To Shiite Muslims, this is the holy month of Muharram, when they honor the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Mohammed in a battle fought at Karbala in the 7th century. The height of this month is the celebration of Ashura, which was marked worldwide on Thursday.
You may wonder how one celebrates an important holiday like this. Do you have cake and ice cream? Do you exchange presents? Do you solemnly light a candle in memory of these brave soldiers of the faith? Do you go down to the mosque and say a prayer? Or do you, perhaps, parade through the streets beating yourself bloody with a flail made of steel chain, while intermittently whacking your young sons on the head with a sword until their faces run red with blood?
In a sane and civilized culture one of the other modes of celebration would prevail, but among Shia throughout the Muslim world, the bloody parade of penitential violence and ritualistic child abuse is preferred. The practice is particularly important in Iraq where huge parades took place in the major cities and the streets ran with blood. The largest celebrations were in Karbala where 2 million pilgrims crowded the streets.
Under Saddam Hussein the Ashura rituals were banned throughout Iraq, and Iran, effectively ruled by a Shiite theocracy, also bans the festival. In both cases Ashura was banned because of the religious violence and fanatic excesses associated with the holiday. However, under the new government in Iraq, Ashura was openly celebrated last year for the first time in decades and was celebrated again this year. Government troops turned out to protect the marchers, dressed all in black rather than in their official uniforms.
In light of the recent dramatic overreaction to the publication of mildly anti-Islamic cartoons in Denmark, the practices associated with Ashura serve as a stark reminder of how far removed from the modern, civilized society most of us embrace many parts of the Muslim world really are. This is not violence associated with a political cause or freedom fighting or even terrorism against a perceived enemy. Those we can understand. This is ritualistic self-abuse and child abuse motivated by near-psychotic religious mania over an event which happened more than 1200 years ago, something fundamentally alien to modern, western civilization.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
A couple of notes here. I tried to keep the graphic images small so as not to offend. Click on them if you have the stomach for details. Also, the first two links are important. One goes to a detailed article from the BBC on Ashura rituals. The other is a website promoting the Ashura celebration in Karbala with some truly creepy quotes from observers and a nice attempt at making the whole thing seem more palatable.
Dave
2 - Natalie Bennett
Whilst I entirely agree with you about the insanity of this, Dave, I think you are entirely wrong in singling out Islam.
All religions breed this sort of stuff: in the Philippines you get mainstream Catholic and mass support for people nailing themselves to crosses at Easter, and in Phuket during the vegetarian festival you get Buddhists lacing their flesh through with thongs. Both of these produce pictures as unpleasant.
The problem isn't Islam, but religion, particularly in this case religion combined with economic desperation and limited/no education. It is a nasty mix. The answer is to tackle all three problems together.
3 - Matthew T. Sussman
Coming from the Final Fantasy generation, you always wonder where they grab such obscure names as Ashura and make them high-level final bosses. Then you read this and it all makes perfect sense.
4 - Dave Nalle
Natalie, I added a paragraph referencing a couple of the largest Christian groups that practice self-mutilation in one form or another. There were more Shia in the march in Karbala alone than belong to all the other non-Shia self-abuse groups in the world.
And another key point here is that Ashura doesn't just include ritual self-abuse which could arguably be a path to mystic visions as the Hindus practice it, for example. It also includes mutilating chilren, in many cases ones who are totally unwilling. The second photo above, according to someone who was at the parade was of a child who was hysterical and begging to not be mutilated by his father. I think THAT is a vital difference.
Dave
5 - gazelle
Dave
Thanks for the article.
Now you have to go into what the divisions and arguments within the shia and the sunni, and how this mourning, for someone who died on principle, along with 72 others, in a defenceless massacre, is to be conducted.
While most sunnis and all shias mourn this event, in which Muhammad's daughter fatima's and cousin ali's son - Hussain in his sixties, along with family and friends - were killed to show that muhammad's clan had been effectively quietly wiped out.
this was accomplished by the grandson of abu sufyan, the most influential person in makka, who was challenged when muhammad had announced the new religion. This was the vengeance by abu sufyans grandson yazid inflicted upon the hashmi clan, descendents of abraham.
I will only say here that there is a diversity of practices ranging from attending meetings/lectures which recount in great detail the events of the time - which has produced some of the greatest elegiac literature in arabic, persian, urdu and all local languages - to a gentle to hard beating of the chest with bare hands in processions to mark the event every year.
apart all these you have the 'bloody' practices, in which blades on chains are flung to the backs, or knifes struck on heads, or firewalking, which stand out as the most dramatic and eye catching. This is practised in many countries and tolerated but not condoned by most shias. some clearly oppose these extreme self-flagellation.
However all agree that this is done in a spirit in wich one regrets not being there for hussain, and being ready to shed one's blood.
as this is the most important day for shias where the true principles of muhammad get defended by Hussain's death in absolute indifference to power, and tyrrany, injustice and distortions of islam's spirit and peaceful character as embodied in muhammad's family from Fatima and ali and their descendents.
In practice, whther in saudi arabia, iran, iraq, or iran or india or pakistan, overall they are a progressive community which has its own traditionalisnsm to deal with such as the mullahs in iran. Just Compare Sistani's gestures with moqtada al-sadr in iraq, and you'll see that one is sophisticated and nonpolitical, and the other militant.
so there's your range. you had said nothing about the diversity among the shias or their character. you'll have near secular types like ayad allawi or benazir bhutto, sophisticated and elitist forms, and then the traditional forms which generally appeal to the mass. still the bloody practices are confined to certain groups only.
i hope this helps as background rather than the 'shock and awe' you seem to have gone through. You might want to wait or an article when i am ready.
as a journalist i would say track downa shia mosque or imambargah, and interview some folks.
best
6 - Natalie Bennett
I suspect the events in the Philippines are on a similar scale - certainly they are huge. Nonetheless, I would say that all religions have this sort of possibility within them - how big or small a following this extreme a practice has is more related to socio-economic factors than anything innate to the religion itself. (In simple terms, if people are desperate they'll do extreme things, and there are always some people who like to damage themselves e.g. Western "cutting".)
As for the child, while I agree with you entirely that is horrific, that is very much our Western viewpoint. Lots of cultures do "horrible things" (in our terms) to children and think nothing of it. Female genital mutilation comes to mind (and circumcision), and even in parts of Thailand, children are not considered to feel pain as adults, so are seldom given anaesthetic for minor operations and similar.
7 - Dave Nalle
Natalie, the fact that other societies also do unpleasant things to children doesn't excuse this behavior. And there are plenty of societies just as sociologically repressed and economically backwards as these which don't resort to mass mutilation - China being a prime example. Social problems, lack of education, economic conditions all may play a small role, but the overriding element in this kind of madness is the fanatical religion which these people have been indoctrinated into.
Dave
8 - RJ Elliott
What about the Christian "flagellants" of 13th Century Europe? This sort of bizarre self-abuse is not unheard of among religious extremists...
9 - Bliffle
All religions breed nuts. What can you expect from philosophies that claim to speak for a god?
10 - Muhammad Rahim
How true. Just like the nutty Christain Knights of the KKK!
11 - Dave Nalle
I mentioned the flagellants in the middle of the article, including the one surviving group. But they, like the KKK, are tiny, tiny minorities in the modern world, and the KKK's violent activities are completely illegal and pretty much suppressed and have been for decades.
Dave
12 - Dave Nalle
Oh, and I might note that the last major KKK march had a grand total of 12 people at it, compared to a couple of hundred thousand marching in Karbala this past week.
Dave
13 - Muhammad Rahim
So 12 religious fanatics killing blacks are better than a hundred thousand bashing stones into their own heads insflicting self pain?
14 - Bliffle
"So 12 religious fanatics killing blacks are better than a hundred thousand bashing stones into their own heads insflicting self pain?"
Don't act stupid, Rahim. Daves comparison illustrates the relative weakness of the crazy KKK contingent compared to the widespread acceptance of the crazy Shi'a contingent.
15 - Muhammad Rahim
You people kill me.......... :-)
16 - Dave Nalle
Not to mention that it's not just self abuse, but also child abuse in the case of Ashura.
Dave
17 - Muhammad Rahim
and.......... is that to say muslims are child abusers?
what do you call it when Catholic Christian priest fuck little boys in the ass?
I'll be glad when you people start looking at your own religious crap!!!
18 - Dave Nalle
'our' religious crap doesn't include mass murder and holy war - at least not in the last 300 years or so.
And again, a few aberrant Catholic priests going directly against the rules of their church and society contrasted with tens of thousands of kids being mutillated with the full approval and endorsement of their religion and society.
Get the difference?
Dave
19 - Muhammad Rahim
No I don't get the difference. It was only 40 years ago that blacks were getting attack dogs, water hoses and riding in the back of the bus in this great "christain land".....
So stop the self-righteous bullshit!
You are in no moral position to judge other religeous fanactics!
Just look in the American mirror.
20 - Muhammad Rahim
"'our' religious crap doesn't include mass murder and holy war - at least not in the last 300 years or so."
i didn't know Hiroshima & Nagaski was 300 yrs ago!
You people kill me............. :-)
21 - Muhammad Rahim
If dropping an ATOM bomb on millions of innocent men, women & children isn't mass murder.....then what is?
You people kill me............ :-{
22 - Dave Nalle
You are indeed remarkably clueless. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an act of war, plus the inhabitants were warned in advance to evacuate.
And racism and religion had little to do with each other - racism certainly wasn't a product of christianity. Plus 40 years ago racial conditions in the US may have been bad, but they were still better than in most parts of the world.
Read some history sometime, or did you actually believe they told you the whole story in the government schools?
Dave
23 - Muhammad Rahim
Hey dave,
I enjoy chatting with you. I know you probably wish i was an arab with limited english skills and limited knowledge of the history of this great "CHRISTAIN" nation. But i'm a black decendant of slaves who suffered 400 years of hell here and still haven't fully recovered from the effects of same. So you can't pull that self-righteous crap over on me.......cause I KNOW YOU. and i know the HYPOCRICY of the nation. We know you all much better than any arab could ever.
So as you attack arabs and muslims........I'll continue to flash of big mirror of truth and American/Christian history in YO FACE!
see ya
24 - Muhammad Rahim
I can handle your kind. My arab brothers are struggle to defend themselves when they come to web sites like this. But i have no problem at all dealing with you and all that think like you!
Peace
25 - Muhammad Rahim
"The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an act of war, plus the inhabitants were warned in advance to evacuate."
that sounds similar to the rational the world trade center criminals used on 9/11!!!
YOU VAPORIZED MILLIONS ON NON-COMBATANTS WITH AN ATOM BOMB! call it whatever the hell you want....MASS MURDER is MASS MURDER.
sometimes i can't believe you are serious!
how the hell do you evacuate a million people from 2 ATOM bombs falling from the sky???
You people kill me......... :(