tazia

/taˈziːə/

Etymology

From Arabic تَعْزِيَة (taʕziya, “consolation, mourning”). Sense 1 was borrowed through Urdu تَعْزِیَہ (ta'ziya).

Why this word is great

TAZIA — [Noun] A portable replica of the tombs of Hasan and Husayn, ceremonially carried in Shiite mourning processions during Muharram, particularly in South Asia and the Indo-Caribbean. From Arabic تَعْزِيَة (taʕziya, "consolation, mourning"), borrowed through Urdu تَعْزِیَہ (ta'ziya). Unlike "passion play" (which dramatizes Husayn’s martyrdom) or "rawda" (a ritual of recited lamentations), the tazia is a silent, moving architecture of sorrow. It is the glittering papier-mâché minarets swaying on sweating shoulders, the crush of bare feet on hot asphalt as the procession inches forward, the flickering lamps reflected in a thousand tear-streaked faces—a monument not to death, but to the persistence of memory in exile.

noun

A representation of the tombs of Hasan and Husayn (the grandsons of Muhammad), carried in the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean Shiite processions of Muharram.“Gilt and paper presentations of their tombs are borne with shouting and wailing, music, torches, and yells, through the principal thoroughfares of the City; which fakements are called tazias.”