Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Richard M. Frank, Al-Ghazali and the 

Asharite School (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 

1994); W. Montgomery Watt, The Formative Period of 

Islamic Thought (Oxford: One World Press, 1998).

Ashura

Ashura is the 10th day of the first Islamic month, 

m

Uharram

, and the most important holiday of the 

year for the Shia. It had been a day of 

Fasting

 for 

pre-Islamic Arabs and for Jews (identified with 

Yom Kippur) and was recognized by Muhammad 

(d. 632) as an Islamic day of fasting, though when 

the month of r

amadan

 was made the holy month 

of fasting for Muslims, the fast of Ashura became 

voluntary rather than mandatory. Islamic tradition 

has associated this important day with biblical 

events recognized by Jews and Christians: It has 

been considered to be the day when Noah’s ark 

landed after the Flood and when Jonah was freed 

from the fish that had swallowed him.

A more documented event occurred on this 

day in the year 680, one that was to have serious 

implications for Islamic history. h

Usayn

 

ibn

  a

li

,

the grandson of the p

rophet

, was killed in the 

desert of k

arbala

 in i

raq

 by the U

mayyad

 caliph 

Yazid’s (r. 680–683) forces. This event has come 

to symbolize in sacred history and ritual the rift 

between Shiis and Sunnis and led to the develop-

ment of 

martyrdom

 as a definitive value of s

hiism

.

So, for the Shia the first 10 days of the month 

of Muharram, leading up to the day of Ashura, 

are a time of mourning for the death of Husayn. 

In  i

ran

 and other Shii-dominated areas (for 

example, Lebanon, Bahrayn, and Shii communi-

ties in p

akistan

,  i

ndia

,  a

Fghanistan

, Tajikistan, 

as well as immigrant communities in Europe and 

North America), mourners express their sorrow 

in a complex of public and private ceremonial 

gatherings, street processions, and morality plays. 

Public lamentations sometimes reach a frenzy in 

which men beat their breasts or slash their heads 

to draw blood in commemoration of the spilling 

of Husayn’s 

blood

 at Karbala. Theatrical perfor-

mances reenact the events of the Karbala tragedy. 

Another rite performed during Ashura in Iran 

and areas influenced by Persianate culture is the 

rowzeh khani (also known as a qiraya, “reading,” 

in Arabic-speaking i

raq

), which consists of lam-

entations, moving sermons, and improvised read-

ings about events that transpired at Karbala. The 

name  rowzeh is derived from a book of Karbala 

narratives, The Garden of the Martyrs (Rawdat al-

shuhada), written by Husayn Waiz Kashifi around 

1503, in connection with the establishment of the 

Shii s

aFavid

 

dynasty

 in Iran. People of all classes 

participate in these gatherings, including Sunnis, 

and, in India, Hindus and Buddhists. Women 

often organize Ashura gatherings in their homes.

See also 

calendar

; 

holidays

;  h

Usayniyya

; 

t

Welve

-i

mam

 s

hiism

; U

mayyad

 c

aliphate

.

Mark Soileau