What is Al-Arbain? Al-Arbain (Arabic forty) is a commemoration that occurs forty days after Ashura, the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Imam Hussein and 72 of his faithful supporters were brutally martyred in the Battle of Karbala in the year 61 AH (680 CE). Forty days is the usual length of the time of mourning in Islamic cultures. The occasion reminds the faithful of the core message behind Imam Husseins martyrdom: establishing justice and fighting injustice, no matter what its incarnation—a message that strongly influenced subsequent Shia uprisings against the tyranny of Umayyad and Abbasid rule. In the first Arbain gathering in the year 62 AH, Jabir ibn Abdullah, a companion of the Prophet, was one of the people who performed a pilgrimage to the burial site of Imam Hussein. Due to his infirmity and blindness, he was accompanied by Atiyya bin Saad. His visit coincided with that of the surviving female members of the Prophets family and Imam Husseins son Imam Zaynul Abidin, who had all been held captive in Damascus by the vicious tyrant Yazid I, the Umayyad Caliph. Imam Zaynul Abidin had been too ill to participate in the Battle of Karbala, so he was not martyred in Karbala. The city of Karbala in Iraq, the third holy place of Shia Islam, is the center of the commemorations where in a show of humility, many crawl through the streets of the city while others fall on their hands and knees as they approach the Shrines of Husayn and his brother Abbas.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 03:27:36 +0000
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