AshuraIraq

Iraqis Mark Martyrdom Anniversary of Imam Hossein (PBUH)


Muslims rallied at Iraq’s holy cities, Karbala in particular, for the annual religious ritual of Ashoura on Sunday.

Pilgrims of Iraq and other countries, including Iran, flocked into Karbala, some 100 km South of Baghdad, and into Kadhmiyah in Northern Baghdad to commemorate Ashoura, which marks the martyrdom of Imam Hossein (PBUH), grandson of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and the third Imam.

Karbala provincial officials estimated that some 3 million pilgrims, including 200,000 from foreign countries, are commemorating Ashoura.

Numbers of black-clad men, young men and children, waving green, black and red flags, and accompanied with drummers, marched through the streets of Karbala and Kadhmiyah.

Some pilgrims beat their chests and heads, performed self-flagellation with chains in honor of Imam Hossein (PBUH) who was killed in the battle of Karbala in the seventh century and since then became a key moment in Muslim history and religion.

Imam Hossein (PBUH) was martyred in the 680 A.D. battle fought on the plains outside Karbala, a city in modern Iraq that’s home to the Imam’s holy shrine.

In the battle, Imam Hossein (PBUH) was decapitated and his body mutilated by Yazid’s armies. All of Imam Hossein’s male family members, relatives, friends, soldiers who all together formed a 72-member army were beheaded in an unequal war with a 30,000-strong army of the enemy in the desert of Karbala.

The occasion is the source of an enduring moral lesson for the Muslim.

Imam Hossein’s martyrdom – recounted through a rich body of prose, poetry and song – remains an inspirational example of sacrifice to Muslims, who make up a majority of the Muslim population in Iran, Pakistan, Iraq and Bahrain.

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