Every year, Shi’i communities set aside days in the months of Jumada al-Ula and Jumada al-Thaniyah to mourn the demise of Lady Fatimah al-Zahra (s), the daughter of the Prophet (p). Because the reports differ on how long she lived after her father, 75 days or 95 days, the commemoration is usually observed twice. The first Fatimiyyah falls around 13 Jumada al-Ula, and the second around 3 Jumada al-Thaniyah.

In Iran today, these days are marked by public mourning gatherings, black banners, and recitations in mosques, homes, and shrines across the country. This practice is has a history that can be traced back to at least a century ago. Shrine ledgers, endowment deeds, royal decrees, newspaper reports, memoirs, and Pahlavi security-service files show Fatimiyyah ceremonies being organized, funded, contested, and watched for well over a century.

I’ve drawn on different archival records, Iranian websites and papers, in this article to trace the history of Fatimiyyah commemorations in Iran. It is not meant to be an exhaustive historical paper, but rather a brief overview. It begins at the Shrine of Imam al-Rida (a) in Mashhad during the Qajar period, moves through the upheavals of the Constitutional Revolution and the restrictions of the Pahlavi era, and ends with the role these gatherings played in the Islamic Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

The Shrine of Imam al-Rida (a): The Qajar Records

The richest record of early Fatimiyyah observance comes from the archives of Astan Quds Razavi, the administration of the Shrine of Imam al-Rida (a) in Mashhad. These documents show that mourning for Lady Fatimah (s) at the shrine did not appear suddenly. It was organized, funded, and consistently practiced across successive historical periods.1

Royal Patronage and the Earliest Documents

State involvement in the commemoration is visible from early in the Qajar period. A letter signed by Nasir al-Din Shah in 1265 AH (1848–49) orders that a sheep be given every year to be sacrificed during Fatimiyyah.2 Small decrees of this kind show that Fatimiyyah had already found its way into the administration of the state and the shrine long before the modern era.

A document dated 1309 AH (1891–92) refers specifically to rawzeh khwani (recitation of the sufferings of the Ahl al-Bayt) and lamentation for Lady Fatimah (s) at the shrine. It confirms that by the late Qajar era these ceremonies were established traditions.

The most detailed picture comes from the years 1306–1307 AH (1888–90), preserved in three documents at the Astan Quds Razavi Document Center. Together they offer a glimpse of what these nights actually looked like.

Rawzeh in the Dar al-Siyadah. The first document describes continuous mourning sessions in the Dar al-Siyadah portico (riwaq), led by Mulla Muhammad-Rida, a senior attendant of the shrine. He was formally assigned to recite the rawzeh on specific nights, including “the night of the passing of Lady al-Siddiqah al-Tahirah (s).” These sessions were paid for from general endowments (awqaf) whose original deeds had been lost, but whose revenues were allocated to the needs of the shrine, including Fatimiyyah. At this stage, hospitality was not yet part of the night of martyrdom. People simply came to listen to the recitation.

Ceremonies in the guardhouse. The second document concerns Mirza Ali Khan, the head of the shrine guards. He had endowed some of his own properties specifically to fund rawzeh khwani in the kashik-khanah, the guards’ headquarters, near what is now the western entrance of Sahn-e Enqilab. The records show that Fatimiyyah ceremonies were held there regularly in both Jumada al-Ula and Jumada al-Thaniyah. Mourning for Lady Fatimah (s) was therefore observed over several nights leading up to the commemorated date of her martyrdom, and in both Fatimiyyah periods.

Lighting the shrine at night. The third document is an expense list for the shrine’s lighting. It records the cost of “lighting for the nights of the martyrdom of Lady al-Siddiqah al-Tahirah (s) … in the blessed Dar al-Siyadah.” This single line is telling since, at the time, the shrine normally closed overnight except on very special occasions. For Fatimiyyah, it stayed open and lit, and the public was free to attend.

These three documents are not isolated. Other surviving records include:

  • an expense ledger from 1317 AH (1899–1900) detailing the costs of the Fatimiyyah programs;
  • the endowment deed of Ghulam-Husayn Khan Amiri, dated 1337 AH (1918–19), dedicating land specifically to Fatimiyyah mourning;
  • dozens of Qajar-era directives, written in the siyaq accounting script and addressed to shrine officials such as the record keepers and the kashik-bashi (head of the guard).

Read together, these records reveal some sort of well-organized structure. The shrine’s religious school was closed for the occasion, ordinary daily activities were suspended, hospitality was provided for mourners, reciters were paid, and the whole program was coordinated so that the ceremonies would be carried out with dignity and consistency.

These materials are preserved today in the Astan Quds Razavi Document Center, the Central Library of the University of Tehran, private family archives such as that of the Amiri family, and the Yavaran-e Andisheh-ye Fatimi Institute, which holds hundreds of related images and documents. In all, nearly one hundred written records survive from the reign of Nasir al-Din Shah onward. That is an unusually rich archive for a single mourning tradition.

All in all, several conclusions emerge from this material. Fatimiyyah has been observed at the shrine for well over a century. The ceremonies took place in spaces of the shrine that are still recognizable today. Multiple nights were dedicated to the mourning, not just a single commemorative day. The shrine was lit and kept open at night specifically for the occasion. Funding came from royal decrees, general endowments, and private endowments alike. Finally, the term “martyrdom” (shahadah) appears consistently in the oldest documents, showing how Lady Fatimah’s (s) death was understood by those who commemorated it.

Mourning Under Siege: The Constitutional Era

Religious gatherings, and mourning assemblies for the Ahl al-Bayt (a) in particular, have often been drawn into the political struggles of their time. This was especially true during the Constitutional Revolution (1905–11), when Iran was shaken by turmoil and the rift between the constitutionalists (mashruteh-khwahan) and the supporters of a religiously grounded constitution (mashru’ah) spilled over into the mourning ceremonies themselves. The clearest example is the attack on the Fatimiyyah gathering of Shaykh Fadlullah Nuri in 1325 AH (1907).

The Pressure on Shaykh Nuri

Ruhullah Husayniyan describes the climate of those months in his book Fourteen Centuries of Shi’a Effort to Survive and Expand:

In the name of freedom, the constitutionalists imposed the greatest suffocation on the supporters of mashru’ah. The new newspapers had reached the height of insolence toward Islam, the Prophet, and the clergy, and the constitutionalist scholars passed over these attacks with tolerance and leniency—but they could not tolerate the criticisms of the Shaykh. They pressured him in every way, and through malicious propaganda in the newspapers and in the speeches of the so-called freedom-seekers, they placed Shaykh Fadlullah under intense strain.3

On 21 Rabi’ al-Thani 1325 AH, the newspaper Subh-e Sadiq, managed by Murtada Quli Khan Mu’ayyid al-Mamalik, printed Shaykh Nuri’s five proposed principles. The self-declared champions of press freedom were enraged. They stormed the newspaper’s office, “tore apart all the copies they found, and then forced the editor-in-chief to reprint that issue and apologize.” The constitutionalists, in other words, could not tolerate even a single page of the Shaykh’s views in print.

Despite the tension, Shaykh Nuri held his annual Fatimiyyah gathering as he did every year. In Jumada al-Ula, he pitched a large tent in the Jami’ Mosque of Tehran to host the mourning ceremony. His opponents seized the opportunity and mobilized a crowd to disrupt it. The newspaper Habl al-Matin, known for shifting its positions with the political winds and at that time one of the Shaykh’s fiercest opponents, reported:

Several thousand people went to the mosque intending to prevent the ceremony … they brought down the tent, cut it into several pieces, and carried them to Imamzadeh Zayd, where they confiscated them. This occurred on Thursday, the 8th [of Jumada al-Ula].

The following day, the triumphant constitutionalists gathered at the Sadr School. Figures such as Malik al-Mutakallimin and Jamalzadeh delivered fiery speeches against the opponents of the constitution, accusing them of trying to crush liberty and justice under the guise of religion. A large crowd then marched on Shaykh Fadlullah’s house, which they called “the center of the despots and supporters of mashru’ah,” intending to drive his followers out of the city.

The constitutionalist historian Malikzadeh appears to exaggerate this episode, since no one was actually expelled that day. As Husayniyan remarks, had they done so it would only have deepened the constitutionalists’ disgrace. How could they claim freedom of expression for all while expelling religious people for their beliefs?

Fearing for the lives of his followers, and determined to deliver his message without bloodshed, Shaykh Fadlullah decided to take sanctuary at the shrine of Abd al-Azim al-Hasani south of Tehran. According to Muhit Mafi, the pressure on the Shaykh and his supporters had become so severe that he could no longer remain in the city.

He left with two scholars and three students. The next day he sent a message to the scholars of Tehran: “We are residing in the sacred sanctuary; you know what must be done.” Within three or four days, eighteen mujtahids, fifty preachers and rawzeh reciters, three hundred seminary students, two hundred merchants, and nearly a thousand others had joined him. The mourning ceremonies were set up once again, with either the Shaykh himself or Sayyid Ahmad Tabataba’i ascending the pulpit. A Fatimiyyah gathering that his opponents had tried to tear down became the starting point of one of the most consequential sanctuaries of the Constitutional period.

Interruption Under the Pahlavis

The Astan Quds Razavi archives show that Fatimiyyah ceremonies at the Shrine of Imam al-Rida (a) continued without interruption until 1314 SH (1935), during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi. That year, shifting government policy and mounting restrictions on religious practice brought public Fatimiyyah mourning at the shrine to a halt. A tradition that had been funded by Qajar kings and sustained by endowments for decades was, for a time, silenced.

Under Muhammad Reza Shah, the ceremonies reappeared, though only in a very limited form. Despite these constraints, the tradition never disappeared entirely. As the following decades would show, Fatimiyyah gatherings outside the shrine would take on a new and openly political significance.

Fatimiyyah and the Birth of the Islamic Movement

The opening of the Islamic Movement in Qom in late 1962 (1341 SH) coincided with the second Fatimiyyah. The proposed Provincial and District Councils Bill (Layihah-ye Anjumanha-ye Ayalati va Vilayati) had provoked the protest of the maraji’ and the seminary of Qom, and the Fatimiyyah gatherings of that year became a platform for spreading that protest.

Abd al-Majid Mu’adikhah, who was then a seminary student, describes these days in the first volume of his memoirs, Jam-e Shekasteh (The Broken Goblet):4

We heard that a gathering was being held at the Masjid-e A’zam in Qom, a gathering that resonated deeply with my inner concerns. Without delay, we abandoned our study session midway and headed toward the mosque. It felt like the second Fatimiyyah. From the founder of the Qom seminary, this tradition had remained: he would hold a mourning assembly for Lady Fatimah (s) on the 2nd to the 4th of Jumada al-Thaniyah each year. His son, Ayatullah Murtada Ha’iri, also remained committed to continuing it. But this was the first time I had been fortunate enough to attend.

The founder he refers to is Shaykh Abd al-Karim Ha’iri Yazdi, who re-established the seminary of Qom in the 1920s. Mu’adikhah continues:

It was clear that this assembly was unlike those of previous years. It was not comparable to any gathering before. It became an arena to display the resolve of the Fayziyyah students. Although I arrived at the very beginning, I could hardly find a way into the main prayer hall, and I struggled to find even a small space to sit in that tightly packed crowd.

The speaker was Sayyid Muhammad Al-Taha, who delivered a passionate sermon aimed squarely at the Prime Minister, Asadullah Alam, whose name he attacked repeatedly from the pulpit.

Mu’adikhah explains that the students had been somewhat behind the course of events. The maraji’ had first sent telegrams to the Shah. The Shah had replied dismissively and referred them to the Prime Minister. Alam’s own reply was evasive and implied that politics and statecraft lay outside the responsibility of the religious authorities. Before this gathering, Mu’adikhah had seen the telegram Imam Khomeini sent to the Prime Minister after the Shah’s response. From the pulpit, Al-Taha now answered Alam’s insults with sharp retorts of his own.

Looking back, Mu’adikhah reflects on how closely the movement in Qom became bound to the name and memory of Lady Fatimah (s):

Beyond all this, the link between the Qom movement and the name and memory of the Lady of the Women of the Worlds deserves serious reflection. We have not forgotten that the first cries of the movement echoed in mourning for her, on the 3rd of Jumada al-Thaniyah, 1341. And again, on the anniversary of her birth in 1343, a decisive day in the history of the movement, Qom rose up invoking her name, showing the regime that even after the passing of Ayatullah Burujirdi, it could not trample upon the sentiments of the faithful.

He then turns to a third occasion:

And now we speak of yet another day on which the name of that noble Lady became tied to an uprising, one that did not merely confront the tyranny of the Shah, but directly challenged American domination. If the goals of the movement were clouded with uncertainty at the beginning, by Azar 1343 the aims were absolutely clear. In earlier years, the religious masses had risen up against measures we now openly call “American reforms.”

The confrontation with American domination that he alludes to is Imam Khomeini’s speech against the capitulation law of 4 Aban 1343 (October 26, 1964), which granted American military personnel in Iran immunity from Iranian courts. That speech was delivered on 20 Jumada al-Thaniyah, the anniversary of the birth of Lady Fatimah (s), and led to the Imam’s exile days later.

By the 1970s, the Pahlavi security agencies had learned to treat religious occasions with suspicion. Sermons on such days drew unusually large crowds from every social class, and the presence of a well-known preacher raised the regime’s anxiety further. Surviving police and SAVAK reports show Fatimiyyah gatherings being closely monitored.

Shaykh Ahmad Kafi in Neyshabur, 1973

On 19 Tir 1352 (July 10, 1973), the police of Neyshabur filed a report titled “Religious Lectures of Shaykh Ahmad Ziyafati Kafi, Preacher, During Fatimiyyah.” It reads:5

On the occasion of the arrival of the ten days of Fatimiyyah, and following an invitation made by Yaman-Ali Khosh-Tab’ to Shaykh Ahmad Ziyafati Kafi, preacher, the said preacher, from 8/4/52 to 17/4/52, for ten days, delivered religious sermons every afternoon from 17:00 to 18:30 at the Jami’ Mosque of Neyshabur. Each day, around seven to eight thousand people gathered at the mosque to benefit from the preacher’s sermons.

After obtaining a written pledge from the preacher and carrying out the necessary monitoring during the ten days he lectured in Neyshabur, he did not deliver any improper or oppositional remarks. Each day he would arrive from Mashhad at 17:00 and return to Mashhad after the conclusion of his speech.

The dates in the report, 8 to 17 Tir 1352, correspond to June 29 to July 8, 1973. The report reveals as much about the state as about the preacher. Seven to eight thousand people came every day for ten days, the preacher was made to sign a pledge beforehand, and every session was watched.

Sayyid Abd al-Karim Hashimi-Nezhad in Mashhad, 1975

Two years later, a SAVAK document dated 1 Tir 1354 (June 22, 1975), transmitted from the Mashhad police intelligence office, described a Fatimiyyah gathering in the home of Sayyid Abd al-Karim Hashimi-Nezhad. A prominent revolutionary cleric of Mashhad, he would later be assassinated in 1981. The report noted both the presence of known opposition figures and the political content of his remarks:6

For five consecutive mornings, a rawzeh khwani gathering was held at the home of Sayyid Abd al-Karim Hashimi-Nezhad, located on Shah Street, on the occasion of the passing of Lady Fatimah al-Zahra (s). Around three hundred people attended, including religious students and individuals such as Engineer Bazargan, Shaykh Habibullah Ashuri, Shaykh Ghulam-Rida Mohami, Shaykh Abbas Tabasi, Marvi (the prayer leader of Karamat Mosque), and Mujtahidi, most of whom are known oppositional figures.

Hashimi-Nezhad, despite being banned from preaching, ascended the pulpit and declared that it is obligatory for all people to wage jihad against the Rastakhiz Party, to destroy oppression, and to stand in solidarity with their Iranian brothers in their grief and hardship. He added: “Why have the seminaries of Qom and the congregational prayers been shut down under the pretext of religious programs, while in Mashhad this is not being done?”

The Rastakhiz (Resurgence) Party had been declared Iran’s sole legal party only months earlier, in March 1975. A note added to the report on the following Wednesday reads:

Sayyid Habib (Abd al-Karim) Hashimi-Nezhad was recently arrested and the necessary investigations are ongoing. Results will be announced later. Also, Mohami is Muhammad-Rida and Marvi is Mahmud, both with prior records. Only three days of rawzeh gatherings were actually held in his home.

A Fatimiyyah gathering in a private home had become, in the eyes of the state, a meeting of the opposition, and its host was arrested for it.

The documents surveyed above suggest that Fatimiyyah commemorations in Iran can be traced back to the Qajar period. However, nothing indicates that they were held country-wide as they are today. The Qajar-era records describe local and modest gatherings: rawzeh recitations in a shrine portico, a guardhouse, or a scholar’s tent. And from the 1930s to the 1970s, the gatherings were often used as platforms for religious and political protest rather than purely a mourning session.

The Fatimiyyah familiar in Iran today took shape after the 1979 revolution. It grew especially from the 1990s onward and expanded further in the twenty-first century, into a season of large-scale mourning ceremonies with elegies, chest beating, and processions. In fact, no historical or archival data is needed to attest to this: many of us were born in time to witness the expansion and inflation of this mourning ceremony with our own eyes. The reasons and factors that led to this growth are beyond the scope of this article.

It is worth noting, however, that not everyone in the religious leadership saw this development as necessary. In 1992, in a meeting with members of the radio division of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, Shahid Ayatullah Sayyid Ali Khamenei said:7

Another matter (for us to think about) is the matter of mourning. Recitation of elegies and gatherings of lamentation should definitely be held, but not at every event of grief. You should be aware that the tradition of elegies, crying, and chest beating is only linked to a few of the Imams and not all of them. Now perhaps in a gathering somewhere an elegy has been recited and people have mourned and their hearts have softened; there is no problem with this. There is a fundamental difference between mourning and the establishing of events for chest beating and elegies. Elegies and chest beating are exclusively for Imam Husayn (a) and, at most, a handful of other Imams, and certainly not to the extent that is currently seen. For example, it is good to have these events organized for the 21st of Ramadan and Ashura, but in the case of Imam Musa (a) I do not see any necessity for the recitation of elegies and for chest beating. Or in the martyrdom of Hazrat Zahra (s), it is not appropriate that we come and recite elegies and beat our chests. It would be better in those instances that the tragedies which befell them are explained. The explanation of their tragedy is (in and of itself) tearful.

Currently, in these days of Muharram, I myself am not able to attend the mourning gatherings (and this is difficult for me), because the love that is in the heart of the Shi’i wants to take part in these mourning ceremonies. However, by reading Nafas al-Mahmum by Shaykh Abbas Qummi I have satiated myself. This book is tearful, and for me personally it is as effective as listening to a number of different reciters. There is absolutely no reason that mourning should remain in its traditional form, in which first something is read and then chest beating commences. Not at all; instead, explain their circumstances. For example, someone with good oratory and a sorrowful voice could describe how Imam Musa (a) went to prison, the bitter and tragic events that transpired, then how martyrdom was attained, and then how the burial took place. In this way the hearts of everyone there will be softened.

What actually unfolded in Iranian society did not follow this suggestion and in the decades since, the martyrdom of Lady Fatimah (s) has become one of the most prominent mourning seasons of the Iranian calendar, marked by elegies, chest beating and other creative forms of mourning.

Footnotes

  1. Based on documents held at the Astan Quds Razavi Document Center, Mashhad.
  2. This letter is held today in the Central Library of the University of Tehran.
  3. Ruhullah Husayniyan, Fourteen Centuries of Shi’ah Effort to Survive and Expand (Tehran: Center for Islamic Revolution Documents).
  4. Abd al-Majid Mu’adikhah, Jam-e Shekasteh, vol. 1 (Tehran: Center for Islamic Revolution Documents). Excerpt published by the Center on 27 Dey 1399 (January 16, 2021).
  5. Police report of Neyshabur, 19 Tir 1352 (July 10, 1973), published by the Center for Islamic Revolution Documents on 10 Dey 1399 (December 30, 2020).
  6. SAVAK document dated 1 Tir 1354 (June 22, 1975), held by the Center for Islamic Revolution Documents.
  7. بیانات در دیدار اعضای گروه ویژه و گروه معارف اسلامی صدای جمهوری اسلامی ایران (Speech in the meeting with members of the Special Group and the Islamic Teachings Group of the Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran), available at http://farsi.khamenei.ir/speech-content?id=2603.