Ta'ziyeh
Evolution and consideration of ta'ziyeh, from its beginnings in the XNUMXth century to the present day
The Persian theatrical genre of ta'ziyeh, focusing on the massacre of the third Imam Husayn and his followers in Kerbala by the troops of Caliph Yazid in the month of Muharram of 680 AD, was born in the second half of the XNUMXth century, in Iran of the Zand dynasty. However, the premises of this dramatic art form can already be seen in the Safavid era, in the Shiite devotional ceremonies of Muharram (dasta) and in the plays of rowze-khwâni (Garden plays” in Persian) which take their name from the elegy Rowzatu'l Shuhada” (The garden of the martyrs" in Arabic), centered on the events of the martyrs of Kerbala, by the Persian poet Kāŝefi (1436-1504). The ta'ziyeh in fact, according to the Polish scholar Peter Chelkowski, he took the costumes, the props and the dynamic element from the ceremonies, and from the rowze-khwâni acting and using a script (Chelkowski 1979, p.4)
It would be incorrect to think that only in the Safavid era were there religious demonstrations or performances linked to the mourning for the death ofImam Husayn and his followers: just think of the case of tawwābun (“penitents” in Arabic) in 681 in Iraq, or to the narratives recited by qorrāʾ in the XNUMXth century, during the Abbasid Caliphate (http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/tazia). However, it was the processions and the rowze-khwâni of the Safavid era to be characterized by that particular theatricality that later characterized the ta'ziyeh. This is also confirmed by a series of descriptions provided by some travelers of European origin, among whom it is important to mention the Italian Pietro Della Valle (1586-1626), known for the accounts of his travels in Asia. The author, in fact, underlines how the faithful did not limit themselves to performing acts of self-mortification and repentance, as has always been the case in the rituals linked to the commemoration of Muharram: in fact, they often formed groups who, armed with sticks, fought among themselves to imitation of the warriors of Kerbala. This is very evident when Della Valle writes: “All the men in the vicinity similarly accompany these things, with long and large sticks in their hands to fight with those of the other processions if they meet; and not only for precedence, but also to represent, as I believe, the fight in which Hussein was killed; and they hold it for certain that whoever of them died in that trouble, dying for Hussein, would go straight to heaven. Indeed they say more, that on all the days of the Asciur, the doors of paradise are always open, and that all the Mohammedans who die on those days go there immediately shod and dressed. See if they are mad” (Della Valle 1843, pp.551-552). Another equally important testimony is that of the famous Dutch merchant and traveler Cornelius le Bruyn (1605–1689), who describes these ceremonies as real tableaux vivants, whose various participants represent, by miming and using props, the various events relating to the Kerbala massacre: “[…] Then five other camels, on each of which there were about seven or eight children, almost naked (representing the sons of Husayn and his followers, brought to the court of Caliph Yazid in Damascus as prisoners of war, ed.) in wooden cages, and two standards following them. An open coffin containing a corpse later appeared, followed by another covered in white and some singers (Le Bruyn 1718, p.218).
As already mentioned, for the development of ta'ziyeh they were also fundamental rowze-khwâni, still staged today at the same time as the performances relating to the events of Kerbala.
They, as today, took place in the following way: in the takiyeh (This term today defines the structure responsible for hosting the staging of a ta'ziyeh), places used for collective mourning for Husayn, the praiser (māddah) praised the Prophet and his Imam for their qualities, with a low tone of voice and slowly, in such a way as to solicit the response of those present. Later the intervened vâ'ez ("preacher"), which dealt with religious and philosophical themes and then remembered the suffering of the Shiites with a funeral song, called mosibat. Thus the māddah and vâ'ez excited the souls of the faithful to make them predisposed to the singing of the events of Kerbala by the storyteller, the rowze-khwan. In fact, their singing was fast and was done in a loud voice, punctuated at times by sighs and tears, in such a way as to arouse an intense emotional state in the faithful. Later a choir of young people joined in, alternating with the musical narration of the rowze-khwfavor, while the audience cried, he showed condolence by beating his chest (sine zani) and flagellated himself with chains (zanjeer zani). The religious meeting then ended with funeral songs (nowheh), which could last several hours (Chelkowski 2010, p.266).
As already mentioned previously, in the second half of the XNUMXth century, the theatrical genre known as ta'ziyeh. One of the first foreign authors who described in more detail a ta'ziyeh as we know it today was the English author William Franklin who, in his account Observation made on a tour from Bengal to Persia of 1786 describes the representation centered on the never consummated marriage between Fatima, daughter ofImam Husayn, and his cousin Qassem, son of the second Imam Hassan, who died on the Karbala plain the day after his wedding (Franklin 1890, p. 249-250). In this era, ta'ziyeh was considered a merely popular art form, which did not arouse the interest of the ruling class and intellectuals, who indeed often considered it of little importance, an attitude they often maintained between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth century. On the contrary, it was cited in many European sources at different times. This underestimation can certainly be included among the reasons why a small number of original librettos of the performances remain.
A notable exception to this trend was what is considered by scholars to be the peak period of the success of this theatrical genre, namely the rule of the ruler of the Qajar dynasty, Naser al-Din Shah (1848-1896), a period in which this genre drama reached very high levels of quality (Shahidi 1979,p.41) arousing the attention of foreign visitors, among whom it is important to mention the American diplomat Samuel Benjamin, who in 1887, attending some performances in Persia, defined the ta' ziyeh“one of the most noteworthy religious events of our century” (Benjamin 1887, p. 365). The shah Naser was interested in showing a country linked to tradition, but which at the same time appeared open to modernization and European culture; the most obvious example of this policy is the construction of the Takiyeh Dowlat, a theater dedicated to ta'ziyeh khani, whose structure takes its example, albeit very distantly, from the Royal Albert Hall in London (Peterson 1979, p. 69).
This positive approach to ta'ziyeh by the ruling class it was interrupted in 1925, when Reza Shah Pahlavi came to the throne, who banned its performances in 1933. The reason for the ban is that these sacred stage representations, given their popularity, attracted many people, and therefore were a good opportunity for political opponents of the regime ofhah to propagate their ideas (Avery 1965, pp. 290-291). Another relevant factor that decisively influenced the prohibition was Reza Shah Pahlavi's desire to present Iran abroad as a modern country facing the West, free from traditions that he considered retrograde and crude. The policy of contrasting this tradition was carried out by his son and successor Muhammad Reza Pahlavi: proof of this is the demolition of the Takiyeh Dowlat in 1948: a government bank was built in its place (Malekpour 2004, p. 144). However, it was under the Pahlavi government that Iran hosted the Shiraz International Arts Festival from 1967 to 1976, a festival showcasing various types of theater developed at home and abroad. Among the various shows performed in those years, the Hurr ta'ziyeh directed by Persian directors Parviz Sayyed and Khojasteh Kia in 1967 (Savarese 2012, p. 313). It was the first time, after the severe limitations imposed in '33, that the ta'ziyeh was brought back on stage in front of a large audience, albeit with many limitations. In fact, Muhammad Pahlavi's choice of openness towards this tradition should not be considered regret, but rather a form of propaganda useful to one's government, strongly criticized abroad and at home for its lack of liberality and ferocious repression of dissent.
La ta'ziyeh it has not always had the favor of the Shiite clergy, but if in some periods it has been opposed, in others the religious have not shown themselves against this art form: the food Mirza Abu al Qasem Qomi, in his law work “Jame al shetat” of 1818, maintains for example that if the interpretation of a character must arouse tears for the misfortunes of theahl al kisa (“cloak people in Arabic”) {This definition comes from a Hadith reported by Muslim ibn Hajjaj (d. 875) in his collection Sahih al Muslim. In it it is reported that Muhammad welcomed his daughter Fatima, his son-in-law Ali and his two sons Hasan and Husayn under his cloak, then saying the following words: "God only wishes to remove from you the Ar-Rijs (“evil deeds and sins"), or family members, and purify yourselves with a total catharsis” (Muslim ibn Hajjaj 2007, vol. VI, p. 284, n. 6261). This episode in some texts is linked to that of Mubahalah: Muhammad - having disagreed on the divine nature of Jesus supported by the Christians of Najran, and on the fact that they did not recognize him as a prophet - proposed to resolve the issue with an ordeal to which the followers of Christ on the one hand and himself with Ali, Fatima and grandchildren Hasan and Husayn on the other. Both groups should have placed themselves under a cloak awaiting the divine response. The men of Najran, however, seeing that the Prophet was so sure of his beliefs that he even endangered people dear to him and so holy, decided to avoid divine judgment because they feared for their lives (al-Mufid 2004, pp. 113 -116; al-Biruni 1879, p. 332).}, all of this must be welcomed (Baktash 1979, p. 107; Aghaie 2004, p.17). However, as already mentioned, he was contested by many of his colleagues, especially in the following century. Again, Mirza Muhammad Ali Mohtaj, in a sermon in 1886, expressed his desire to make the practice of acting illegal by means of a royal decree (ibid., p. 18). However, the lack of attention towards this cultural tradition is not attributable only to the clergy and the ruling class: the authors of the scripts of these sacred dramas themselves transcribed their lines in ungrammatical Persian, or the texts were reduced more to simple annotations (Rossi and Bombaci 1961, p. XVII). The fact that no thought was given to the idea of making the scripts readable and understandable supports the idea that there was usually no intention to publish and preserve them. Furthermore, these plots were often read on stage by the actors, and the illiterate ones even pretended to read them (Kermani 2016, p. 110). This attitude towards dramatic written texts has meant that those that have come down to us are very deteriorated (Rossi and Bombaci 1961, p. XXVIII). However, between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries various foreign travelers and scholars, mostly European, became interested in this topic and compiled a series of collections of texts. Among them, that of Lewis Pelly stands out (The miracle play of Hasan and Husain, 1879), and that of Aleksandr Chodzko (Theater persan, 1878). The latter is particularly important because it is the only one that collects original texts, while in the case of Pelly only translations of oral narratives are reported (Rossi and Bombaci 1961, p. XV). However, the first scholar who understood the real importance of this form of representation for Iranian studies was the Italian diplomat Enrico Cerulli, who, during his stay in Iran between 1950 and 1954, collected over a thousand manuscripts containing the dramatic texts, which are now part of the collection of the same name donated by himself to the Vatican Apostolic Library.
A very different discussion must be made for Iranian scholars who, as already mentioned, began to take into consideration and enhance this theatrical tradition only in the last century: Mostawfi (1992), wrote one of the first local texts in which some news relating to the ta'ziyeh, such as the construction of the Takiyeh Dowlat, although this theme in the text was not so relevant to the history of the Qajar dynasty. This text was fundamental for Iranian scholars, because it provided information on the ta'ziyeh taken from Western travellers' accounts that were not previously known about in Iran (Shahriari 2006, p.28). Before him there had been Mehdi Forough, who in 1952 had written a text entitled A Comparative Study of Abraham's Sacrifice in Persian Passion Plays and Western Mystery Plays, in which he had analyzed and compared two texts – one relating to the mystery of the Christian Passion and the other to one ta'ziyeh – both of which dealt with the theme of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. It was the first Persian text to specifically analyze this topic in the academic field (ibid.; Chelkowski 1979, p. 263).
Not only scholars and theater directors have dealt with the ta'ziyeh: even film directors, especially Iranian ones, have been inspired by this theatrical genre, trying to keep this tradition alive by reusing the themes and techniques of Persian sacred drama in the field of cinematography. One of these is the famous director Abbas Kiarostami, who in an interview given during the 1997 Cannes festival, underlined how for the film Taste of Cherry (fig.3) he was inspired by the absence of recurring realism in ta'ziyeh (Shiraz 2011, p. 159).
In the film the absence of realism, a typical characteristic of Iranian sacred drama, is evident in several moments: for example when, suddenly, a taxidermist from the Natural Sciences Museum of Tehran, Mr. Bagheri, appears in the protagonist's car - who does not he reacts in any way – and discusses his singular requests with him, proving nevertheless willing to accept them. This happens without any presentation or logical connection with what was shown previously, a recurring characteristic in Iranian sacred dramas. However, they are the last frames of the film The flavor of cherry those that make more evident the absence of realism to which the Iranian director refers: specifically, we are referring to the scene in which the directors are filmed, authors of the shots of the entire film, who give instructions to the actors who interpret the role of the soldiers as they march in the outskirts of Tehran, as has already happened in other parts of the film, thus leading the viewer to understand that what he has seen is just a mere illusion.
The absence of realism, recurring in the works of the Iranian director, is not, however, the only aspect of the sacred drama that he used in order to make it still relevant: the author in fact also wanted to recreate the atmosphere one feels when witnessing to this sacred drama, to show those who are not Shiites and Iranians the emotional involvement that the faithful feel when faced with this. This can be seen from how he staged it ta'ziyeh, specifically the one focused on the death of Husayn, in Rome in 2003, at the India theater. The setup prepared by the director for this show was rather particular: it involved the placement of six large screens visible to the Roman audience, which showed the reactions of the Iranian audience, who were in turn intent on attending a performance (Vanzan and Chelkowski 2005, p . 25).
La ta'ziyeh, despite the advent of technologies and art forms that compete with this theatrical genre, is a tradition still alive, not only for intellectuals and artists: the Shiite faithful still feel it current, as demonstrated by the fact that in the late August 2020, when the Covid-19 epidemic was still perceived as much more dangerous than today, the Government allowed the faithful to carry out all the religious practices relating to the mourning for Husayn and his followers, including the ta'ziyeh. (Satoshi, Jamshidi, & Rezaei, 2022, pp. 93-94).
Bibliography and sitography
Abe Satoshi, Jamshidi Saman and Saeed Rezaei Religious Debates on the Coronavirus Pandemic in Iran: Examination of their Discourses, Rationales, and Implications pp.77-98 in Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture 2022
Aghaie Scot Kamran, The Martyrs of Karbala: Sh'i symbols and rituals in modern Iran. University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2004
Ayoub Muhammad, "'Āšūrā'”, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/asura (consulted on 28/06/2023)
Avery Peter, Modern Iran, and. F. A. Praeger, New York, 1965
Baktash Mayel, Ta'ziyeh and its philosophy,in Chelkowski,1979
Benjamin Samuel Green Wheeler, Persia and the Persians, Ed. J. Murray, London, 1887
al-Biruni. The Chronology of Ancient Nations. An English Version of the Arabic Text of the Athar–ul-Bakiya of Albiruni. Translated by Eduard Sachau London Pub. for the Oriental translations fund of Great Britain and Ireland by WH Allen and co., 1879
Chelkowski J. Peter, Ta'ziyeh, ritual and drama in Iran, New York University Press, New York, 1979
Chelkowski J. Peter, Rowze-khwâni, in: Kreyenbroek and Ulrich, 2010
Chelkowski J. Peter and Vanzan Anna Time Out of Memory: Taʿziyeh, the Total Drama, Vol. 49, No. 4, Special Issue on Taʿziyeh (Winter, 2005), pp. 15-27
Chelkowski J. Peter, “'Ta'zia”, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/tazia, consulted on 28/06/2023)
Chodzko Aleksandr, (ed.), Personal theatre, choice of plays or dramas, Ed. Leroux Paris, 1878
Della Valle Pietro, Travels of Pietro della Valle, the pilgrim: described by himself in letters familiar to his learned friend Mario Schipano, divided into three parts namely: Turkey, Persia, and India, with the life of the author, vol. II, G. Gancia, Brighton, 1843,
Franklin Benjamin Observation made on a tour from Bengal to Persia 1886
Kermani Navid, Between Quran and Islam, trans. Tony Crawford, Malden, Goethe Institute, 2016
Kreyenbroek Gerrit Philip and Marzolph Ulrich, A History of Persian Literature, vol. XVIII, IBTauris & Co, New York, 2010
Le Brun Corneille, Voyage of Corneile Le Brun through the Moscovie, in Perse et aux Indes Orientales, vol I., Wetstein Brothers, Amsterdam, 1718
Malekpour Jamshid, The Islamic drama, Frank Cass Publishers, London, 2004
Muslim ibn al Hajjaj, Sahih al Muslim, translated by Nasiruddin al Khattab, Canada, Huda Khattab, 2007
Pelly Lewis, (ed.), The miracle play of Hasan and Husain, two volumes, Wm. H. Allen and Co., London, 1879k
Peterson R. Samuel, The Ta'ziyeh and related art, in: Chelkowski, 1979
Rossi Ettore and Achille Bombaci, List of Persian religious dramas, Vatican Apostolic Library, Vatican City, 1961
Savarese Nicola, Martyrs and knights, In: “Journey to the ta'ziyeh” in: “Theatre and history” n. 33, pp.297-319, 2012
Shahriari Khosrow, Breaking Down Borders and Bridging Barriers: Iranian Taziyeh Theatre, University of New South Wales, New South Wales, 2006
Shiraz-Pilasak Nacim, Shi'a Islam in Iranian cinema: religion and spirituality in film”, IB Tauris, New York, 2011
Filmography
Kiarostami Abbas, The taste of cherry (Ta'm-e gīlās), 1997
Scientific contribution kindly provided by Dr. Adriano Mamone.
Faculty of Letters
Department of History Anthropology Religions Art and
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Degree course in Ethnoanthropological Disciplines
Wisdom. University of Rome