Brief History of Azadari in Iran

The Buwaihid dynasty commemorated the tragedy of Karbala with public holidays in Baghdad, Iraq. The historian Ibn al-Athir when reporting the events in Baghdad for the year 352 AH, corresponding to 963 AD, has described the occurrence of public lamenting demonstrations by men and women dressed in black garments. The Seljuq Turks, who were new converts to Islam, initially suppressed the Moharram gatherings, but towards the end of their rule, these gatherings had been greatly revived in Iraq and Iran. Even the non-Muslim Mongols, who sacked Baghdad, stayed away from the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. When the Mongols embraced the truth of Islam, they realized the impact of the mission of Imam Husain (AS) and how it inspires human beings to safeguard their honour, dignity, freedom, and humanitarian values. Sultan Oljeitu Khodabanda, the 8th ruler of the Mongol Ilkhanid Dynasty of Iran and Iraq, who died in 1316 AD, was the first ruler to proclaim the school of the Prophet's Ahl al-Bayt or Shi'a Islam as the State Religion. This happened after his lengthy debates with the ulema of the various schools of jurisprudents, such as Hanafi, Shafei, Hanbali, and Maliki, whose viewpoints he found unconvincing, and even thought of reverting to the Buddhist faith of his ancestors, when he met the great Imam scholar, Allamah Hilli. Oljeitu was now convinced of the truth of Islam, and subsequently paid a visit to the holy shrines in Iraq, and ordered their reconstruction.
The Sarbedaran Movement in Khorasan carried on the rich tradition of the mourning ceremonies of Moharram in Iran. In fact, it was Imam Husain (AS) that inspired them to resist tyranny and rise up materialization of the rights of the people. The message of the Prophet's grandson knew no boundaries and was spread in Syria, Iraq and Anatolia, or what is now Turkey. In Iran, the credit goes to the Safavid Dynasty to institutionalize the commemoration of the tragedy of Karbala. Actually the Safavids had built upon the heritage of Karbala that was preserved by the Arabs of Lebanon and Iraq and by the Turks of Azarbaijan, especially the Qara Qoyonlus who for almost a century ruled a large kingdom including parts of Iraq and Iran. The Qara Qoyonlus contributed to the expansion of the shrine of Imam Husain (AS). At the same time, the Timurids, although Sunni Muslims, were conscious of the position of the Ahl al-Bayt in Islam and it was in their times that the mourning ceremonies which we call Rowza or Rowza-Khwani in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, started in Khorasan, deriving their name from the Persian book "Rowzat-ash-Shohada" or the Garden of Martyrs, written by Mullah Hussain Wa'ez Kashefi in Herat. Although not an authoritative book, the contents of Rowzat-ash-Shohada became popular in the subcontinent and blended with the Indian Muslim culture.
With the rise of Shah Ismail in 1499, Iran not just emerged as a national state but saw the revival on a grand scale of the culture and message of Moharram that had inspired the Qizilbash movement to struggle against social injustice. During the Safavid period, the Moharram commemorative rites which had been publically practiced since the past 8 centuries became a manifestation of state power. In many respects, the Safavids owed their political success in Iran to the teachings of the Prophet's Ahl al-Bayt that had become a wave of inspiration for the people, particularly among the Turkic tribes in the areas of northwestern Iran, the Caucasus, and eastern Anatolia or what is now Turkey, in addition to Iraq. This paved the way to foster a stronger set of ritualized behavior within the Islamic practices of collective pilgrimage and ritual commemoration. An important aspect of the Muharram observances of the Safavid era is the expanded scope of people’s participation in the performance of this ritual. In Muslim law, collectivity is required in several specific performances such as the Friday prayer and the Two Eid Prayers, as well as the Hajj pilgrimage. In addition, the Shari'ah approves collective funeral and memorial services, which means there can be no greater collective tribute for the departed than the martyrs of history's most heartrending tragedy, and that too, when the Chief of Martyrs is none other than Imam Husain (AS), the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).
It was adherence to the path of the Ahl al-Bayt and commemoration of the tragedy of Karbala that inspired the Safavids and the Iranians to preserve Iran's national identity, territorial integrity, religious unity, and cultural affinity, in the face of over two centuries of fierce but vain attempts to expand in the east by the Ottoman Empire which had conquered the Arab World and overrun most of southwest Europe. The popularizing of the culture of Ashura in society thus became the most invaluable asset of the Iranian society. Even European travelers to Iran have noted the impact on the public of the commemorative gatherings of the mourning month of Moharram. These accounts demonstrate that most elements of the “dasta gardaniâ€‌ rituals existed during the reign of Shah Abbas I. Dasta gardani requires preparations to form dastas or groups and involves rallying the grieving volunteers of a special quarter, or of a professional group in a city, who then walk and parade with special banners and standards. The Italian traveler Pietro della Valle, who visited Isfahan in 1025 AH, corresponding to 1616 AD, has described the Ashura observance as the largest ceremony in which huge groups or factions were present with special banners and standards. Each group was equipped with several horses and camel-litters surrounded by a group of mace-bearers. Closing the shops of the bazaar functioned as a prerequisite for the Moharram ceremonies due to the public processions or dasta gardani which had become an essential part of mourning rites since the mid-Safavid period.
This practice continued in the Qajarid period, and in fact, it was the Message of the Martyr of Karbala that inspired Iranians to resist against both domestic oppression and foreign hegemony. This is evident in the movement against the consumption of Tobacco in the late 19th century when Naseer od-Din Shah was forced to cancel the monopoly he had given to a British company. The Constitutional Movement that followed was also a manifestation of the devotion of the Iranian people to Imam Husain (AS). And last but the not least, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran as a result of the huge public demonstrations that toppled the British-installed and US-backed Pahlavi regime are undoubtedly indebted to the Immortal Message against injustice of the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). As is evident, over the past three decades, the steadfast stand of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its steady success despite the sanctions, threats, pressures and the 8-year war imposed in the 1980s by the US through its agent, Saddam, are all due to the Iranian people's dedication to the life-inspiring months of mourning.