Adil Najam
I write these lines as midnight strikes in Pakistan on the night between 9th and 10th Moharram. I write these lines as the news on television flashes news about blasts and bombs all around. How much more poignant could the message of Ashura be than it is today? Each year, it seems, the message of Ashura becomes more poignant and more important than the year before. But each year, it also seems, that the message becomes less understood. Each of us has to understand what that message means to us. All I can do today is to repeat my own understanding, in the very same words I had used the last two years.
To me, Ashura commemorates a struggle that is steeped in deep spiritual meaning, not only for Islamic history but for all humanity. It is a struggle between good and evil, between just and unjust, between weak and powerful, between immediate and the eternal, between principle and ambition. The power of Ashura is not only in the epic events that it commemorates, it is in the narrative of those events, in the symbolisms that we construct. Ultimately, it is in the meanings that we derive from those events.
Muharram is, of course, of special significance to Shias. But the events and meaning of Ashura is of significance and relevance to all Muslims, and I would suggest, to all humans everywhere.
Like so many others growing up in a Sunni household I grew up observing ehteram-i-Muharram and am always drawn in these days leading up to Ashura towards thinking about the meaning of religion and of faith. To me these have always been days of deep spiritual reflection; especially of intellectual enquiry into the meaning of justice (the concept of ‘adl’ holds a deep significance to me given the name I was given at birth and therefore I have always interpreted Ashura particularly as a time to reflect on what justice is).
Growing up, the night of Ashura was always defined for me by the Majlis i Shaam i Gharibaan (often by Allama Naseer ul Ijtihaadi) on PTV on the night of dasveen Muharram, which was followed immediately – and at right about midnight – by Syed Nasir Jahan’s soulful recitation of Salam-i-Akhir.
Bachay to aglay baras hum hain aur yeh gham phir hai
Today, as I listen to him again, so many more layers of meaning unfold. So many deep wounds open up. So many new thoughts come flooding in. And, yet, I have nothing new to say. Maybe you can share what the message of Ashura means to you in a world that continues to be unjust and unjustly violent?
Ashamed should be one who thinks Imam Hussain is Dead-he’s a Shaheed and as the Quran says ‘Shaheeds are alive’
You don’t have to lament the ‘alive’, do you??
Islam came to put an end to ‘shirk’ but most of the sects including the Sunnis are indulged in it. I am a plain Muslim, not bound by any sect….but it does make me wonder at some of their man-made fabricated silly rituals and acts which resemble the Hindus and Buddhists!!
Long Live Hazrat Imam Hussain!
KARACHI IS BURNING!!
To Rome said Nero: “If to smoke you turn I shall not cease to fiddle while you burn.” To Nero Rome replied: “Pray do your worst,
Who are the incendiaries, the arsonists?? Why didn’t the police and rangers act against the arsonists to save public property from destruction??? It were not the Talibans this time who set the city centre on fire!
It’s high time that the govt banned all kinds of religious processions and gatherings on streets and public places.
We have had enough of this ‘show business’ in the name of religion…..
Mazboot: You should be ashamed of yourself for disrespecting a religious school which you don’t happen to follow. If we as Muslims cannot respect each other’s views and traditions, what right do we have to object to non-Muslims who frown on various Muslim rituals and traditions (including our prayers, our Prophet, and our Hajj etc)?
Adnan: Anyone who disrespects the writ of the state and the constitution of the country must be awarded an exemplary punishment, notwithstanding their ethnicity, religion or sect.
By the way, ad hominem does not help in a rational debate.
While some people will lament the fact that shia rituals of chest beating are beyond their comprehension(and why would it not be so), and they cant explain it to non-msulims(i hope they have easier time explaining to non-muslims why so many muslims support talibanees, and curse of suicude bombers, sure thier great issue is explaining chest beating, and thats the real disgrace..lol..what a joke). The truth remains that shias have struggled over the centuries to make sure that yazeed and his creeds oppression is not forgotten. and it is a heavenly gift to HUSSAIN (as) that each year millions of people commemorate his shahdat (albiet with their own cultural ways and rituals), today we all muslims are joined together in condemning yazeed. and this is what is important. Yazeed is not one person, its a whole ideology of greed, oppression, vice, and arrogance against Allah. Yazeed is quintissential bad, and hussain is an epitome of good. (wao i might be sounding like shia zakir, but thats alright cause some people sounded like real ignorants here)
also i am wondering why dont you shed a tear over Hussain’s martyrdom, it is because you do not know the details (such as keeping children thristy and hungry for three days, beheading hussain and all shaheeds and taking their heads on naizay from karbala to syria, keeping Muhammad’s women in jail in syria for two years, and never letting them go back to madina fearing people will find out about oppressiosn of karbala and two years incarceration etc etc)??????????? and mind it those who cry, they dont deny hussain’s shahdat, they cry over the transgressions of evil yazeed on family of prophet before and long after karbala.
(janaat ber Hussain, lanaat ber yazeed or qomay yazeed)
(UNARMED!!)
The ”fun’ that one sees on Ashura in Karachi reminds me of scenes from Mahabharta and Ramayan and it is hard to comprehend what are all those rituals carried out for?
Hazrat Imam Hussain is held in very high esteem by all Muslims but the ritualistic hue given to his memory is exceptional of the Shias….chest beating and drummings!
What a combination, hard to explain oneself or a non-Muslim!
Sorry if some shia gets disturbed by these observations but that’s true how most of non-Shias feel about their rituals.