Taʻziyeh, ritual and drama in Iran /

159 Pages·10.848 MB·English

by  edited by Peter J. Chelkowski.

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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
STUDIES IN NEAR EASTERN CIVILIZATION
NUMBER 7
General Editors
R. Bayly Winder
t Richard Ettinghausen
ALSO IN THIS SERIES
Number I: F. E. Peters, Aristotle and the Arabs
Number II: Jacob M. Landau, Jews in Nineteenth-Century Egypt
Number III: Lois Anita Giffen, Theory of Profane Love Among the Arabs:
The Development of the Genre
Number IV: Lewis V. Thomas, A Study of Naima
Norman Itzkowitz, editor
Number V: Carl Max Kortepeter, Ottoman Imperialism During the
Reformation: Europe and The Caucasus
Number VI: Linda Fish Compton, Andalusian Lyrical Poetry and Old Spanish
Love Songs: The Muwashsha~ and Its Kharja
Number VII: Peter J. Chelkowski, Ta'ziyeh: Ritual and Drama
in Iran
.......__
· nsrrs
7
TA'ZIYEH
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY STUDIES RITUAL AND DRAMA
IN NEAR EASTERN CIVILIZATION
IN IRAN
The participation of the New York University Press in the University's
new commitment to Near Eastern Studies-building on a tradition of
well over a century-will provide Americans and others with new
opportunities for understanding the Near East. Concerned with those
various peoples of the Near East who, throughout the centuries, have
dramatically shaped many of mankind's most fundamental concepts and
who have always had high importance in practical affairs, this series.
New York University Studies in Near Eastern Civilization, seeks to
publish important works in this vital area. The purview will be broad.
Edited by
open to varied approaches and historical periods. It will, however. be
particularly receptive to work in two areas that reflect the University and
PETER J. CHELKOWSKI
that may have received insufficient attention elsewhere. These are
literature and art. Furthermore, taking a stand that may be more
utilitarian than that of other publications, the series will welcome both
translations of important Near Eastern literature of imagination, and of
significant scholarly works written in Near Eastern languages. In this
way, a larger audience, unacquainted with these languages, will be able
to deepen its knowledge of the cultural achievements of Near Eastern
peoples.
+
Richard Ettinghausen
R. Bayly Winder
General Editors
Published by
New York University Press
and
Soroush Press
Foreword
Copyright 1£) 1979 by New York University
It would be commonplace to say that tradition, both good and bad, is
being swept away by the onslaught of technology and modernism. We need
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title: not concern ourselves here with the reasons except to inquire: is this
because of a hatred for the impoverished conditions of yesteryear's living,
Ta'ziyeh, ritual and drama in Iran. or because of an eagerness to embrace new Western ways, or because of an
inherent weakness of the traditions themselves-or possibly a combination
Proceedings of an international symposium of the three? What is definite is that the third world, with the exception of
on Ta'ziyeh held in Aug. 1976 at the Shiraz Festival miraculous Japan (these monks that brew modern electronics) and to a
of Arts, Shiraz, Iran.
certain extent India, is giving up its traditions.
Includes bibliographical references.
I am certain that if students of anthropology had turned to Ta'ziyeh
I. Ta'ziyeh-Congresses. 2. Shiites-Iran
forty-eight years ago when it was banned by the Iranian Government for
Congresses. I. Chelkowski, Peter J.
sociopolitical reasons, a major share of the Iranian National Theatre today
PK6422.T3 891'.55'22 78-20543
ISBN 0-8147-1375-0 would be plays (with or without religious subject-matter) directly derived
FU 8730
from Ta'ziyeh: but much to our regret, this was not the case. Ta'ziyeh had
almost been isolated in certain distant villages when individual Iranian
_Univ.-BibL
scholars such as Bahram Baizai (1965), Maye! Baktash and myself (1971)
Bamberg began to turn their attention to it.
Manufactured in the United States of Ame:,:r"',c""a,------
In the autumn of 1959 a Ta'ziyeh fragment was included in Parviz
V
:1
Sayyad's Iranian collection which went on stage at the 25 Shahrivar state
owned theatre of Tehran. In September 1967, the Ta'ziyeh of Hurr was
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
performed in the Shiraz Festival of Arts; and the_ sam_e festi~al in I 976
witnessed, thanks to the efforts of Peter Chelkowski, an 1mpass10ned lover
of Iranian religious drama, the lively sessions of the International Sym
posium on Ta'ziyeh whose proceedings make up the ~resent vol um~ .. One Metin And is Professor of Dramatic Arts at Ankara University and the
result of the symposium was the creation of the Inslitute for Trad1uonal Aegian University in Izmir. He has been the publisher of a political and
Performance and Ritual in Tehran. This has been sending scholars on long cultural journal, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant Researcher. and has
exploratory trips into the field and has started a library on the traditional traveled widely for research and lectures in the Middle Eastern countries, in
performances in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It has also launched a India, Japan, Europe and the Soviet Union. Professor And has written
publishing program whose fruits to date include the present volume and a more than one thousand articles for various national and international
collection of Ta'ziyeh pieces (Jong-e Shahadat, Vol. I, Tehran: Soroush periodicals, and has written twenty-five books-some in English and
Press, 1976) some films, and a museum whose founders hope to make it one French, most in Turkish-on theatre, dance and folklore. One of his recent
of the best of its kind. . publications in English is entitled Turkish Dancing (Ankara, 1977).
May I take ihis opportunity to thank sincerely all those individ~als,
both inside and outside Iran, who are engaged in discovering the umque William 0. Beeman, currently Assistant Professor of Anthropology at
traditions of Shabihkhani and keeping them alive if possible. Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, has been conducting re
search in Iran at regular intervals since 1967. He is the author of a number
Farrokh Gaffary, Director of articles relating to Iranian languages and communication, and a forth
Institute for Traditional Performance and Ritual coming book: Semantics and Style in Iranian Interaction.
Tehran
Maye! Baktash is Associate Professor at the College of Dramatic Arts in
Tehran. He is also a film critic, and has written numerous articles on theatre
and film for serious scholarly journals.
Jean Calmard studied oriental languages at L'Ecole Nationale des Langues
Orientales in Paris and at the University of Tehran. Dr. Calmard is
currently a researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
in Paris; he also teaches Iranian Islamic History at the Sorbonne. He has
published articles on Iranian history, geographical history, Shi'ism,
Ta'ziyeh patronage, etc. Professor Calmard's Ph.D. thesis, under the title
Culte de !'Iman Husayn, Etude sur la commemoration du Drame de Kerbe!a
dans !'Iran pre-safavide, will be published shortly.
Peter J. Chelkowski is Professor of Persian and Iranian Studies, Director of
the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and Chairman of
the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at New York
University. He is a graduate of the Jagiellonian University of Cracow, the
University of London, and the University of Tehran. His publications
include Iran: Continuity and Variety (New York, 1971); The Scholar and
the Saint (ed) (New York, 1975); Studies in Art and Literature of the Near
East (ed) (Salt Lake City and New York, 1974); and Mirror of the Invisible
World: Tales from the Khamseh of Nizami (New York, 1975).
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L. P. Elwell-Sutton is at present Professor of Persian in the University of
University in India. He teaches Islamic History, Journalism, and Social
Edinburgh, where he has headed the Department of Persian _si_nce 195_2. ~e
Work. He has been Vice President of the All India Shia Conference, and is
first went to Iran in 1935, and has since then paid regular v1S1ts varymg m
at present Chairman of Shia Auqaf and a member of the Waqf Board. He
length from four years to ten days. His publications range f~om language
leads a number of Anjumans of "Ta'ziyeh dari" and has delivered many
teaching manuals (Colloquial Persian, 194!; Elementary ~ers,an Grammar, lectures on various aspects of Islam and the tragedy of Kerbela. For the
1963) through studies of contemporary history and affairs (Moder~ Iran,
past three years, he has been the Honorary Secretary of the Indo-Iranian
1941; Guide to Iranian Area Study, 1952; Persian Oil, 1955) to literary Society.
analysis (The Persian Metres, 1976) and works on folklore (The Wonderful
Sea-Horse and Other Persian Tales, 1950; Persian Proverbs, 1954; The
Muhammad Ja'far Mahjub is an author, scholar and translator. He is a
Horoscope ofA sadullah Mirza, 1977).
Professor at Tehran University and has written books on Persian grammar,
literature and history. Among his publications we may mention Bar
Zahra Eqbal (Namdar) is a poet who studied at Tehran University and the
Guzldih-yi Shams-i Tabrizl; Khatrat-i Khanih-yi Murdigan; Divan-i Qaani
Sorbonne. She has been engaged in the study of the elegiac genres in
yi Shlrazi; Divan-i Surush-i IsfahanI (Shams al-Shu'ara); Professor Mahjub
Persian literature and is the editor of the A. Chodzko collection ofTa'ziyeh
has more than twenty books to his credit.
plays being published by the Institute for Traditional Performance and
Ritual in Tehran.
Parviz Mamnoun is the founder and chairman of the Theatre Department
at Tehran University. He is a graduate of the University of Vienna and his
Enrico Fulchignoni is a physician, diplomat, playwright and schola~. For
doctoral dissertation Ta'zija Schi'itisch-Persisches Passionsspiel (Vienna,
twenty-five years, he was the Director of the Artistic and Literary Sec!lon of
1967), will be published shortly in English. He has written numerous
UNESCO in Paris. He is also Professor of the History of the Italian Theatre
articles in Persian and German, and has also translated several Western
at the Sorbonne. Professor Fulchignoni was the national collaborator with
plays into Persian. He is presently working on the first encyclopedia of
Corriere Della Sera, Tempo and other literary and theatrical journals in
drama in the Persian language.
Italy, France and Germany. He is the author of: La Civilisation de L'Image;
L'Image a !'Ere Cosmique; Le No Japonais and Le Theatre Kammerny.
Michel M. Mazzaoui is Associate Professor of Iranian Studies in the
William L. Hanaway, Jr. is Associate Professor of Persian Language and Department of History of the University of Utah. He is a graduate of the
Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. His interests in Persian litera American University of Beirut and earned his Ph.D. at Princeton Univer
ture are many-sided, but his research has focused mainly on the Persian sity. He was also a Fulbright scholar in Iran. He has taught Islamic and
epic, and on the popular literature of the past and present. He has Persian studies at the Universities of Indiana, McGill, Princeton and the
published a general assessment of the study of Persian literature in L. American University of Beirut. In addition to many articles on Islamic
Binder, ed., The Study of the Middle East, and articles on Persian popular civilization, his major publications are: The Origins of the Safavids: Shi'ism,
literature in the NYU Round Table series and in The Review of National Sufism and the Ghulat; Social and Cultural Selections from Contemporary
Literatures. Among his translations is Love and War: Adventures from the Persian.
Firuz Shah Nama, an abridged translation of pre-Safavid popular romance.
Samuel R. Peterson is Assistant Professor of Islamic Art at the Arizona State
Sadeq Humayuni holds an L.L.B. in Judiciary Law and is presently a judge
University where he directed an Islamic Arts festival. Previously, he has
with the Department of Justice in Shiraz, Iran. He has written extensively
been a Visiting Lecturer of Islamic Art at the American University in Cairo.
on Persian ritual and folklore. Some of his major works, all in Persian, are:
He has also spent three years in Istanbul at Roberts College and two years
The Folklore of Sarvestan, One Thousand and Four Hundred Folkloric
in Iran as a Fulbright Grantee. Among his other fellowships were the Erwin
Songs, Ta'ziyeh and Ta'ziyeh-Khvani, and a monograph, "Husseiniyye-ye
Panofsky Memorial Fellowship at New York University and an American
Mushir."
Research in Egypt Fellowship. He is now a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute
of Fine Arts of New York University. Mr. Peterson is, at present, a guest
Syed Husain Ali Jajfri is connected with the governing bodies of Dr. Zakir
curator at the Phoenix Art Museum. In press: Articles in Artibus Asiae, and
Husain College, Delhi College and the Rao Tula Ram College of The Delhi
the memorial volumes of the Vllth International Congress of Iranian Art.
Vlll
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Annemarie Schimmel-Dr. Phil. (Berlin), Dr. sc. rel. (Marburg), D. Litt. h.c.,
University of Sind, D. Litt. h.c., Quaid-i Azym University of Islamabad.
She is Professor of Indo-Muslim Culture at Harvard University, and the
author of numerous books, particularly Mystical Dimensions of Islam,
Islamic Calligraphy and Gabriel's Wing: A Study into the Religious Ideas of
Sir Muhammad Iqbal. Her most recent work is The Triumphal Sun: A Study
CREDITS
of Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi's Work.
Ms. Leyly Matin-Daftary, for the dust cover
Anayatullah Shahidi holds a doctorate in philosophy from Tehran Univer
sity and has done research in philosophy, logic and theology. He is
Mr. Jay R. Crook for translation from Persian into English of Chapters by:
currently with the Iran Center for Anthropology and is studying Ta'ziyeh
M. Baktash, M. J. Mahjub, P. Mamnoun, and Z. Eqbal (Namdar)
manuscripts in the Majlis Library.
Mr. John K. Newton for translation from Persian into English of Chapters
Andrzej Wirth is Professor of Theatre and Comparative Literature at the
by: A. Shahidi and S. Humayuni
City University of New York Graduate School and founder and Chairman
of the American P.E.N. Committee on Dramatic Forms, a body for the
promotion of the new American theatre. He worked with Brecht's Berliner
Ensemble, has written the first structuralistic study of Brecht; two volumes
of drama criticism; a standard work on Polish modern drama in German,
and edited works of many contemporary Eastern European authors. Invited
to the U.S. by Princeton University in 1966 after achieving an international
reputation as a Brecht expert and drama critic in his native Poland, he has
since taught at the Universities of Massachusetts, Stanford, Harvard and
New York.
Ehsan Yarshater is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and
Director of the Center for Iranian Studies at Columbia University. He
holds a degree of D.Litt. from the University of Tehran, and a Ph.D. in
Iranian Philology from the University of London. Among his many pub
lished works may be mentioned: Avicenna's Persian Translation of the
Theorems and Remarks; Persian Poetry in the 15th Century; A Grammar of
Southern Tati Dialects; and Iran Faces the Seventies (ed.). Professor
Yarshater has been the founding editor of a number of major publications
in the Iranian field, among which are: Persian Texts Series, 1954-; Journal
of Persian Language and Literature, 1957; Persian Heritage Series, 1963-;
Bibliotheque des Oeuvres Classiques Persanes, 1966-. Persian Studies Series,
1971-; and the Encyclopaedia Persica, 1975-. He is also the editor of the
Cambridge History of Iran, vol. III.
X xi
Contents
Foreword-Farrokh Gaffary
V
Notes on Contributors
VII
Contents xm
Introduction-Peter J. Chelkowski xv
Illustrations for "The Ta'ziyeh and Related Arts" by S.R. Peterson xix
Transliteration Note xx1
I. Ta'ziyeh: Indigenous Avant-Garde Theatre of Iran
Peter J. Chelkowski
2. An Analysis of a Ta'ziyeh of Qasem 12
Sadeq Humayuni
- 3. Cultural Dimensions of Performance Conventions in Iranian
Ta'ziyeh 24
William 0. Beeman
- 4. Semiological Aspects of the Ta'ziyeh 32
Andrzej Wirth
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.. IIIIJQJE 7 t ••
5. Literary and Musical Developments in Ta'ziyeh 40
Anayatullah Shahidi
6. The Ta'ziyeh and Related Arts 64
Samuel R. Peterson
7. Ta'ziyeh and Pre-Islamic Mourning Rites in Iran 88
Ehsan Yarshater
8. Ta'ziyeh and its Philosophy 95
Maye! Baktash
9. Le Patronage des Ta'ziyeh: Elements pour une Etude
Globale 121
Jean Calmard
IO. Quelques Considerations Comparatives entre Jes Reituels du
Ta'ziyeh Iranien Jes "Spectacles de la Passion" du Moyen
Age Chretien en Occident 131 Introduction
Enrico Fulchignoni
11. The Effect of European Theatre and the Influence of its
Theatrical Methods Upon Ta'ziyeh 137
Muhammad Ja'far Mahjub
12. Ta'ziyeh from the Viewpoint of the Western Theatre 154
Parviz Mamnoun
13. The Literary Sources of the Ta'ziyeh 167
LP. Elwell-Sutton
"l. 14. Stereotyped Imagery in the Ta'ziyeh 182 If the success of a drama is to be measured by the effects which it
William L. Hanaway, Jr. produces upon the people for whom it is composed, or upon the
audiences before whom it is represented, no play has ever surpassed
15. Elegy in the Qajar Period 193 the tragedy known in the Mussulman world as that of Hasan and
Zahra Eqbal (Namdar) Husain.
c 16. The Marsiyeh in Sindhi Poetry 210 Sir Lewis Pelly
Annemarie Schimmel The Miracle Play of Hasan and Husain
(London, 1879) I, Preface
17. Muharram Ceremonies in India 222
Syed Husain Ali Jaffri
For almost two hundred years the foreigners who happened to live in,
18. Shi'ism and Ashura in South Lebanon. 228 or pass through Iran have been fascinated with an extraordinary dramatic
Michel M. Mazzaoui form popularly known as Ta'ziieh (also spelled Ta'zieh, Ta'zie, Tazieh, or
Tazia), or Shabih (called The Tragedy of Hasan and Husain in the quota
19. The Muharram Observances in Anatolian Turkey 238 tion above.) This fascination actually goes back to the sixteenth century
Metin And
when the European visitors and residents of Persia started to write detailed
20. Bibliographical Spectrum 255 accounts of the steadily growing pageantry of the annual Muharram
Peter J. Chelkowski commemoration of the Kerbela tragedy. Hussein (also spelled Husain,
Hosein, Hossein, or Husayn), the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad,
Index
269
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observance of Hussein's Passion in Iran's neighboring countries, Turkey,
and a group of his relatives and supporters, were killed in a bloody
massacre on the plain of Kerbela, in the month of Muharram in A.D. 680. and the Indo-Pakistani sub-continent.
These papers were presented in Persian, English and French. This
To the Shi'ites, this has remained a martyrdom of the greatest magnitude
and a sacred redemptive act. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, book, an English edition of the proceedings, includes two papers in French:
there will subsequently be a Persian edition. The chapters differ greatly in
Shi'a Islam was established as the state religion in Persia by the Safavid
quality and approach; however, they have all been included-unabridged,
Kings: the annual observance of Hussein's sacrifice, from which the
Ta'ziyeh theatre evolved, received the royal patronage. but edited to a certain extent.
Credit is due to Mr. Jay R. Crook for the translation from Persian into
From the middle of the nineteenth century attempts were made to
English of Chapters 8, 11, 12, and 15, and to Mr. John K. Newton for the
study the Ta'ziyeh phenomenon, the only indigenous drama in the world of
similar translation of Chapters 2 and 5. Mrs. Elizabeth R. Dalgliesh took
Islam. However, despite the interest in this theatrical form by people such
great pains in helping me with the editing of this book and I thank her for
as Count de Gobineau or Matthew Arnold, Ta'ziyeh remained almost
it. Thanks go also to Mr. Peter Zirnis for his help with transliterations.
totally unknown to Western specialists in drama and theatre. After World
War II, those who wanted to save the theatre from the steady encroachment
Peter J. Chelkowski
on its territory by film and television, turned to Asia for the rescue of
theatre by adapting Asian forms, overlooking Iran in their quest. Ta'ziyeh,
even in its own country, Iran, has been neglected during the twentieth
century and misconstrued by many as an unworthy ritual and a crude
spectacle.
In order to remedy this situation and at the same time to save Ta'ziyeh
from oblivion, an international symposium on Ta'ziyeh was organized by
the Shiraz Festive of Arts in the summer of 1976 under the direction of
Farrokh Gaffary. Taking into consideration the complexity of the subject,
not only theatre people such as directors, producers, critics and drama
specialists, but also anthropologists, musicologists, historians, sociologists,
and art historians from many countries assembled there from August 20 to
25 for an exchange of views and information.
This book is the product of the labors of that conference, of which I
had the honor to be the chairman. In addition to papers read and discussed,
the best Ta'ziyeh troupes from various localities performed for ten days at
the Husseiniyeh Mushir and in the small village of Kaftarak near Shiraz.
There was also an exhibit of Ta'ziyeh-related materials, such as drawings
and photographs of takiyeh (playhouses), costumes, props, scripts, films of
Muharram observances and Ta'ziyeh performances, and various objects
customarily carried in the M uharram parades. There were also oil paintings
of scenes of the Kerbela tragedy used as backdrops for traveling one-man
shows.
At the end of the symposium, all the participants realized that there
should be an organization which would attend to the preservation of the
indigenous performing arts of Iran. Subsequently, the Institute for Tradi
tional Performance and Ritual was formed.
The papers included in this publication trace the development of a
simple mourning Muharram ceremony to full-scale drama and theatre.
Some chapters search for pre-Islamic roots of Ta'ziyeh, while others com
pare Ta'ziyeh with the medieval European Passion plays or describe the
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