“…18 Based on secondary characters, many episodes of the Imam Hussein martyrdom saga were written as full-length majleses, with titles such as: A'roosi Qassem ( عروسیقاسم , Qassem's Marriage), Khoruj-e-Mokhtar ( خروجمختار , Mokhtar's Exit), Za'n-e-Nasrani ( زننصرانی , Nasrani's Wife), and many others. After this time period, shabih'khani was performed outside present-day Iran in Shi'a communities in Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, and elsewhere (Aghaie 2004;Jaffri 1979;Mervin 2007;Riggio 1994). Although the complete timeline of the transformation from "processional" or "tableau" shabih' to shabih'khani is not entirely clear (the time span is vast, from 973 to 1787 CE), it is definite that the theatrical 16.…”