Ashura

 Ashura (Arabic: عَاشُورَاء‎, romanized: ʿĀshūrāʾ [ʕaːʃuːˈraːʔ]), is the tenth day of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic calendar.[4] For Sunni Muslims, Ashura marks the day that Musa (Moses) and the Israelites were saved from Pharaoh by God creating a path in the Sea.[5][6][7][8] Also for Muslims, it marks the day that Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, was martyred in the Battle of Karbala.[9] Ashura is a major holy day and occasion for pilgrimage in Shia Islam,[10] as well as a recommended but non-obligatory day of fasting in Sunni Islam.[11][5][6]

Ashura marks the climax of the Remembrance of Muharram,[4] the annual commemoration of the death of Husayn and his family and supporters at the Battle of Karbala on 10 Muharram in the year 61 AH (in AHt: 10 October 680 AD).[12] Mourning for the incident began almost immediately after the battle. Popular elegies were written by poets to commemorate the Battle of Karbala during the Umayyad and Abbasid era, and the earliest public mourning rituals occurred in 963 AD during the Buyid dynasty.[13] In Afghanistan,[14] Algeria,[15] Iran,[16] Iraq,[17] Lebanon,[18] Bahrain,[19] Pakistan,[20] India Ashura has become a national holiday, and many ethnic and religious communities participate in it.[21][22]

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Sunnis regard fasting during Ashura as recommended, though not obligatory, having been superseded by the Ramadan fast.[85][11] According to hadith record in Sahih Bukhari, Ashura was already known as a commemorative day during which some Meccan residents used to observe customary fasting. Muhammad fasted on the day of Ashura, 10th Muharram, in Mecca. When fasting during the month of Ramadan became obligatory, the fast of Ashura was made non-compulsory.

Assassination of Husayn

Main article: Battle of Karbala

The Battle of Karbala took place within the crisis environment resulting from the succession of Yazid I.[27][28] Immediately after succession, Yazid instructed the governor of Medina to compel Husayn and a few other prominent figures to pledge their allegiance (Bay'ah).[12] Husayn, however, refrained from making such a pledge, believing that Yazid was openly going against the teachings of Islam and changing the sunnah of Muhammad.[29][30] He, therefore, accompanied by his household, his sons, brothers, and the sons of Hasan left Medina to seek asylum in Mecca.[12]

On the other hand, the people in Kufa, when informed of Muawiyah's death, sent letters urging Husayn to join them and pledging to support him against the Umayyads. Husayn wrote back to them saying that he would send his cousin Muslim ibn Aqeel to report to him on the situation and that if he found them supportive as their letters indicated, he would speedily join them because an Imam should act in accordance with the Quran and uphold justice, proclaim the truth, and dedicate himself to the cause of God. The mission of Muslim was initially successful and according to reports, 18,000 men pledged their allegiance. But the situation changed radically when Yazid appointed Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad as the new governor of Kufa, ordering him to deal severely with Ibn Aqeel.[citation needed]

In Mecca, Husayn learned assassins had been sent by Yazid to kill him in the holy city in the midst of Hajj. Husayn, to preserve the sanctity of the city and specifically that of the Kaaba, abandoned his Hajj and encouraged others around him to follow him to Kufa without knowing the situation there had taken an adverse turn.[12]

On the way, Husayn found that his messenger, Muslim ibn Aqeel, had been killed in Kufa. Husayn encountered the vanguard of the army of Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad along the route towards Kufa. Husayn addressed the Kufan army, reminding them that they had invited him to come because they were without an Imam. He told them that he intended to proceed to Kufa with their support, but if they were now opposed to his coming, he would return to where he had come from. In response, the army urged him to proceed by another route. Thus, he turned to the left and reached Karbala, where the army forced him not to go further and stop at a location that had limited access to water.[12]

Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad, the governor instructed Umar ibn Sa'ad, the head of the Kufan army, to offer Ḥusayn and his supporters the opportunity to swear allegiance to Yazid. He also ordered Umar ibn Sa'ad to cut off Husayn and his followers from access to the water of the Euphrates.[12] On the next morning, Umar ibn Sa'ad arranged the Kufan army in battle order.[12]

The Battle of Karbala lasted from morning to sunset on 10 October 680 (Muharram 10, 61 AH). Husayn's small group of companions and family members (in total around 72 men and the women and children)[note 1][32][33] fought against a large army under the command of Umar ibn Sa'ad and were killed near the river (Euphrates), from which they were not allowed to get water. The renowned historian Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī states:

… [T]hen fire was set to their camp and the bodies were trampled by the hoofs of the horses; nobody in the history of the human kind has seen such atrocities.[34]

Once the Umayyad troops had murdered Husayn and his male followers, they looted the tents, stripped the women of their jewelry, and took the skin upon which Zain al-Abidin was prostrate. Husayn's sister Zaynab was taken along with the enslaved women to the caliph in Damascus when she was imprisoned and after a year eventually was allowed to return to Medina.[35][36]