[ by Charles Cameron — another quick one, this one concerned with “key religious and transportation hubs”– ie pilgrimage routes ]
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Millions of Shiite pilgrims in the Iraqi shrine city of Karbala for the Ashura mourning rituals, 2012.
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Everyone should calm down.
That’s the message from Michael Knights in his Politico piece yesterday, Why the Islamic State Is Losing, subtitled The pundits have it wrong — the terrorists’ move toward Baghdad is a sign of desperation. Read the full article for his reasoning.
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Given my abiding interest in religion, and in the ritual commemoration of Husayn at Karbala, these two paras in particular caught my attention:
But most likely, ISIL is simply readying for its annual killing spree against Shia pilgrims during the Ashura and Arbaeen religious festivals. In the week before Ashura begins on Nov. 3, Baghdad will swell with millions of pilgrims making their way to Karbala, just southwest of the capital. Many of these pilgrims make the 50-mile walk from Baghdad to Karbala, which passes within seven miles of Jurf as-Sakr, a heavily-contested ISIL stronghold to the south of Baghdad. We can expect mortar attacks, car bombings and suicide-vest detonations inside the crowds.
This is the real meaning of ISIL being at the gates of Baghdad – that the movement is poised perilously close to key religious and transportation hubs, and may be intent on mounting sectarian outrages at the most sensitive moment of the year for the Shia.
Martyrdom is already one the minds of Shia pilgrims as they make their way to Karbala to memorialize the death of Husayn ibn Ali and his infant son, Abdullah ibn Husayn. If they risk their lives in this way, their dedication to the memory of the martyred Husayn may have much to do with it.
As an eyewitness quoted in Elias Canetti‘s Crowds and Power puts it:
No destiny is accounted more beautiful than to die on the feast-day of Ashura, when the gates of all eight paradises stand wide open for the saints, and everyone seeks to enter there.
