Lost worlds: Perspectives of decline among Shias of Hyderabad old city Shireen Mirza ‘This article seeks to think about decline as part of the sociology of time, by exploring ways former politically deminant commumities seek io negotiate heir ritual traditions by forging newer relationships to modern time. The article offers an ethnography of decline among the Shia community of Hyderabad old city, whose weakened political status by colonial modemity speaks in different ways of the experience of the contemporary as diachronic: and not in succession with the past. These perceptions of decline describe the moral loss of the Shia community through the spatial decline of Hyderabad old clty, as @ fallen state that has been produced by Muslim actors in time as well as located in the nature of time typon the community: The article reflects on the contradictory perceptions of decline that describes the deprivations produced by time as well as implicates community actors as offenders in time who are seen to persist with the performance of rituals as ‘meaningless’ actions. What are the relations to time being forged that make communities redefine culture in ways that are temporally meaningful to them, given their representation of belonging to the contemporary as implicating the dectine of ther civilisation? Keywords: sociology of time, urban decline, ritnal, memory and history, Indian Islam, princely state of Hyderabad, Islamic Revolution in Iran I Introduction Although the Shia community constitutes a minority amongst Muslims, in the city of Hyderabad in India’s Deccan, they were dominant Muslim elite. The community was founded ona theology of persecution that offers Shireen Mirza js at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India * Email: shireen,mirza@gmail.com Contributions to indian Sociology 51, 2 (201. SAGE Publications Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DC/ Melbourne DOI: 10.1177/0069966717697419