Official Highlights Arbaeen’s Capacities to Originate Int’l Movements against Oppression

IQNA – The Arbaeen pilgrimage has immense capacities to create international movements against injustice and oppression, Iran’s Cultural Attaché in Tanzania said.

Speaking to IQNA, Mohsen Ma’arefi, who is also a faculty member of Al-Mustafa International University, said since long ago, the political functions of visiting the holy shrine of Imam Hussein (AS) has been known. 

That is why oppressive rulers have tried to dissuade people from doing it, with some Abbasid caliphs destroying the graves of the martyrs of Karbala and even flooding them with water and sowing crops there, he said.

However, he noted, the love of Imam Hussein (AS) is not something that can be removed from the hearts of devotees with such reprehensible measures.  

So from the beginning, the anti-oppression functions of the Arbaeen pilgrimage were known to oppressors and this has been the case in the contemporary era as well Ma’arefi, highlighting how the Ba’athist regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein opposed and banned the Arbaeen march.

He noted that since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime and the revival of the Arbaeen procession, the number of pilgrims from various countries attending the event has been growing year after year.

Underscoring the political outcomes of the Arbaeen procession, he said if a significant number of youths from certain Arab and Muslim countries took part in the Arbaeen march, the rulers of such countries would not be able to remain indifferent to the plight of the people of the Gaza Strip who are facing a genocidal war launched by the Israeli regime.

 

He said the Arbaeen pilgrimage is an event with capacities to originate international movements against oppression and injustice, especially because Imam Hussein (AS) has made it clear for Muslims that they should stand up against oppression.

The Imam (AS) sacrificed his life so that people would have no confusion about the decisions they should make regarding confrontation with oppression and injustice, he went on to say.

Arbaeen is a religious event observed by Shia Muslims on the fortieth day after the Day of Ashura, commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (AS), the grandson of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and the third Shia imam.

It is one of the largest annual pilgrimages in the world, with millions of Shia Muslims walking to Karbala from various cities in Iraq and neighboring countries. This year, the day of Arbaeen fell on August 25.

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