Arba'in
| Arba'in | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Also called | |
| Observed by | Shia Muslims |
| Type | Islamic |
| Significance | Forty days after Ashura, the death anniversary of Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the third Shia imam |
| Observances | Pilgrimage to the shrine of Husayn ibn Ali in Karbala |
| Date | 20 Safar |
| Frequency | annual (Islamic year) |
| Part of a series on |
| Husayn |
|---|
| Part of a series on |
| Islamic culture |
|---|
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In Shia Islam, Arba'in (Arabic: الأربعين, lit. 'fortieth') marks forty days after Ashura, which is the martyrdom anniversary of Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the third Shia imam. Husayn was killed, alongside most of his relatives and his small retinue, in the Battle of Karbala on 10 Muharram 61 AH (680 CE) against the army of the Umayyad caliph Yazid ibn Mu'awiya (r. 680–683). The battle followed Husayn's refusal to pledge his allegiance to Yazid, who is often portrayed by Muslim historians as impious and immoral. In Shia Islam, Karbala symbolizes the eternal struggle between good and evil, the pinnacle of self-sacrifice, and the ultimate sabotage of Muhammad's prophetic mission.
Arba'in coincides with the twentieth of Safar, the second month of the Islamic calendar, and its commemoration is rooted in early Islamic funerary traditions. Shia Muslims annually observe the day through mourning gatherings, dramatic reenactments of Karbala narratives, and charitable acts. Arba'in is also a day of pilgrimage to the shrine of Husayn in Karbala, Iraq. Pilgrims arrive there in large numbers, often on foot, and many from the city of Najaf, some eighty kilometers away, home to the shrine of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first Shia imam. The Arba'in pilgrimage, banned under the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, has grown after his deposal in 2003 from two million participants in that year to around twenty million in 2014. As with Ashura, Arba'in can be an occasion for violence against Shia Muslims.
Significance in Shia Islam
[edit]In the Islamic calendar, twentieth of Safar, known as Arba'in,[1][2] marks forty days after Ashura, tenth of Muharram.[3] In turn, Ashura is the death anniversary of Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the third Shia imam.[4] Husayn, alongside most of his male relatives and his small retinue, were killed on 10 Muharram 61 AH (10 October 680 CE) in the Battle of Karbala against the army of the Umayyad caliph Yazid ibn Mu'awiya (r. 680–683), having been surrounded for some days and deprived of the drinking water of the nearby Euphrates river. After the battle, the women and children in Husayn's camp were taken prisoner and marched to the Umayyad capital Damascus in Syria. The battle followed failed negotiations and Husayn's refusal to pledge his allegiance to Yazid, who is often portrayed by Muslim historians as impious and immoral.[5][6][7] The fight took place in the desert land of Karbala, en route to the nearby Kufa, whose residents had invited Husayn to lead them against Yazid.[8]
In Shia Islam, Karbala symbolizes the eternal struggle between good and evil,[9][10] the pinnacle of self-sacrifice,[11] and the ultimate sabotage of Muhammad's prophetic mission.[12] Historically, the event served to crystallize the Shia community into a distinct sect and remains an integral part of their religious identity to date.[13][14] Ashura to Arba'in is thus a period of mourning for Shia Muslims,[15] particularly the first ten days of Muharram and Arba'in.[16][3][17] On the one hand, Shia mourners hope to share in the pain of Husayn to benefit from his intercession on the Day of Judgement.[18][19] On the other hand, the Shia view mourning for Husayn as an act of protest against oppression, and as such a struggle for God (jihad).[20][21]
Arba'in in Shia tradition
[edit]Forty is a sacred number in Islam,[3] and commemorating the dead forty days after their death is a long-standing Islamic tradition,[22][23][3] dating back to the early Islamic period.[22] On the one hand, the fortieth (arba'in, chehellom) signifies the maturation of the soul of a deceased believer.[22] It is thus said that Cain learned on the fortieth of Abel to dispose of his body by burying him, that the ascension of Jesus took place on his fortieth, and that the gates of heaven open for a righteous person forty days after their death.[22] On the other hand, the fortieth marks the end of the period of grief in Islamic tradition. It is thus said that Heaven grieves the death of a righteous person for forty days, that Fatima mourned for forty days the death of her father, the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and that son wept for forty days for John the Baptist, whose head was cut off and placed on a dish.[22]
In Shia Islam, similar traditions are linked to Arba'in, the fortieth of Husayn. Thus the earth and skies are said to have wept for Husayn for forty days after his death, and the sun became unusually red in that period at dawn and dusk.[22] By some accounts, the body of Husayn, who was decapitated, was reunited with his head and buried in Karbala on Arba'in.[24][22] Yet it is commonly thought that Husayn and his companions were buried by residents of nearby al-Ghadiriyya village when the Umayyad army left Karbala.[25][26][27] Probably by combining the accounts available to him,[22] the Shia scholar Ibn Tawus (d. 1266) reports another Karbala narrative, according to which Husayn's relatives chose to return via Karbala to their hometown of Medina when they were freed from captivity in Damascus. Upon arrival in Karbala on Arba'in,[27][28] they met Jabir ibn Abd Allah (d. 697), a companion of Muhammad,[22] who had learned about the death of Husayn through a divine sign.[3] This story was repeated by many authors after Ibn Tawus, even though several scholars before Ibn Tawus report only the Arba'in pilgrimage of Jabir.[22] The veracity of Ibn Tawus' account has therefore been questioned by some, including the Shia scholar Husain Noori Tabarsi (d. 1902) and the Islamicist Mahmoud M. Ayoub (d. 2021).[22][3] Ayoub adds that Arba'in is not mentioned in Kamil al-ziyarat, an early and authoritative hadith collection by the Shia traditionist Ibn Qulawayh (d. c. 978).[3] Whatever the case, such narratives may have helped establish Arba'in in Shia culture.[22]
Risking the Umayyads' wrath, commemoration of Karbala was initially small and private.[29][30] In particular, pilgrimage to Karbala remained limited and precarious in this period.[31] Soon after the Umayyads fell, however, Shia imams worked to institutionalize the Ashura and Arba'in pilgrimages to the tomb of Husayn. This attempt is reflected in some of the traditions ascribed to the imams. For instance, the Shia imam Hasan al-Askari (d. c. 874) is reported to have listed the Arba'in pilgrimage among the five signs of a true believer.[22]
Arba'in rituals
[edit]Arba'in is a day of pilgrimage to the shrine of Husayn in Karbala, Iraq. Pilgrims arrive there in large numbers, often on foot. The most popular route is Najaf to Karbala, as many pilgrims first travel to Najaf and then walk from there to Karbala, some eighty kilometers away, which usually takes three days on foot. Along the way, volunteers provide the pilgrims with free meals and services. Indeed, some have considered generosity and hospitality to be the main features of the Arba'in pilgrimage. When they finally reach the shrine of Husayn in Karbala, pilgrims recite the ziyara of Arba'in, a supplication for this occasion.[32] As with other Shia rituals of Karbala,[33] the Arba'in pilgrimage was banned by the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (r. 1979–2003),[34] who favored the Sunni community there,[33] and viewed large Shia rituals as a political threat.[34] The pilgrimage was revived soon after the deposal of Saddam in 2003,[34] with numbers growing from two million participants in that year to around twenty million in 2014.[34][35] Arba'in is also commemorated through mourning gatherings, dramatic reenactments of Karbala narratives, and charitable acts.[22] As with Ashura,[36] Arba'in can be an occasion for Sunni violence against Shia Muslims.[37][38][39]
Arba'in in the Gregorian calendar
[edit]Arba'in, twentieth of Safar in the Islamic calendar, corresponds to a different day every year in the Gregorian calendar.[40]
| Islamic calendar | 1447 | 1448 | 1449 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gregorian calendar | 14 August 2025[41] | 3 August 2026[41] | 24 July 2027[41] |
Gallery
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Arba'in pilgrims -
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See also
[edit]Footnotes
[edit]- ^ Chelkowski 1988.
- ^ Momen 1985, p. 239.
- ^ a b c d e f g Ayoub 1986.
- ^ Aghaie 2013.
- ^ Momen 1985, p. 28.
- ^ Pinault 2000, p. 70.
- ^ Aghaie 2007, p. 117.
- ^ Madelung 2004.
- ^ Aghaie 2004, p. 9.
- ^ Aghaie 2007, p. 112.
- ^ Chelkowski 1985, p. 19.
- ^ Crow 2016.
- ^ Kennedy 2016, p. 77.
- ^ Hyder 2006, p. 9.
- ^ Pinault 1992, p. 188.
- ^ Osman 2014, p. 133.
- ^ Pakatchi 2021.
- ^ Blank 2001, p. 84.
- ^ Munson 1988, p. 24.
- ^ Ayoub 1978, pp. 142–143.
- ^ Nakash 1993, p. 165.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Haj Manouchehri 2008.
- ^ Calmard 1987.
- ^ Rahimi 2012, p. 203.
- ^ Veccia Vaglieri 2012.
- ^ Momen 1985, p. 33.
- ^ a b Ayoub 1978, p. 152.
- ^ Calmard 2004.
- ^ Hussain 2005, p. 81.
- ^ Hyder 2006, p. 20.
- ^ Nakash 1993, p. 167.
- ^ Szanto 2018, p. 14.
- ^ a b Gordon Melton 2010, pp. 211–212.
- ^ a b c d Nasr 2007, pp. 18–19.
- ^ Piggott, Mark. "20 Million Shia Muslims Brave Isis by Making Pilgrimage to Karbala for Arbaeen". IBtimes. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
- ^ Gordon Melton 2010.
- ^ uberVU – social comments (5 February 2010). "Friday: 46 Iraqis, 1 Syrian Killed; 169 Iraqis Wounded - Antiwar.com". Original.antiwar.com. Retrieved 30 June 2010.
- ^ "Powerful Explosions Kill More Than 40 Shi'ite Pilgrims in Karbala | Middle East | English". .voanews.com. 5 February 2010. Retrieved 30 June 2010.
- ^ Hanun, Abdelamir (5 February 2010). "Blast in crowd kills 41 Shiite pilgrims in Iraq". News.smh.com.au. Retrieved 30 June 2010.
- ^ Gent, R.H. van. "The Umm al-Qura Calendar of Saudi Arabia". webspace.science.uu.nl.
- ^ a b c "Hijri to Gregorian Date Converter - Islamic Date Converter". IslamicFinder. Retrieved 28 August 2023.
References
[edit]- Aghaie, K.S. (2004). The Martyrs of Karbala: Shi'i Symbols and Rituals in Modern Iran. University of Washington Press. ISBN 0295984554.
- Aghaie, K.S. (2007). "The Passion of 'Ashura in Shiite Islam". In Cornell, V.J. (ed.). Voices of Islam. Vol. 2. Praeger. pp. 111–124. ISBN 978-0275987343.
- Aghaie, K.S. (2013). "'Āshūrā' (Shī'ism)". In Fleet, K.; Krämer, G.; Matringe, D.; Nawas, J.; Stewart, D.J. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (Third ed.). doi:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_23855. ISBN 9789004252684.
- Ayoub, M.M. (1978). Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of Ashura in Twelver Shi'ism. De Gruyter. ISBN 9789027979438.
- Ayoub, M.M. (1986). "Arba'in". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. II/3. pp. 275–276.
- Blank, J. (2001). Mullahs on the Mainframe: Islam and Modernity Among the Daudi Bohras. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226056760.
- Calmard, J. (1987). "'Azādārī". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. III/2. pp. 174–177.
- Calmard, J. (2004). "Ḥosayn b. 'Ali ii. In Popular Shi'ism". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. XII/5. pp. 498–502.
- Campo, J.E., ed. (2009). "Funerary Rituals". Encyclopedia of Islam. Facts on File. pp. 250–252. ISBN 9780816054541.
- Chelkowski, P. (1985). "Shia Muslim Processional Performances". The Drama Review: TDR. 29/3 (3): 18–30. doi:10.2307/1145650. JSTOR 1145650.
- Chelkowski, P. (1988). "Diverse Religious Practices". In Nasr, S.H.; Dabashi, H.; Nasr, S.V.R (eds.). Shi'ism: Doctrines, Thought, and Spirituality. State University of New York Press, Albany. pp. 262–268. ISBN 0887066909.
- Crow, D.K. (2016). "The Death of al-Ḥusayn b. 'Ali and Early Shī'ī Views of the Imamate". In Kohlberg, E. (ed.). Shi'ism. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781351900287.
- Gordon Melton, J. (2010). "Ashura". In Gordon Melton, J.; Baumann, M. (eds.). Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices (Second ed.). ABC-CLIO. pp. 210–212. ISBN 9781598842043.
- Haj Manouchehri, F. (2008). "Arba'īn". In Daftary, F. (ed.). Encyclopaedia Islamica. Translated by Negahban, F. doi:10.1163/1875-9831_isla_COM_0291.
- Hussain, A.J. (2005). "The Mourning of History and the History of Mourning: The Evolution of Ritual Commemoration of the Battle of Karbala". Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 25 (1): 78–88. doi:10.1215/1089201X-25-1-78. S2CID 143516655.
- Hyder, S.A. (2006). Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom in South Asian Memory. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195373028.
- Kennedy, H. (2016). The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century (Third ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9781138787612.
- Kurzman, C. (2009). The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674039834.
- Madelung, W. (2004). "Ḥosayn b. 'Ali i. Life and Significance in Shi'ism". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. XII/5. pp. 493–498.
- Momen, M. (1985). An Introduction to Shi'i Islam. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300035315.
- Munson, H. (1988). Islam and Revolution in the Middle East. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300046049.
- Nakash, Y. (1993). "An Attempt to Trace the Origin of the Rituals of 'Āshūrā'". Die Welt des Islams: 161–181. JSTOR 1570949.
- Nasr, S.V.R. (2007). Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam will Shape the Future. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393329681.
- Pakatchi, A. (2021). "Events of Festivity and Mourning". In Daftary, F. (ed.). Calendar. Encyclopaedia Islamica. Translated by Mohammad Poor, D. doi:10.1163/1875-9831_isla_COM_05000065.
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- Pinault, D. (2000). "Zaynab bin 'Ali and the Place of the Women of the Households of the First Imāms in Shī'īte Devotional Literature". In Hambly, G. (ed.). Women in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Patronage, and Piety. Macmillan. ISBN 9780333800355.
- Rahimi, B. (2012). "A History of (Safavid) Muharram Rituals". Theater State and the Formation of Early Modern Public Sphere in Iran: Studies on Safavid Muharram Rituals, 1590–1641 CE. Brill. pp. 199–234. doi:10.1163/9789004207561_006. ISBN 9789004209794.
- Szanto, E. (2018). "Shi'a Islam in Practice". In Woodward, M.; Lukens-Bull, R. (eds.). Handbook of Contemporary Islam and Muslim Lives. Springer. pp. 1–15. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-73653-2_8-2. ISBN 978-3-319-73653-2. S2CID 158107119.
- Osman, R. (2014). Female Personalities in the Qur'an and Sunna: Examining the Major Sources of Imami Shi'i Islam. Routledge. ISBN 9781315770147.
- Veccia Vaglieri, L. (2012). "(al-)Ḥusayn b. 'Alī b. Abī Ṭālib". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (Second ed.). doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0304. ISBN 9789004161214.
