A number of Shiite communities in South Asia lately kept away from celebrating Eid as they mourned the loss of life of Iran’s very best chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. From Nigeria to Kashmir – way past the Gulf area – the assassination has stirred deep considerations amongst Shiite Muslims.
Shiite Islam is the legit, and majority, faith of Iran. Shiite minorities in different international locations generally tend to view Iranian leaders as protectors and feature every so often risked private protection to protest the conflict.
Because the violence expands round Tehran, Shiites don’t seem to be handiest grieving the loss of life in their leaders but additionally worry the lack of holy towns and shrines that anchor their collective reminiscence.
Lots of the towns focused within the conflict nowadays are house to these kinds of shrines, together with Qom, Isfahan and Mashhad. In Isfahan, the Seventeenth-century Jame Abbasi Mosque, sometimes called Shah Mosque, sustained injury right through one of the vital airstrikes. After the ayatollah’s loss of life, Shiites amassed at Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad to mourn his loss. In a sign known by means of all Shiites, Iran raised the black flag on the shrine’s dome to mark the group’s shared grief.
Qom, situated about 80 miles south of Tehran, has attracted a lot media consideration as a result of the large-scale army assaults in opposition to it. Quite a lot of social media platforms are appearing destroyed constructions and plumes of smoke filling the skyline.
After Khamenei’s loss of life, town used to be focused for the reason that Meeting of Mavens amassed there to elect his successor. Israel attacked Qom’s Shokouhiyeh Commercial Zone, recognized for its drone manufacturing firms.
That’s as a result of in Shiite Islam, grief isn’t just private however collective. As a student of medieval Islam and Shiite piety, I’ve observed how this grief is expressed via rituals, pilgrimage and devotion to saints.
Redemptive struggling
Shared sorrow is a key a part of Iran’s Twelver Shiite id, which venerates the Prophet Muhammad’s circle of relatives via daughter Fatima and cousin and son-in-law, Ali.
Fatima and Ali’s lineage is known as the Imamate, with every person imam known as a sinless non secular chief. Each and every imam is liable for offering steerage because the “proof of God” on earth.
Ali’s management and the imams’ management wasn’t known by means of all Muslims, then again. A few of Muhammad’s partners and early leaders of the Umayyad dynasty, which dominated from 661-750 C.E., rejected their authority and punished their fans.
Consistent with Shiite custom, in 680 C.E. supporters of Ali’s circle of relatives dwelling in Kufa – in modern day Iraq – appealed to Husayn, the prophet’s grandson, for help. That they had refused to pledge their allegiance to the Umayyad Caliph Yazid as a result of they seen him as illegitimate and oppressive.
Husayn amassed a small staff of family and friends, together with better halves, youngsters and siblings, and headed to Kufa. Their celebration used to be intercepted outdoor town, at the plains of Karbala, by means of Yazid’s forces led by means of Umar ibn Sa’d.
Bring to an end from water and hugely outnumbered, Husayn’s camp suffered for 10 days within the wilderness, and the Kufans by no means rallied to their protection. Determined from thirst, Husayn rode out of the camp along with his toddler son to enchantment for water, however an enemy archer shot an arrow during the kid’s neck.
Custom says that at the tenth of Muharram, Husayn and his partners met Yazid’s army at the battlefield and had been massacred. Lots of the males had been beheaded and ladies captured; Umar ibn Sa’d marched the spiked heads and shackled girls via more than a few cities at the as far back as Caliph Yazid in Damascus to discourage additional protest.
Husayn’s Kufan supporters stated their failure to assist the imam and pledged to publicly atone. In 685 C.E. about 4,000 penitents revolted in opposition to Umayyads in Syria; the bulk died.
Shiites international nonetheless commemorate Husayn’s loss of life at Karbala as a sacrifice for the group’s collective redemption.
Shiites body their very own struggling – from going through injustice to martyrdom – as symbolically collaborating in Husayn’s sacrifice. Public ceremonies come with “taziyeh” performs carried out right through Muharram that recreate Husayn’s martyrdom and the general public recitation of poetry devoted to his circle of relatives.
A sacred panorama
The usa and Israel affiliate holy websites equivalent to Qom with underground bunkers, uranium vegetation and army headquarters. However for Shiites they’re facilities of pilgrimage, the place the trustworthy search reference to God, the imams and their sacred historical past.
Qom has universities and surprising sacred structure that date again to the Safavids, a dynasty that dominated Iran from 1501 via 1736. Its seminary is the major clerical establishment on the earth, coaching scholars from Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan in a variety of subjects, together with Shiite jurisprudence, Quranic interpretation and Arabic literature. Ladies additionally attend the seminary however with segregated study rooms and a few route restrictions.
Iranians mourn the loss of life of Khamenei in a U.S. assault right through an illustration on the Hazrat Masumeh shrine within the town of Qom, Iran, on March 1, 2026.
Stringer/Anadolu by the use of Getty Pictures
Qom’s number one sacred web page, the shrine of Fatima bint Musa, who died in 816 C.E., is without doubt one of the maximum essential sacred websites for Shii Muslims international and draws tens of millions of pilgrims every 12 months.
Popularly referred to as Fatima Masuma, she is the daughter of 7th imam Musa al-Kazim and sister to the 8th imam, Ali al-Rida.
Iranian Shiites – referred to as Twelvers – consider there are 12 imams within the Prophet Muhammad’s circle of relatives lineage with exalted non secular standing, and that the twelfth imam by no means died however went into “hiding.” Shiites know the twelfth imam as al-Mahdi, or the messiah: they consider he’s going to go back on the international’s finish occasions to revive God’s justice and peace.
Consistent with Fatima’s hagiographies, or in style sacred tales, she remained single and faithful herself to scholarship. She’s referred to as a faithful transmitter of hadith – sayings from the prophet and his circle of relatives – and he or she studied the Quran and jurisprudence. She’s particularly respected in Shiite Islam as a result of her kinship with the imams.
The shrine of Fatima Masumeh in Qom, Iran.
Mansoreh Motamedi/Second by the use of Getty pictures
Custom notes that once Fatima’s father, Musa al-Kazim, used to be not able to fulfill guests with non secular questions, he directed them to seek the advice of his daughter.
All over her lifetime, the Abbasid dynasty rose to energy in Baghdad and briefly sought to curtail the imamate’s recognition as a result of many Muslims seen Ali’s circle of relatives as the one official rulers.
Saintly intercession
Simply at the outskirts of Qom is a village known as Jamkaran, house to some other essential pilgrimage web page. Consistent with custom, the twelfth imam, or Imam al-Mahdi, gave the impression to a devotee within the tenth century and asked a shrine be built.
From 1995 to 2005 the Iranian govt a great deal expanded the mosque advanced and town infrastructure to give a boost to the tens of millions of pilgrims who consult with once a year.
Shiites consider al-Mahdi is mysteriously provide on the web page and listens to their considerations. In a well-liked ritual of prayer and piety, guests write private requests on bits of paper and drop them down the “Well of Requests.”
Shiites proportion political ache and injustice no longer handiest with every different but additionally with the imams, certain in collective grief and prayers for redemption. Those traditions assist give an explanation for the robust reactions observed throughout Shiite communities following assaults on sacred websites and the killing of Grand Ayatollah Khamenei.
