39 Fun Facts About Muharram

Scholars trace the Ashura fast to which Jewish holy day, kept on the tenth day of the month of Tishri?

Yom Kippur falls on the tenth day of the first month of the Jewish year, just as Ashura falls on the tenth day of the first Islamic month, and the early Muslims of Medina took up the fast.

Muharram means 'forbidden'; what has been banned during this month since before Islam?

Warfare is the thing forbidden, and Muharram was one of four sacred months of truce even before Islam. The Quran later banned the old Arab habit of shifting those months around the calendar.

Refusing allegiance to Yazid in 680, Husayn ibn Ali left Medina for which city, where he stayed until September?

Mecca was where Husayn waited for four months while letters from Iraq urged him to come and lead them. He left the sanctuary city in September with a party of about fifty.

The Arba'in pilgrimage, often called the largest annual gathering on earth, brings millions to Karbala how many days after Ashura?

Forty days after Ashura is the Arba'in, and most of the pilgrims reach Karbala on foot. Commemorating the dead on the fortieth day is an old Islamic custom.

On the last day of Trinidad's Hosay, what happens to the tadjah model tombs paraded through St James to tassa drumming?

Thrown into the sea at sunset is how the tadjahs end the observance, which indentured labourers brought to Trinidad in the nineteenth century. The paper-and-tinsel tombs are rebuilt from scratch every year.

Aşure, a grain-and-fruit pudding cooked in Turkey during Muharram, is nicknamed after which prophet?

Noah's pudding is the nickname, from a tale that his family cooked the last grains, dried fruit and nuts aboard the Ark once it came to rest. In Turkey and the Balkans the pot is shared with neighbours of any faith.

Which month follows Muharram in the Islamic calendar?

Safar is the second month of the Islamic year, and for many Shia the mourning that begins in Muharram runs on through it, so the season of grief lasts two months.

Ramadan is not among Islam's four sacred months: three fall together around the pilgrimage, and which one stands alone?

Rajab is the seventh month, set apart from Dhu al-Qa'dah, Dhu al-Hijjah and Muharram. A hadith calls it 'Rajab of Mudar', which Ibn Kathir read as backing that tribe against a rival that put Rajab where Ramadan now falls.

In Morocco and the wider Maghreb, Sunni Ashura customs include almsgiving, special dishes and jumping over what?

Bonfires are leapt over and carnivals fill the streets: Maghrebi Ashura is a festive day, far from the mourning kept on the same date in Karbala. Many families also honour their dead then.

Tasu'a, the eve of Ashura, is given in Iran to passion plays about which standard-bearer of Husayn?

Abbas ibn Ali, Husayn's half-brother, is said in most traditions to have been killed fetching water from the Euphrates for the thirsting camp, and he is honoured as its water-carrier too.

In Sunni practice, what status does the Ashura fast hold?

Voluntary: the Ashura fast was the one Muslims were told to keep in Medina until the Ramadan fast replaced it about a year later, and Sunni jurists still recommend it, usually with the day before.

By one Shia tradition, the earliest mourning gathering for Karbala was held by bereaved women captive in which city?

Damascus, the Umayyad capital, is where the captives are said to have recounted the tragedy and wept together, the model for every later majlis. Another account places that first gathering at Karbala itself.

The first public Karbala processions filled the streets of tenth-century Baghdad under the patronage of which Shia dynasty?

The Buyids, Shia emirs who held Baghdad while the Abbasid caliphs reigned in name, had Ashura declared a day of public mourning: markets closed and shops were draped in black.

Iran's first husayniyyas, halls built to host Muharram mourning gatherings, date from the era of which dynasty?

The Safavids made Twelver Shiism Iran's official religion, and under them the yearly gatherings for Husayn moved into halls built for the purpose. No such buildings are recorded in Iran before their time.

A husayniyya is an imambara in South Asia and a takyeh in Iran; what is it called in Bahrain and the Gulf?

Ma'tam is the Gulf word, used in Bahrain, the UAE and neighbouring states for the same mourning hall. Iraqi Shia only began building husayniyyas in numbers in the later nineteenth century.

Ta'ziyeh, the Iranian passion play staged during Muharram, takes its name from an Arabic word meaning what?

Condolence is the root sense, from the Arabic verb to console, and in Iran the word came to mean the staged re-enactment itself. In South Asia and the Caribbean the same word names a model tomb instead.

In Yazd, a huge cypress-shaped wooden frame is carried on Ashura in the nakhl-gardani ritual; what does it represent?

A coffin is what the nakhl stands for, Husayn's bier, and the largest need several hundred men to lift. It is named for the date palm, though its lattice looks more like a cypress.

Banned under Saddam Hussein, the Arba'in walk to Karbala revived in 2003; its most popular route starts in which city?

Najaf, where Ali is buried, lies about 80 km from Karbala, a walk of some three days. Along the road, local people put up tents offering pilgrims free food, water and a place to sleep.

Which son of Husayn ibn Ali survived Karbala because he was too ill to fight, later becoming the fourth Shia Imam?

Ali al-Sajjad, also called Zayn al-Abidin, was spared after the battle, and his supplications are still read as al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya. His aunt is said to have shielded him from execution in Kufa.

The Tawwabin, Kufan supporters of Husayn who rose against the Umayyads in 685, bore a name meaning what?

The Penitents, led by Sulayman ibn Surad, were the Kufans who had invited Husayn and then left him to die. They sought to atone by marching against the Umayyads, and fell at Ayn al-Warda in January 685.

Which Umayyad governor of Kufa sent Umar ibn Sa'd's army to Karbala and ordered the Euphrates closed to Husayn's camp?

Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad ran Kufa for Yazid and had already crushed the city's pro-Husayn movement before the caravan arrived.

Al-Hurr ibn Yazid, whose thousand riders had intercepted Husayn's caravan near Kufa, did what on the morning of Ashura?

Hurr changed sides that morning and was killed fighting for Husayn. Only days earlier his riders had forced the caravan to camp in open desert, away from water.

Which sister of Husayn, taken captive after Karbala, is remembered for denouncing the caliph Yazid to his face?

Zaynab spoke out at Kufa and again in the caliph's own court, and is said to have saved her sick nephew, the next Imam, by offering to be killed first.

Which elder brother of Husayn gave up the caliphate to Mu'awiya in 661, nineteen years before Karbala?

Hasan ibn Ali was caliph for only a few months before he made peace with Mu'awiya and stepped aside. It was the succession of Mu'awiya's son Yazid that his brother Husayn later refused to accept.

Husayn's head, by Fatimid tradition, was carried in 1153 from Ashkelon to which city, ahead of the advancing Crusaders?

Cairo's al-Hussein Mosque, beside the city's great bazaar, still holds the shrine where the head is said to rest. Ashkelon had kept it for roughly 250 years.

Which companion is credited with proposing, when the Hijri era was fixed in 17 AH, that the year open with Muharram?

Uthman, by tradition, made the successful proposal, keeping the order of months Muhammad had already used, even though the Hijra itself fell two months later in the year. A complaint from Abu Musa al-Ash'ari had prompted the reform.

Because the Hijri year is purely lunar, Muharram drifts through all four seasons and back in about how many years?

33 solar years is about how long the lunar months take to slip right round the seasons, so a Muharram in midsummer falls in midwinter some 16 years later. No leap month exists to hold it in place.

The Quranic ban on nasi', the pre-Islamic shuffling of sacred months, was proclaimed by Muhammad on which occasion?

The Farewell Sermon, given on Mount Arafat on 9 Dhu al-Hijjah 10 AH, declared the postponing of months an increase in disbelief, ending a practice that could shift a truce month to suit a campaign.

Which community in Turkey keeps a twelve-day mourning fast in Muharram?

Alevis fast through the first twelve days of Muharram in mourning for Husayn, then break the fast with aşure, a pudding they traditionally make from twelve ingredients and share with neighbours.

Which cousin did Husayn ibn Ali send ahead to Kufa to test the city's promised support before his own journey?

Muslim ibn Aqil's following melted away under the new governor's crackdown, and he was forced to declare the revolt early. He was executed, and Husayn learned of it only when he was already on the road.

The Dawoodi Bohras, who gather each Muharram for ten days of sermons called Ashara Mubaraka, belong to which branch of Shia Islam?

Ismaili Shia parted from the Twelvers over who should succeed the sixth Imam, and the Bohras trace their heritage through the Fatimid Imams.

The Bara Imambara, a vast eighteenth-century Muharram hall, stands in which Indian city?

Lucknow's Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula began it during a devastating famine, partly to give the hungry paid work. He and his architect, Kifayatullah, lie buried next to each other in its main hall.

Hussaini Dalan, a Twelver imambara first built under 17th-century Mughal rule, is the main husayniyya of which city?

Dhaka's Hussaini Dalan is said to have been built by Mir Murad, a Mughal official in charge of public buildings, and a Nawab of Dhaka rebuilt its roof after the earthquake of 1897.

Which Mughal emperor, after conquering the Qutb Shahi kingdom, used its royal Muharram hall, the Badshahi Ashurkhana, as a cavalry stable?

Aurangzeb stabled his cavalry's horses in the hall after his conquest, wrecking part of it. It was later restored, and it is still used every Muharram.

Which Indian city parades the Bibi-Ka-Alam, a standard said to hold a relic of Fatima, on an elephant each Ashura?

Hyderabad's Bibi-Ka-Alam is said to enclose a piece of the plank on which Fatima's body was washed for burial, and it leaves its shrine at Dabirpura on elephant-back on the tenth of Muharram.

Which 19th-century Urdu poet, champion of the marsiya elegy for Karbala, stretched the form past 150 stanzas?

Mir Anis remains a fixture of Muharram for Urdu speakers. A 1907 study by Shibli Nomani weighed him against his contemporary Dabeer and judged that no other poet matched him.

South Asian tazias, paraded in Muharram as painted representations of Husayn's shrine, are built from paper and what?

Bamboo and paper make the mausoleum, an imagined likeness rather than a replica of the shrine, and Hindus have often joined the processions alongside Muslims. The same word gives Trinidad its tadjah.

Pariaman in West Sumatra has held its tabuik ritual every Ashura since 1831, brought by Twelver Shia troops from where?

India supplied the Twelver sepoys who were stationed in the region under the British and later settled there. Bengkulu, also on Sumatra, calls its version tabot.

The Hosay massacre of 1884, after colonial authorities banned Muharram processions, took place in which Trinidad town?

San Fernando's processions went ahead in defiance of an order keeping them out of the towns, and police fired on the marchers after the Riot Act was read. The day is also remembered as the Jahaji massacre.