Editing Muharram (section)

==Mourning Rituals in Muharram==
During Muharram, the Shiʿa attend mourning assemblies (majles), where they listen to discourses ([[Rawza-Khani|rawza- khwani]]) extolling the idealized qualities (faza’el) and tragic suffering (masa’eb) of Imam Hussain and his family. Memorializing poems of lament are recited ([[marthiya]], salam, and suz), and each majles concludes with the participants beating their chests (Arabic latam; Persian/Urdu matam) in time to rhythmic poems of mourning ([[nawha]]). In Iran and South Asia, replicas of Imam Hussain’s tomb (naql, [[taʿzia]]) are constructed and carried through the streets in processions (jolus). On 9 and 10 Muharram, men solemnly march through the streets in some regions performing various acts of bloodletting [[self-flagellation]], including striking the head with a sharp knife ([[tatbir]], qameh zani) or striking oneself on the back with chains or blades (shamshir zani, [[zanjir zani]]). Since the early 20th century, Shiʿi ulama have debated the impressibility of performing “bloody matam.” In 1994 [[Ayatollah ʿAli Khamenei]] issued a [http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/fatwa fatwa] (legal opinion) prohibiting the performance of matam in which weapons are used to shed blood. Likewise, the leader of the Lebanese organization Hezbollah, Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, has upheld Khamenei’s fatwa, urging Shiʿa to donate blood on Ashura. These legal opinions reflect the desire to deflect criticism away from Shiʿi Muharram rituals, which are often portrayed as excessively violent. Imam Hussain’s martyrdom is dramatically reenacted in Iran, India, Pakistan, Turkey and the Caucasus, Iraq, and Lebanon in the  [[Ta'ziya|ta’ziya]], where village men and professional actors assume the roles of the heroes and villains of Karbala. <ref>[https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195390155/obo-9780195390155-0136.xml#obo-9780195390155-0136-div1-0013. oxford bibliographies]</ref>