² Stevens, Wallace, Collected Poetry and Prose, ed. Kermode, Frank, Richmonds, Joan (New York, 1997), 519Google Scholar.

³ As Jean Calmard notes, the Arabic, Persian and Turkish names of the camel sacrifice vary according to each European travel report: “piccolo bayram,” “bariam kurban,” “büyük bairam.” Calmard, Jean, “Shi‘i Rituals and Power II. The Consolidation of Safavid Shi‘ism: Folklore and Popular Religion,” Safavid Persia, ed. Melville, Charles (Cambridge, 1996), 152Google Scholar. In the only version reported on the day of Ashura by Garcìa de Silva y Figueroa, the ritual is described in the context of the Muharram ceremonies [hereafter “Muharram camel sacrifice”]. I use the term “Safavid rituals” in order to typologize the ceremonies, and in a way, as it will be argued here, to emphasize the political dimensions of the Safavid version of the camel sacrifice.

⁴ By “desirable rituals” I mean devotional performances that have not necessarily been sanctioned either directly by the Qur'an or the Sunna of the prophet and the imams. Though discrepancies lie in what is ritually desirable and undesirable (makruh) according to different Shi‘i theological schools, my main concern in the outset of this paper is to simply highlight the unique status of the Safavid camel sacrifice as a new form of non-shari'a-based rituals, distinctively developed under the reign of the Safavids.

⁵ This point is made in reference to Clifford Geertz's “Negara,” where he defines “theater states” as states that enact and represent power in the medium of ritual performances. See Geertz, Clifford, Negara: The Theater State in Nineteenth-Century Bali (Princeton, 1980)Google Scholar. I will return to this point towards the end of the paper. Although primarily referring to the famous book of Habsbawn, and Ranger, eds. The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983)Google Scholar, the term “inventiveness,” nevertheless requires clarification. As Rappaport has pointed out, every ritual is performed in reference to orders established by others in the past, sanctioned by custom and tradition; otherwise, if the participants come to the realization that they are “invented,” the rituals would cease to be credible. See Rappaport, Roy, Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge, 1999), 32–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The power of ritual is in continuous rearrangements of practices that are, at the same time, performed in reference to previous, already established traditions—that is, as something lasting and permanent. In this sense, as Victor Turner puts it, “new” rituals are likely to be primarily created of elements taken from established and older rituals; see Turner, Victor, “Symbols in African Ritual,” Science 179, (1973): 1100–1105CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Accordingly, as it is argued in this paper, the camel sacrifice rites were clearly a continuation of the older devotional practices, but also a new addition to the political ritual landscape of the Safavid political culture.

⁶ For a brief typological distinction between these two forms of religious practices, see footnote 22.

⁷ Calmard, “Shi‘i Rituals and Power,” 153.

⁸ See also Calmard, Jean “Les Rituele Shiites e Le Pouver I, L‘imposition du shiisme safavide: eulogies et malédictions communiqués,” in Etudes Safavides, ed. Calmard, Jean (Paris, 1993), 109–150Google Scholar. For similar functionalist approaches, see also Said Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God on Earth and the Hidden Imam (Chicago, 1984), 241. For other examples, see Peter Chelkowski and Hamid Dabashi's Staging a Revolution, where they identify the impact of the ceremony under the Safavids as “an effective means for spreading Shi‘ism across the land,” or propaganda devices to convert the large Sunni Persian population to the official Imami religion. Staging A Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran (New York, 1999), 48–49Google Scholar. Particularly, consider the use of functionalist terminologies when they define the significance of the Muharram rituals in the 1979 Iranian revolution as “mechanism of mass mobilization.”

⁹ In fact, this is true of all elite-functionalist approaches, including the famous Marxian notion of ideology. It is seriously questionable if an explanation based on the consequences intended by the elites deals, at all, with a study of the ritual as a distinct phenomenon. The logical fallacy involved here is that the consequence designed by a group is used to explain the causes of the phenomenon under study. In this manner, the presupposition of the ritual as a propaganda device already determines its disposition for something presumptuously external and causal to it (the elites), hence ignoring an interpretative analysis of the ritual itself. Even if one assumes that the rituals were indeed a form of propaganda, it does not necessarily explain the sole determined cause for its widespread performances under the rule of the Safavids. Although a functionalist interpretation has some relevance, it ultimately fails to offer a thorough study of the motivational and reflexive aspect of ritual in the form of a multilayered creative action. For a good critique of elite-functionalism, see Cohen, G.A., “Functional Explanation, Consequence Explanation, and Marxism,” Inquiry 25 (1982): 27–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ See Babayan, Kathryn, “The Safavid Synthesis: From Qizilbash Islam to Imamite Shi‘ism,” Iranian Studies 27 (1994): 135–161CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ Rahimi, Babak “From Assorted to Assimilated Ethnography: Institution, Narrative and the Transformation of Ethnographic Authority in the Travel Reports of Michele Membrè and Jean Chardin, 1542–1677,” in Unraveling Civilization: European Travel and Travel Writing, ed. Schuluz-Forberg, Hagen (Brussels, 2004)Google Scholar.

¹² According to Brentjes, Della Valle substantially revised the letters and eliminated native names of the places he visited by adding ancient Greek names and quotes from classic authors after he returned to Rome. Sonja Brentjes, “The Presence of Ancient Secular and Religious Texts in Pietro Della Valle's (1586–1652) unpublished and printed writings,” unpublished paper.

¹³ The original unpublished letters of Della Valle to his friend at Naples, Mario Schipano, can be found at the Vatican Library, MS Ottoboniano Latino 3382; for the unpublished diaries, see Ms Archivio Della Valle-Del Bufalo 51. Ott. Lat. 3382. The letters are written in distinctly individual flowing handwritten script, with an ink pen or quill.

¹⁴ There is also the problem of second-hand knowledge. Since the European travelers shared ideas and exchanged information while residing in Isfahan and other Safavid cities, many of their accounts could have been hearsay.

¹⁵ Although most likely pockets of Shi‘i communities practiced the ceremonies prior to the ‘Abassid revolution in 749–50, it was under the reign of the first Buyid ruler, Mu‘izz al-Dawla, in 963 that the first documented record of the rituals can be found. Dramatic and mournful, the ceremonies appear to have consisted of primarily wailing women walking around in the markets slapping their faces. It was during the rule of the Buyids that the Shi‘is of Baghdad were publicly allowed to celebrate the Muharram. al-Athir, Ibn, al-Kamil fi al-tarikh (Beirut, 1966) 8: 549Google Scholar. See also Halm, Heinz, Shi‘a Islam: From Religion to Revolution (Princeton, 1999), 43–44Google Scholar. Here, I keep a clear distance from nationalistic ideological tendencies in certain academic discourses in assuming that the rituals, especially in their eighteenth-century form of ta‘ziyah and shabih-khwani ceremonies or dramatic display of the tragedy of Karbala, were an extension of pre-Islamic Persian festivals of Farvardegan and Savushun. It may be the case that the rituals resembled various pre-Islamic ceremonies like the festival of Adonis Tammuz; but this does not imply that they reflect the survival of a non-historical Persian national and cultural identity. Since no evidence is available to illustrate the direct link between pre-Islamic Iranian and the Muharram ceremonies, it is best, I suggest, to be cautious about the nationalistic assumptions in certain academic discourses. For a good example of this approach, see Yarshater, Ehsan, “Ta'ziyeh and Pre-Islamic Mourning Rites in Iran,” in Ta'ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran, ed. Chelkowski, Peter J. (New York, 1979), 88–94Google Scholar.

¹⁶ The city of Mashad, where the shrine of the eighth imam, Riza, is located, should also have seen the performance of the ceremonies. Towns around the shores of the Caspian Sea can be added to the list.

¹⁷ Quoted from Tajarib al-Salaf in Mahdjoub, Mohammad-Ja‘far, “The Evolution of Popular Eulogy of the Imams Among the Shi'a,” in Authority and Political Culture in Shi‘ism, ed. Arjomand, Said Amir (New York, 1988), 69Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Consider the fascinating case of Va‘iz-i Kashifî (d. 1504–05), who wrote the famous Rawzat al-Shuhada, a devotional poetry text that was recited during the Safavid Muharram ceremonies. It would be interesting to study how elements of folklore and mythology present in the text were derived from Kashifi's astrological and cabalistic belief of “transfert,” that is, the privileged status of being spiritually related in lineage with the Ahl al-bait.

¹⁹ Perry, John. R., “Toward a Theory of Iranian Urban Moieties: The Haydariyyah and Ni‘matiyyah Revisited,” Iranian Studies 32 (1999): 70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ This “radical change,” of course, took place in the course of two centuries under the Safavid rule. The processional dimension echoes Calmard and Chelkowski's point that the Safavid Muharram ceremonies were a form of political patriotic events. It was in the political pomp and the official glamour of the ceremonies that the rituals transcended the quality of mere religious “devotionalism.” See Peter J. Chelkowski, “Ta'ziyeh: Indigenous Avant-Garde Theater of Iran,” in Ta'ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran, 2.

²¹ The only available record from the early sixteenth century in Islamdom is a description of the ceremonies on the day of Ashura, Muharram of 1501, in the city of Damascus, the same year when Shah Isma‘il I seized power in Tabriz. As Tulun describes, the ceremonies consisted of Qizilbash and dervishes performing various acts of self-injury. Shams al-Din Ibn Muhammad Ibn Tulun, Mufakahat al-khillan fi hawadith al-zamn vol. 1 (Cairo, 1962), 244. As Kathyran Babayan notes, the rituals must have been observed in the northwestern Iranian city of Ardabil by futuvvat, performed “in an open space (ma‘rika) with no architectural embodiment…,” Babayan, K., Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs: Cultural Landscape of Early Modern Iran (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002), 231Google Scholar. However since evidence for the ceremonies in the form of large public events under the reign of Isma‘il I remains scant, it is possible that the Muharram celebrations mainly developed under the rule of Shah Tahmasb. It was under his reign, I suggest, that Muharram became increasingly associated with the imperial state, closely tied to the consolidation of Imamite Shi‘ism in the context of the ongoing state centralization. Accordingly, it is interesting to note that the first European testimony of the ceremonies appeared in 1540 by Michele Membrè, sixteen years after the rise of Tahmasb to power.

²² As Henri Messé has noted, this fusion is mostly apparent in the northern Turkish-speaking cities of Caucasus and Azarbyjan. Travelers like Chelebi, Kakasch, and Olearius report that the devotees performed a number of self-inflicted injuries that were relatively absent in the southern Safavid cities, such as Isfahan and Shiraz. Massé, Henri, Persian Beliefs and Customs, trans. Messner, Charles A. (New Haven, 1954), 128Google Scholar. The performance of flagellation, practiced primarily in the Turkish Shi‘i regions, I argue, marks the introduction of a Qizilbashi Islamic element with an emphasis on the body as a shaministic medium to control the supernatural world. Along with other rituals, like chub-i Tariq, the Qizilbashi Muharram rituals differed primarily in their emphasis on self-inflicted injury for the purpose of appeasing and subduing the supernatural world. The practice of flagellation, as Yitzhak Nakash notes, could have been transmitted from Italy into eastern Anatolia and Caucasus in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, during which they were incorporated into the Qizilbashi Muharram ceremonies. Nakash, Yitzhak, “An Attempt to Trace the Origin of the Rituals of Ashura,” Die Welt des Islams 33 (1993): 161–181Google Scholar. It is important to note, however, that the Qizilbashi Muharram rituals differed from their Imami counterparts primarily because of their magical experiential orientation towards the supernatural: whereas the soteriological aspect present in the Imami version emphasized the belief in salvation, the instrumental aspect of the Qizilbashi version was directed towards making specific things happen in the world through practices of shamanism and spirit-possession. Accordingly, instrumental religion, in its ideal type, is not based on the theme of belief, but efficacy of spiritual experience to control the supernatural. Although the two differ in their orientation towards the realms of sacred and profane existence, it should be noted that they are not mutually exclusive. For a good study of this crucial typical distinction see Gellner, David, Monk, Household and Tantric Priest: Newar Buddhism and its Hierarchy of Ritual (Cambridge, 1992)Google Scholar.

²³ Jackson, A.V.W., Persia: Past and Present: A Book of Travel and Research (New York, 1909), 162Google Scholar. The case of Figueroa, the Spanish diplomat who witnessed the Muharram version of the ceremonies in 1618–1619, could shed some light on this matter. After inquiring from the natives about the origins of the ceremony, Figueroa was informed that the rituals were pagan (“gentilidad”), dating back to the pre-Islamic era. Figueroa, García de Silva y, Comentarios (Madrid, 1903) 2: 351Google Scholar. According to what religious theme the ceremonies were practiced in the Zoroastrian religion, however, remains unknown. See M.Omidsalar, “Ŝotor-qorbani,” in Encyclopædia Iranica 4: 737–38. As E. Edwards notes, the animal sacrifice ceremonies can be traced back to pre-Zoarastarian Persia, during which slaughter of domesticated animals was a common practice among early Iranians. Although the ethical character of Zoroastrianism diminished the role of rituals with the reformist teachings of the prophet, animal sacrifice ceremonies were restored in the later Avesta period when offerings were made “almost exclusively, not to Ahra Mazda or the amesha spentas, but to the yazatas, or angels.” Edwards, E., “Sacrifice (Iranian),” Encyclopedia of Religion, (New York, 1987), 13: 18–21Google Scholar. The ceremonies could have also originated from the ancient Indo-Iranian horse sacrifice rituals, although little evidence can be produced to support this. The horse sacrifice, one of the most imposing ceremonies of ancient Persia, and one of the highest ritual manifestations of royal authority, had the character of magical rite, the purpose of which was not only to secure glory for the king, but also to secure victory at war and harvest for the land. See Albright, W. F. and Dumont, P.E., “A Parallel Between Indic and Babylonian Sacrificial Ritual,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 54 no. 2 (1934): 107–128CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Doniger, Wendy, “the Tail of the Indo-European Horse Sacrifices,” Incognita 1, vol. 1 (1990): 18–37Google Scholar. With the gradual migration of the Turkish tribes to the Iranian oasis city-states of Central Asia and, later, the Mesopotamian-Anatolian land-mass from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries, the Central Asian steppe tradition of horse and sheep sacrifice to the sky god, ancestors, and the forces of nature during the first month of the year at the royal palace, symbolizing the means by which the ritual participant was transported to heaven, could also have contributed to the evolution of the camel sacrifice ceremonies—though, once more, little evidence is available to support this claim. See Kortepeter, Carl Max, The Ottoman Turks: Nomad Kingdom to World Empire (Istanbul, 1991), 19–21Google Scholar.

²⁴ The Arabic word qurban, (literally “approaching near) is found twice in the Qur'an ([3:179] and [5:30]), in reference to the offering of the sons of Adam and what the Jews demanded of Muhammad. According to the sunna, the sacrifice of the camel was not only made lawful, but also privileged over the sacrifice of other animals. As described in Encylopedia of Islam, “Ibrahim then received in a dream the order to make a sacrifice to God. In the morning, he sacrificed a bullock and divided its flesh among the poor. In the night the voice again said to him: ‘God demands a more valuable offering.’ He killed a camel.” EI 2: 532. See also, Siddiqi, Muhamad Iqbal, Animal Sacrifice in Islam (Lahore, 1978), 20–23Google Scholar. In Qur'anic terms, therefore, the meat of a sacrificed animal had a special divine quality, as a reflection of one's devotion to God, though the impurity of blood is given a central importance. “It is not their flesh and blood (i.e. that of sacrificial animals) that reaches God but the piety of your heart” ([22:38]). On the role of blood in the Qur'anic system of purity associated with eating the sacrificial flesh, see Tapper, Richard and Tapper, Nancy, “‘Eat this, It'll do you a power of good’: Food and Commensality among Durrani Pashtuns,” American Ethnologist 13, vol. 1 (1986): 62–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ The camel and the pig were the only domesticated beasts classified as unclean; see Deuteronomy 14: 7–8. In a sense, according to Mary Douglas in her famous book, the dietary laws excluded animals that were not ruminant; Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London, 2000), 56Google Scholar.

²⁶ According to tradition, it was the camel of the prophet, while stopping on Abu Ayyuhe's fina, that laid the foundation for the Medina Mosque.

²⁷ Due to lack of coherent ethnographic information about the ceremonies in pre-Islamic and pre-Safavid periods, it remains unclear how and to what extent the rituals were transformed under the Safavid rule. We know, for example, that the ceremonies were performed in the city of Herat on June 22, 1469, but little evidence is available in the way they were practiced. See Barthold, V.V., Four Studies on the History of Central Asia, trans. , V. and Minorsky, T. (Leiden, 1962) 3: 33Google Scholar. Two salient features, however, seem to distinguish the Safavid animal sacrifices: first, the site of slaughter in the pre-Islamic era was frequently on the summit of a high mountain; second, the (exclusively domesticated) animal used for sacrifice was slaughtered not with an axe or lance, but by striking the beast with a log of wood or a pestle, hence marginalizing the importance of blood with its symbolic significance in contrast to the case of the Safavid camel sacrifices. See, E. Edwards, “Sacrifice (Iranian),” Encyclopedia of Religion, 13:19. It seems reasonable to argue that the camel sacrifice ceremonies, in whatever form they were performed prior to the Safavids, gained more prestige under the reign of ‘Abbas I, as an addition to the expanding sphere of political rituals. It is precisely in reference to this point that I draw a distinction between pre-Safavid and Safavid (or to be precise ‘Abbas I) rituals of the camel sacrifice in order to highlight the cultural inventiveness of the newly centralized state of ‘Abbas I in the early seventeenth century.

²⁸ Chardin, Jean, Voyages du chevalier en Perse, ed. Langlès, L. (Paris, 1811) 10: 14Google Scholar. See also Calmard, “Shi‘i Rituals and Power,” 151.

²⁹ It is most likely this high-ranking Imami cleric was the famous Baha’ al-Din Amili, who revived the rituals of Friday prayer after 1593–94.

³⁰ The ceremony raised certain problems for Imami clerics. Since the practice of slaughter was conducted as the camel lay on the ground, instead of standing up, as required by the shari'a law, the performance caused considerable problems for the Imami clerics; Valle, Pietro Della, I Viaggi di Pietro Della Valle: Lettere Dalla Persia, ed. Gaeta, F. and Lockhart, L., Il Nuovo Ramusio, I (Rome, 1972), 117–18Google Scholar. See also, Jurjani, Abdu'l-Mahasin Husayn b. Hasan, Dar darbar-yi shahanshah-yi Iran (Tehran, 1952) 6: 202Google Scholar. Also, the preserved meat of the animal, mainly salted for a year, was considered haram or unlawful by most ‘ulama. Chardin, Voyages, IX: 14. This point will be crucial to my argument in the theoretical section of this article. See especially footnotes 70 and 71.

³¹ In his 1641 description of the Muharram rituals observed in Isfahan, de Montheron describes the growth in popularity of state-rituals due to a systematic attempt by the royal court to homogenize the ceremonies. Shah Safi I (1629–42) “had ordered the inhabitants of several Persian towns to join their ceremonies with theirs [for] they are made differently everywhere.” Calmard, “Shi‘i Rituals and Power,” 175 (quoting de Montheron). We can also sense an increasing degree of participation, coupled with a rise in elaborate paraphernalia and processional spectacles, in the ceremonies under the reign of Shah ‘Abbas II.

³² Della Valle, 115–18; Chardin, Voyages, IX: 14, For the English translation of Chardin's description, see also Ferrier, R.W., trans. and ed., A Journey to Persia: Jean Chardin's Portrait of a Seventeenth-century Empire (London, 1996)Google Scholar; Kæmpfer, Engelbert, Am Hoff Des Persichen Grosskönigs 1684–85 (Leipzig, 1940), 148Google Scholar; Sanson, N., Nouvelles de L'Etat Présent du Royaume de Perse (Paris, 1695), 207–9Google Scholar; Morrison, John, trans. and ed., The Travels of John Struys (London, 1684), 305–06Google Scholar; Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste, Suites des Voyages (Rouen, 1724) 2: 88–89Google Scholar. It is not clear from the travel reports if the choice to use a female camel was made in reference to an older (Iranian or Islamic) tradition. I conjecture, though, that the decision was made according to religious traditions present in both Irano-Mesopotamia and steppe regions. Also, it is not clear if the camel was one- or two-humped, although I suppose it might have been a hybrid, mainly admired for its strength and great size. Tapper, R., “One Hump or Two? Hybrid Camels and Pastoral Cultures,” Production Pastorale et Société 16 (1985), 67Google Scholar. It is important to note, though, that in the performances of Feast of Sacrifice ceremonies in Islamdom, in particular in North Africa, the sacrificial animal is mostly male. This, therefore, further highlights the peculiarity of the Safavid version of camel sacrifice ceremonies. See Combs-Schilling, M.E., Sacred Performances: Islam, Sexuality, and Sacrifice (New York, 1989), 239CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³³ Poullet, D’ Armainville, Nouvelles Relations Du Levent (Lyon, 1671) 1: 99–100Google Scholar. The numbers of days that the camel is walked through the city varies according to each report. The days range from three [Della Valle;Stuys] to eight [du Mans] and ten days [Kotov; Sanson].

³⁴ du Mans, Père Raphaël, Estat de La Perse en 1660, ed. Schefer, Ch. (Paris, 1890) 73–75Google Scholar; Kotov, Fedot Afansiyev, “Fedot Afanasiyev Kotov: Of a Journey to the Kingdom of Persia & c,” in Russian Travelers to India and Persia [1624–1798], trans. and ed. Kemp, P.M. (Delhi, 1959), 28–29Google Scholar.

³⁵ The location of the slaughter was most likely the south bank of the Zayanda Rud River, east of the Hasanabad Bridge. See Blake, Stephen P., Half of the World: The Social Architecture of Safavid Isfahan, 1590–1722 (Costa Mesa, 1999), 188Google Scholar.

³⁶ Julfa (“Zulfa”), the Armenian suburb, stretched along the south bank of the river.

³⁷ Chardin describes the darugha approaching the camel on horseback; then he strikes the animal with the lance on the left shoulder, calling out loud for the blessing of the shah and the people. At times when the shah was not present, the darugha performs the first strike in his place [Tavernier].

³⁸ In the Qajar version of the ceremonies, one person was in charge of cutting off the tail of the camel. It is not known if this custom was practiced under the Safavids.

³⁹ The slaughtered meat was distributed to each quarter of the city. Tavernier, for instance, reports in 1667 that the meat was divided into twelve parts and that they were distributed to each quarter of the city. At other times, the slaughtered camel is divided into six parts: head, two back legs, two front legs and the body. Poullet, Nouvelles Relations, 99–100. This performance represents a crucial moment in the ritual process, as it will be explained in the theoretical section. Thévenot reports that the factional strife between guilds in Shiraz consisted of two groups: Haydaris and Ni‘matis factions. Thévenot, J., Suite du Voyage de M. de Thévenot au Levant (Amsterdam, 1727) 3: 386–87Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ The mentioned cemetery is most likely the Takht-i Pulad cemetery.

⁴¹ That is, “porque el tal dia le es permitida esta liçençia, como no vsen de otras armas, desculpandolos todos por creer que la mucha deuoçion los tiene del todo furiosos y fuera de sí.” Figueroa, Commentarios, 2: 349.

⁴² Calmard is incorrect to associate the accounts of both Kotov and Tavernier with the Muharram ceremonies in his table of references. Calmard, “Shi'i Rituals and Power II,” 178–81. Kotov clearly distinguishes the Feast of Sacrifice (Bariam kurban), occurring in September, from the Muharram ceremonies (Bairam Oshur), taking place on the first of November; the Muharram ceremonies were separated by two months after the Feast of Sacrifice; see Kotov, Russian Travelers, 28–9. Although not as clearly narrated as in the report of Kotov, the account of Tavernier also distinguishes their occurrence as two different types of ritual events. He writes, “Quelque temps après la fete de Hussein et de Hocen, les Persans en célébrent une autre, qu'ils appellent la fete du Chameau en souvenance du sacrifice d'Abraham.” Tavernier, Suites de Voyages, 88–9. Here, Tavernier clearly separates the events as two distinct ceremonies.

⁴³ In Tarikh-i Abbasi, Munajjim-i Yazdi describes the story of an old man in 1611 who stubbornly refused to sell his house to the shah; he lived in the place where Abbas I planned to construct the new congregational mosque of Isfahan. According to Munajjim, the house of the old man was the place where camels were kept for slaughter on the day of the ceremonies; Mohammad Munajjim-i Yazdi, Mulla Jalal al-Din, Tarikh-i Abbasi ya Roznam-e Jalal (Tehran, 1967), 411–13Google Scholar. For a translation of the passage, see McChesney, Robert, “Four sources on Shah ‘Abbas's building of Isfahan,” Muqarnas 5 (1980), 110Google Scholar. This passage testifies that the ceremonies were performed prior to spring of 1611, when Munajjim dates this story, during which the camels where brought for slaughter on the day of the festivities. This story matches Chardin's account that it was under ‘Abbas I that the sacrifice rituals were inaugurated in all the royal cities.

⁴⁴ Despite Stephen P. Blake's argument regarding the transportation of the capital in 1597–98, I take the year 1590 as the date on which Isfahan was envisaged to be the capital city of the empire under ‘Abbas I. See Robert McChesney, 105. For Blake's critique of McChesney, see Blake, Half the World, 20–21.

⁴⁵ This explains the reason why the rituals (in their politicized version) were performed only in the city of Isfahan, reflecting the deliberate attempt to make the new capital into the symbolic center of the empire.

⁴⁶ Olearius, Adam, The Voyages & Travels of the Ambassadors from the Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy, and the King of Persia, tr. Adams, John (London, 1669), 232Google Scholar. Consider also the Muslim sacrificial performances in Morocco, as the ceremonies were performed in the capital city and religious centers like the mosque near the king's Ribat palace. See Combs-Schilling, Sacred Performance, 224.

⁴⁷ When Sir Richard F. Burton visited Mecca in the early twentieth century the ritual slaughter was performed outside of the city, somewhere near Akabah. Burton, Richard F., Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah (London, 1913) 2: 216–17Google Scholar. This affirms a common understanding that most blood sacrifice rituals, dating back to the pre-Islamic era, were primarily performed at Mount Arafat, outside of Mecca. It is not clear, however, when exactly Olearius's version of the ceremonies were introduced or ceased to exist.

⁴⁸ Figueroa, Commentarios, 2: 352.

⁴⁹ It is interesting to note that the camel was also used to signify both domestic and foreign Sunni adversaries in the earlier Safavid rituals of public cursing of the enemies of ‘Ali. Mirza Makhdum Sharifi, an appointed sadr under the reign of Isma‘il II, describes the ritual cursing performance of tabarra’ as a method for denouncing and disavowing the enemies of the regime with the ritual recitation of Sunni names in public, namely known as “jarr al-qitar.” As Standfield Johnson notes, one meaning for this term is “dragging a train of camels.” Here, similar to the camel sacrifice ceremonies, the camel represents something demeaning and humiliating, as the abusive term “drag” best signifies. See Johnson, Rosemary Standfield, “Sunni Survival in Safavid Iran: Anti-Sunni Activities during the Reign of Tahmasp I,” Iranian Studies 27, no. 1–4 (1994): 123–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁰ As David Kertzer explains: “It is by uttering the same cry, pronouncing the same word, or performing the same gesture in regard to some object that they become and feel themselves to be in unison,” hence maintaining the uniting and ossifying effect in social relations. Kertzer, David, Ritual, Politics and Power (New Haven, 1988), 61–62Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Bloch, Maurice, Prey Into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience (Cambridge, 1992)Google Scholar.

⁵² Maurice Bloch, Prey Into Hunter, 43–44; see also, Bloch, Maurice, “The Ritual of the Royal Bath in Madagascar: The Dissolution of Death, Birth and Fertility into Authority,” in Ritual, History and Power: Selected Papers in Anthropology (London, 1989), 187–211Google Scholar.

⁵³ What signifies the city as a sacred domain? According to Babayan, the capital city Isfahan represented “the seat of a universal empire, one that inaugurated the new Muslim millennium.” Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs, 230. Accordingly, the new imperial capital built under ‘Abbas I was conceived as the place wherein the holy Mahdi would emerge. My theoretical assumption of the city as a sacred territory, however, is based on the imaginary ways in which a home domain is essentially identified as a native site distinct from an external, profane domain of the city outskirts. As I argue here, the festive symbolism involving the bridal processions of the camel sacrifice ceremony best illustrates the sacred boundary of the city, wherein symbolic marriage as a form of blessing takes place.

⁵⁴ According to Sanson, the camel was especially delivered from Mecca. Du Mans, Chardin, and Kæmpfer note that the animal was taken from the royal stable. According to Adam Olearius, the royal camels were a special breed called Shuttri baad (shutur-i bad), or “Wind-Camels.” Olearius, The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassador, 307. This point further emphasizes the elements of vitality (royalty) and strength (wind) believed to be present in the animal. See also Calmard on Sanson's account of the Meccan origin of the camel. Calmard, “Shi‘i Ritual and Power,” 186, footnote 53.

⁵⁵ Space does not permit expanding expand upon this point. In broad terms, the symbolic relationship between marriage and sacrifice in the form of gift exchange as an aspect of “rebound violence” at this initial stage is remarkable. In a sense, as Tapper notes, camels play a major part of gift ceremonies at various stages of wedding festivities in Azerbyjan. Tapper, “One Hump or Two?” 62. For a general theoretical account, see Bloch's interpretation of marriage in Prey into Hunter, 65–84.

⁵⁶ The presence of Safavid figures as buffoons or fools seated backwards on a donkey in the Ottoman circumcision rituals recalls similar symbols of defilement; see, Terzioglu, Derin, “Imperial Circumcision Festival of 1582: An Interpretation,” Muqarnas 12 (1995): 84–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁷ The choice of the female camel for the ceremony is the best evidence that I have for the defiling quality of the sacrificial beast. For the symbolic relationship between fertility and female sexuality, see Bloch, Maurice and Parry, Jonathan, eds., Death and the Regeneration of Life (Cambridge, 1982), 18–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁸ I will expand on this symbolic ambiguity in my account of the final stage of the ritual process.

⁵⁹ Since this custom does not appear to be gender specific, it is difficult to discern other possible symbolic implications this performance may have maintained in the course of the rituals. Once more, the lack of ethnographic data causes difficulty for a more thorough interpretation.

⁶⁰ Although the symbolic significance of the ornamental lances and axes is not clear, the ceremonial objects may have been used as part of the futuvvat initiation rites. In Kashifi's Futuvvatname-yi Sultani, we encounter various rituals in which the mystic guild orders engaged so as to foster group solidarity. It could have been the case that the axe and the lance signified symbolic battlefield (ma‘rika) objects that displayed the chivalrous strength of the fraternal urban guilds. For the ritual battles and wrestling matches in futuvvat, see Kashifi, Husayn Va‘iz, Futuvvatname-yi Sultani, ed. Mahjub, Muhammad Ja‘far (Tehran, 1350/1971), 276Google Scholar.

⁶¹ It is reported that ‘Aisha fought on a camel in a palanquin, covered with plates of iron. This signified both the ceremonial fierceness of the camel, as fighters died while fighting around the animal. See Al-Djamal, , Encyclopedia Islamica (Leiden, 1980) 2, 2: 414Google Scholar.

⁶² According to Bulliet, it was due to experimentation with camel hybridization under the Sassanids that the one-humped camel gradually replaced (though did not eliminate) the two-humped camel in the Iranian plateau, especially in the west of northeastern Afghanistan and the Oxus River in Central Asia. See Bulliet, Rirchard W., The Camel and the Wheel (New York, 1990), 141–175Google Scholar.

⁶³ The trouble here is that, once again, due to the lack of ethnographic data only a hypothetical interpretation can be offered.

⁶⁴ The (pre)Safavid Persian mythological accounts of the camel are scant. I make this generic assumption in reference to Claude Lévi-Strauss's study of Bororo and the Sherente mythologies of water and death. Though surely discrepancies remain between the Safavid Persian and the South American Indian practices, my Straussian take is that there is a quasi-universalistic dimension in the symbolism of wetness that can be detected in cultures on a cross-regional scale. See Lévi-Strauss, Claude, The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology, trans. Cape, Jonathan (London, 1994), 192Google Scholar. It is pertinent to note here that the Persian name for camel, “Šotor,” has its etymological root, most likely, in the Indo-Iranian word uštra, meaning “to be wet,” in reference to ejaculation of semen. See M. Omidsalar, “Šotor,” Encyclopædia Iranica 4: 730.

⁶⁵ Traditionally, the childbirth element has been observed during pregnancy when the mother walks under a camel or consumes the flesh of the animal to insure a successful delivery; see Donaldson, Bess Allen, The Wilde Rue: A Study of Muhammadan Magic and Folklore in Iran (London, 1938), 26Google Scholar. Also, women have continuously been associated with the camel during the dramatic course of the ta‘ziyah ceremonies. This is particularly the case when the female members of Imam's household, imprisoned by Yazid, ride on the camel during the processions. Similarly, as the Portuguese traveler Antonio de Gouvea describes the Muharram ceremonies in Shiraz in 1602, an assemblage of camels carries a number of female participants along with a child as they appear to mourn the death of Husayn in the course of the processions. Antonio de Gouvea, Relations des Grandes Guerres et Victoires Obtenues par le Roy de Perse Cha Abbas contre les Empereurs de Turkuie Mahomet et Achmet son Fils. En Suite du Voyages de Quelques Religieux de l'Orde de Hermites de S. Augustin Enuoyez en Perse par le Roy Chatholique dans Philippe Second, Roy de Portogal, translated from Portuguese (A. Roven, 1646), 75–76. On the other hand, the horse is usually associated with the Imams or the male martyrs, especially Husayn, representing bravery, fortitude, loyalty, and intelligence. Most notably, Chardin reports, the Safavid royal authority placed horses in two rows of six near the Ali Qapu; Chardin, Voyages, 3: 172. For the sacred importance of the horse, see Ayoub, Mahmoud, Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of Ashura' in Twelver Shi‘ism (Hague, 1978), 126CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁶ According to Olearius, the camel was believed to maintain a resentful instinct to remember and even attack the person that has harmed it in the past. Olearius, The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassador, 308.

⁶⁷ Consider the account of Mulla Muhammad Baqir Majlisi in his Hilyat al-Muttaqin (Ornament of the Pious). While referring to a hadith by the Prophet, Majlisi explains that since the camel is a hardworking beast and it demands a great deal of care by its owner, the animal is therefore a “neighbor of Satan” for carrying a bad omen for its owner; only the wretched and the unfortunate take care of such beasts. Majlisi's description further underscores how the camel was conceived to embody strong elements of pollution; see Majlisi, Mulla Muhammad Baqir, Hilyat al-Muttaqin (Tehran, 1378/2000), 319–320Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Recalling the famous Persian proverb here: “A camel will eventually sit at everyone's door.” The popular proverb expresses the ill-omened character of the camel that symbolizes human mortality.

⁶⁹ The possible association of the Zayanda Rud with pollution can be explained with the fact that the Indian inhabitants of Isfahan cremated their dead near its south bank, close to the place of the slaughter. See Blake, Half of the World, 188.

⁷⁰ It is precisely in the context of this peculiar hunting-ritual narrative that the performance of slaughter could not have been performed if the camel was positioned standing up. Why? My argument is that when the animal is laid down prior to the act of slaughter, it demonstrates the subjection of the female beast to the male human hunters. It is interesting to note that during the period of mating, the female camel usually lies down on her belly in a position of sexual subjection. This crucial aspect of the performances defies a shari‘a-based notion of purity and sacrifice, hence highlighting a more instrumental religious practice rather than a soteriological one.

⁷¹ This form of performative slaughter in the shari‘a sense can highlight the interesting way in which the hunting procession can be fused with the Islamic orthodox practice of purity and sacred sacrificial performance, perhaps in order to legitimize the slaughter as a legalistically sanctioned act.

⁷² See Bloch's description of the Dinka ritual in their use of prayer before killing a sacrificed animal. Bloch, Prey Into Hunter, 33–35.

⁷³ The ritual combatants that fought on the square were most likely the futuvvat members of the ma‘rika, mainly responsible to show strength (zur) and play (bazi) on the battlefield. They differed from the “handle-tool users” (‘ahl-i ghabzah’) artisan members of the brotherhoods, primarily made up of blacksmiths, shoemakers, and tailors. See Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs and, Messiahs, 213.

⁷⁴ According to Kashifi in his chivalric manual, these ritual battlefields were mystical mediums for the futuvvat to attain esoteric knowledge about the sacred. The combat ceremonies were spiritual exercises, as fraternal circles fought together in factional strife. See Kashifi, Futuvvatname-yi Sultani, 276 and also 307–308 for the relationship between knowledge and strength (zur).

⁷⁵ I borrow the notion of “supernatural warfare” from Stewart, Pamela J. and Strathern, Andrew, “Feasting on My Enemy: Images of Violence and Change in the New Guinea Highlands,” Ethnohistory 46, no. 4 (1999), 645Google ScholarPubMed.

⁷⁶ The performance of feasts in this regard marked an integral cultural aspect of the futuvvat communities; Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs, 203.

⁷⁷ Since the descendents of the Prophet or sayyids in the futuvvat organizations retained the highest honorific status in the brotherhoods, it is most likely that they received the best parts of the camel's body.

⁷⁸ The ritual preservation of the sacrificed meat has been a common practice in the Iranian Shi‘i ceremonies, extending even to contemporary times. The flesh of the slaughtered camel as a form of blessing (baraka) is used as a cure for sickness or a source of healing power. Such shamanistic performance was also detected by Ivar Lassy in his classic study of Muharram ceremonies in Azarbayjan, hence indicating its possible Mongol-Turkic origins; see, Lassy, Ivar, Muharram Mysteries Among the Azerbeijan Turks of Caucasia: An Academic Dissertation (Helsingfors, 1916)Google Scholar. Also, consider the Qajar version of the ceremonies, in which the dirt, bloodied by the sacrificial camel, was used as a magical medium to increase the harvest of the fields by the local farmers.

⁷⁹ Abraham represented the spiritual father of the mystic brotherhoods, who was believed to personify the code of ethics and the mythical kinship foundation of the fraternal circles. Kashifi, Futuvvatnama-yi Sultani, 132.

⁸⁰ There is an important distinction between Eucharist and the camel sacrificecamel sacrifice. In the case of Eucharist rituals, the blood of Christ is consumed for the participants and of God; whereas in the case of camel sacrificecamel sacrifice, the blood must be removed in order for the meat to be blessed for consumption. For this important distinction between Christian and Muslim use of symbols of consumption, see Tapper and Tapper, “One Hump or Two?” 75.

⁸¹ Due to lack of ethnographic evidence, the claim here is merely suggestive. My hypothesize is based on the magical power of the meat, as noted earlier, and the way in which the flesh of the animal could have served to fight off or tame hostile spirits through consumption it to recapture the soul of the sacred personas by being placed in the body of the consumers. There is astonishing similarity between the camel sacrificecamel sacrifice consumption rituals and a number of shamanistic healing performances practiced across-regions.

⁸² See Bloch, Prey Into Hunter, 85–98.

⁸³ This problem is eventually resolved with the invention in the latter half of the seventeenth century of the Ser o Ten or Arba‘in ceremony, in which the miraculous union of the head and the body of Husayn takes place forty days after his martyrdom. Reminiscent of the ritual of Easter in Christianity, this ceremony provides a solution to the problem of an improper burial procession in the symbolic assemblage of the disembodied parts reintegrated back to its proper corporeal form. See M. Ayoub, “Arba'in,” in EIr.

⁸⁴ Although there is no mention of this in any of the European travel reports, Williams Jackson notes that in the city of Hamadan the skull of the animal was placed in the Tower of Sacrifice at the end of the performances in the Qajar version of the ceremonies—after which, in fact, the tower was named; see Jackson, A.V. Williams, Persia Past and Present: A book of Travel and Research (New York, 1906), 162Google Scholar.

⁸⁵ By “masculinization” I mean the increasing exclusion of women from political affairs and the decline of their political role at the royal court; see Babayan, K., “The ‘Aqa'id Al-Nisa’’: A Glimpse at Safavid Women in Local Isfahani culture,” in Women in the Medieval Islamic World, ed. Hambly, Gavin R.G. (New York, 1999), 349–381Google Scholar.

⁸⁶ I am making a distinction here between the Safavid and the Qajar versions of the ceremonies. The Qajar camel sacrifice rituals appear to have the guilds and the hereditary offices in charge of the ceremonial performances rather than the state officials, as evidenced in the case of the Safavid period. Although, as Mirza Husyin Khan Tahvildar has noted, the basic rules of the ceremonies remained the same since the Safavids, the role of the guilds seems to have gained greater importance under the Qajars. For a description of the Qajar camel sacrifice, see Tahvildar, Mirza Husayn Khan, Jughrafiya-ye Isfahan, ed. Sotuda, M. (Tehran, 1342/1963), 88–90Google Scholar; translation in Keyvani, Mehdi, Artisans and Guild Life In the Later Safavid Period: A Chapter in the Economic and Social History of Iran (Berlin, 1982), 259–62Google Scholar. I am indebted to Professor John R. Perry for bringing this work to my attention.

⁸⁷ See “Ŝotor-qorbani,” EIr.

⁸⁸ Donaldson, The Wilde Rue, 85. Reza Shah even prohibited the photographing of the camel as a symbol of backwardness; see Kapuściński, Ryzad, Shah of Shahs. trans. Brand, William R. and Mroczkowska-Brand, Katarzyna (New York, 1992), 23Google Scholar.

⁸⁹ By “theo-salvational” I am referring to the assertion that “devotional” Shi‘i rituals are essentially performed for the attainment of salvation. Such an approach, I contend, involves the dogmatic reification of the performances in terms of a theological discourse of salvation as the causal factor of ritual action. This approach also misleadingly essentializes the redemptive ideal as the residual category for religious performance. For a representative of this approach, see Mahmoud Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in Islam.

⁹⁰ By overlooking the salvational elements, involving the idiom of “redemptive suffering,” I only aimed to highlight the instrumental religious aspects of the ceremonies. For a distinction between instrumentation and redemption, see footnote 22.