Arba'in
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Arba'een (Arabic: الأربعين, "forty") or Chehelom (Persian: چهلم, Urdu: چہلم, "the fortieth [day]"), is a Shia Muslim religious observance that occurs 40 days after the Day of Ashura. It commemorates the martyrdom of Hussein bin Ali, the grandson of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad which falls on the 20th day of the month of Safar. Imam Husayn and 72 companions were martyred in the Battle of Karbala in the year 61 AH (680 CE), killed by Yazid I's army. Arba'een is also observed 40 days after the death of a family member or loved one. Forty days is the usual length of the time of mourning in many Islamic cultures. Arba'een, or Chehlom, is one of the largest pilgrimage gatherings on Earth, in which over 15 million people go to the city of Karbala in Iraq.[1][2][3][4][5]
The occasion reminds the faithful of the core message behind Husayn's martyrdom: establishing justice and fighting injustice, no matter what its incarnation—a message that strongly influenced subsequent Shi'a uprisings against the Umayyad and Abbasid rule.
In the first Arba'een gathering in the year 62 AH, Jabir ibn Abd-Allah, a companion of Muhammad, was one of the people who performed a pilgrimage to the burial site of Husayn. Due to his infirmity and probable blindness, he was accompanied by Atiyya bin Saad. His visit coincided with that of the surviving female members of Muhammad's family and Husayn's son and heir Imam Zain-ul-Abideen, who had all been held captive in Damascus by Yazid I, the Umayyad Caliph. Imam Zain-ul-Abideen had been too ill to participate in the Battle of Karbala. He later devoted his life to Azadari and spreading the message of Imam Hussain's supreme sacrifice.
The city of Karbala in Iraq, the third holy place of Shia Islam, is the center of the proceedings where, in a show of humility, many crawl through the streets of the city while others fall on their hands and knees as they approach the Shrines of Husayn and his brother Abbas ibn Ali. Many pilgrims travel miles on foot to reach Karbala.
Observance of Arba'een in Karbala was banned for many years when Saddam Hussein, was president of Iraq. For nearly 30 years under Saddam's regime it was forbidden to mark Arbaeen publicly in Iraq. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the observance in April 2003 was broadcast worldwide.[6]
Arba'een is consistently among the largest peaceful gatherings in history. In 2008, approximately nine million religious observers converged on Karbala to commemorate Arba’een.[8] However, in 2009, the number of people visiting Karbala on Arba'een significantly increased. According to the official website of BBC News and Press TV (Iran), over ten million people had reached the city of Karbala one or two days before Arba'een. The number of pilgrims was expected to rise to 18 million during the next two days, Arbaeen reached over 18 million in 2013 .[9][10][11]
Use in political protest
Arba'een has sometimes been used as a political protest, at least in Iran. It was first used there to protest the killing of supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini in Qom on June 5, 1963 when a general strike was announced. A cycle of Arba'een public observance of mourning rituals of martyred protestors — where an arba'een public observance/demonstration was held to commemorate protesters killed in the preceding Arba'een protest demonstration — is often credited as part of the reason for the success of the Iranian Revolution in overthrowing the shah in the 1978-78,[12] although that explanation has also been questioned.[13]
Arba'een in the Gregorian calendar
While Arba'een is always on the same day of the Islamic calendar, the date on the Gregorian calendar varies from year to year due to differences between the two calendars, since the Islamic calendar, the Hijri calendar (AH), is a lunar calendar and the Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar. Furthermore, the method used to determine when each Islamic month begins varies from country to country (see Islamic calendar).
- 2005 (1426 AH): March 31
- 2006 (1427 AH): March 21
- 2007 (1428 AH): March 10
- 2008 (1429 AH): February 28
- 2009 (1430 AH): February 15
- 2010 (1431 AH): February 5
- 2011 (1432 AH): January 25
- 2012 (1433 AH): January 14
- 2013 (1434 AH): January 3
Also
- 2013 (1435 AH): December 23 (Dec 24, if the month of Muharram is 30 days); according to Makkah <http://www.islamicfinder.org/Hcal/index.php>
See also
Notes
- ^ "El Paso Inc". El Paso Inc. Retrieved 2010-06-30.
- ^ uberVU - social comments (2010-02-05). "Friday: 46 Iraqis, 1 Syrian Killed; 169 Iraqis Wounded - Antiwar.com". Original.antiwar.com. Retrieved 2010-06-30.
- ^ Aljazeera. "alJazeera Magazine - 41 Martyrs as More than Million People Mark 'Arbaeen' in Holy Karbala". Aljazeera.com. Retrieved 2010-06-30.
- ^ "Powerful Explosions Kill More Than 40 Shi'ite Pilgrims in Karbala | Middle East | English". .voanews.com. 2010-02-05. Retrieved 2010-06-30.
- ^ Hanun, Abdelamir (2010-02-05). "Blast in crowd kills 41 Shiite pilgrims in Iraq". News.smh.com.au. Retrieved 2010-06-30.
- ^ Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival. New York: Norton, 2006; pp 18–19.
- ^ "Millions of Shia Muslims from across the globe have come together in the holy Iraqi city of Karbala to mark the Arbaeen ritual, which marks the 40th day following the seventh-century martyrdom of the third Shia Imam, Imam Hussein (PBUH), Press TV reports".
- ^ Official website of Multi-National Force - Iraq
- ^ "زيارة الاربعين: 18 مليون زائر ونجاح امني كبير". Al-Alam. Retrieved 2013-01-04.
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ "Radio Islam". English.irib.ir. Retrieved 2014-01-01.
- ^ Kurzman, Charles, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran, Harvard University Press, 2004, p.54-5
- ^ Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran, (2004), p.57