The Takyeh Dowlat was a royal theater in Tehran, Iran. It was the most famous of all the ta'zieh performance spaces, for the Mourning of Muharram. It had a capacity for more than 4,000 people. Built in 1868 by Naser al-Din Shah Qajar south-east of the Golestan Palace on the site of the Síyáh-Chál, the royal theater's sumptuous magnificence surpassed that of Europe's greatest opera houses in the opinion of many Western visitors. Samuel Greene Wheeler Benjamin said on his first visit that it was comparable to Verona Arena.