Associate Professor Emeritus for the Religion and Culture of Islam Institute for the Near and Middle East, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
Abstract
In this short contribution the author investigates a hitherto unnoticed aspect of Iranian material religion, namely memorial structures for the dead, especially young male martyrs. These illuminated pavilion-shaped structures are called ḥeğleh, a term which refers to the ḥeğleh-ye ‘arūsī, the beautifully decorated bridal chamber, and evokes the commemoration of the young martyr Qāsem ibn al-Ḥasan, who could not consummate his marriage during the battle of Karbala. The devotional practice of setting up a ḥeğleh for a specific period of time (three, seven or even forty days) either on the street in front of the home of the deceased or in front of the shop where he had worked apparently evolved throughout the 20th centuryor even earlier. This memorial structure, which is made by a specialised carpenter, shows formal resemblances to a pavilion as well as to a crown and is often embellished with mirror work and even with a portrait of the deceased. In addition to round structures, one finds rectangular ones with six columns. In the context of Shiʻi piety, such richly decorated ḥeğlehs become a materialisation of the commemoration of the dead.
