By Cyril Anderson

In Shia communities around the world each year, Muharram, Ashoura, and the forty day period afterwards is a time filled with tears and somber reflection, a time of gathering together, to be moved once again by this great human story. 

There is a great emphasis made by our scholars, and by the books they write, about the cathartic and spiritual benefit of these tears shed in the memory of Imam Hussain and those who died with him for truth on that brutal day in Kerbala.  It is a release, as well as a moment of emotional bonding with cherished loved ones, a connection and identification with their plight, across the seas of time.  

Despite what the hard-hearted amongst our critics would try to say, there is nothing wrong with crying at the story of Imam Hussayn and his family and companions at Kerbala.  In fact, it is difficult not to get teary eyed each year at the reminder of these events when one is aware of the true depths of the tragic story.

However, a problem appears in our community when the tears are all there is, when the tears and mourning become an end in themselves rather than a means to connect ourselves with Imam Hussain’s memory, and in so doing, grow ourselves and prepare for something larger.

We must remember that the telling of the story was instituted originally not simply to entertain us once a year and make us cry, but to transmit the message of the stand at Kerbala, and in so doing, to teach profound lessons about Islamic ethics.  It is not something we can put away in our pockets to store away for another year as soon as the tears have dried.  It is something we need to embrace, and put into effect in our lives.  If we learn the thread of the story, but do not make real effort to take these lessons and apply them in a meaningful way, then what have we really learned?  Knowledge unused is worse than ignorance, for it is a wasting of a resource, like a rich man who squanders his wealth by burying it in the ground.  Tears dry up and become but a dusting of salt on our cheeks.

Imam Zainul Abedeen and Zainab instituted the telling of this story because they meant to spread the lessons of the story so as to build strong believers to help change and better the world.  Imam Hussayn did not make his stand simply so that people 1300 years later would remember him and cry over his story.  He came to show people how to be better human beings.  He came to save Islam from destruction in a moment of crisis.  Today, the ummah finds itself similarly in a time of great corruption and crisis, a time when these lessons should have much practical wisdom to give us.

Many people get caught up in the rituals of Muharram, such as mataam or other sorts of activities.  They get caught up in mataam and latmiyyat, and this becomes the center of the whole experience.  

These activities become the core of their conceptualization and experience of Muharram, and they focus on developing in depth this experience of aza’ or mourning as the essence of their encounter with the story of Kerbala.  But not nearly enough effort seems to be being put on the political and ethical aspects of this story, except in a very general way.  Little effort seems to be made toward the idea of taking this sadness, and doing something with it that has a positive benefit in society, instead of just cathartically expending the energy in self-abuse.

Little effort is made toward putting into use the lessons learned from Imam Hussayn’s example of standing up to confront and resist injustice and oppression in the world, without fear, and with willingness to make sacrifices to achieve positive change in the world.  There is a great need to move, as a community, our commemorations of Muharram from an emphasis on mourning to a more activist emphasis. 

If mourning is to remain to pass along the story, then this powerful energy must be continued and channeled afterwards, directed into useful projects that improve our communities, and our nations.  Otherwise, to be frank, our tears are worthless.  We build and motivate ourselves up through the fasting of Rajab, Shabaan, Ramadan, through the commemoration of the hajj rituals, and through the remembrance of the events of Kerbala.  We then have to take this battery that has been charged up and transform the potentiality built up into actuality in the months that follow.  Year after year, through repetition of this cycle, we can push our community, and our society forward.

Now as the Arbae’en comes round again, the traditional period of remembrance and mourning comes to an end for another year.  Those among us who have had the time, energy, and motivation to devote ourselves to our faith over the last months have been building strength through fasting, prayer, reflection, and learning.  This long period has allowed these amongst us a great opportunity for self-purification and building of mental and spiritual strength. 

But for what?  To what end?  Where do we take this energy?  How do we release the potential stored in this internal battery?

Tears are fine, and indeed they are natural when confronted with the story of Imam Hussain at Kerbala.  The problem comes when tears are all we are able, as a community, to muster in his memory.  There needs to be something more if our remembrance is to have any meaningful, lasting impact.  Indeed, mere memorials only scratch out the bare minimum of our responsibility toward our religion.  In these extraordinary times, something else beyond this is necessary.  We must, as a community, be thankful for the tears and mourning and storytelling of the generations that came before us, because they played a key role of preserving this story, so that more than 1300 years later, we still have this story, and are still able to benefit from the lessons within it.  But at the same time, we must move beyond and put this treasured knowledge into effect.  Only then can our community truly begin to move forward, and take its rightful place upon the stage of history. 

The past, though living still within our hearts, is fixed, and written.  Our future lies open before us, a blank page yet unwritten that will speak to future generations of how we used the tools that we were given.  It is a history that will be written by our actions; what will it tell of us?