Why people cutting themselves in public on Ashura? (Blood mourning rituals)

Although almost all Shia scholars issued a Fitwa about it and have made it Haram (=Forbidden), unfortunately still some ignorants do it.

This action has not been mentioned anywhere in the Holy Shariah. Not only that, but in any case it causes damage and becomes a source of mockery for the others, it is Haraam. [here]

What is Tatbir?

Tatbir (Arabic) is amongst a set of bloody rituals that are performed by some Shia Muslims in commemoration of the great tragedy of Karbala, when the family of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was massacred by a group of corrupted Muslims. Tatbir is performed by striking the head with a sword or knife until blood gushes out. In the Persian language Tatbir is called Qama Zani.

Some Shias in the Indian subcontinent also perform an act called Zanjeer Zani (usually called Zanjeer). It involves repeatedly striking the back with a chain of blades with the intention of cutting the skin and causing blood to flow. Tatbir and Zanjeer are the two most widely practised of the blood shedding rituals. Other rituals include injuring oneself with a stone, padlock or chain.

Although these blood shedding rituals are historically not a part of Shia Islam, for some Shia Muslims they have become a central part of their religious practice.

It was Never Practiced or Recommended by the Ahl-ul-bayt (pbut)

Blood mourning rituals were never practiced by the founders and teachers of Shia Islam. There is not a single shred of evidence that the latter Imams (a) performed blood rituals. The modern day proponents of these damaging rituals shy away from mentioning this glaring fact.

If these rituals had any inherent merit in the eyes of Islam then they would have been practiced by the Holy Prophet (s) and the Twelve Holy Imams (a).

The Ahlulbayt (a) are divinely guided role models for Muslims and it is an obligation upon us to try and emulate them. Therefore it could be argued that the best way to mourn Imam Hussain (a) is by emulating the mourning of Ahlulbayt (a). Since they (a) did not perform these rituals, then the Shia should walk in their footsteps and refrain from performing them. A Shi’i who keeps away from blood rituals is closer in action to the Ahlulbayt (a) than one who performs them.

Considering the very controversial nature of the rituals, it wise to refrain from them and to carefully follow the practices of Ahlulbayt (a) in the manner that has been recommended by Imam Ali (a):

“Look at the people of the Prophet’s family. Adhere to their direction. Follow their footsteps because they would never let you out of guidance, and never throw you into destruction. If they sit down, you sit down, and if they rise up you rise up. Do not go ahead of them, as you would thereby go astray and go not lag behind them as you would thereby be ruined.” – Nahj al-Balagha, Sermon 96.

Some proponents of blood flagellation argue that the Imams (a) may have performed the rituals in private, and that may be the reason why we have no evidence that they (a) performed these rituals. Therefore we should not deny the fact that these rituals are Islamically recommended.

Any sincere person with a working intellect would not fail to see the flaw in that argument. If the argument were valid then it could be applied to a whole range of actions that have no Islamic backing. Any given Muslim could innovate a ritual and claim that we should not deny that it is Islamically recommended because it may have been performed by the Ahlulbayt (a) in private. For example we could innovate a new prayer with sixty four rakats and justify it by saying: “Don’t say it is not mustahab, maybe the Imams (a) did it in private!”

The lack of evidence in this case is sufficient to justify the proposition that the Imams (a) did not perform those rituals.

The History of Blood Mourning Ceremonies

For about a millennium after the tragedy of Karbala, the Shia did not practice blood shedding when mourning the martyrdom of Imam Hussain (a) or any of the Ahlulbayt (a). Instead they mourned in a traditional and more natural manner, which included the methods used by the Imams (a) and their families. However this changed when blood rituals were introduced into the mourning gatherings of the Shia.

Historians have shown that blood rituals were foreign cultural practices that were introduced to certain elements of the Shia community relatively recently in the history of the religion.

Quoting Professor Werner Ende in “The Flagellations of Muharram and the Shi’ite ‘Ulama’”:

Muhammad Mahdi al-Qazwini, however, in a work finished in the month of Ramadan 1345 H (March 1927), claims that the use of iron, i.e. of chains and swords for flagellation, was initiated “about a century ago” by people not well versed in the rules of the shari'a.

Source.

Below is an excerpt from the book “A Hidden Hand” which describes how these cultural practices entered the Shia community via external sources.

There are differences of opinion as to when blood matam started.¹ The most reliable opinion is that the cutting of the head was a practice performed by the Turks in Azerbaijan which was transferred to the Iranians and Arabs.²

The Iraqi author of the book The Tragedy of Karbala also believes that such practices were not common in Iraq before the nineteenth century. At the end of this century they started to gain popularity in this country. Therefore, blood matam started elsewhere and came to Iraq which means it is not rooted in Arab heritage.³ Shaykh Kazim Dajili also accepts this view and says: “Iraqis did not participate in these processions until the beginning of the twentieth century. This practice was first seen amongst the Turkish Iraqis, Sufis, and Western Iranian Kurds.”⁴ A report by English sources covering Ashura in Najaf in the year 1919 shows that 100 Turkish Shias performed blood matam that year.⁵

Memories of Sayyid Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum support this claim as well: “When I was in Najaf around 50-60 years ago there were only a fewTurkish mourning groups. They would come to Sayyid Bahr al-Ulum’s house on the days of mourning and with his permission they would recite emotional poems about Imam Hussayn (a). Some of them would slightly injure themselves while listening to the poems in order to try to feel what Imam Hussayn felt. Slowly this type of action changed and spread until it reached its peak when it was outlawed in 1935 by Yasin Hashimi, the prime minister of the time. In reality, this oppressive action had an opposite effect¹ – in such a way that the number of mourning groups tripled.”²

Hajj Hamid Razi (d.1953) was a police man in Karbala and lived to be about 110 years old. He told his memories regarding the mourning of Imam Hussayn (a) – about blood matam which he says was not normally practiced in Najaf or Karbala when he was young.³ There has been no recollection by elder people of Najaf and Karbala saying that there were these processions before the middle of the nineteenth century. These processions where first performed by Turkish visitors from the Qizilbash Tribe. When they would perform a ziyarat to Imam Hussayn (a) they would strike their heads with special swords.⁴

The full book can be purchased here for a nominal price.

Yitzhak Nakash in his article: “An Attempt to Trace the Origin of the Rituals of ʿĀshūrāʾ”, states the following regarding the origin of these practices:

The flagellations were introduced into central and southern Iran, as well as into Iraq, only in the nineteenth century. This proposition is supported by the data provided by Shi’i biographies and Iraqi Shi`i oral history. The biographies identify Shaykh Mulla Agha `Abidal-Darbendi (d. 1868/9) as the first to introduce violent acts of self-flagellation into Tehran around the mid-nineteenth century.

Darbendi is said to include in this work uncommon rituals, not to be found in other accepted Shi’i Imami writings on the commemoration of ‘Ashura.⁵⁴ The relatively late appearance of flagellation in Iraq is also evident from Shi’i accounts. The Iraqi Shi’i mujtahid Muhammad Mahdi al-Qazwini is cited by Werner Ende as claiming around 1927 that the use of iron was initiated “about a century ago” by people not well versed in the rules of the Shari’a.⁵⁵ Indeed, Iraqi Shi’i oral history traces the appearance of flagellation in Najaf and Karbala to the nineteenth century. It is related that the practice was imported to these cities by Shi’i Turks, who came to Karbala and Najaf on pilgrimage from the Caucasus or Azarbayjan.⁵⁶

The author goes on to state that the Qizilbash, an extreme ghulat Turkish sect, seemingly introduced blood rituals to Imami Shias. He then points out that the Qizilbash took their flagellation rituals from some Christians. Therefore the Shia blood rituals most probably have a Christian origin.

Sufi and Christian elements were fused in the rituals of the Qizilbash.⁶² As will be seen below, this was also evident in the flagellations, which reenacted the shedding of Husayn’s blood in a manner similar to the reenactment of the shedding of the blood of Christ among Christian Catholics.

__________

1 An Article in a Shia media outlet entitled: Maruri bar Tarikh Takvin Majalis va Aeenhaye Azadari dar Iran by Mohsin Hassam Mazaheri, Akhbar Adiyan Magazine, number 18, Farvardin va Ordibehesht138

2 Abdullah Mastufi, Sharh Zendiganiye Man ya Tarikh Ijtemai va Idari Douran Ghajariyeh, v.1 and 3.

3 Ibrahim Haydari, The Tragedy of Karbala (tradjedi Karbala) translated into Farsi by Ali Mamouri,p.475

4 Kazem Dajili, Ashura fi al-Najaf wa Karbala, p.287; Mahmoud Darah, Jiyyat Iraqi min wara’ al-Bawabih al-Sawda’, p.24

5 Naqash, p.269 (quoting from: Administration Report of the Shamiyya Division, Great Britain)

1 Anytime an action is forbid with force without any kind of intellectual or cultural explanation given it will have an opposite effect.

2 Goftegu ba Sayyid Bahr al-Ulum piramoun Azadari Husseini, Nour Magazine, number 74, January 1997

3 Tradjedi Karbala, a conversation with Doctor Shakir Latif, 4,12,1996

4 Talib Ali Sharqi, al-najaf al-Ashraf Adatha wa Talidha

* * *

The Safest Course for Shia Muslims to follow

Considering all the arguments that are presented in favour of and against blood flagellation, the safest course of action to take would be to refrain from the rituals. Consider the following four scenarios*:

1, If a person performs blood shedding and if the act is detrimental for all the reasons that have been given, then that person would be committing some serious sins.

2, If a person performs blood shedding and if the detriments are not real then the merit of performing the acts is very minimal since Ahlulbayt (a) would not refrain from a significantly meritorious act.

3, If a person refrains from the performance of blood shedding and if the act is detrimental for all the reasons that have been given, then that person would receive rewards for refraining from a harmful act that was not practiced by Ahlulbayt (a).

4, If a person refrains from the performance of blood shedding and if the detriments are not real then the merits lost due to non-performance is very minimal since Ahlulbayt (a) would not refrain from a significantly meritorious act.


The argument can be summarized using the following decision matrix:

	The rituals are detrimental	The rituals are not detrimental
Perform blood shedding	Commit serious sins	Minimal rewards
Refrain from blood shedding	Rewards available	Avoid minimal rewards

 

More information: http://tatbir.org/