Ashura

In 680, Husayn, son of Ali and grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, refused to pledge allegiance to the Umayyad caliph Yazid. On his way to Kufa in Iraq, where supporters had invited him, he and a small band of family and companions were surrounded at Karbala, cut off from the water of the Euphrates and, on the 10th of Muharram, killed. Their suffering became the defining memory of Shia Islam: a story of sacrifice, justice and loyalty to the family of the Prophet.

Ashura was a day of fasting before Karbala. Hadith collections tell that the Prophet, finding the Jews of Medina fasting on the day God saved Moses from Pharaoh, fasted on it too and encouraged Muslims to do so. Sunni Muslims keep this practice.

Shia communities spend the first ten days of Muharram in mourning. At gatherings called majalis a preacher recounts the events of Karbala and poets recite elegies, while the audience weeps and beats their chests in grief. Processions carry standards, the alam, and in South Asia a riderless horse recalls Husayn’s mount. Stalls hand out water and cold drinks in memory of the thirst at Karbala. In Iran, the ta‘ziyeh passion play re-enacts the story.

Many Sunni Muslims fast on the 10th, and often on the 9th as well. In some Sunni regions families also cook special dishes and give to the poor.

Karbala, in Iraq, draws vast crowds to the shrines of Husayn and his half-brother Abbas. Processions fill the streets of Tehran, Lahore, Lucknow and Manama. In Trinidad, the Hosay procession, brought by Indian indentured labourers in the 19th century, carries great decorated tombs through the streets.