A third factor that had an effect on the development and character of the Taʹziyeh scripts was the significant role played by ‘copyists’. These scribes would sometimes add lines or even characters to the script, while at other times they would remove lines and characters. These changes were made according to their own tastes and knowledge.
Not only do we know very little about the authors of the Taʹziyeh, we also have little idea of how many scripts were composed. Furthermore, we are not even in a position to know how many scripts are extant. Many are in the possession of individuals who are not willing to let scholars look at them. Others are held in a few public collections, but these are also difficult to access. As there are many differing versions of a single script, we have the difficulty of deciding whether we are dealing with different scripts altogether or simply versions of a single script. With these reservations in mind, a number of collections, both private and public, have been identified and these are the main sources for our study. The Chodzko, Pelly, Vatican, Majles and Malek are the most famous collections of the Taʹziyeh plays.2
All Taʹziyeh plays share a basic plot which depicts the conflict between the forces of good and evil. This conflict is depicted in the Taʹziyeh in the form of a confrontation between ‘Olya’ and ‘Ashghya’. Olya is the name given to the people who are good. This group includes any person from the house of the Prophet; the followers of Imam Ali and Imam Hussein; and all those who fight for justice. Ashghya are those who are against Olya, and included in this group are the killers of Imam Hussein and those who are considered by the people to be ‘oppressors’.
The Taʹziyeh plays can be divided into four groups based on their differing structural features and subject matters: prologues, episodes, sub-episodes and comic episodes.
PROLOGUES
Prologues or pish-vagheh are those plays that do not have independent or complete plots. They are often performed in connection with ‘episodes’, which are considered to be the main plays of the Taʹziyeh. Episodes deal specifically with the events of the Karbala, where Imam Hussein and his followers were killed. Prologues, however, do not have to deal with the events of the Karbala in as specific a way as the episodes. Structurally, then, a prologue, which is not always about a Karbala event, is often connected with an episode, which is always about a Karbala event. The connection is made through a digression, or guriz, from the Karbala events. This digression can be presented in the form of performing a scene or a complete episode of a Karbala event. Where the digression is placed in relation to the prologue varies from play to play. The digression is not necessarily located at the end of each prologue. In the prologue of Abbas the Indian (Abbas Hendo), for example, the place of digression is almost at the beginning of the prologue, where the episode of The Martyrdom of Imam Abbas (Shuhadat-e Imam Abbas) is performed. After the episode is finished, the story returns to the prologue of Abbas the Indian and continues, uninterrupted, to the end.
In the prologue of Sacrificing Ismaʹil il (Ghorbani Kardan-e Ismaʹil il), the digression is placed at the end of the prologue where the episode of The Martyrdom of Imam Hussein is performed. For a better understanding of the nature of prologues, I will examine the prologue of Abbas the Indian.
Abbas the Indian is about an old lady who visits a group of Taʹziyeh performers and asks them to go to her house to perform The Martyrdom of Imam Abbas. She is ready to pay the cost of the production as part of her religious devotion, but the master of the group tells her that they do not have an actor to play the role of Imam Abbas. The dejected lady returns home and starts crying because she thinks she has not fulfilled her religious duty as she had hoped to do by sponsoring a production of a Taʹziyeh. A young Hindu man, Abbas the Indian, who is passing by, hears the woman’s wailing and comes to her. When he hears the old lady’s story, he volunteers to play the role of Imam Abass himself:
Abbas the Indian: I have a good voice, and I know how to fight,
I read [perform] the role of Imam Abbas very well,
But I have a father who is a non-believer,
Enemy of the religion of the Prophet,
I hope you don’t reveal my secret to him,
If so, he will kill me in cold blood.*3
At this point the prologue of Abbas the Indian ends and the episode of The Martyrdom of Imam Abbas is performed, with Abbas the Indian taking the role of the Imam Abbas. After the performance of The Martyrdom of Imam Abbas, the story returns to the prologue of Abbas the Indian. A spy takes the news of Abbas the Indian having played the role of Imam Abbas to Abbas’ father. Abbas returns home and faces his furious father. He refuses to apologize for his action and defends what be has done in the following manner:
Abbas the Indian: Yes, I have been in the Taʹziyeh today,
Yes, I have played successfully the role of Imam Abbas,
Father! Be aware that now your son is a follower of Imam Ali!*4
In anger, the Father cuts both of Abbas’ hands off. Since the real Imam Abbas lost both his hands in the Karbala plain, Abbas the Indian becomes a symbol, or, more accurately, a re-embodiment of Imam Abbas himself. When Abbas the Indian’s mother and sister come to defend him, the father cuts out the tongue of the mother, blinds the sister and throws them both out of the house. Abbas the Indian and his mother and sister, wounded and bleeding, take refuge in the desert. A dramatic and painful scene then follows:
Abbas the Indian: Oh Lord, for the sake of the young Imam Abbas,
My hands were cut off,
My mother lost her tongue,
My sister lost her eyes,
We three are helpless in this world,
We three are placeless in this world!*5
In response to this, first Holy Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet, appears and heals the mother and gives her tongue back. Then Imam Abbas arrives and gives Abbas the Indian his hands back. Finally, Holy Ziynab, sister to Imam Hussein, comes and restores the sister’s sight. This scene dramatizes one of the truly mystical moments of the Taʹ ziyeh and is a vivid expression of the philosophy of this form of drama. Even though he heals Abbas the Indian and gives him his hands back, Imam Abbas himself is still handless. It seems he must remain so in order to continue to be a symbol of shuhadat, or martyrdom:
Abbas the Indian: Many thanks that your blessed presence Healed me and gave me back my hands Give me your hands so I may kiss them!
Imam Abbas: Forgive me, weeping young man I do not have any hands to be kissed…*6 At this point the prologue of The Abbas the Indian ends. We should notice that the episode of The Martyrdom of Imam Abbas was in this instance performed almost at the beginning of the prologue. The ‘religious’ episode is then a guriz, or digression, which is interpolated into the ‘secular’ prologue; the two are fused together through the symbolic identification of Abbas the Indian with Imam Abbas.
EPISODES
As I have already stated, the episodes or vagheh are the main plays of the Taʹziyeh. They dramatize the Karbala tragedy and place the characters of holy Imams such as Hussein and Abbas at the heart of the action. In the episodes, the plot and characters are connected to the Karbala events and are religious in nature.
The stories covered by the episodes are mainly concerned with the migration of Imam Hussein and his family from Medina; the murder of his delegation to Kufa; the capture of his two youngest sons; the surrounding of his camp in the Karbala plain; the cutting off of the water supply to the camp; the martyrdom of Imam Abbas when he goes to fetch water for the women and children; the martyrdom of Qasim immediately after his marriage to the daughter of Imam Hussein; the martyrdom of Ali Akbar and Ali Asghar, Imam Hussein’s eldest sons; the martyrdom of 72 followers of Imam Hussein; the martyrdom of Imam Hussein; and the capture and banishment to Damascus of the women and children.
16. A battle scene of a Taʹziyeh in an open space.
All these Taʹziyehs belong to the Muharram cycle and are usually performed during the first ten days of the month of Muharram. The Martyrdom of Im
am Hussein is the central focus of the ceremony, and this Taʹziyeh is always performed on the tenth day, the Ashura, which is the day that Imam Hussein was martyred in the Karbala plain.
The version of The Martyrdom of Imam Hussein that is in my possession and dates back to 1880 recounts how, following his farewell to the members of his family and preparation for the final battle, an army of angels come to help Hussein. He refuses their offer and tells them that he must stand against the army of Yazid himself and be martyred:
Hussein: (to angels) I do not need your help my friends,
Leave me to be alone with my God,
That this is the promised day!
(All the players and the audience start reciting elegies and beating their chests.)
ourners: Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein
Killed by Ashghya, Hussein
Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein
Head separated from the body, Hussein
Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein
Tonight, Holy Fatima
Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein
In fear and pity
Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein
Coming to the Karbala plain
Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein
Asking what happened to my Hussein
Hussein, Hussein, Hussein, Hussein…
himr: (to his soldiers) Good news, Army of the Devil!
A hero, Hussein, has arrived.
You soldiers, take his life, Make his friends mourn.
ne-Saad: The soldier from my army
Who take this dagger and goes to the field
And cuts the head off this holy Arab
Will have the land of Ray as reward.
(Silence. No one moves.)
Soldiers, do not be afraid, do not panic!
Hussein no longer has a brother,
Hussein no longer has a son.
The soldier from this army
Who take this dagger and go to the field
And cuts the head off this holy Arab,
Will have the land of Ray as reward!
himr: The reward, Sir, is mine.
Send me, send me, this is my task!
It’s I who am going to shake God’s pavilion!
It’s I who am going to cut the head of Hussein from his
body!…
ussein: Shimr, give me kindly a few minutes
Let me pray for the last time.
Shimr: You are free to pray now,
Put your pleading face on the ground before God.
Hussein: (Praying) I have kept my promise to You, Almighty
God!
Oh Lord, forgive the sins of my Shiʹa followers
For my sake…
(To Shimr) You miserable man
Hurry up and do your job!
Shimr: Hussein, say There is no God but God’7
So that I can cut off your head!
(Shimr cuts Imam Hussein’s head off.)
Bring the banner and play the drum!
Display the head of Hussein to all.*8
This scene from The Martyrdom of Imam Hussein clearly shows how simple this play is in terms of form and content. It combines a straightforward plot and clear characterization with simple language. The play ignores unities of time and place and offers both the performers and the audience an opportunity to participate in the action. The element of participation is crucial in this drama of high passion.
17. The Martyrdom of Ali Akbar.
18. The Martyrdom of the Sons of Moslem.
SUB-EPISODES
Sub-episodes or gusheh are those plays that, like episodes, have complete plots. However, sub-episodes present both religious and non-religious subjects and characters. While the episodes are restricted to the Karbala events and characters, the sub-episodes are free to utilize all sorts of plots and characters taken from history, mythology, literature and daily life. It was precisely this freedom to select non-religious plots and characters that provided the Taʹziyeh with the opportunity to develop secular and even comic subjects after the end of the Qajar period.
In most of the sub-episodes there is a mixture of reality and fantasy; past and present; religious and non-religious elements; and tragedy and comedy. Cain and Abel (Habil va Ghabil), Abraham the Prophet (Ibrahim-e Payambar), Job the Prophet (Ayobb va Payambar), and Joseph and his Brothers (Yosof va Bradaran) are sub-episodes that were adapted from biblical and Qur’anic sources. Joseph and Zolikha (Yosof va Zolaykha), and Leili and Majnoon (Leili va Majnoon) were adapted from Persian classic literature. There are also sub-episodes such as The Pearl of the Shell (Dorratol Sadaf) and Binding the Demon’s Toes (Shast Bastan-e Div) that feature purely fictional stories. Two famous sub-episodes that deal with current events and characters are Nasseredin Shah and Fatali Shah. An examination of two sub-episodes, The Wandering Dervish and Moses (Darvish Biyabani va Mosa) and Nasseredin Shah, will help to provide a better understanding of the nature of the sub-episodes.
The Wandering Dervish and Moses is a sub-episode whose theme has been taken from The Mathnawi of Jalaluddin Rumi, the master poet of Sufism.9 There are several versions of this Taʹziyeh and they differ from one another in the details. There are two manuscripts of this Taʹziyeh in the Malek Collection, two in the Parliament Collection and three in the Vatican Collection. We will examine one of those found in the Malek Collection. It is probably the shortest and has a more unified plot than the other versions. In addition the Malek version has only three characters: the dervish, Moses and Gabriel.
A dervish, worried about the purpose of creation, is wandering in a desert. He does not understand why God has created Heaven and Hell. He comes face to face with Moses the Prophet and questions him about God’s purpose:
Dervish: If God is merciful, then why has he created Hell? If God is an avenger, then what is the purpose of creating Heaven?*10
Instead of giving convincing answers to the dervish’s questions, Moses becomes angry, accusing him of being the voice of the Devil, and leaves him alone. The dervish, annoyed at Moses’ reaction, protests that he expects to hear a reasonable answer from the Messenger of God. Moses, for his part, feels unable to answer the dervish’s questions, and he complains to God:
Moses: Oh Lord, what should this helpless servant do?
What should I say to this foolish man?*11
Gabriel, God’s angel, descends and tells Moses that the answers to the questions asked by the dervish are to be found in the plain of Karbala. Moses raises his hand, spreads his two middle fingers and asks the dervish to look through the space between them. He asks the dervish if he can see anything:
Dervish: I see many dead people, soaked with dust and blood.
I see young men torn into pieces.
You, Messenger of God, tell me who these young men are!*12
Here Moses begins to tell the story of the Karbala events and describes the brutality of the Yazid army towards Imam Hussein’s family. When the dervish hears about Hussein and what he stood for, he understands that God created Heaven to reward innocent and merciful people such as Imam Hussein and his followers, and created Hell to punish bloodthirsty people such as Yazid and Shimr:
Dervish: I wish there were a thousand Hells, not one!
A thousand curses be upon the killers of the King of Martyrs!*13
The dervish then asks forgiveness for his earlier comment about God. Unable to bear the pain caused by what he has witnessed in the Karbala plain, the dervish dies:
Moses: Happiness be with you, wandering dervish,
Whose soul is saved by the mercy of God.
You will enter into Heaven on Judgment Day.*14
This text is a sub-episode with a complete plot and a verbal digression that recounts the Karbala events. I have witnessed a production of this script, performed by three actors. The Karbala tragedy was narrated by the character of Moses. In this particular performance the corpses of the martyrs were brought on stage.15 Consequently, if the Karbala event (digr
ession) is depicted (performed) rather than being spoken, the text can be also considered as a prologue.
Another important sub-episode that shows how the Taʹziyeh increasingly employed non-religious subjects while keeping its religious structure is Nasseredin Shah. After Nasseredin Shah was assassinated by Mirza Reza Kermani in 1896, a Taʹziyeh was written about him and performed in the Takiyeh Dowlat. The Taʹziyeh of Nasseredin Shah was probably written by Mirza Mohammad Bagher, the Master of the Taʹziyeh in the Takiyeh Dowlat. There are two versions of this Taʹziyeh, one in the Vatican Collection (No. 156), and one that has been published by Davood Fatali-Bayghi.16
Although the events and the characters in the story are drawn from secular nonreligious sources, the traditional structure and the religious philosophy of the Taʹziyeh has been observed. This fusion of the religious and the secular is achieved through the portrayal of Nasseredin Shah as Imam Hussein and Mirza Reza as Shimr. It is interesting to note that Nasseredin Shah was one of the most corrupt and brutal kings of the Qajar dynasty and brought a great deal of poverty and injustice to the Iranian people. The fact that this tyrant could be portrayed as Imam Hussein is evidence of how authorities of the time used religion and the Taʹziyeh for their own purposes.
COMIC EPISODES
In some of the early scripts Ashghya, or the enemies of Imam Hussein and his family, were mocked. This mocking allowed comic elements gradually to find a place in the Taʹ ziyeh. Later these elements were developed into a full-scale form, which became known as the comic Taʹziyeh or shabih-mozhack.
ʹ The comic episodes have the same theme as that found in the religious episodes: the conflict between Olya and Ashghya. However, the manner in which this conflict is presented is different. In the comic episodes the conflict is created by means of praising Olya and mocking Ashghya, while in the episodes the conflict ends with the martyrdom of Olya. In the comic episode The Marriage of Qurash (Aroosi Qurash), which is also known as Her Holiness Fatima Goes to a Wedding (Aroosi Raftan-e Fatima Zahra), for example, the Taʹziyeh starts with the tragic scene of the death of the Prophet’s wife but ends happily with a wedding scene. This comic episode uses the technique of praising the good characters and mocking the bad ones.
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