better things in their lives.

#### *5.3. Grievance, Guilt, and Shame*

Shame and guilt are features of Afghan and Pakistan culture (Barfield 2008; Hárdi et al. 2004). The guilt/shame paradigm has also been applied to understand modesty in Islamic culture and society (Botz-Bornstein and Abdullah-Khan 2014). If one experiences the extremities of absolute war or poverty, and the culture-stripping migration process, grievances in diasporic communities are likely to exist. In diasporic communities where grievances are prevalent, shame and guilt can be mobilised as a coercive, and sometimes prejudicial tool in intergroup relations. Grievances can be expressed in malign ways when stratum prejudice, perceived or otherwise, intersects with collective identity. The literature on guilt-based societies suggests that power is maintained through the creation and sustained reinforcing of guilt to make certain behaviours morally unacceptable and ultimately undesirable (Hiebert 1985). Mobilisation of guilt and shame help explain the historical prevalence of pride, and revenge dynamics, such as honour killings. Guilt and shame-based social norms can also arise when victim-based belief systems are added to a context or localisation with existing grievances.

#### *5.4. Hidden Sectarianisation*

Sectarianism is a contested term, which often conflates cleavages within the Sunni-Shia rivalry and reduces them to entrenched doctrinal incongruence or "ancient hatreds" (Haddad 2020). The term is also used in the European context in reference to racism and prejudicial attitudes in the United Kingdom (Damer 1989; Davies 2006). While problematic in a binary Islamic context, the term is relevant to Afghan-Hazara socialisation in diasporic communities. This is because the amplification of grievance and intergroup competition takes place at the doctrinal level, the communal sub-state level, and crucially, at the nation-state level through national identity and belonging. Therefore, pathways to advancement are context dependant, implicating state power. James C. Scott analyses the dynamic between state power and tribal ethnic identity. He argues that identity is generated "at the periphery, almost entirely for the purpose of making a political claim to autonomy and/for resource" (Scott 2009, p. 258). Before unpacking the "hidden sectarianism" described in this study, it is necessary to draw some distinctions from other associated intergroup terms in social psychology such as prejudice and discrimination. In 1954, Gordon Allport wrote that "intergroup prejudice consists of negative opinion against an outgroup without sufficient evidence" (Allport 1954, p. 115). Social psychologists typically divide prejudice into "blatant" and "subtle" categorises (Pettigrew and Meertens 1995). While the

tangible evidence of subtle prejudice is less salient, Pettigrew (2008) argues "subtle prejudice correlates highly with blatant prejudice and predicts discriminatory intentions and behaviour".

While the scholarship on sectarianism is rich, Haddad (2020) persuasively argues the term "sectarianism" is problematic and that, if any, "sectarian identities" is a more suitable application (*Ibid*). Haddad interrogates the sectarianism literature, making the point that the prejudiced nature of sectarian*ism* requires a more tautological body of literature akin to critical studies on racism (p. 26). However, notions of sectarianisation and sectarian identities offer relevance to the study. In seeking to distil the sectarian issue, Haddad offers two useful observations regarding religious identity of relevance to this study.

First, when measuring the normative ordering power of religion, the importance of localised context cannot be understated. Haddad (2020) argues "religious identity's normative ordering power is only as potent as the religious doctrine from which it is derived are relevant at any given moment" (p. 61). This becomes important during the liminality stages of migration because religious beliefs might confer more social status in Quetta, Pakistan than Brisbane, Australia. The second observation of relevance to this study is Haddad's depiction of the fluidity and context-dependant nature of identity. He writes, "In times of tension or crisis, the gap between ideal intergroup relations and reality widens, as does the gap between what people claim and how they feel. People can over-emphasise the extent to which they are guided by socially-desirable values" (Haddad 2020, p. 67). These observations essentialise the fluid nature of belief systems and the multiplicity of ways they can be used to express Shi'i identity in diasporic communities. *Hassan*'s experiences with religious community as a pathway to advancement indicate elements of hidden sectarianism exist *within* religious diasporic communities in Brisbane. Despite shared Islamic creed, relatable displacement experiences, and diasporic 'othering' in Australia, a form of hidden sectarian*ism* arises within religious communities in diasporic social worlds.

## **6. Seeking "Qualified Life" through Shi'ism: Escaping Othering and Hidden Sectarianism in Logan**

*"I had lots of questions about the teachings of religion, that I wasn't satisfied with the messages of the religion preached and taught by the scholars over the years. I had many questions, hundreds of questions. But still I asked myself, I need to find out the answers of my questions. I said I must take responsibility to seek the authentic and accurate answers to my questions. And I got most of the answers to most of them on the last day [in Mashhad]."*

—*Hassan*.

As the eldest son, *Hassan*'s position in the family was elevated in the process of migration to Australia. Hasan took a vanguard position integrating the family into Australia's globalised society, without discarding the deeply spiritual and cultural traditions. For this reason, *Hassan*'s personal experience with pathways to advancement in Australia began through the traditional route of personalised networks within the community, gradually pivoting towards the more globalised pathways, such as education and business. *Hassan*'s story of migration to Australia is primarily one of globalised integration through business entrepreneurialism. Before reaching this position, however, *Hassan* engaged actively with diasporic religious communities as a pathway for personal advancement. As the vanguard of the family's spiritual traditions, *Hassan*'s prejudicial experience with this pathway created several inner conflicts. Seeking answers to the many intersecting issues affecting his diasporic experience, *Hassan* travelled to the shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf in 2015. Returning to similar obstacles in Australia preventing a "qualified life" through Shi'ism, *Hassan* travelled to the Iranian shrine city of Mashhad in 2017. Between miracles in Mashhad and "hidden sectarianism" in Logan, this section examines *Hassan*'s navigation of new social worlds and pathways to advancement in Australia.

#### *6.1. Shrine Cities as Utopian Spaces of Qualified Life*

Due to the fluid process of migration, reconciling identity with religious belief systems can be difficult for young Afghan Hazaras in Australia. Seeking to uphold the "qualified life" of Shi'i Islam, and leading the family into unfamiliar globalised society, *Hassan* travelled twice, to the most revered and sacred sites in Shi'i Islam, the shrines of the *Ahl al-Bayt* (Family of the Prophet). Similar to the notional *polis*, norms and shared values construct the fabric of society to reflect utopian ideals in Shi'i shrine cities. The story of Hassan's journey for a "qualified life" is crucial to understanding his navigation of multiple social worlds. As a pathway of advancement in Australia, *Hassan* engaged with religious diaspora communities in Australia. However, his experience, which is a common critique of the decentred nature of clerical Shi'ism, was that personal gain, rivalry, and prejudicial attitudes within religious communities influenced power structures, alienating new followers seeking unity. *Hassan* identified this issue as communal rather than doctrinal. Therefore, rather than abandon the *Ahl al-Bayt* (Family of the Prophet), he went to its temporal and spatial heartland of Karbala.

Before going to Karbala, *Hassan* had been struggling to understand and grasp the teaching of Shi'ism while living in Australia. He believed "The teachings which I have been told was not making sense as a teaching of religion but rather than a means of control for personal gain. The teaching was also misleading and offered a culturally embedded view of religion". Due to wrong and manipulative messages of Islam conveyed to *Hassan*, he felt "I lost all of the hope and it looked like all the doors are closed for me". Reflecting on this period he recalls: "I lost the trust and faith for the religion after my past experiences of misleading information, which affected my mental health, spirituality and as human purpose. I lost my dignity and my value". However, a Muslim friend incessantly encouraged *Hassan* that his answers could be found through travelling to the holy shrines of Karbala and Najaf. "He insisted me multiple times to visit the shrine of Imam Husayn (PBUH) and seek help, he mentioned your life will be changed just like mine changed". While encouraged by the stories of his friend and others, *Hassan* worryingly asked himself, "Since I am no longer believing the religion, how will Allah, Imam Husayn (PBUH) and Ahlebait (PBUT) help me?". Despite these concerns, he was still intent on visiting the shrine of Imam Husayn and the shrines of other Imams in Iraq.

In Twelver Shi'ism, shrine cities are key sites of pilgrimage (*ziyarat*) and theological learning (Litvak 1998). Considered by many as the most spiritual site in Shi'a Islam, Karbala contains the shrines of Imam Husayn and Abbas ibn Ali, two of the sons of Ali, the first Imam in Shi'ism and fourth Caliph. While the month of *Muharram* and observance of *Ashura* are observed in several global locations annually, Karbala is eternally evoked in lamentation of Husayn and his partisans. In 1984, Grand Ayatollah Mohmmad Hussain Fadlallah wrote, "*Discussion about the Karbala event does not mean stopping in geography or its history. Each of our generations has its own Ashura and its own Karbala"*. For many Shi'as, *ziyarat* to Karbala is tantamount to making the Hajj. Throughout history, Shi'i historiographies construct Karbala as the centre of Shi'a collective consciousness. Ja'far as-Sadiq was an 8th century Muslim scholar and the 6th Imam in Shi'a Islam. He also founded the Ja'fari school of jurisprudence in modern Twelver and Ismaili Shi'ism. Emphasising the centrality of Karbala, as-Sadiq wrote,

*If I relate to you the merit of visiting his grave, you shall abandon the Hajj, while a group from among you would not go for the Hajj. Woe be to you! Do you not know that Allah preferred Karbala to be the Sanctuary of His peace and a*ffl*uence before He chose Makkah to be His Sanctuary?*

Visiting the shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf, *Hassan* pursued a pathway of personal development through the epistemic community and qualified life of shrine cities in replacement of Logan. Socially discontented and spiritually disillusioned by the prejudicial structure of religious diasporic communities in Australia, he sought spatial providence in the temporal and spiritual capital of Shi'ism. However, several visa issues made the viability of *Hassan*'s journey to Karbala unlikely. The trip organiser told him, "only a miracle could make you get your visa, I cannot see any chance of you receiving your visa on time. He mentioned that if you get your visa, I would consider it a miracle and special invitation to visit the shrine". *Hassan* had an inner conversation:

I had a moment where I had an internal conversation that If I get my visa on time that means It's a sign from Imam Hussain (PBUH) that you are invited, and I will get help with all my questions, beliefs and doubts regarding the religion. But If I don't get my visa on time, I will get this sign that I am not welcomed, and I will not receive any help and support from Imam Hussain (PBUH).

Miraculously, *Hassan*'s visa arrived a few days before the group intended to travel to Karbala. The organiser told him "you are very lucky, and you are specially invited for travel to Karbala by Imam Husayn (PBUH) because I could not see any chance of you travelling with us". This gave *Hassan* hope that Imam Husayn (PBUH) would help and receive him because, "this answered the internal conversations I had with myself. So, and I travelled with full hope that I will get my answers". During the pilgrimage, *Hassan* worried "would I get help from Imams (PBUT) and would my pilgrimage and prayers be accepted as I had stopped practising the religion from the last 2–3 years. I was not getting feelings of spiritual connection. But on the contrary I still kept believing and having positive and hopeful thoughts". He reflected on the journey in its entirety:

I was receiving answers of my questions through discussions with a friend who joined me for the pilgrimage. On the last day while I was in Najaf at the Shrine of Imam Ali (PBUH), our discussions reached a climax. This clearly showed me the actual problem that could severely help me to change my life. As it was the last day of our stay in Iraq and end of our pilgrimage. I visited again the shrine of Imam Ali (PBUH) and seek help for the actual problem which was holding me and causing all the doubts about the religion. And I hold that strong faith that I will get help to resolve this problem and will constantly get help in the future with my faith and my purpose."

#### *6.2. Hidden Sectarianism in Logan*
