The Shabih-khani (Ta’ziyah) is a ritual, narrative, poetic, and musical play that emerged from the mourning of Iranian Shiites for their third leader and was formed around the Ashura incident of 61 AH in Karbala (a region in present-day Iraq), which led to his martyrdom and the martyrdom of seventy-two of his companions by the Umayyad army. It is a play that relies on symbols and conventions in the text and performance, and is the only traditional Iranian play that has a written text.
This ritual performance has close ties to ancient Iranian mythological and mystical thought and literature, reflecting mystical ideas that have gained popular interpretation. The shabihnameh(text) of Mansour Hallaj, which is sometimes referred to when discussing the mystical thought hidden in the Ta’ziyah gatherings in research on this traditional-ritual performance, is one of the 1,055 manuscripts of the Shabih-khani gatherings that are kept in the Vatican Library. This text was first translated into French by the famous French scholar Louis Massignon and published in the journal “Islamic Studies” in 1955.
This Majles(play) was most likely composed in the late Qajar period and is attributed to Mir Ezai Kashani, one of the most prominent writers of the Qajar era. Unlike familiar texts, this Shabih-khani focuses on the martyrdom of a famous Iranian mystic during the Abbasid period in the Islamic Empire, exploring the continuity of mystical thought in Islamic society. It links this story to famous mystics such as Shams Tabrizi and Mulla Rumi (Molavi) through an imaginative narrative. Re-studying this text from the perspective of mystical wisdom is primarily due to the importance that this text has in demonstrating the capacities available in Shabih-khani, because the imaginative power of the Ta’ziyeh poet in this text, by disrupting the historical process and linking the peaks of mysticism to express the continuity of this thought, has turned it into a rare example in the history of Iranian literature and dramatic literature And then, because Mansour Hallaj’s Majles shows the transformations that emerged in this type of performance with the diversity of themes during the peak of Ta’ziyah in the mid-Qajar era, developments that, if continued, could have led to brilliant results in Iranian performance, the author, in this critical study, seeks to find answers to these questions: 1) What transformations in the content and structure of Shabih-khani does the performance under study witness? Moreover, 2) How has the mystical wisdom of Iran found an opportunity to emerge through the capacities available in Shabih-khani in the performance under study?
From this study, which was carried out by using the opinions of thinkers such as Henry Carbone about Iranian and Islamic mystical wisdom, as well as theories about the structure of oriental and Iranian stories and dramas, we finally find that: The story, subject, theme, characterization and language have been indebted to Iranian literature And because of the undoubted influence of mythology and mystical wisdom in the formation and continuation of the mythological and mystical insight of Iranians, which are present and undeniable in all the components and elements of the studied assembly, it is basically considered a mythological and mystical show, that validates the ultimate victory of good over evil and right over wrong throughout the ages, portrays Iranians’ quest for justice and justice, and the influence of Iranian thought not only in the “content” of the parliament, but also in the form, structure and structure of the text and the repeating patterns in it are also quite evident, Such as having a “chain-like” structure, the use of travel patterns, passing through valleys that will lead to the exaltation of the traveler and the audience; because it is a symbol of the sufferings that mankind faces from the beginning of creation and separation and leaving the Minavi ( The first Supernatural ) world until the end of the world and returning to its origin And Sir and Seluk (Intuitive journey), which evokes the mysterious journey of the birds in The Mantegh-ol-tayr and is used in the final paragraphs of Majlis “Shahadat Mansour Hallaj” and in a way similar to the singers of Shams and Rumi, are evidences for the claim. In addition, exploiting literary traditions and especially Persian classical poetry in the examined Majlis, in addition to increasing the power of the Majlis by putting lyric poetry in the service of dramatic poetry, due to the audience’s mental familiarity with these poems, it also creates a better connection with the work. As the plot of this text is based on the connection of several different narratives, including: the biography of Mansour Hallaj and the story of his martyrdom, and the narratives related to this event in the history of the mystics, including the Tazkerat al awliya of Attar, the biography and explanation of the life of Rumi, and especially the narratives attributed to his acquaintance with Shams Tabrizi, and some other narratives attributed to the mystics, A plot that has the necessary capacity to create surprise, instill implicit concepts, and the symbolic atmosphere of a mystical play with a language full of codes and inspired by classical mystical literature, Likewise, the relationship between disciple and Master, and the Spiritual Wayfaring that Shams and Mulana Rumi have in this text after the episode of the madrasa within this performance, are also derived from the rituals and relationships that existed among mystics, and there are many examples of this in texts such as Abu Sa’id Abul-Khair’s Maqamat, Attar’s Tazkarat al-Awliya, or Rumi’s spiritual Masnavi.