Iran is the largest Shi’ite state in the modern world (Seyfi & Hall 2019), and home to one of the most significant Shia religious festivals that has been widely practised since the sixteenth century: Muharram festival. Although Muharram is a festival of mourning rather than of joy, it can nonetheless be considered a festival from a tourism point of view, for it is ‘a celebration of a theme or special event for a limited period of time, held annually or less frequently to which the public is invited’ (Smith 1990: 128). Moreover, it has the basic features of any other festivals for it showcases a great deal of the destination’s intangible heritage, religious beliefs, local traditions, ethnic backgrounds, and cultural landscape (see, for example, Cudny, Korec & Rouba 2012).
Given the known and axiomatic income-generating impacts of festivals on localities (O’Sullivan & Jackson 2002), one would expect that the research on the impact and potential of festivals on Islamic tourism would be abundant. However, there is a notable lack of academic research with regards to the tourism impacts of Muharram and there are only a handful of researches that have dealt, albeit briefly, with the topic (see, for example, Khavarian, Zare & Mostofiolmamaleki 2014; Rezaei, Khavarian-Garmsir & Aliyan 2014; Khavarian-Garmsir, Stavros & Saraei 2017; Farahani, Rahmatpoor & Shabani 2014; Ghaderi, Ezzati & Hafezi Zadeh 2009). Therefore, this chapter shall attempt to call scholarly attention to Muharram festival in Iran by reviewing some of its most important aspects through the perspective of cultural and heritage tourism, particularly festival tourism.
Festivals have long been used and devised as opportunities for social and commercial exchange often involving and focusing on travellers and observers (Arnold 2001; Robinson, Picard & Long 2004) and providing them with points of meaningful connectivity to the people and the place (Picard & Robinson 2006; Jaeger & Mykletun 2012). Yet, the status that festivals have occupied in the domestic and international tourism market is relatively recent, although it has become significant enough that ‘festival tourism’ is recognised as an important niche within the tourism industry (Cudny 2013).
Festivals are conceived of primarily in terms of their economic potential, numbers of visitors attracted, and revenues generated (e.g. Burgan & Mules 2001; Crompton 2006; Boo, Ko & Blazey 2007; Dwyer, Forsyth & Spurr 2006; Brannas & Nordstrom 2006), while some others have paid attention to issues of commodification, authenticity, and cultural identity (e.g. Delamere 2001; Fredline, Jago & Deery 2003; Small 2007; Whitford 2004). However, what most of these studies agree on is that encountering a festival, in any case or form, whether intentionally or spontaneously, provides tourists with the opportunity to interact with the locale and gives them a deeper insight into the culture, which will add to their overall experience. Therefore, in recent years, festivals have placed more focus upon special interest tourists, particularly cultural tourists for whom the exploration of authentic cultural tourism ‘products’ is a primary motivation for travel (Buch, Milne & Dickson 2011).
Festivals, just like any other type of event, come in a variety of shapes and sizes—centring on various aspects from sport and culture to agriculture and religion (O’Sullivan & Jackson 2002). As festivals can be viewed as means through which the cultural identities of place and communities can be constructed and expressed, they can also be seen as spaces within which the cultural tourist—who is in search of authentic engagement with the locals—can expect to achieve this goal. In this way, Muharram, as one of the largest festivals in Iran, brings about many opportunities for the development of tourism, particularly within the international sector.
Muharram is the first month in the Islamic lunar calendar; its first ten days is the period for the most important mourning ceremony in Iran which commemorates the Battle of Karbala in AD 680. During this ten-day battle, Hossein—the grandson of Muhammad and the third Shi’i Imam—fought against the forces of the second Umayyad caliph, Yazid I, and eventually was killed on the tenth day of the month (known as Ashura). The event is of grave significance for Shi’a Muslims symbolising ‘the moral dichotomy between worldly injustice and corruption on the one hand and God-centred justice, piety, sacrifice and perseverance on the other’ and is also ‘an important way of worshiping God in a spiritual or mystical way’ (Aghaie 2007: 112).
Apart from its religious and symbolic significance, the commemoration of the event is also of historic value with the first public mourning ceremonies traced back to the tenth century in Baghdad (Chelkowski 1985). The ceremonies gained official recognition in Iran after the establishment of Shi’ism as the state religion of Iran in the early sixteenth century by the Safavid state (Aghaie 2007) which encouraged and sponsored the mourning rituals of Muharram, granting it patronage, thus developing its observance into an integral part of Iranian culture (Nakash 1993) that has continued to the present day.
From a tourism point of view, what distinguishes Muharram festival from most other festivals worldwide is that these festivals, unlike Muharram, are often created with the main purpose of drawing visitors and increasing revenue (O’Sullivan & Jackson 2002). This is even true about some heritage festivals and their ‘cultural products’ which are mostly dependent on the staging or re-creation of ethnic or cultural traditions (Chhabra, Healy & Sills 2003). Muharram festival, on the other hand, is for the most part community-based, and has never been promoted as an attraction by the official tourism channels of Iran. There have been some small, non-commercial organisations made up of local tourist guides who offered tours of Muharram ceremonies with the intention of promoting cultural and religious tourism in cities with large-scale events, but these tours were mostly shut down due to having little to no financial support from official channels that often view the presence of foreign tourists in ‘sacred’ events as a threat to the religious beliefs of the community. Therefore, the absence of any marketing or promotion for Muharram festival may have prevented Iranian tourism attracting some international tourists and their revenue. However, it has also given the festival, though quite unintentionally, a significant competitive advantage in terms of authenticity, for lack of commodification and commercialisation of indigenous culture can lead to the maintenance of authenticity (MacCannell 1976; Taylor 2001).
The significance of the role that festivals such as Muharram play within the experience of the traveller is its central feature that, similar to many international festivals, is ‘the celebration or reaffirmation of community or culture’ (Rolfe 1992: 7). Even with inevitable alterations that have occurred to the Muharram festival since its start in the sixteenth century, the festival remains one of the most authentic cultural events in Iran as it pays homage to its original historic concept (Taylor 2001). Today, the observance of Muharram has arguably become the largest festival in Iran that includes a number of unique rituals such as large, public processions (dasteh) and the re-enactment of the Battle of Karbala in the form of a play (ta’ziyeh). There is also a distinctive culinary scene that is rich in cultural and religious symbolism. Each of these can hold special appeal for tourists especially those seeking a deeper understanding of the local culture being visited.
While festivals can be key motivators and primary reasons for travelling to a destination, they can be an enriching experience also for travellers who have only stumbled upon them by chance (Picard & Robinson 2006). The latter seems to be the case for international tourists in Iran at least after the Iranian revolution (Ebadi 2017). There seems to be plenty of ‘modern’ international tourists who have described their ‘coincidental’ visit with the Muharram festival as ‘an absolute privilege’ (Fillis 2017) and one of the ‘10 reasons to visit Iran’ (Yan 2016) while there also is a record of similar experiences in memoirs and travelogues of foreign diplomats, ambassadors, merchants, and missionaries of centuries ago (Matthee 2009). What these writings have in common in terms of observing festivals is that the spontaneous visitations of Muharram festival have often been described positively and as an added bonus to the experience of the foreign traveller of Iran. An examination of these accounts written by foreign travellers to Iran reveals that three aspects of the Muharram festival have often engaged tourists’ attention and appealed to them as attractions, namely the processional aspects, the dramatic aspects, and the culinary aspects. These aspects are also the ones that gave the tourists a feeling of involvement in some uncommon communal activities, signifying a departure from their routines confirming the experience of authenticity (Wang 1999).
The processional aspect of the Muharram rites is perhaps the most visible one during the period. This ambulatory ritual (commonly known as dasteh) generally involves various attributes and objects symbolising the battle such as flags, banners, battle standards loaded with ex-votos, feathers, mirrors, lamps, lanterns, and candles. Some strong bearers carry these items on the front and are followed by often a large number of participants, some of which perform acts of self-mortification such as striking their chest rhythmically with their palms in time with the accompanying cymbals and drums.
Although some of the practised rituals in these processions are common in most parts of Iran, certain cities or regions have their own signature rituals and traditions, making them distinct and quite different from the others. For instance, the cities of Yazd and Ghazvin are, respectively, famous for their nakhls and tabaghs, both of which are huge wooden structures—symbolising the Imam’s coffin—that have to be carried by several hundred men in Muharram processions (Gaffary 1984). The city of Zanjan is known for having one of the largest religious processions in the world and the largest in the country, attended by around half a million people annually (Nazeri 2011), making it an item on Iran’s national intangible cultural heritage list (Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) 2010). Lahijan, as another example, is renowned for its karb-zani traditions, during which a hand percussion instrument (karb) is played in a ritually rhythmic manner by the crowd in procession.
The processional aspects of Muharram festival and the rituals associated with them have been often a point of interest to the international tourist. For instance, Wharton and Swift (2013) describe the processions and the rituals as an unforgettable experience and ‘one of the most interesting religious displays one can ever see’. Petrosyuk (2014) also notes that travelling to Iran during Muharram festival and getting to see these processions is ‘a holiday you have not seen before [and one] you did not even imagine exists’. Visiting the processions has been, at times, even regarded as the sole motivating factor to re-visit the country as stated by Yomadic (2017):
On the wall were some photos of different attractions, and one image in particular caught my eye. Wow. The scene in the photo was unlike anything I had ever seen. Countless people filling the city streets, congregating around a city … with everyone dressed in black. Truly, a sea of humanity. Although it was somewhat safe to assume it was taken nearby, I had to ask.
‘Where was this photo taken?’
‘Here! Zanjan! Ashura! Muharram!’
Studying the image, I realised the photo was probably taken from our hotel window, and immediately made plans to come back and experience the image for myself.
In an increasingly globalised and culturally homogenised world, a festival—and generally a destination—needs to promote those aspects of culture that are most unique, authentic, and place-bound (Reisinger & Dimanche 2011). Not only are the large, ambulatory performances of Muharram in Iran culturally unique and potentially of interest to the international tourist, the different form and way of implementing the processions also establish local differences, providing tourists with the opportunity to visit the same event within multiple ethno-cultural contexts, therefore contributing to a deeper understanding of the diverse local culture, beliefs and tradition, thus influencing the tourist’s depth of experience. In fact, sometimes these processions can be so different that, according to Grant (2010) who travelled to Iran during Muharram and observed the processions in three different cities, it is as if one was travelling from one country to another country within Iran.
The dramatic aspects of Muharram festival are most clearly seen within ta’ziyeh (literally meaning expressions of sympathy, mourning, and consolation) which is the re-enactment of events of Karbala and a form of ritual theatre formed and developed in Iran over a millennium. Performing ta’ziyeh is not limited to Muharram festival, but it is seen, in its strongest sense, during this period. The uniqueness of ta’ziyeh lies in the fact that it is ‘the sole form of serious drama to have ever developed in the world of Islam’ (Chelkowski 2009). Though Islamic in appearance with its form and content derived from deep-rooted religious tradition, ta’ziyeh is ‘strongly Persian’ as it draws vital inspiration from the ‘Persian political and cultural heritage’ thus is an important part of Persian culture (Chelkowski 1997: 31). This form of passion play that combines poetry, music, song, and motion is believed to be derived partly from the ancient annual mourning processions and to be nourished by Iranian, rather than Islamic, traditions (Yarshater 1979).
As a form of cultural heritage, the main purpose of any re-enacted events is to ‘present an aspect of a (located) culture’s past to an audience over a specified period as an event’ (Carnegie & McCabe 2008: 352). Such re-enactments, particularly when taking the form of a performance, would provide the tourist with a mediated experience of some kind; an experience of being in the past by creating a sense of ‘being there’ in the moment of trauma (Sturken 2011). In this sense, although ta’ziyeh can be thought of as a case in point, it is different with the ‘usual’ re-enacted event as known in tourism studies. From a tourism point of view, this difference lies in the fact that unlike the many cultural heritage re-enactment events that are staged within destinations to draw visitors and are intended for tourist consumption, ta’ziyeh has not been manipulated for extrinsic reasons (i.e. economic development or profit) or marketed as an attraction for the foreign tourist. In fact, it can be argued that ta’ziyeh is too localised an event or too ‘personal’ in nature with limited appeal to foreign tourists.
Nonetheless, throughout centuries, ta’ziyeh has been described by foreign travellers to Iran with a sense of admiration and appreciation. There are different accounts of the fascination Western travellers to Iran have felt upon visiting ta’ziyeh and its rituals from the early seventeenth century onward. In fact, ta’ziyeh was, at many occasions, regarded as the ‘most interesting and most intriguing Shi’ite ritual for Westerners’ (Chelkowski 2009): from the accounts given by Pietro Della Valle of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Thomas Salmons and Matthias Van Goch of the eighteenth century and Eugène Flandin of the nineteenth century all of whom described ta’ziyeh as a captivating state of affairs and a phenomenon that is worth travelling miles for, to the contemporary times when Goytisolo (1997: 45) writes in his De la Ceca a La Meca that ‘a few Westerners can see a ta’ziyeh and not be utterly moved by it’.
However, although The Ritual Dramatic Art of Ta’ziyeh was inscribed in 2010 on UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, no serious attempt has been done by Iranian tourism in terms of promoting ta’ziyeh as a cultural attraction. Therefore, there are not many accounts of tourists’ interaction with this aspect of the festival in blogs and other sources, suggesting that ta’ziyeh has remained quite unknown to the ‘modern’ tourist when it can be a major attraction to the cultural tourist, not only because of its historical and cultural, but also due to its performative, theatrical, and dramatic significance that was praised by many, such as Peter Brook (1979: 52), who considered it as ‘one of the strongest things … ever seen in theatre’; Jerzy Grotowski, who called it ‘le theatre total’ (cited in Chelkowski 2009); or Samuel G.W. Benjamin (1887: 382), who thought it an ‘interesting exhibition of the dramatic genius of the Persian race’.
The culinary aspects of Muharram festival present themselves mostly in an act of sharing votive foods and collective edible devotions. Such practice is rooted deeply in Iranian culture and had existed in the cultural practices of Zoroastrian antecedents (Gruber 2016). However, after Islam these practices and rituals gained a Shi’a Islamic tint and began to be dominated, more often than not, by mourning ceremonies commemorating the martyrdom of Imams (Kalinock 2003), and above all by Muharram festival.
During Muharram festival, cities of Iran are abuzz with the preparation and offering of copious supplies of free, votive food—collectively known as nazri—that are distributed by individuals and private benefactors to mourners as well as the public. Kiosks and food stalls are set up all over the country, serving a wide range of food and drinks from traditional beverages to elaborate Iranian dishes. In the capital alone, more than 17,000 mourning venues (tekyeh or heyat) and private houses offer nazri to the public every year (KhabarOnline 2016).
Witnessing such rites seems to have caught the interest of the foreign visitor who has often expressed, upon visiting such culinary scenes, feelings of admiration or wonder. For instance, Yomadic (2017) notes:
They say there is no such thing as a free lunch. Well, that may apply in the West, but, I challenge you to name another place on the planet that leaves the doors to its homes open, unquestionably and without prejudice or judgment inviting any person that comes by—for a truly free lunch.
Not only was it eating such delicacies that added to the experience of travellers of Iran, but also participation in preparing and serving them was described as an ‘incredible experience’, giving the traveller a further insight into a rather complex food practice (Wharton & Swift 2013). In this sense, culinary aspects of Muharram can be viewed as having potential for culinary tourism as the tourist can, during Muharram festival, participate in the foodways of an ‘other’ in an exploratory manner, consuming, preparing, and presenting a food item that is considered to belong to a culinary system that is different from that of the tourist (Long 2013). Nazri food and rites can be viewed as ‘non-food food festivals’ that are events ‘whose primary raison d’être is not directly food oriented, but where comestibles play a strong equal or secondary role in the celebration’ (Timothy & Pena 2016: 156).
Culinary aspects of Muharram festival play a prominent, though not a primary, role that not only can nourish tourists and give them a chance to sample some of the offerings of Iranian cuisine abundantly and free, but also will connect them to the cultural heritage of the place. Just like any other food festivals, culinary aspects of Muharram have the potential to enhance the characteristics and principles of cultural heritage such as authenticity, protection/preservation, identity, community pride, and sense of place. Gastronomic heritage of Muharram festival can become—either singly or bundled with other practices—a strong tourism drawcard for many destinations as the consumption and sharing of food and participating in the same types of culinary activities as local residents provides an opportunity for tourists to engage in local intangible cultural experiences.
Arguably, nazri food and its associated rituals are not a means of generating revenues directly, as they are offered for free; however, they are an important part of tourist experience as they are offered in an extraordinary and non-daily context, bringing special meanings to food consumption and making food and the experience of its consumption a source of pleasure and enjoyment. The experience of Muharram food in its unique and unusual context has the potential to become one of the highlights, if not the highlight, of the international tourists’ trip to Iran and provide them with a strong supporting touristic experience. Although for many tourists, especially the mass tourist, foods that are made with unfamiliar ingredients or served in strange ways may become a source of discomfort and dining chaos in destinations (Quan & Wang 2004), the cultural tourist of Iran oftentimes quests for food experiences that are beyond the boundaries of the routine and familiar (Sayadabdi & Hassibi 2019). For such tourists, even the act of satisfying a basic need, such as eating, may be motivated by a search for novelty and change; thus a novel experience such as consuming, preparing, and serving nazri food may become part of a tourist’s total peak experience.
From a temporal point of view, for a food experience to become part of a tourist’s peak experience, either the ingredients or the way(s) in which food is delivered need to be novel and enjoyable (Quan & Wang 2004). Typical Muharram votive food and drinks—such as rice dishes served with different stew-like saucy toppings of sacrificed meat and split pea (gheymeh); meat, herbs, and beans (qormeh-sabzi); saffron and barberry rice with chicken (zereshk polow); lentil pilaf with caramelised onion and minced meat topping (adas polow); basil seed sherbet (tokhm sharbati); herb-Sophia sherbet (khakeshi); and saffron sherbet, beside many others—are made with ingredients that not only are novel and exotic to taste, but also served in ways that are peculiar to the eyes of international, especially Western, tourists. The fact that a person can leave home and be fed for all the main meals and snacks throughout the days can make the food consumption a memorable, and thus a peak, experience. It is, in fact, such memorability of food consumption that is the key to making the eating of food during travel a peak experience, intensifying the total quality of the tourist experience in the destination.
Although the whole Muharram festival does not occur for commercial purposes, it is naive to only perpetuate its religious and symbolic values and ignore the revenue it generates and economic impact it has in different sectors and industries in Iran. So far, however, tourism, especially international tourism, has not been considered an avenue in which major revenue can be gained by systematically marketing Muharram festival to international or even domestic tourists. This might have been deliberate as the festival is thought to be too ‘sacred’ to market; however, it is also possible to consider it might be the result of mismanagement of tourism potentials. Apart from the income that can be gained by introducing the event to the potential market, Muharram festival can be a unique representation of the diversity of cultures within Iran.
Muharram festival and the rites associated with it can give the tourist the chance to directly experience a diverse past and present cultural landscape, performances, foods, and participatory activities. Tourists are often searching, not always successfully, for authenticity (MacCannell 1973). Visiting a unique festival such as Muharram and participating in its rituals, even as an onlooker, enables international tourists to experience authentic cultural ambience in situ and give them the chance to meet local people, partake in something indigenous, and go through an authentic, rather than a staged or reconstructed, experience.
There is little information and few studies that would help planners determine whether or not Muharram is of any interest to international visitors. It is especially important to understand the motivations and perceptions of those who have, in the past, visited Muharram rites in Iran, as such information can be of use in the sustainable management of the cultural sites with respect to various factors such as the mission of those cultural attractions, understanding tourists’ profiles, as well as public and private funding. Accounts by foreign travellers suggest that although visiting the processions of Muharram festival may not be, at the present, a motivating factor for many travellers—perhaps because tourists are unaware of it—if promoted under the right circumstances, it has the potential to become a motivator in the future. Similar processions in different parts of the world attract a considerable number of tourists to their destination of origin every year. The procession of Jesus del Gran Poder in Quito (Ecuador), Kumbh Mela in Prayag (India), the Procession of the Holy Blood in Bruges (Belgium), and Holy Week and Easter processions in various Christian-dominated countries are just a few examples of processions that have caught considerable attention as an instrument for fostering tourism for those regions; the processional rites of Muharram festival in Iran can be used in the same manner and is absolutely of the same potential.
Dramatic aspects of Muharram festival can also serve as an attraction as ta’ziyeh has never been mass-produced for the consumption of tourists, which makes it an authentic platform that is natural, unforced, and free of self-interest and commercial consideration, giving the tourists the chance to create their very own, meaningful connections and experiences through an un-staged authenticity. Moreover, culinary traditions and the abundance of food that is free of charge and available to all visitors, including tourists, although it may not generate straightforward revenue, it complements the whole travel experience and may be able to draw the attention of culinary tourists who may decide to travel to the country for this particular experience.
However, it should not be ignored that if a cultural attraction such as Muharram becomes too big and too exposed to the outside world, there is always the risk of commodification resulting in the attraction losing its authenticity and uniqueness. As the empirical findings of many cultural tourism studies show, commodification of culture may eventually result in transforming a traditional community, making them weaker and, in time, even disappear and become replaced by the emergence of a new culture. At such a point, a community’s effort towards preserving the authenticity of a cultural experience may be impeded. Therefore, in promoting Muharram and its rites as cultural and religious attractions, it is vital to make a conscious effort to create a co-habitual or even complementary relationship between tourism and culture/religion, firstly to enhance the tourist experience and secondly to ensure that the cultural and religious integrity of the event and its associated belief systems are respected.
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