This essay begins with the premise that the question of modernity—as expressed by contemporary Iranian intellectuals—is one of the central challenges facing Iran today. As articulated by Mehran Kamrava, Iranians in the post-Revolution era are specifically interested in understanding the causes of what is understood to be a delayed introduction of modernity into Iranian culture and society (2008: 45). In essence, they are concerned with the very nature of modernity: what does it mean to be modern, and how are the ways in which Iranians can become modern given their cultural and historical positioning (Kamrava 2008: 45)? In order to confront such meaning-laden questions that indirectly imply modernity’s absence, or rather, which places modernity as something yet to be achieved, this essay examines the development and current re-appropriation of one of Iran’s indigenous artistic/religious expression that has been able to withstand repeated opposition in modern history: Ta’ziyeh, the dramatic representation of the tragedy of Karbala. Despite it’s 300-year (with plausible earlier roots) history, Ta’ziyeh only emerged as an actual tradition with distinct symbols and conventions during the Qajar dynasty, which likewise coincides with Iran’s cultural, economic and political efforts towards transforming the country into a modern nation-state. As a tradition that has undergone remarkable transformations in parallel with the wider changes in Iranian culture and society, it serves as telling lenses onto which modernity can be considered. Conductive to divorcing the concept of modernity from its exhausted dualistic understanding (East/West, old/new, us/them), the contemporary expression that Ta’ziyeh has found in Iran and abroad exemplifies how modernity should be comprehended as a flexible model that adapts to diverse temporal and spatial conditions, respectively evolving to the needs of societies (Behnam, 2004: 12).
Behnam, Jamshid. “Iranian Soceity, Modernity, and Globalization” in Iran; Between Tradition and Mofernity by Jahanbegloo, Ramin ed.
Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2004.
Kamrava, Mehran. Iran's Intellectual Revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
