EXPLORE IRAQ

ARBAEEN

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The Arbaeen pilgrimage is the world's largest annual public gathering. It is a pilgrimage to the shrine of Hussain ibn Ali, grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the third Shia imam. Every year, on the twentieth of Safar, also known as Arbaeen, millions of pilgrims flock to Karbala, Iraq, often arriving there on foot from the nearby city of Najaf. Arbaeen marks forty days after the tenth of Muharram, known as Ashura. On this day in 61 AH (680 CE), Hussain was killed, alongside most of his relatives and his small retinue, in the Battle of Karbala against the army of the Umayyad caliph Yazid ibn Mu'awiya (r. 680–683). The battle followed Hussain's refusal to pledge his allegiance to Yazid, who is often portrayed by Muslim historians as impious and immoral. In Shia Islam, Karbala symbolizes the eternal struggle between good and evil, the pinnacle of self-sacrifice, and the ultimate sabotage of Muhammad's prophetic mission. 

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Forty is a sacred number in Islam, and the Arbaeen pilgrimage is an early Shia tradition popularized by the Shia imams. In recent times, the Arbaeen pilgrimage was banned by the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, but rapidly grew after his deposal in 2003 from two million participants in that year to around twenty million in 2014. Nevertheless, the voluntary Arbaeen pilgrimage remains largely unknown in the West, even though it is far larger than Hajj, the obligatory Muslim pilgrimage. As with Ashura, Arbaeen can be an occasion for Sunni violence against Shia Muslims. During the pilgrimage, free meals and accommodation are provided by volunteers.

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Origins of the Arbaeen pilgrimage

 

Forty is a sacred number in Islam, and commemorating the dead forty days after their death is a long-standing Islamic tradition, dating back to the early Islamic period. Shia tradition attaches a similar significance to Arbaeen, the fortieth of Hussain. Probably by combining the accounts available to him, the Shia scholar Ibn Tawus (d. 1266) reports that Hussain's relatives returned via Karbala to their hometown of Medina when they were freed from captivity in Damascus.

 

Upon arrival in Karbala on Arbaeen, they met Jabir ibn Abd Allah (d. 697), a companion of Muhammad, who had learned about the death of Hussain through a divine sign. This origin story was repeated by many authors after Ibn Tawus, even though several scholars before Ibn Tawus report only the Arbaeen pilgrimage of Jabir. The veracity of Ibn Tawus' account has therefore been questioned by some, including the Shia scholar Husain Noori Tabarsi (d. 1902) and the Islamicist Mahmoud M. Ayoub (d. 2021). Ayoub adds that Arbaeen is not mentioned in Kamil al-ziyarat, an early and authoritative hadith collection by the Shia traditionist Ibn Qulawayh (d. c. 978). Whatever the case, such narratives may have helped establish Arbaeein in Shia culture.

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Risking the Umayyads' wrath, the commemoration of Karbala was initially small and private. In particular, pilgrimage to Karbala remained limited and precarious during the Umayyad period. Soon after the Umayyads fell, however, Shia imams worked to institutionalize the Ashura and Arbaeen pilgrimages to the tomb of Hussain, as reflected in some of the traditions ascribed to the imams. For instance, the Shia imam Hasan al-Askari (d. c. 874) is reported to have listed the Arbaeen pilgrimage among the five signs of a true believer.

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Largest annual gathering

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Arbaeen is a day of pilgrimage to the shrine of Hussain in Karbala, Iraq. Pilgrims arrive there in large numbers, often on foot. The most popular route is Najaf to Karbala, as many pilgrims first travel to Najaf and then walk from there to Karbala, some eighty kilometers away, which takes about three days on foot. Along the way, volunteers provide the pilgrims with free meals and services. In Karbala alone, seven thousand of such hospitality units (mawakib, sg. mawkib) were set up in 2014. Indeed, this generosity and hospitality are said to characterize the Arbaeen pilgrimage. When the pilgrims finally reach the shrine of Hussain in Karbala, they recite the ziyara of Arbaeen, a supplication for this occasion.

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As with other Shia rituals of Karbala, the Arbaeen pilgrimage was banned by the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (r. 1979–2003), who favored the Sunni community in Iraq, and viewed large Shia rituals as a political threat. The pilgrimage was revived immediately after the deposal of Saddam in 2003, with numbers growing from two million participants in that year to nine million in 2008, and around twenty million in 2014, making that year's pilgrimage the second largest gathering in history. The figure reached twenty-two million in 2015, according to Iraq's state-run media. In 2016, al-Khoei Foundation estimated around twenty-two million pilgrims. Even though the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela draws a larger crowd, it is held once every three years, which makes the Arbaeen pilgrimage "the world's largest annual gathering in one place."

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