World Religions
It’s one of the largest pilgrimages in the world rivaling or even surpassing the number of pilgrimages to Mecca during Ramadan!
Arbaeen celebrates the martyrdom of the third Shia Iman Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Mohammad. Pilgrims commemorate the event with a walking tour of Karebala in Iraq where the Imam Hussein Shrine is located.
According to this story in the Independent, Iman Hussein died in the 7th century in the Battle of Karbala where he and his supporters were massacred by an army sent by the Umayyad caliph.
The celebration takes place this year on December 12th.
Sayed al-Modarresi describes the celebration in the Huffington Post and reminds us that we might not know much about the event because “it probably has to do with the fact that the press is concerned more with negative, gory, and sensationalized tabloids, than with positive, inspiring narratives, particularly when it comes to Islam.”
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