The imāmbāra is a centre for Twelver (Ithnāʿasharī) Shīʿī religious rituals, which was widely used in northern South Asia from the twelfth/eighteenth century onwards, in the historical regions of Awadh and Bengal, under the Mughal and British regimes. Imāmbāra s and their variants can be found also in other regions of South Asia with significant Twelver Shīʿī communities, such as Sind, Gujarat and the Deccan. As the Twelver Shīʿīs acquired greater wealth and power, imāmbāra construction increased. The term combines the Arabic word imām , referring in this context to