Srinagar: Thousands of Shia mourners on Sunday took out an Ashura procession in the city here to mark the martyrdom anniversary of Prophet Muhammad’s (SAW) grandson Imam Hussain on the 10th day of Muharram.
The chest-beating and wailing mourners passed through the city roads, eulogising Hussain’s sacrifice in the fight between good and evil.
Authorities had made adequate arrangements for ensuring an incident-free Muharram procession, the officials said.
Security forces were deployed all along the route while police and volunteers had set up stalls to distribute water among the mourners, they said.
The officials said doctors and paramedical staff were also deployed along the route to attend to any emergency.
For the third consecutive year, the authorities allowed the eighth day procession from Guru Bazar locality to Dalgate on Friday.
Meanwhile, elsewhere also in Shia areas, Ashura processions were taken out with senior police and civil officials participating.
Pertinently, for Shia Muslims, Ashura is a day of mourning as they annually commemorate the death of Hussain ibn Ali (Imam Hussain – AS), grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and the third Shia Imam.
Hussain refused on moral grounds to pledge his allegiance to the Umayyad caliph Yazid ibn Mu’awiya and was subsequently killed, alongside most of his male relatives and his small retinue, by the Umayyad army in the Battle of Karbala on Ashura 61 AH (680 CE).
Among the Shia, mourning for Hussain is viewed as an act of protest against oppression, a struggle for God, and a means of securing the intercession of Hussain in the afterlife. Ashura is observed through mourning gatherings, processions, and dramatic reenactments. In such ceremonies, Shia mourners strike their chests to share in the pain of Husayn.
Extreme self-flagellation, often involving self-inflicted bloodshed, remains controversial among the Shia, condemned by many Shia clerics, and outlawed in some Shia communities.
