The gravity of the century

Millions of black-clad Shia pilgrims are converging on the holy city of Kerbala for the Arbaeen religious commemoration, the largest annual gathering of people anywhere on earth. Walking in long columns stretching back unbroken for as much as 50 miles, sleeping and eating in tents erected by supporters beside the road, the event has become an overwhelmingly powerful display of Shia belief and solidarity.

The Arbaeen coincides this year with the final defeat of Isis, the movement that slaughtered Shia in their tens of thousands and aimed to overthrow the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. The Syrian army announced today that it has captured the last Isis-held town in Syria, Albu Kamal, its victory coming a few days after Isis was driven from western Iraq.  

Arbaeen is the living symbol of the rise of the Iraqi Shia, a highly significant development in the Middle East, but it has happened only recently. Karim, 48, a tribal leader from Najaf, who provides free food for the pilgrims, recalls that when he first took part in an illegal Arbaeen walk under Saddam Hussein, “we had to take a roundabout route by the river [Euphrates] and try to keep hidden because, if we were caught, we would put in prison or executed”.

The Arbaeen has provided many modern-day Shia martyrs, murdered by Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda and Isis, but its purpose is to mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the revered Shia leader, killed in the battle for Kerbala in AD680. The long ritual walk to his golden-domed shrine in that city – some walkers spend 10 or 12 days on the road from Basra or Kirkuk, others two or three days from Najaf – comes on the 40th day of the mourning period as religious fervour reaches its peak among the faithful.

Shia cities, towns and villages all over Iraq empty out during a 20-day period as their people take to the roads in an elaborately organised and well protected mass movement not seen anywhere else in the world. Estimates vary of the total attending, from highs of 15-17 million to a low of 6-7 million, but it includes at least two million Iranians whose numbers are easier to calculate because they require documentation to enter Iraq. Mohammed al-Hilli, the author of a book entitled The Arbaeen: the Walk, says that “the city of Kerbala can only contain two or three million people at one time, but, since pilgrims are coming and going over a long time, the total attending will be much higher.” 
Shia Muslim pilgrims gather for the Arbaeen religious festival

The pilgrims carry black, green, red and white flags, with the black flag of mourning for Imam Hussein by far the most common. Vast numbers of them decorate permanent brick buildings and temporary tents which are used for praying, eating and sleeping along the three main routes leading to Kerbala. Once pilgrims were lucky if they got rice and bean stew – “there was nothing but muddy water to drink” recalls one early participant – but everything is now highly organised with copious supplies of food, small clinics and even dentists all working for free. The care of pilgrims is regarded as a religious duty.