Iranians gear up for annual Arbaeen rituals
Yusef Jalali
Press TV, Thehran
Arbaeen is a longstanding tradition in Islam, which marks the fortieth day after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad. Days ahead of the occasion, people in Tehran have gathered en masse to commemorate Imam Hussein. Press TV's Yusef Jalali reports.
Thousands gathered in the Iranian capital Tehran to bid farewell to the pilgrims of Imam Hussein's shrine in Iraq's city of Karbala.
The event comes days ahead of a centuries-old tradition in Islam called Arbaeen, which marks forty days after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein, the third Shia Imam, who was killed 14 centuries ago by the second Umayyad Caliph, Yazid Ibn Muawiyah.
Every year on Arbaeen, millions of pilgrims from different countries travel tens of kilometers on foot to get to Imam Hussein's shrine.
The tradition is meant to sympathize with the Imam on the pains he endured in the event of Karbala, where he and 72 of his companions were slaughtered by Yazid's army.
Based on Islamic references, the Karbala tragedy was sparked after Imam Hussein refused to pay allegiance to Yazid, because the caliph did not practice Islam as taught by Prophet Mohammad.
Every year, an average of 16 million people from across the world visit the holy shrine of Imam Hussein on Arbaeen, some 3 million of them come from Iran.
Over the past two years, the occasion was largely curtailed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
This year, Iranian religious entities predict that between 3 to 5 million Iranians will visit Karbala to mark Arbaeen.
Arbaeen is one of the largest human gatherings in the world, which narrates an age-old love for Imam Hussein. A love that never seems to fade away, as Muslims believe the legacy of the third Shia Imam is a timeless source of lessons about humanity and chivalry that transcends his time and place.
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