Canfield, Robert L. "New Year's Day at Ali's Shrine." In Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East, edited by Donna Lee Bowen and Evelyn A. Early, 234-238. Indiana Series in Arab and Islamic studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.

Canfield's chapter is short, but very descriptive.  He portrays the sights, sounds, and smells at Ali's tomb on a particular 1968 Navruz in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan as well as the rituals performed there and the hope for healings and blessings. 

Comments: 3/6/10
On page 234, Canfield states in reference to Navruz (New Year), "The Shi'a have always observed it as a holiday, believing it to have been the day on which Ali, their hero (and the son-in-law and cousin of Muhammad), finally took office as the Caliph of the Muslim community after years of being deprived of it."  Canfield simply reports what he observed, that Navruz was celebrated as a Muslim holiday.  Too many outside observers second guess how the holiday is characterized by their informants.  See, for example, Privratsky (2001, 88): "It is often incorrectly called the Muslim New Year by Kazaks, because anything honorable that has come down to us from our ancestors, and that we share with other Muslim peoples is ipso facto Islamic in the Central Asian worldview."  Does the fact that it has pre-Islamic roots mean that it cannot also be a "Muslim New Year?"  The fact that Easter and Christmas symbols have non-Christian roots do not make those holidays less Christian.

Cross References: Adams 2007; Djavadi 2010

Descriptors: 1990s, Afghanistan, Ali Shrine, anthropology, C, chapter, healing, HOLIDAYS, Mazar-i-Sharif, Navruz, observation, RITUALS, SHRINES, Soviet.