Shiite Ritual Draws Historic Parallels: Bloody. And belittled
Posted on: December 17, 2014
Shiite Ritual Draws Historic Parallels: Bloody. And belittled
The blood oozing from the cuts in the top of Ali Rassoul’s head on Tuesday had crusted in streaks around his eyes and ears and soaked the front of his long, white gown.
But his wounds had nothing to do with the car bombs and urban battles that have torn Iraq apart: they were his way of commemorating a much older battle: that of Karbala, where in the year 680, the army of Omayyad Caliph Yazid slaughtered Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and cut off his head.
Baghdad- For many Iraqi Shiites who commemorated the death of Hussein on Tuesday in an event called Ashura, the current threat against their community from the extremists of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has profound historical parallels.
“This year Ashura is more important because of the threat against us from ISIS,” said Mr. Rassoul, who runs a woman’s shoe store and had a long dagger in a shiny scabbard hanging from his shoulder. “They have come to kill us, just like Yazid came to kill Hussein.”
Photo
Shiites in Baghdad bled Tuesday to commemorate the slaying of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in 680. Credit Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters
Mr. Rassoul spoke from a street in the Kadhimiya district of northwest Baghdad, in front of an ornate mosque that houses the tomb of a martyred Shiite leader.
While millions of Shiites across the world observe Ashura, Kadhimiya is one place where a minority pays homage to Hussein through the contentious practice of self-cutting called tatbir.
As the sun rose, hundreds of mostly young men gathered in a street here dressed in white robes.
While a few beat drums, the crowd chanted, “Haidar! Haidar!” invoking Hussein’s father, Ali. Some waved colored flags. Others carried long knives brought specifically for tatbir.
When the time came for the procession to start, Amer Matrouk, the leader of one group, drew his blade and the men, some of whom had shaved their heads, knelt before him so he could give them swift blows to their scalps, just enough to open the skin and start the bleeding.
“Not everyone knows how to do it,” said Mr. Matrouk, 63, who said he has been practicing tatbir since he was a child and had a row of straight scars on his scalp to show for it.
He rejected the idea that it could seriously hurt anyone.
“We have never had any accidents,” he said. “Sometimes there are those who are not very strong and they get dizzy from all the blood, but they are fine in the end.”
The practice of tatbir is debated among Shiites and many respected clerics have spoken against it.
Some argue that it is a form of self-harm, which is religiously forbidden.
Others have written it off as a folk practice, that may have seeped into Islam from Christian Passion plays about the crucifixion or from indigenous mourning rites that communities brought with them when they became Shiites.
Still others have argued that it makes Shiites look bad, which is reason enough to avoid it in a region where they are a minority and often looked on with suspicion by Sunnis.
“These practices used to be limited and no one paid attention to them, but they have started to spread and defame the image of the event in a huge way,” said Abbas Shams al-Din, a Shiite cleric and writer during an interview in his book-lined Baghdad home. “If you search for pictures on Google and type ‘Ashura’ or ‘Shia Muslim,’ you won’t see anything but blood. It’s terrible!”
Ayatollah Khomeini went on record against tatbir, and it has become punishable by law in Iran, although some still do it in secret.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, too, has criticized it, and his movement has sought to channel the fervor in a more productive direction by holding Ashura blood drives. But other Shiite groups in Lebanon still do it.
And it persists in Iraq, where clerics who have spoken against it have faced popular criticism, Mr. Shams al-Din said.
“There are some who do not want to issue a fatwa because they know that people will do it anyway,” said Abbas Kadhim, a senior foreign policy fellow at Johns Hopkins University who has studied Shiite theology. “If you do this, you set them up to be sinners.”
But those arguments meant little to the hundreds of men marching in Kadhimiya, blood dripping from their heads, soaking their white robes and pooling in the street.
A woman who gave her name as Um Salah sat with two friends on the sidewalk, thumping her hand rhythmically on her chest as the procession passed.
“Yesterday, there were attacks and explosions, but we are still here,” she said, saying that the event showed the steadfastness of the community.
Two of her sons were serving in the Iraqi Army, she said. They never told her much about what they saw, other than calling to say they were fine and making progress “in the fight against the terrorists,” she said.
A short drive away at the Kadhimiya Blood Donation Center, an employee said that many people had come to donate.
“It can help the wounded person or the soldier,” the employee said, giving only his first name, Jassim.
But when a visitor observed that the clinic was deserted, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “People come.”
Others wish tatbir would go away.
“Why do they do it?” said Haidar Abu Yassir, a taxi driver, screwing up his face in disgust. “Did Hussein do that? No! He was cut into pieces!”
Mr. Abu Yasser said that he felt that donating was better than “letting all that blood drip off your head for nothing.”
But when asked if he knew anyone who had donated, he paused to consider the question.
“Nope,” he said. “They all want to do tatbir.”
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