Abstract:
Awad Halabi’s monograph breaks new ground in uncovering the societal changes contained within Palestine’s most popular Muslim festival. Focused mainly on the Mandate period, the book charts the festival’s reinvention in the early twentieth century as a major vehicle for Palestinian social and political protest. Far from constituting a platform for purely elite concerns, Halabi demonstrates the multiple ways that subaltern actors expressed their concerns and priorities through the festival’s rituals.