ten days of Muharram. Repeated in gatherings hosted by private patrons, the recitations came to be known as rauz̤eh khvāni̅s (garden recitations). During these events a series of extended threnodies interspersed with exegetical digressions (guri̅z) would occur to add secular color and allow the raconteur to display his skills at verbal art.22 Other martyrology books were eventually written based on the model of Kashifi’s classic text for use in such mourning assemblies (majālis), and today they comprise a huge body of literature.
Traditionally, a muraṣṣa’ khvān, someone with good recitation skills, would read elegies (mars̲i̅yahs) embedded in the larger rauz̤eh corpus or recite pithy ones from memory. The poet would recite while standing at a pulpit (mimbar) or sitting on a raised platform. From his elevated position, he would recite loudly in an oscillating timbre to insure that his tragic verses would be heard by all in the mourning assembly. Here is a powerful example of the genre from the opening lines of an elegy by the Persian poet Qaani (d. 1853 C.E.):
What is raining? Blood.
Who? The eyes.
How? Day and Night.
Why? From grief.
Grief for whom? Grief for the King of Karbalā’.23
J. M. Unvala, who witnessed a number of Iranian rauz̤eh khvāni̅s in the second decade of the previous century, described the poet and his effect on the audience as follows:
[He] sits and recites for about an hour an anecdote of the martyrdom in a sing-song manner, … He has such fluency of speech and such volubility, that he recites sometimes for hours together without stopping even to think. In order to dispel fatigue after every sentence or couplet he draws in his breath with a noise produced at the back of the throat.… His serious and grave features, his lachrymose voice, his gestures of helplessness and deep mourning, combined with the crescendo tempo, in which he reaches the climax of the tragic stuff of his recital, is sufficient to make even hard-hearted men cry dispairingly like babies and women beat their thighs hysterically, shed bitter tears and shriek incessantly Husein, Husein.24
It is important to emphasize again that such gatherings for lamentation were arranged to elicit emotional responses from audience members and to remind the pious of Husayn’s suffering. Participation in these events offered the audience members the possibility of experiencing the martyr’s pain vicariously through what I have been calling subjective apprehension. By subjective apprehension I mean a personal experience of Husayn’s passion on the phenomenological level, a level on which individuals have direct access to the imām’s mediating powers within a larger social collective. This physical and psychological dimension of the ritual complex is the most central aspect of muḥarram praxis. But rather than generalizing about a phenomenon so richly variegated and complex, let us follow the historical progression of the narrative tradition’s development to see how it dovetails with processional rituals to create a distinct ritual idiom.
Gradually, special elegies were developed for each of the days leading up to the tenth. By hearing these elegies recited on the proper days, participants made the past present, thereby actualizing their sacred history, even if in panegyric form. Through choice of episodes and voice modulation, the innovative narrator was able to excite and manipulate the emotions of his audience to produce an intense emotive unity, what Turner would call communitas. Because the occasions for reciting verses from the Garden of Martyrs were opportunities for the professional raconteur to display his own particular ability to innovate, the text became secondary to the bard’s own creative prowess, thus giving rise to an oral canon of martyr narratives in flux. Digression and improvisation allowed the oral poets to engage in acerbic political and social commentary. The oral performances within stationary rauz̤eh khvāni̅s were complemented by spectacular public events such as the special processions for ritual flagellation to participate in the imām’s suffering, a dual tradition that continues to the present day.25 I will return to a contemporary example later, but for now let us see how the two traditions historically came together in ritual performance.
For nearly two and a half centuries, the two traditions—public processions and private recitations—existed side by side but separately, each becoming more complex and at the same time more refined and theatrical. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the two traditions fused to give birth to a new dramatic form known as ta‘zi̅yeh khvāni̅, or more simply, ta‘zi̅yeh, in which villains could be distinguished from heroes by their style of oration.26 The master narrative still remained the Karbala tragedy, but scripts began to be composed about other martyred heroes who received the honor of having their own hagiographies come to life in performance. Since a number of figures from the beginning of time have participated in the cosmic drama of Husayn’s passion, it is not surprising that dramas written in their honor should have emerged over time to complement Husayn’s turmoil.
Pelly’s 1879 translation of a ta‘zi̅yeh manuscript serves as an excellent example of the expansion of the performance canon. His text comprises thirty-seven self-contained scenes ranging from the Old Testament ‘Joseph and his Brethren” (Scene 1) and the respective deaths of the members of the Holy Family (The Prophet [Scene 5]; Fatimah [Scene 7], Ali [Scene 8], Hasan [Scene 9], and Husayn [Scene 23]) to the culminating act, “The Resurrection” (Scene 37), with events leading up to the battle of Karbala sandwiched in between.27 Writing some three decades later, Wilhelm Litten lists fifteen additional plays, beginning with Ismail’s sacrifice and ending with a play about the sixth imām. This is followed by an act concerning the conqueror Timur, who figures prominently in legends relating the introduction of muḥarram observances into India later in the fourteenth century.28 Thus we see that the repertoire expanded to include pre- and post-Husayn figures, allowing the whole of history to participate in the cosmic drama of the supreme martyr’s passion. As Ayoub pointedly writes, “this long drama … has the entire universe for its stage and all creatures as members of its universal cast.”29
Staged performances of such narratives grew out of the processional observances held during the first ten days of Muharram. As a compromise between public/moving processions and the private/stationary recitations, reactualizations first took place at socially marginal locations, such as crossroads, and in places like public squares where large numbers of people could gather. Soon, however, they moved into the courtyards of caravanserais, bazaars, and private houses. Naturally, the need for specially constructed sacred spaces to remember Husayn arose as the performative tradition developed. Ayoub documents the early emergence of ḥusayni̅yyāt, buildings that were constructed for the sole purpose of mourning during the third century in Cairo, Baghdad, and Aleppo, which came to be departure points for public processions.30 These specially constructed buildings have their South Asian parallels in the imāmbāṛās and ‘āshūrkhānahs of north and south India respectively. Chelkowski has also written extensively on the development of special performance arenas for Husayn in Iran, and I summarize his findings below.31
Chelkowski indicates that by the nineteenth century, nascent dramas found their homes in specially constructed buildings known as taki̅yehs, an alternative term for ḥusayni̅yyāt. Wealthy members of the aristocracy funded the construction and maintenance of these arenas in urban areas. Some of the buildings had the capacity to seat more than a thousand people. Considerably more modest ones began cropping up, however, in towns and villages. Many of the taki̅yehs were temporarily constructed for the Muharram observances, and their architectural design allowed for dialogic interaction between the assembled audience and performers. The main action occurred on an elevated dais located at the center of the structure, a feature reminiscent of the raised platforms of the martyrdom narrators. Subplots could be performed in the space surrounding the central stage, creating intertextual frames of reference. Secondary stages on the periphery provided spaces from which actors could
