This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Peter Chelkowski's study of Ta'ziyeh, the Shia Muslim passion play tradition commemorating the death of Imam Husayn, makes a point worth carrying into every performance work entry regardless of tradition: a religious performance work's form, staging convention and emotional register are shaped by the specific theological and historical event it commemorates, and cannot simply be read through a template drawn from a better documented Christian example.
Chelkowski's own account shows Ta'ziyeh developed its own distinctive conventions, a mobile staging that moves through a real crowd, a chanted rather than spoken delivery, roles performed by amateur devotees rather than professional actors, conventions a performance work entry records on the tradition's own documented terms rather than assuming they mirror European mystery play staging.
That same discipline generalizes across the type. A performance work entry describes each tradition's own staging method, its own performing community and its own documented history of change, rather than assuming every religious performance work developed the way a single, more widely studied tradition did. That comparison is offered to sharpen description, never to rank one tradition's performance work above another's on its own terms.