Ta’ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran

Goodbye, Qasem

I have dreamt of my wedding, the sights and the sounds

The joy and the love that would be all around

How different this day is than the day I desired

For my special day is full of doom, pain and ire

Instead of music from harps I hear the drumming of war

There are tears on my cheeks as I lay on the floor

I cannot smile, I shall not even try

For I know that today that my bridegroom will die

Today my Qasem will go off to fight

For all that is good, virtuous and right

I know I should be proud that my husband is so bold

Yet I want him here with me, to have and to hold

Qasem, my dear, you are honorable and brave

But I wish for a way that your life could be saved

I shall not stop you from leaving- that would not be fair

But you cannot blame me if I am sad and quite scared

To where you are going, you will never return

And for the rest of my life, for you, I will yearn

I will find you on Judgment Day- your sleeves all tattered

And you should find me- with a heart that is shattered

Goodbye Qasem, my husband, my love

I will see you, someday, in heaven above

This poem is in response to “Ta’ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran”, edited by Peter Chelkowski. I was drawn to the drama and tragedy in The Marriage of Qasem and wrote a poem from the perspective of Fatemeh, Qasem’s wife.

Fatemeh is a compelling character because she has two conflicting emotions- she is devastated over the impending death of her new husband, yet she knows that she should be proud of Qasem’s bravery and sacrifice. As Sadeq Humayuni explains, Fatemeh- like many other women in the Ta’ziyeh- shows admirable self-sacrifice. Humayuni writes, “The women sublimate their personal desires both great and small because they recognize that an honorable death for their husbands, sons and brothers is far more to be desired than is weakness and disgrace” (pg 20). While Fatemeh tries to repress her personal desire, she is can’t completely eradicate it. Indeed, when Qasem leaves her to go to war she yells, “Do not be so unfaithful! Do not leave me!” (pg 14). Fatemeh knows that it is right for Qasem to go to war, yet she also has a strong personal desire for her husband to live. I tried to capture these conflicting emotions in my poem.

I used writing the poem as a means of personally connecting to the Ta’ziyeh. Peter Chelkowski explains the importance of personally connecting to the Ta’ziyeh: “The actor-spectators confrontation in Ta’ziyeh and its archetypal themes induce self-analysis in all who participate and create in them an inner harmony. Ta’ziyeh is such a personal and serious dramas that it captures the very essence of thought and emotions impacting life, death, the Supreme Being, and fellow men” (pg 11). While I am not a traditional spectator of the Ta’ziyeh, I wanted to interact with the play just as those attending the play do. I thought the best way of doing this would be to write a poem from the perspective of one of the Ta’ziye’s characters. I tried to connect to the archetypical themes of life, death, love and duty and to let such themes inspire my writing. Throughout my writing I reflected on how the lessons could inform my life. I wondered, would I be able to make a sacrifice such as the sacrifies made by Qasem and Fatemeh? Would I be willing to fight for what I believed in, for what I held dear? By asking myself such questions, and by writing the poem, I was able to connect to the Ta’ziyeh in a way I did not by simply reading about it.