Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Ashura Coming Nir Rosen Has Important

Juan Cole 02/18/2004

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

Ashura Coming

Nir Rosen has an important piece in the Asia Times on the preparations for Ashura in Iraq. Ashura, the 10th of the month of Muharram, commemorates the martyrdom of the grandson of the prophet, Husayn. It is a time of mourning, sermons, poetry, weeping and processions with self-flagellation. Hundreds of thousands of Shiites from Iraq, Iran and elsewhere in the Shiite world may be expected to converge on Karbala in a little over a month. Because emotions run high during the first ten days of Muharram, it has often been a time of Sunni-Shiite violence in places like Pakistan, though not so much in modern Iraq. If the Coalition Provisional Authority has by then come out against the election plans put forward by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, or has announced steps that most Shiites deeply dislike, it is possible that the commemoration could be politicized. It would be a time when it would be child’s play to get hundreds of thousands of Shiites out in the streets protesting American policy.

There is also a danger that the Zarqawi sort of terrorist might attempt to use violence to spark Sunni-Shiite clashes or Shiite-Coalition ones.

On the other hand, there were attempts to politicize the Arba`in or the mourning held 40 days after the death anniversary of Hussein last April, and they generally came to naught. A lot of Iraqi Shiites are happy enough just to be able to practice their religion again, and some people dislike its politicization.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....