This thread is to highlight some of the religious customs, rituals, and ceremonies that people worldwide take part in. Let's share our comments with eachother while respecting the beliefs of others.


Ashoura

Here is an interesting one called Ashoura, the holiest day of the Shiite Muslim calendar. Ashoura marks the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, in a 7th century battle for leadership of the Islamic world. Pilgrims flagellate themselves with chains and cut themselves with swords in grief at Hussein's death.



The A.D. 680 battle in the desert plain around Karbala, Iraq was a defining moment in the split between Islam's Sunni and Shiite sects. Hussein's father, Imam Ali, had been killed 20 years earlier, and leadership of the Islamic community was taken by the Sunni Ummayad dynasty. But Ali's followers, the Shiites, rallied behind his son.



Hussein and his followers moved from the Arabian peninsula into Iraq, harried by forces of the Ummayad caliph Yazid. Finally, Hussein was left with only a handful of supporters, surrounded by Ummayad forces.

On the 10th day of the Muslim month of Muharram, the Ummayads attacked the band. Hussein and the men with him were decapitated, and the women taken prisoner.



Leadership of the Shiites was then passed down through a series of imams. The seventh and ninth imams, Mousa Kadhem and Muhammad al-Jawad, are buried at the Kazimiyah shrine in Baghdad, which was one of the sites attacked Tuesday.



Bad blood did not always flow between Sunnis and Shias

“BETTER sixty years of tyranny than one day of fitna.” The term in the Arabic saying refers to civil strife, particularly the kind caused by religious schism. Not only is fitna a calamitous sign of the coming day of judgment; it also reflects fears deeply embedded in Muslim memory. The schism between Sunnis and Shias in the early centuries of Islam was blamed for blunting the new religion's expansion. Later, it was blamed for weakening Muslims in general, and for opening the way to invasion by infidel hordes.



Few mention such things now, but long ago a communistic Shia sect raided Mecca, stole the sacred Black Stone, and held it hostage for 22 years before returning it, broken in pieces. Shia dynasties once ruled Tunisia, Egypt and the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Their overthrow by orthodox Sunnis was seen by them as a greater triumph than the defeat of the Crusaders. And of course Ashoura, the day of martyrdom celebrated last week, commemorates Shia suffering at the hands of Sunnis.



The History of Shia Muslims Why the aggravation

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