Shia Muslims around the world on Thursday marked Ashura, a holy day symbolising sacrifice and martyrdom that holds special significance for many this year after months of war in Iran and Lebanon. Ashura commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD. Imam Hussein was killed with his family and companions after refusing to pledge allegiance to the Umayyad caliphate.
The event cemented the schism between Sunni and Shia Islam and remains a powerful symbol of resistance against oppression and injustice. The holiest day in the Shia calendar This year, Ashura comes after months of war in Iran and Lebanon, homes to two of the world’s largest Shia populations. Iran and the US launched talks this week aimed at finalising a fragile ceasefire agreement.
On the first day of the war, on 28 February, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , was killed in an Israeli airstrike. The 86-year-old Khamenei was not just Iran’s top political leader. He also had a final say on all religious matters and was revered by millions of Shias worldwide. Ashura comes just days before his funeral procession.
The war also spilled over into Lebanon, where Iran’s key ally, the Hezbollah militant group, has been battling Israeli troops for months.
Isreal launched aerial bombardment and a ground invasion that decimated large swaths of predominantly Shia areas in southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Ashura comes as many of the more than one million displaced Lebanese people are trying to return to their villages in southern Lebanon. Cities and towns had held sermons and events in the buildup to the holy day, surrounded by buildings reduced to rubble and ruins.
Ashura is the holiest day in the Shia calendar, marked by traditional mourning rituals that include chest-beating, elegies and lamentations. It is observed on the 10th day of Muharram. Mourners observe the holy day in Iran In war-stricken Iran, black-clad mourners filled streets, mosques and neighbourhood religious halls across Tehran for a public holiday that brought much of the capital to a halt.
Shops were shuttered in many areas as processions of men beating their chests marched past and loudspeakers played elegies. Volunteers handed out tea and dates.
The previous evening, mourners had gathered at the shrine of Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, south of Tehran, in a ceremony attended by President Masoud Pezeshkian and other officials, Iranian state media reported. Khomeini led the 1979 revolution that ushered in Iran’s Islamic Republic.
In a social media post laden with an apparent message of resistance to the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, Pezeshkian noted how Hussein taught people to stand against oppression, the temptation of power and the pursuit of self-interest.
“We should neither oppress, nor accept oppression, nor remain silent before it,” he wrote.
The annual ceremonies came as Iran’s leadership continues to draw on Ashura’s language of sacrifice and resistance amid deep political and economic pressure. The faithful in Lebanon attend sermons and visit graves Families in the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre who lost relatives fighting with Hezbollah or working as paramedics wept during a sermon on the third day of Muharram. A cleric, who sat between portraits of current Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Kassem, compared the struggles the modern-day leaders faced in the war to those of Hussein and his companions in Karbala.
Banners in red and black bearing Hussein’s name were hung on every street.
In Beirut’s southern suburbs, many flocked to the grave of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah , who was killed in an Israeli strike in September 2024. Security has been raised in Pakistan to protect the Shia minority Elsewhere, Pakistan deployed thousands of police and paramilitary personnel across the country following intelligence reports warning of possible militant attacks on Shia Muslims, a minority in the predominantly Sunni country.
Although most Sunnis and Shia live peacefully alongside one another, militant groups have repeatedly targeted Shia communities, mosques, and religious gatherings in sectarian attacks that have claimed hundreds of lives.
As members of Pakistan’s Shia minority prepare to take part in mourning processions, mobile phone service in some areas is expected to be suspended temporarily to help prevent attacks.
“Imam Hussein is a symbol of the highest struggle and sacrifice,” said Saadia Shah, 33, as she entered a congregation hall in the eastern city of Lahore with her two children. “His name gives us the courage to stand up to tyranny, to say what is right and oppose what is wrong.”