Mourning Rituals of the Safavid Period: A Comparative Study of Text and Image

Document Type : Research Paper I Open Access I Released under (CC BY-NC 4.0) license

Author

University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil, Iran

Abstract

The reaction to the event of death in the circle of relatives and close people, and sometimes in a circle beyond that (appropriate to the social status of the deceased), has been manifested throughout history with specific customs and traditions. Part of this reaction was related to the inner feelings of individuals and another part was related to the beliefs and traditions of the local community. Contemporary with the Safavid era, mourning rituals and traditions were also crystallized under the influence of these two factors. Understanding these traditions is of great importance because some of them continue in the mourning rituals of Imam Hussein (AS) in the contemporary era. Part of these rituals has been reflected in historical and historiographical sources of the Safavid era and a significant part in reports related to foreign observers. However, during this same period, a major part of these rituals has been depicted with the help of the art of painting.
The present study has sought to identify these traditions by studying the mourning rituals of the Safavid period based on written sources and matching them with visual sources. The results of the study show that the mourning of Iranians during the Safavid era was accompanied by traditions and rituals such as: crying and shouting, okhshama, bash achmaq, hair pulling, wearing black, wearing blue, half-naked, beating the chest, carrying the flag, playing drums and trumpets, reeds, cymbals and tambourines, piercing the nose and truncheons, pulling teeth,

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Publisher: University of Tabriz       Copyright © The Authors   

   

 

This is an open access article distributed under the following Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

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Iranian History of Culture
Volume 1, Issue 2
Autumn & Winter
August 2024
Pages 55-67

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History

  • Receive Date: 14 July 2024
  • Revise Date: 31 July 2024
  • Accept Date: 31 August 2024
  • Publish Date: 22 September 2024

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