And still they came…

        A few words on the commemorations of Ashoura

                                     By Cyril Anderson

 Every year, as the month of Muharram comes around, Shia Muslims all over the world come together to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussayn.  Many here in the West are disturbed by the images they see on television each year during Ashoura images of men striking themselves violently, sometimes with swords or knives, covered in blood.  While those doing such things makes up a small minority of Shias, some have the perception that such acts are a central part of the faith.  The purpose of this short pamphlet is to try to address some of these common misconceptions by examining some of the major ways of commemoration of the death of Hussayn.

For most Shias, the commemorations in Muharram are made up of two key features.  First of all, there is generally a speech, called a majlis, in which a religious leader recounts the story of the tragedy.  These speeches are usually in a series over the first ten or twelve nights of the month of Muharram.  The speeches are always very moving and emotional, particularly in the later nights as the story builds in intensity, and many cry from the sadness of the tale.  After this recounting, many take part in a ritual known as mataam,  which consists of striking the chest rhythmically in cadence to poems or elegies called noha, or latmiyyah recited about imam Hussayn and the tragedy of Kerbala.

A small minority in some places do more extreme actions, for example, zinjeer, which consists in striking the back with short chains, or sometimes attached to knives, or, more extreme and rarer still, tatbeer, the striking of the head gently with a sword.  Some of these things are often shocking to outside observers, and indeed, there are even many Shia Muslims who object to the more extreme practices.  However, it is important for true understanding to at least try to comprehend why people do certain practices. 

 The idea of all these rituals, mataam, zinjeer, and tatbeer, which are culturally, rather than religiously based (i.e. they are not considered an essential, mandatory part of Shia practice) are meant, first of all to symbolize an identification with the pain and suffering of Hussayn and his companions at Kerbala, as if to say, “when Hussayn and his companions are hurt, I feel this hurt too as if it is a part of me that is attacked as well.” 

The key aspect of Muharram commemorations which does have a genuine religious basis based on the practice of the imams from Muhammad’s descendants is the annual recounting of the story of Kerbala.  This tradition goes all the way back to the survivors of Kerbala, when prominent figures such as Imam Zainul Abedeen, Hussayn’s son, Zainab, the sister of Hussayn, and Ummul Baneen, mother of four of the martyrs of Kerbala told the story of Kerbala to teach people what had happened and the significance of what happened. 

Other practices came later as cultural additions.

 And still they came

 Going back a long time, to the time of the family of Muhammad following the death of Hussayn, is the practice of pilgrimage to visit the grave of Hussayn.  The visitations, however, that took place were recognized by the leaders as a danger politically due to the powerfully subversive message of Imam Hussayn’s willingness to sacrifice anything, including his life, to stand against injustice and oppression.  Tyrants everywhere know quite well that the widespread growth of such will and strength in people marks the end of their ability to control them.  Indeed, there is an undeniable, universal power to this story that captures the heart, awakens the mind, and strengthens the spirit, a story of overcoming of the worst of adversity through determination and self-sacrifice.  All over the Muslim world, people who are strangers to their mosques for the rest of the year, appear, like clockwork, during Muharram to hear this old story again, to be inspired by it once again.  It connects to something fundamental in the human spirit, and this is what the tyrants of the world fear. 

 Muhatma Gandhi, for one, even though he was not even a Muslim, explicitly invoked the memory and name of Hussayn in his stands against the British in India.  It has been said that when he made his march to the sea to make salt in defiance of the British monopoly, that the numbers of companions he took with him was based on the number that died with Imam Hussayn.  Students of the Iranian Revolution of 1978 also recognize that it was no coincidence that the revolutionary tide began to rise in earnest during the commemorations of the month of Muharram, when nightly speeches across the country about Hussayn’s stand against a crooked ruler and a crooked government were used to focus the anger of Iranians against the Shah. 

 As a result of the recognition of this danger to their rule, heavy repression has often been placed on Muharram commemorations, and active propaganda campaigns have been used to minimize the remembrance of the lessons of Imam Hussayn in Kerbala.  Tyrants have, over the years, instigated a number of measures to discourage the commemoration of Ashoura in Kerbala.  First, they cut off the right hand of anyone who visited.  Still they came, and showed their wounds like a badge of honor to those they met when they returned. 

 Later, when that didn’t work, governments threatened to behead every tenth visitor.  Still, they came, in groups, and in every group, volunteers would step forward to die.  Nothing could destroy this pilgrimage.  Such is the power of the story of Imam Hussayn. 

 It is in the context of such persecution that the more extreme fringe commemorations of Ashura  must be examined.  It is a political statement of the starkest type as a protest against the starkest type of aggression and persecution, as if to say, “You can cut me and kill me, but I am not afraid of your power.  I bow only to a higher power, to which you and I will one day both return, and before whom both of us are as nothing.”  It is an act of defiance, an extreme response to extreme circumstances.  Is it something that is appropriate in Canada, or other nations where there is more freedom?  Not really.  In such countries, there are other, less drastic ways of transmitting and keeping alive the same message.

 As Shias in the world have come into more liberty over the past years, such extreme commemorations have become less and less relevant, and less and less common.  In the past, many scholars felt reluctant to condemn these practices when so many of their followers were under such drastic conditions, and needed some way to express their frustration.  However, more recently, many prominent scholars, including Ayatullah Fadlallah of Lebanon, Ayatullah Ali Khamenai of Iran, and the late Ayatullah Khomeini of Iran have weighed into say that extreme acts which result in bleeding or other forms of bodily harm or self-mutilation are forbidden in most cases. Accordingly, such practices are becoming less commonplace, though small and vocal groups fight to preserve the practices, which played a legitimate role in certain periods of the past in rallying Shias together in times of trouble and strengthening group cohesion.

 In Western nations, various new ideas are being explored to commemorate the tragedy of Kerbala and communicate its messages and lessons in ways more suited to conditions of more freedom.  These include speeches, distribution of literature, exhibitions, writing of books and articles, social and political activism, and blood drives.  The message of Imam Hussayn at Kerbala lives on, carried by the will and determination of those who strive, to this day, to keep his message alive.