Muharram mourning in foreign travelogues Journal Article

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12 Some of these individuals, as we previously mentioned, see this weeping and wailing as serious, but for them, it is difficult to understand how a people, after more than a thousand years have passed since an apparently minor event, sit in such mourning and weep and wail for its martyrs; therefore, it is stated in one of these travelogues: In such places, a Mullah reads a portion of the event of Karbala or the incidents that led to it from the pulpit every day and proceeds to interpret them, singing very loudly accompanied by movement and motion; in fact, this is a kind of performance of words with melody and music. These same ceremonies are repeated for days in mosques and at night in public places and some houses that are marked with numerous lamps, mourning signs, and black flags; the Rawda-khani continues with increasing intensity, and the listeners cry and wail loudly, especially the women who beat their chests, and with ultimate sorrow and grief, they all together repeat the last verse of the elegy being read and say: Ah Hussein... 21 "Tavernier," a foreign traveler of the Safavid era, writes: Let us now speak of the great religious ceremonies of the Iranians related to Hasan and Hussein-AS, the sons of Ali-AS: Eight or ten days before that special day (Ashura), the most zealous Shiites blacken their entire faces and bodies and become naked and bare, covering themselves only with a small piece of cloth (21)-Travelogue of Pietro della Valle, translated by Shojaeddin Shafa, Translation and Publishing House, 1969, pp.