deal with the second sense noted here...

deal with the second sense noted here; they signify a religious meeting, far beyond the bounds of time and place, with a mostly monologue type of talking. 2- Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (5th ed., 2 vols [^2002]) defines it in this way: ?A play commemorating the suffering and death of Husain, performed esp. on the anniversary of the event each year.? 3- In Arabic, it is called Adab al-Taff (lit. Karbal? Literature). Taff is another designation of Karbal?. See, for example, J.

Shubbar, Adab al-Taff, 10 vols (Beirut: Dar al-Murtada, 1409 AH/1988). In Persian, the following works must be mentioned as examples: H. Gool-Muhammadi, ed., Ashura va She're Farsi [Ashura and Persian Poetry] (Tehran: Atlas, 1366 Sh/ 1985) and M.-A. Moj?hedi, Shokuh-e She?r-e ?shur? dar Zab?n-e F?rsi (Qom: Shahid Mahall?ti Institute, 1379 Sh/1999). 22 Ashura literature dates back to the pre-Islamic period.

According to an account related in Maf?t?h al- Jin?n,1 following the Safw?n prayer, Imam Ja?far al-S?diq remarks, through the chain of authorities indicated therein, that the text of the Ashura Ziarat was initially composed and issued by the Almighty.

(Supposing that there had not been any praise for Imam al-Husain except the very account indicated here, this single account itself proves well indicative of the magnificence and significance of the Ashura incident and the unique personality of Imam al-Husain.) If such an authoritative text as the Ashura Ziarat could provisionally be put aside on the basis of the fact that its source of production was God the Almighty, the first human-produced work in the rest of the common heritage of Ashura literature dates back at least to the very first elegy which the Christian apostle Zachariah composed on the Ashura incident2-3 1 Maf?t?h al-Jin?n is a collection of prayers for recitation, non-obligatory, recommended rituals, and so forth anthologized by the late Sheikh Abbas Qommi.

Although the explanations were originally phrased in Persian, the whole text later on appeared in Arabic and Urdu translations. Various editions and selections of the book are widely available. 2- See the annotated English translation of the Holy Quran produced by S.V. Mir Ahmed Ali (1st US ed., Elmhurst, NY: Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, 1988), s.v. the Quranic mysterious letters K?F, H?, Y?, ?AYN, S?D in the first verse of the Sura Maryam (viz. Mary), p.242f, 1309.