The ta’ziyeh dramas of Khomeyni Shahr are among the most spectacular ta’ziyeh performances in Isfahan Province, especially for photographers and tourists.
They are performed by the religious groups from different neighbourhoods of the city from the first day of the lunar month Muharram to the Day of Ashura.
The religious groups of the neighbourhoods act out the different events that happened to the caravan of Imam Hussein’s family and companions from the first day of Muharram to Ashura in several ta’ziyeh performances.
The plays are performed in a number of passages, and these passages are always fixed, i.e. the first passage is always a hussainiya (congregation hall) in the first neighbourhood, and the next passage is in the next neighbourhood and so on.
Thus, the actors of ta’ziyeh are also divided into several groups.
The first group enters the first passage and performs the first part of the play.
After the first group leaves the first passage, the second group enters the same passage and performs the sequel to the first group’s performance, and this goes on until all parts of the tragedy of Ashura are performed in all passages.
The oldest document bearing testimony to the performance of passage ta’ziyeh is a manuscript belonging to the year 1823 AD, which is kept in the personal archive of the family of Azizollah Sarvani, one of the grandees of Khomeyni Shahr.
