In this series, which delves into the various mourning traditions associated with the Immortal Epic of Ashura in various lands, we look at the history of mourning for Imam Husain (AS).

Mourning ceremonies in Iran during the period of the Constitutional Revolution (1905-to-1911) assumed political aspects. Following an old established tradition, preachers compared the oppressors of the time to the Omayyads, the enemies of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt and Imam Ḥusain (AS). The Constitutional Movement was also a manifestation of the devotion of the Iranian people to the Martyr of Karbala. The outbreak of protests in the Muharram of 1905 was because of an economic crisis, higher levies of custom duties, taxation and spiralling inflation that propelled Iranian traders, merchants, ulema and larger urban masses into the streets.

Seyyed Abdollah Behbahani, the leading religious leader of those days criticized the unjust exercise of executive power by the Qajar dynasty, and was keen to develop a new system in accordance with the laws of Islam. Seyyed Jamal od-Din Isfahani combined his devout religious appeal with the political cause of constitutionalism. He saw the importance of reforming Iranian state finances and phrased this as a ‘jihadist’ endeavour. The role of the Shi’a Muslim ulema was instrumental for the Constitutional Movement at large, but it always retained allegiance to traditionalism and revolutionary ideology embedded in religious values.

The usuli rationalist jurist Akhund Khorasani was considered at the beginning of the Constitutional Movement as one of the principal mujtahid and marja’-i taqlid of the Shi’ite world, and was possibly the best-known. In the month of Muharram 1327 AH, corresponding to January–February 1909, protests against monarchic rule by mourner inspired by the movement of Imam Husain (AS).

The first protest took the form of a peaceful procession during the religious mourning month of Muharram by some two hundred shopkeepers in Tehran. Requesting the repayment of government loans and the dismissal of Monsieur Naus, the Belgian customs director, the protestors closed their shops, distributed a photograph of Naus masquerading as a religious scholar at a fancy-dress ball. The mourning procession of protestors, proceeded, to the sanctuary of Shah Abdul-Azim in Rayy.

The third protests broke out in the summer of I906 during the month of Muharram. They were sparked off mainly by the failure of Mozaffer od-Din Shah to convene a House of Justice and partly by the rash attempt of the police to round up a number of outspoken anti-government preachers. As the guilds called for another strike and the secret societies circulated angry broadsheets, a large rally of theology students, in the state of mourning converged on the city police station where the preachers were detained. In the ensuing melee, the police shot dead one of the demonstrators who happened to be a seyyed, or the one tracing his descent from Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

On the following morning, thousands of tradesmen, craftsmen, and theology students – many of them wearing white sheets as a sign of their willingness to court martyrdom, by following the footsteps of Imam Husain (AS), proceeded with the Seyyed's body from the main bazaar to a public funeral in the central mosque. Outside the mosque, however, they were intercepted by the Cossack brigade, and the bloody encounter resulted in the martyrdom of twenty-two people and injury to several hundred others. This incident was proof of the fact that the Qajar regime was as corrupt as Yazid and the Omayyad regime.

Since a river of blood now divided the people from the court, many ulema began to openly compare the Qajars to the notorious Yazid, the Omayyad tyrants. In short the triumph of the Constitutional Revolution over a century ago, owed its success to the mourning ceremonies of the people of Iran for Imam Husain (AS). When the Constitutional Movement veered off the track, and persons of dubious background with no faith in Islam, took control of the Majlis, the ulema again opposed those in power.

Meanwhile, the British in order to crush the ulema and suppress the religious aspirations of the Iranian people, replaced the Qajar dynasty with their agent, the unlettered soldier, named Reza Khan, who unleashed a reign of terror. The upstart Pahlavi dynasty banned the mourning ceremonies, which the people continued to hold in secret further fueling the sentiments of the nation against the regime.

The 54-year rule of the Pahlavis was also overthrown by the devotees of the Martyr of Karbala and their mourning ceremonies that resulted in the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran under the leadership of Imam Khomeini (God bless him). In other words, it was the Immortal Message against injustice of the grandson of Prophet of Islam that saved Iran, thanks to the Iranian people’s commitment to the life-inspiring mourning ceremonies of the month of Muharram, of which we will speak in detail tomorrow.

MD/AS/SS