Ta'ziyeh

What it is

Ta'ziyeh is a form of theatre that grew out of religious mourning in Iran. Its players, all of them Shia Muslims, act out the events at Karbala in 680 CE, when a small group led by Husayn ibn Ali was surrounded and killed. The Persian word comes from an Arabic term for condolence, which says something about its purpose: this is drama made for grief. Outsiders have long called the plays Iranian passion plays. An older name, shabih-khani, points to the acting itself, since it comes from a word meaning resembling or similar.

Origins and history

Scholars disagree about when the Islamic form appeared. Some place its growth in Safavid times, the sixteenth century, with a later flowering in the nineteenth century under the Qajar kings who paid for it. Peter Chelkowski dated its birth to the mid eighteenth century, when costumed marchers began reciting stories of the rowza-khvani; others argue for the end of the seventeenth century or the early nineteenth. Its deeper roots are often traced to pre-Islamic Iranian lament and storytelling, including the mourning for Siavash in the Shahnameh and the Memorial of Zarir.

Stage and costume

Originally the plays were staged in open arenas; later they moved into courtyards, private houses and buildings made for the purpose, called takyehs or husayniyyas. Most takyehs went up for Muharram and came down when it ended. The grandest, the Takyeh Dowlat, was permanent, held four thousand people, and was built by Naser al-Din Shah in 1868 in Tehran; it was demolished in 1947 and a bank took its place. Stages are raised slightly and ringed by the audience. Costume is symbolic rather than historical: red, green, white and black each mark a kind of character.

Decline and return

When court money dried up near the end of Qajar rule, performers looked to poorer patrons. Professional troupes began touring towns all year. Rural audiences stayed loyal to the serious mourning plays and had little taste for the satires about Umar, Uthman and Abu Bakr that had entered the repertory. In time the authorities in Iran banned ta'ziyeh, saying it had been used for political ends. Regular performances stopped, and some provinces saw none after 1920. France was the first non-Muslim country to stage it, in 1991, and Paris, Avignon, Parma, Rome and New York followed.

Scripts and records

The repertory is large. Around 250 ta'ziyeh pieces are known, gathered by Enrico Cerulli, an Italian ambassador to Iran, and now part of a collection in the Vatican Library. Other scripts lie scattered in towns and villages across Iran. Translations exist in French, by the Polish scholar Aleksander Chodzko, in Ukrainian by Ahatanhel Krymsky, and in German by Davud Monshizadeh. Because many believed that human making could not rival Allah's creation, and that copies of living beings were disrespectful, few old pictures or accounts of the tradition survive.

How Ta'ziyeh is kept

Ta'ziyeh is put on by a troupe of ta'ziyeh-khans, or reciters, on a raised stage that stays in one place while the players never leave it. Protagonists, the family of Husayn, sing or chant their lines; their opponents declaim theirs. Costume tells the audience who is who: red for villains, green for Husayn's male kin, white for anyone about to die, black for women's parts, which men play. Props are few. The action happens in the round, so spectators sit close and sometimes join in, and combat can break out behind them.

When and where

The main performances fall in Muharram, the opening month of the Muslim calendar, and above all on its tenth day. The ta'ziyeh telling of Ali's martyrdom is kept on the twenty-first of Ramadan. Under the Qajars demand grew, and plays spread beyond Muharram and the following month, Safar, into the rest of the year.

It belongs to Iran, where it was once staged in arenas, courtyards and purpose-built takyehs. Bans and falling patronage pushed it out of regular performance in the twentieth century. Since 1991, when France became the first non-Muslim country to host it, it has also been seen in Paris, Avignon, Parma, Rome and New York.

What Ta'ziyeh means

For those who keep it, Karbala stands for sacrifice, resistance and justice. Husayn's stand against a rival claim to leadership of the Muslim community is remembered as a defeat that still carries moral weight. Watching the same story year after year is itself an act of mourning and loyalty. Because many held that no human imitation could match Allah's creation, players often carried their scripts on stage, showing that they were reciting rather than claiming to be someone else.

Days Ta'ziyeh is marked

Questions people ask about Ta'ziyeh

See also

MaraeA cleared, sacred gathering place at the heart of Māori and Polynesian community lifeKenduriA communal prayer meal and gathering shared across Indonesia, Malaysia and BruneiUma LulikSacred ancestral clan houses and ritual shrines in East TimorVėlinėsA Lithuanian remembrance day honouring deceased souls with cemetery prayers and candles

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle
• Feature: Abbas KiarostamiThe Guardian, Article
• Ritual dramatic art of Ta‘zīyeUNESCO, Heritage listing
• BBCPersian.comBBC, Article
• Feature: Abbas KiarostamiThe Guardian, Article
• Ritual dramatic art of Ta‘zīyeUNESCO, Article
• BBCPersian.comBBC, Article

• Ta'ziyeh on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.