BAGHDAD – Millions of people from around the world travel to Iraq each yearto partake in the annual Arba’een processions, which over the past yearshave grown into the largest human gathering of any kind.
The decades-old event marks the 40th day after the anniversary of themartyrdom of Imam Hussein and 72 of his companions in the Battle ofKarbala, in southern Iraq, in 680 AD after fighting courageously forjustice against the much larger army of the Umayyad caliph, Yazid I.
Each year, to mourn their third Imam, Muslims set off on a symbolic80-kilometer walk that begins from Najaf, where his father Imam Ali isburied, to the holy city of Karbala, where Imam Hussein’s holy shrine islocated.
Accommodating the pilgrims along the road, as well as in both Najaf andKarbala, are thousands of make-shift tents, also known as mawkibs, thatprovide a wide range of services from food to medical care and massages –all free of charge.
The event has over the past few years attracted global attention followingthe emergence of the Daesh terrorist group, which sought to raze allhistorically and religiously significant sites in Iraq and Syria under theinfluence of their Takfiri-Wahhabist ideology.
Despite the global attention that it has received and its sheer size,however, most Western media adamantly give the Arba’een gathering as littlecoverage as possible. Compare this with the wide coverage they give to rarescenes of flagellation by a tiny number of individuals during Ashura – apractice strictly prohibited and admonished by top.
Read Top Stories
Unofficial sources suggest that this year’s Arba’een walk was the largestto date, with some 21 million in attendance between October 4 and 19.
Of that number, 17 million people were Iraqi citizens, a whopping 40percent of the country’s population. That’s also 75 percent of the Arabcountry’s Shia Muslims in total.
On Saturday, the day of Arba’een, more than 15 million people converged onKarbala.
