Ashura

January 7, 2009 I am working from the guest house where I live in Kabul because our security advisor advised against going out on the streets.

Today is Ashura, a day of celebration and mourning marked by both Sunni and Shia Muslims. For Shia Muslims, Ashura is a major religious festival which commemorates the martyrdom at Karbala of Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.

Ashura falls on the 10th of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic lunar calendar. It is marked by Shia and Sunni Muslims with a voluntary day of fasting which commemorates the day Noah left the Ark and the day that Moses was saved from the Egyptians by God. For Shia Muslims, Ashura is a solemn day spent mourning the martyrdom of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, in 680 AD at Karbala in modern-day Iraq.

During Ashura, mourning rituals are observed and passion plays re-enact the martyrdom. Shia men and women dressed in black parade through the streets of Kabul slapping their chests and chanting. Some Shia men seek to emulate the suffering of Hussein by flagellating themselves with chains or cutting their foreheads until blood streams from their bodies.