The religious rituals cannot be reduced into religious practices, as they simultaneously mediate performing social realities. This paper goes further and aims at articulating the Muharram ritual as a mechanism to preserve and perform socio-cultural and spatial heritage that are not longer experienced in everyday life. The Shi'i-Muslim rituals during the month of Muharram observe the tragic martyrdom of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, in the 7th century. However, the Muharram ritual, here, is not merely considered as a religious commemoration, rather an urban ritual. This paper particularly explores how the old structure of Iranian cities, that is transformed, still coexisted with Muharram processions as a performed space. The discussions look at the rituals and urban life during Muharram in the contemporary city. On the one hand, the Muharram rituals, especially processions, create a performed space that is dispersed in the city. On the other hand, the performed space of rituals offers a wonder-scape in which people explore and wander. This is a kind of informal ritual/pilgrimage in city through which people experience a different urban life. The orchestration of formal and informal rituals generates a liminal city, in which people have a complex urban experience. This paper particularly focuses on how urban past and heritage is experienced during Muharram. The discussions show the complexity of liminal time of Muharram that creates a lived/performed space in which people not only perform their urban past, but also practice the present social make up and negotiate the future of the city. Nonetheless, the ability to claim the authority over the tradition and heritage past and reinventing them plays a crucial role in this negotiation process. Ultimately always the question is: who is able to generate and control the urban liminality. Throughout, this paper offers a new understanding of the relationship between the heritage past, present and future of the city. This paper is based on fieldworks in seven Iranian cities: Bushehr, Birjand, Ardabil, Kashan, Yazd, Hamedan, and Dezfoul. Although the discussions address all of cities, the city of Dezfoul serves as the main case study.