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Newsletter for February 2010
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Shias' Homage to the Martyrs of Karbala
by Sayed Mahdi Al-Modaressi
Despite the latest wave of suicide attacks in Iraq, millions of
Shia Muslim pilgrims continue to flock to the shrine of Imam
Hussein.
Muslim Shiite pilgrims gather outside the Imam Abbas shrine in
the Iraq to mark the Shiite mourning day of Arbaeen. Photograph:
Getty Images
Several years ago, I met an Australian man who had converted to
Islam (and, specifically, to Shia Islam). He told me that, in
2003, he had been watching the news one evening and was
astonished by scenes of two million Iraqis streaming towards the
holy city of Karbala, chanting: "Hussein, Hussein." For the
first time in three decades, in a globally televised event, the
world had caught a glimpse of Shia Iraq from the inside.
With the Sunni Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein toppled,
Australians, like everyone else, were eager to see how Shia
Iraqis would respond to a new era of freedom. "Where is Karbala,
and why is everyone heading in its direction?" he recalls asking
himself. "Isn't Baghdad the capital of the country? Isn't that
where all 'the action' is? Who is this Hussein who motivates
these people?"
They were the first in a long line of questions that eventually
led him to relinquish his Roman Catholic faith and instead
embrace Shia Islam.
What he witnessed in that single, 60-second television news
report was especially moving because the imagery was unlike any
he had seen before. There was something intense about the
commotion. A fervent sense of connection turned human pilgrims
into iron filings, automatically aligning with each other as
they drew closer to what could only be described as Karbala's
powerful magnetic field. It was more than intriguing; it was
astonishing and inspiring.
Long trek
In 2007, I travelled to Karbala, my own ancestral home, to find
out for myself why such scenes are so captivating. What I
witnessed proved to me that even the widest-angle camera lens is
too narrow to capture the spirit of this tumultuous, annual Shia
ritual.
Thousands upon thousands of men, women and children -- but
mostly black-veiled women -- filled the eye from one end of the
horizon to the other.The crowds were so huge that they caused a
blockade for hundreds of miles. I had the privilege of being
driven to Karbala in armoured vehicles with a police escort
throughout the nine-hour journey. But the road was overflowing
with pilgrims on foot.
The 425-kilometre distance between the southern port city of
Basra and Karbala is a long journey by any measure, and must be
unimaginably arduous on foot. It takes pilgrims a full two weeks
to complete the walk. Some push their parents in wheelchairs.
People of all age groups trudge in the scorching heat of the sun
during the day and in the bone-chilling cold at night.
They travel across rough terrain, down uneven roads, through
terrorist strongholds and dangerous marshlands. Without even
them most basic amenities or any travel gear, the pilgrims carry
little besides their burning love for "The Master" -- their
imam, Hussein. Flags and banners remind them, and the world, of
the purpose of their journey.
One banner I saw on my journey read:
O self, you are worthless after Hussein.
My life and death are one and the same,
So be it if you call me insane!
The message recalled words said to have been uttered by Abbas,
Hussein's half-brother, who was also killed in the Battle of
Karbala in 680AD while trying to fetch water for his
thirst-stricken nieces and nephews.
Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, is adored by all
Shias. Millions of Sunnis also revere him, as Sayyid ash Shuhada,
the "prince of martyrs". He was killed in Karbala on Ashura, the
tenth day of the Islamic month of Muharram, having refused to
pledge allegiance to the corrupt and tyrannical Ummayad caliph,
Yazid.
He and his family and friends were isolated in the desert,
starved of food and water and then beheaded. Their bodies were
mutilated. In the words of the English historian Edward Gibbon:
"In a distant age and climate, the tragic scene of the death of
Hussein will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader."
Shias have since mourned the death of Hussein each year, in
particular on the days of Ashura and Arba'een. The latter is the
Shia holy day of religious observation that occurs 40 days after
the day of Ashura. Forty days is the usual length of mourning in
many Muslim (and Middle Eastern) cultures. This year, Arba'een
falls on Friday 5 February.
Care and devotion
The horrific bomb blasts of late January and early February in
Baghdad and Karbala, which killed dozens and wounded hundreds,
illustrate the dangers facing Shias living in Iraq, and the
insecurity that continues to plague parts of the country after
the war. So it is striking to see so many people -- young and
old, Iraqis and foreigners -- making the dangerous journey to
Karbala.
And it is far from easy to understand what inspires these
people. On my own trip, I saw a woman carrying two children in
her arms, old men in wheelchairs, a man on crutches, a blind boy
holding a walking stick.
I met a 46-year-old man who had travelled all the way from Basra
with his disabled son. The 12-year-old had cerebral palsy and
could not walk unassisted. For most of the trip, the father put
the boy's feet on top of his own and held him by the armpits as
they walked. It is the kind of story out of which Oscar-winning
films are made, but no Hollywood director or screenwriter dares
venture into Iraq these days.
One image that never failed to grab my attention was the sight
of thousands of tents, with makeshift kitchens and medical
clinics set up by the local villagers who live around the
pilgrims' path. The tents (called mawkeb, or "caravan") are the
only places where pilgrims can find a space to rest from the
exhausting journey.
More surprising were the people asking pilgrims to join them for
food and drink. They intercept the pilgrims' paths to invite
them, plead with them and eventually prevail on them to take a
short break by the side of the road, without asking for payment.
They would say: "Please honour us with your presence. Our
masters, bless us by accepting our offerings."
Entire towns in Iraq seemed to shut down as millions converged
on the holy city. One local tribal leader -- who, in keeping
with Iraqi tribal traditions, bows to no one and is treated by
his followers as a king -- was standing on the road, calling out
through a loudspeaker: "Welcome, o pilgrims of Hussein. I'll
kiss the soles of your shoes. May I be sacrificed for you!"
Sacrifice for truth
Just looking at the crowds leaves you breathless. What adds to
the peculiarity of the phenomenon is that, as the security
conditions get worse, even more people are motivated, it seems,
to challenge the terrorist threats and march in defiance to
Karbala.
When, days before Arba'een, a female suicide bomber blew herself
up after inviting pilgrims to eat in her tent in Alexandria, 45
kilometres south of Baghdad, the crowds turned out in even
greater numbers. They chanted in unison:
If they sever our legs and hands,
We shall crawl to the Holy Lands.
And it is not just peasants who take part in this
multimillion-man march. There are doctors, engineers, teachers,
academics, as well as wealthy entrepreneurs and leading
politicians, all of whom participate in what is today one of the
biggest annual mass demonstrations in the world. They journey
from all over the globe -- Iran, India, Pakistan, Britain,
Canada, the United States.
This year, the total number of pilgrims visiting Karbala for
Arba'een is officially estimated to have reached ten million.
Some say that as security improves in Iraq the figure may one
day top 20 million.
Seeing the crowds and joining the procession of pilgrims, I was
reminded of the questions that my Australian friend had asked
himself when he witnessed the Arba'een procession of 2003: "Who
is Hussein? And how does he continue to inspire so many people,
over 13 centuries after his martyrdom?"
For Shias, Hussein is the ultimate moral exemplar: a man who
refused to bow in the face of tyranny and despotism. Shias see
his martyrdom as the greatest victory of good over evil, right
over wrong, truth over falsehood. In the words of the Urdu poet
Muhammad Iqbal: "Imam Hussein uprooted despotism for ever till
the Day of Resurrection. He watered the dry garden of freedom
with the surging wave of his blood, and indeed he awakened the
sleeping Muslim nation . . . Hussein weltered in blood and dust
for the sake of truth."
Holy of holies
But why would all these people walk for hundreds of miles to
remember a painful event that took place over 13 centuries ago?
Visitors to the shrine of Hussein and his brother Abbas in
Karbala are not driven by emotion alone. They cry because they
make a conscious decision to be reminded of the atrocious nature
of the loss and, in doing so, they reaffirm their pledge to
everything that is virtuous and holy.
The first thing that pilgrims do on facing his shrine is recite
the Ziyara, a sacred text addressing Hussein with due respect
for his status, position and lineage. In it, the Shia imams who
followed him after the massacre in Karbala instruct their
followers to begin the address by calling Hussein the
"inheritor" and "heir" of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus.
There is something profound in making this proclamation. It
shows that Hussein's message of truth and freedom is viewed as
an inseparable extension of that list of divinely appointed
prophets.
Pilgrims go to Karbala not to admire its physical beauty, or to
shop, or to be entertained, or to visit ancient historical
sites. They go there to cry. They go to mourn. They go to join
the angels in their grief. They enter the sacred shrine weeping
and lamenting.
It is as though every person has established a personal
relationship with the Imam. They talk to him and call out his
name; they grip the cage surrounding his tomb; they kiss the
floor leading into the shrine; they touch its walls and doors in
the way one touches the face of a long-lost friend. It is a
picturesque vista, on epic proportions. What motivates these
people is something that requires an understanding of the
character and status of Imam Hussein and the spiritual
relationship that Shias, and in particular Shia Iraqis, have
developed with his living legend.
"Who is this Hussein"? For millions of Shia pilgrims, questions
this profound, which can cause a man to relinquish his religion
for another, can be answered only when you have marched to the
shrine of Hussein for 14 days on foot. The verses of a Shia
friend of mine sum it up:
The closer I get and when you I'll be seeing,
My emotions take control, with love I begin to shake.
I look at you now and my life has new meaning.
From you some painful beauty with me I must take.
O Karbala, I feel what you're feeling,
O land of loving sorrow, O land of heartbreak,
O land where my leader does rest,
Welcome me as a pilgrim, please make me your guest.
Sayed Mahdi Al-Modaressi is a Shia cleric and chief executive of
Ahlulbayt Television Network.
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