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Edith Szanto, University of Alabama
(THE CONVERSATION) Every year, Shiite Muslims mark the death of the grandson of Prophet Muhammad Hussain with mourning that lasts a total of 50 days.
Ashura, the tenth day of the Islamic month of Muharram, commemorates the day of Hussain’s death.
For millions of Shiites, this era of mourning ends with a pilgrimage to Karbala in Iraq. This pilgrimage has become, in recent years, the largest collection of other people in the world for devotional reasons. This year, Ashura celebrated on August 30, and the pilgrimage, 40 days later, will end on October 9, 2020.
The pilgrimage and the city of Karbala have undergone many adjustments throughout a history dating back more than 1000 years. This year, the pilgrimage and the holy city face a new challenge: COVID-19.
The historical Karbala
Karbala is the position where the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein was killed in what is known as the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD. According to the Shiites, Hussain and his men were martyred in this war on the day of Ashura.
After the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD, there was a dispute over who would be his rightful heir. The Sunnis, who make up the majority of Muslims, that Muhammad’s friend and father-in-law Abu Bakr rightly succeeded Muhammad in 632 AD. The Shiites who Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, deserve to have been Muhammad’s successor.
After years of civil war, as well as wars of expansion, the Umayyad Arab dynasty established its dominance over the region, from the Middle East to North Africa from 661 to 750 AD. But some have denounced the rule of the Umayyads.
Hussain had been invited through the town of Kufa, who had a garrison in the town near Nayaf, to come and lead them in a revolt opposed to the U. S. caliph in Damascus. U. S. forces first ended the riots in Kufa, then gathered and killed Hussain and his men in the desert plains of Karbala.
For Shia Muslims, Hussain his third imam, a worldly, non-secular leader whose direct relationship with Muhammad gave him special prestige and authority.
After Hussain’s death, a tomb was soon built that attracted devotees and benefactors. Najaf is the place where Hussain’s father Ali is buried.
History of Pilgrimage
Over the years, the Hussain Shrine has been destroyed, rebuilt, renovated and expanded.
Muharram’s bereavement rituals, in Karbala or elsewhere, have been used for political purposes. Muharram’s practices were sometimes sponsored by leaders seeking to win popular support. At other times, the rituals became protests against the government. Fearing civil unrest, some leaders have banned or limited hajj to Karbala.
For example, Mutawakkil, a caliph of the Abbasi dynasty, who in a vast Islamic empire from the 8th to the 13th century feared that rituals would inflame fervor against the regime, destroyed the tomb in 850 AD. and forbade the pilgrimage to Karbala.
Karbala and Najaf rose to prominence in the 16th century with the status quo of a Shiite state in Persia, today Iran, under Shah Ismail I. Since then, Iraqi sanctuary cities have attracted increasing numbers of pilgrims.
Many pilgrims brought the bodies of deceased relatives because they believed that being buried near Ali or Hussain ensures that when the deceased appears before God on the day of the final judgment, Ali or Hussain will appeal to God’s mercy to allow the user’s soul. to enter paradise.
This led “Wadi al-Salam”, in Arabic for “Valley of Peace”, to Najaf to one of the largest cemeteries in the world, containing up to five million bodies.
The shipment and burial of the corpses provided work for a giant stratum of the population in Najaf and Karbala. Higher fees were charged to those seeking to be closer to Ali or Hussain at the burial site.
By blaming body trafficking as one of the reasons for several cholera epidemics in 19th century Persia and Ottoman Iraq, the Ottoman government, which ruled Iraq from the 16th to the early 20th centuries, tried to limit and the number of corpses that were brought. .
However, even under these restrictions, about 20,000 bodies were taken to Nayaf a year in the early 20th century. Today, about 100,000 more people are buried in Nadjaf a year.
From decline to rebirth
Under the authoritarian Iraqi Baath regime, from the early 1970s to 2003, the Shiite pilgrimage was heavily monitored and limited.
Like many previous leaders, Saddam Hussein feared that the rituals would be used to incite an uprising opposed to his regime, that the pilgrimage would become protest, but once Saddam was overthrown by U. S. -led forces in 2003, the pilgrimage failed again.
In 2004, more than 2 million pilgrims walked to Karbala, and the maximum direction is not unusual from Najaf to Karbala. Since then, the pilgrimage to Karbala has even dwarfed the hajj, which annually attracts between 2 and 3 million. In 2014, another 17 million people were reported to have completed the march to Karbala. In 2016, the number of pilgrims amounted to 22 million.
This year, concern for COVID-19 has severely limited many pilgrimages, adding the hajj. Only a limited number of Muslims who were already in Saudi Arabia were allowed to attend.
As a precautionary measure, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a top Iraqi Shiite leader, encouraged his followers to cry at home and then move on to Karbala.
For Ashura this year, the Shiites accumulated in Najaf and Karbala, but on a much smaller scale. There’s social estinement, but not everywhere. Not all pilgrims wore masks. In the absence of strict measures, the number of infections in Iraq has already increased. It remains to be noted whether the government will respond with stricter policies for the pilgrimage in early October.
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