The Visual Culture of Iranian Twelver Shiʿism in the Qajar Period

Abstract The visual culture of the Iranian Twelver Shiʿa is documented in a variety of media, ranging from manuscripts and lithographed books via tilework and wallpaintings to lacquerwork, reverse images on glass, and the canvasses of popular storytellers. Indispensably connected to a narrative level, it focuses on the creed’s pivotal trauma, the violent death of the Prophet Muḥammad’s grandson Ḥusayn and his followers during the battle of Karbala. Iranian Shiʿi visual culture was particularly rich in the Qajar period, when the ritual performances of the “Persian passion play,” the taʿziyya, coincided with the introduction of printing to Iran, fostering a growing prominence of Shiʿi themes on both narrative and visual levels. The pervasive visual representation of salient scenes embodying the emotional narratives of Shiʿism’s historical experience contributed to the generation of popular piety that in turn made a notable contribution to the firm establishment of the Twelver Shiʿi creed in Iran.