Quote:
Originally Posted by MargaretR
Buddhists don't hit lions - silly boy - go change your pinny  |
Once a year, on Ashura, the streets of the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh fill with the sour, rusty smell of blood mixed with grilled meat and oranges, as thousands of people dressed in black make their way to the central square to mourn.
Ashura, the tenth day the mourning period for slain Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, is a the festival of blood in Nabatieh, one of the few places in the world where the Shia men and children shave their heads, cut their foreheads and let their blood flow for the imam.
In the sea of men dressed in white who have been cutting themselves every year since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, when the Shia gained the right to practice their rituals, a few young women with bleeding foreheads stand out.
“Let’s go hit Haidar,” say the young men in white capes. They stand in contrast to the other attendees who wear black to mourn but who do not perform the bloody ritual. “Hitting Haidar” is the popular name of the bloodletting ritual in which the young men cut the skin on their foreheads and hit it with swords to make it bleed more while chanting “Haidar! Haidar!”—which means
lion in old Arabic, one of the nicknames of Imam Ali, the prophet’s son-in-law and cousin, and Imam Hussein’s father.
Groups of 10 to 20 men and young boys covered in blood do their short Ashura round, circling the town’s market, while professional actors hired by the municipality get ready to reenact the imam’s slaying in the Battle of Karbala in the 7th century. Most women, dressed in black, stand on the side of the streets and turn their heads with horror at the sight of so much blood. But for the young men and children who take part in the bloodletting, the ritual is an honor.
“I am doing it for Imam Hussein for his sacrifice. It is my sacrifice for him, I’m doing this since I was six,” 12-year-old Ali, who just finished his round, tells NOW Lebanon as he rushes giggling toward the Red Cross tent to wait in line to get stitched.