Shemeem Burney Abbas

Shemeem Burney Abbas is an associate professor at the State University of New York  at Purchase College.

Shemeem Burney Abbas
Nationality	Pakistani
Occupation	Assistant professor and Author

Education

• M.A. in Creative Writing: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry from The University of Texas at Austin in 2002
• PhD in Foreign Language Education/Applied Linguistics from The University of Texas at Austin in 1992
• M.A. in English Literature from The University of Leeds, England in 1968
• Honor B.A. in English literature from Panjab university in 1964
• Honor M.A. in Philosophy & Political Science from Panjabi university in 1964

Career

• Professor of Political Science, Gender Studies and Literature at Purchase College in State University of New York, 2005 to present.
• Instructor in English and Rhetoric & Composition in The University of Texas at Austin , 2000-2002.
• Instructor in English and Rhetoric & Composition in The University of Texas at Austin, 1988-1992.
• Professor, Associate Professor and Assistant Professor of English Language & Applied Linguistics in Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, 1980 to 2003.
• Assist ant Professor of English in Royal Government of Saudi Arabia, Girls College of Education, Riyadh, 1977-1978.
• Assistant Professor of English in Federal Government Women's Colleges, Islamabad, 1969-1978.

Books

• Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws: From Islamic Empires to the Taliban, 2013
• The Female Voice in Sufi Ritual: Devotional Practices of Pakistan and India, 2002

Articles in journals/collections

• “Risky Knowledge in Risky Times: Political Discourses of Qawwali & Sufiana-kalam in Pakistan Indian Sufism.”  In Muslim World (Special Issue) ,  2007
• “Sakineh: The Narrator of Karbala,” in The Women of Karbala: Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses in Modern Shi‘i Islam, ed. Kamran Agahie In University of Texas Press, December, 2005.
• “Perspectives on a Grassroots Theory of Literary Orality & Aesthetics.”  In Journal of Social 1997
• “ The Power of English in Pakistan.” in World Englishes ,1993

Her vision towards Tragedy of Karbala

In one of her articles “ Sakineh: The Narrator of Karbala” , she introduced a common ritual  “Majles” as an event holding every year in Muharram. In this ritual event , in Pakistan, people try to show the great role of Imam Hussain’s daughter Sakina due to the fact that she’d been narrating the tragedy of Karbala after it happened. The considerable fact is that Sakineh’s age is not known, but she was probably too young to witness a tragedy like Tragedy of Karbala. They estimated that her age was around 5-10.

In Majles, there is a special religious chant that both men and women participate in singing but there is another item that is involved called “ Nowhehs”. Little girls are trained to sing these Nowhehs in ritual events of Muharram since Sakineh was just a little girl who bravely narrated the tragedy of Karbala.

At the end of the article, she introduced another ritual called “ Hussain matam”. During this event, for several minutes, the hostess lead the Nowhehs and extractors chant “ Husayn Husayn Husayn” , meanwhile they beat their chests.