Editing Ashura (section)

==History of the Commemoration by Shi’a==
Commemorative services (majales al-taʿzia) first held in the houses of the imams and their followers, originally consisted of recounting the tragedy, reflecting on its meaning, and reciting elegies ([[Marthiya|marthia]]) in memory of the [[martyred Imam]]. From the beginning, these majales were not limited to the Ashura days, but were and still are held at any time of the year. Soon the shrines of the imams in Iraq and Iran became important centers of pilgrimage ([[ziara]]), where the pious held their lamentations. <ref>Ibn Qawluya, Kamel al-ziarat, ed. Mirza ʿAbdallah Hussain Amini Tabrizi, Najāf, 1356/1937, pp. 325-26.</ref>   

During the [[Umayyad]] period, the Ashura cult and the spirit of revolt it fostered grew in secret under persecution and repression. The [[Abbasid]] rulers, who came to power on the wave of pro-ʿAlid revolt, at first encouraged and patronized large public assemblies in commemoration of the sufferings of the Prophet’s family ([[Ahl Al-Bayt]]) and the tragedy of Karbala. By the end of the 4th/10th century, professional mourners (naʾeh), also known as the reciters or story tellers (qorraʾ) of Hussain, chanted elegies and led the pious in dirges; they normally read martyrdom narratives ([[Maqtal|maqatel]]) relating to the story of Hussain in all its details.

In 351/962, under [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/buyids Buyid] patronage, Ashura was declared a day of public mourning in Baghdad. Processions were held in the streets of the city, markets closed, and shops draped in black. <ref>ʿAbbas Qomi, Nafas al-mahmum, p. 226, Persian tr. Romuz al-Shahada by M. B. Kamaraʾi, Tehran, 1379/1960; Hebat-al-din Shahrestani, Nahzat al-Hussain, Karbala, 1969, pp. 149ff.</ref> Special edifices were built for the celebrations of Ashura (called [[Hussainiya]]; also [[tekyeh]] in Iran), and by the end of the 3rd/9th century these were common in Cairo, Aleppo, and many Iranian cities.

As early as the 5th/11th century Iranian poets composed elegies in his memory. One of the most comprehensive works, in poetry and prose, on the subject in Persian is [[Rawzat al-Shuhada]] by a Sunni author, Hussain b. Ali Waʿez Kashefi, (d. 910/1504-05). An outstanding Shiʿite poet was [[Mohtasham Kashani]]. <ref>  d. 996/1588; see the translation of his famous haftband in Browne, Lit. Hist. Persia IV, pp. 172-77.</ref> From Iran, the Ashura celebration was carried to the Indian subcontinent and other parts of the Muslim world influenced by Iranian culture. The greatest impetus for the development of the Ashura celebration as a popular religious and artistic phenomenon came with the rise of the [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/safavids Safavids] to power in the early 10th/16th century. It was during their rule that the important dramatic genre known as [[taʿziya]] was highly developed and popularized.

The Ashura ritual possessed from its inception a dramatic tension. The sufferings and privation of the Ahl al-Bayt are contrasted with their high status with God and the reward they will enjoy in paradise. The weeping of all things for their suffering, and especially for the death of Hussain, is contrasted with the cruelty of their enemies. Finally, the great rewards which the mourners of Hussain will enjoy in the hereafter are sharply contrasted with the torment and remorse which the enemies of the Ahl al-Bayt will suffer on the Day of Resurrection. By the end of the 4th/10th century the main themes and hagiographic tales of the Muharram cultus had taken shape; these were further elaborated and popularized through the taʿziya and the popular orations eventually known as [[rawza]]-khani (q.v.). Through their grief and remembrance, the pious vicariously share in the sorrows and sufferings of the Ahl al-Bayt and renew their relation with the imams. This remembrance is powerfully expressed in the ziara ritual, which can be performed either at the shrine of an imam on the day of Ashura or at any time in an open space outside the city or town; it is usually followed by a meal at the homes of well-to-do members of the community, the donation of which is a pious act of great merit.

Very early, Shiʿite Muslims distinguished their observance of the Ashura from both its Jewish and Islamic antecedents. They denied all claims for special favors granted by God on that day to the ancient prophets; hence it is to be observed not as a day of thanksgiving and exaltation, but as one of sorrowful remembrance. It should not be observed as a regular fast day; rather the pious must experience hunger and thirst in emulation of the Imam and his family in Karbala, but must break the fast before sunset. It is to be understood not as a day of blessing, but of chaos and disorder, a day of ill-omen.

This emphasis on mourning in the Moharram cultus has led some scholars to postulate a direct relation between it and the ancient myths and rites of Tammuz-Adonis. <ref>B. D. Erdmans, “Der Ursprung der Ceremonien des Hosein-Festes,” ZA 9, 1894, pp. 302ff.; Ch. Virolleaud, Le théâtre persan ou le drame de Kerbéla, Paris, 1950, pp. 128-36. </ref> To what extent the Ashura rites could have been influenced across so many centuries by these ancient myths cannot be determined; the fact that Hussain happened to die on the spot where the cult of the ancient god was celebrated is simply an interesting coincidence which proves nothing. Iranian influences on the Muharram cultus have also been suggested by scholars who point to ceremonies in seventh-century Sogdia and Kharazm commemorating the unjust death of the legendary hero Siavosh at the hands of [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/afrasiab-turanian-king Afrasiab] that included breast-beating and the chanting of threnodies <ref>A. Bausani, Persia Religiosa, Milan, 1959, pp. 420-21; E. Yarshater, “Taʿziyeh and pre-Islamic mourning rites in Iran,” in Taʿziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran, ed. [[Peter J. Chelkowski|P. Chelkowski]], New York, 1979, pp. 88-94). The “blood of Siavosh” (khun-e Siavosh.</ref> is, in fact, invoked in the text of at least one taʿzia <ref>C. Virolleaud, Le théâtre persan, p. 132.</ref> and there may be other echoes of the Siavosh myth in the Persian taʿzīa literature. It is, however, unlikely that memories of Siavosh should have influenced formatively the Shiʿite mourning ceremonies of Ashura, which originated in areas far removed from Outer Iran and which are perfectly explicable, in any event, in terms of the ethos of Shiʿism.

It is more plausible that any parallels between the various mourning rites are due more to similarities in psychology and a general thematic continuity in mythological development by geographically related cultures. The Ashura cultus in Shiʿite Islam is based on an historical event and commemorates the death not of a god, but of a man who was intensely involved in the life of an actual community. Like other great men and religious heroes, Hussain the martyr continues to live on in the community through poetry, myth, and ritual, but above all through the actual events of the community’s history. Whatever its origins or relations to other religious phenomena, the Ashura cultus is yet another instance in human history of man’s attempt to deal creatively and meaningfully with his ephemeral condition.