Die Totenklage in Jordanien

Ursula Paszehr has conducted field research in the rural and Bedouin society of Jordan for many years, and she has collected vast amounts of material on the enactment and oral poetry and prose of lamentation. The female lament, niyāḥa, is an ancient ritual found in the Middle East and regions of the Mediterranean. In Jordan, this ritual is on the verge of being forgotten. This study emphasises how lamentation functions in terms of both society and individuals, using an interdisciplinary approach and by taking aspects of Arabic and Islamic studies, ethnology, musicology and psychology into account. It focuses in particular on analysing lamentation as an expression of both ritualised and individual mourning and grief.