Ashura Durability Codes in Contemporary Shi’a Community

Introduction

Studying the Islamic and other religions’ histories, you can barely find a long lasting and influential event such as Ashura. Every year on the months of Moharram and Safar such an exciting and passionate lamentations are held in honor of the Imam Hussein and his companions, which it seems this is a very recent loss of lives. The main question that arises here is as follow: “What are the reasons of the durability of Ashura during the last 13 centuries among Shi’a Muslims?” This article aims to answer this question from a different angle.

Different reasons of events durability

Before discussing the reasons of Ashura’s durability, we should first seek the reasons of historical events durability. What make an event or phenomena, long lasting mark through ages?
Many religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam have lasted from over thousand years ago. Many myths in the form of national epics such as Iliad and the Odyssey (Greek epic), by Homer; Ramayana (Indian epic) by Valmiki; Aeneid (Roman epic) by Virgil have lasting during the past centuries or even millenniums. Some brilliant works of great philosophers and authors such as works of Plato and Aristotle have lasted for more than two thousand years for their strong reasoning. Moreover, some cultural traditions which rooted into the national identities, have endured over the centuries such as Nowruz in Iran.

It is safe to say that long lasting human phenomena can be categorized into four groups: 1) Religions, 2) Literature masterpieces, 3) Brilliant philosophical works, and 4) Cultural traditions. Therefore, the main reasons of making an event or a phenomenon durable are: a) Religious reason, b) Emotional reason, c) Rational reason and d) Cultural reason.
Religion durability cause is mainly worshiping the ultimate source of power; literature masterpieces durability cause is emotional; philosophical works durability cause is rational, and finally cultural traditions durability cause is cultural. These four reasons are different in their own essence. Some phenomena mainly have just one reason for their durability, and some have more than one. For instance, many rituals such as Hajj have mostly the religious reason for their durability; also some events such as Nowruz have mainly the cultural reason for their durability. However, some other phenomena may have more than one reason of the durability.

Different aspects of Ashura durability

When it comes to Ashura, what are the reasons of Ashura durability among the four mentioned reasons? Ashura has a strong religious aspect. There are many valid hadiths from Prophet Mohammad and other Imams that recommend mourning for Imam Hussein and his companions’ martyrdom. However, it seems that the only reason of Ashura durability is not religious aspect because there are many other religious rituals like congregation prayer, khums, and zakat that some Muslims do not observe, but in case of Ashura mourning they are passionate mourners in Muharram. This evidence is showing that Ashura also has other durability aspects in addition to religious one. In contrary to the typical stereotype that links Ashura to solely a religious issue, there are also other reasons to make Ashura such a long lasting event.

Ashura has a very powerful emotional aspect. Narrating the way Imam and his family and companions been treated, make every human being, sad. The below points are consisting the emotional theme of Ashura:

Killing Imam and all his male companions and family members in most heinous ways while they all were thirsty;
Beheading them;
The inequality among the number of Imam’s army and Yazid’s army;
The killing of a thirsty infant (Ali asghar);
Abandoning the corpse of martyrs under the hot sun in the battlefield;
Making fire to the women’s tent;
Whipping women and children and verbally assaulting them.

These events hurt everyone’s feeling, and make a person lachrymose.

Interestingly, Ashura has also a robust rational aspect. Imam’s method in leading the movement was rational discretion, deliberation, caution and foresight. Meanwhile, he preferred his family suffer from captivity and humiliation rather than surrendering to the absolute immoral and wrong stances. Imam’s behaviors in all the following instances represent the rational aspect of Imam Hussein movement: 1) sending Muslim ibn Aqeel for investigating about the real situation of Kufa, and distrusting to the letters of Kufa people; 2) proposing peace and returning to Hejaz (Medina) to the foe army, 3) using the diplomatic tools to secretly meet with Omar ibn Saad in order to convince him to join the movement.

Apart from the rational treatment of Imam, another factor that may include in the rational aspect of Imam Hussein movement is “defending the truth and fighting with distortion of Islam”. Identifying the truth is a rational task, and the reason justifies the spirit of defying the truth. Defending the truth with rational discretion and observing the political principles of diplomacy are forming the rational aspect of Imam Hussein movement.

The cultural aspect of Ashura is a unique characteristic of this event among other religious events. Although all Moharram lamentations have religious intent and hold in religious sites such as mosques, Ashura ceremonies have very strong cultural aspect. What makes Ashura so special among other religious events? In contrary with other religious rituals and practices such as salat, fasting, and Hajj which the exact way of doing explained in detail by religious leaders, the ways of mourning for Imam Hussein and his companions did not determine. In fact, just mourning and being sad is emphasized religiously. Therefore, the methods of Ashura lamentations are not fixed, and are flexible from a place to another place based on the local culture of people. This is the foundation that makes Ashura a different ceremony.

In every geographic site, mourners have their special way to express their grief and sorrow for the martyrdom of third infallible Imam. In Yazd and Taft the ceremony of “Palm Handling” is done in the main city square, in Qom a special kind of flag titled “Toogh” is raised in the city, in Mashhad a special kind of potage called “Shole” is served for feeding mourners, and in Kashan a special ceremony of “rug washing” is performed. This list is very long and one can find special ways of mourning in all sites over the world which performing the Muharram lamentations. As methods of mourning are vary from site to site, in each and every geographical region special kinds of mourning developed during past centuries and gradually have become one of the part of local cultural tradition of that site.

Thus practicing Muharram mourning by many Muslims is not only a religious fact, but also a local cultural ceremony. In some instances, the cultural aspect of Muharram lamentations may outweigh the religious aspect because it can link people to their local identity. Finally, it is safe to say that the main reason of Ashura ceremony durability through ages is that it has a touch of all four reasons of durable phenomena. Ashura has all religious, rational, emotional, and cultural reasons to be a long lasting ceremony in Muslim communities, and this makes Ashura an extraordinary phenomenon among all historical and religious events.

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