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Arba’een / Arbaeen

Arbaeen (or Chehelu in Asia) is a day of commemoration & pilgrimage to the shrine of Hussein at Karbala. Arbaeen marks the end of the 40-day mourning period after the anniversary of the death of the Prophet Muhammed's grandson. The congregation exceeds the number of pilgrims to Mecca for annual Hajj (by a factor of five, in fact), and it is more significant than Hindu Kumbh Mela, since the latter is only held every third year.

Hundreds of thousands of people make the pilgrimage to Karbala, marking the Shi'ite holy day of Arbain. The term means 40 in Arabic, and celebrates the end of a 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammad and a central figure of Shi'ite Islam, who died in the Battle of Karbala in the year 680. The imam and 72 followers died at the hands of fellow Muslims who sought to prevent the imam from becoming caliph, or Muslim leader. The caliphate became the foundation of Sunni Muslim rule, and the killing of Hussein was the start of the Sunni-Shiite split.

Karbala is the home of the imam's tomb and has been a site of pilgrimage since his death. The annual pilgrimage draws Shi'ite Muslims from all over Iraq, as well as from communities in neighboring countries.

After the fall of the Baathist regime in 2003, hundreds of thousands of celebrants [some reported two million Shi‘a] walked from al-Najaf and other cities, towns and villages to Karbala to mark the fortieth anniversary (ziyarat al-arbaeen) of Ashura, resuming a custom that was seldom permitted under the former regime.

In 2007 Iraqi army and police forces worked together to provide security for the more than 6 million pilgrims traveling to Karbala to observe the Shiite ritual of Arbaeen. Anti-Iraqi forces targeted the pilgrims, and they were successful in a number of cases, most notably with a car bomb that killed more than 100 pilgrims on March 6. Insurgents killed more than 150 pilgrims. In 2008, Iraqi forces planned and executed a highly effective operation to secure nearly 9 million pilgrims celebrating the religious holiday of Arbaeen.

Thousands of Shia Muslims walked through falling snow and freezing cold in Dearborn on 14 January 2012. Waving religious flags and chanting "We are with you, oh Hussain," the crowd commemorated the 7th Century killing in battle of Imam Hussain, the grandson of Islam's prophet. The 2-mile procession started at the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn and ended at Hemlock Park, where speakers delivered messages in support of Hussain. They also called for peace in the Middle East. Dearborn Police estimated about 2,500 attended the parade.

In 2014 Iraqi officials announced that the number of pilgrims attending the mourning rituals of Arba’een reached 17.5 million in Karbala. The number of Arba’een pilgrims reportedly hit 20 million in 2013. In 2015 some 1.2 million Iranians entered Iraq on foot to attend the annual mourning rite. The Iranian officials have estimated that 2.5 million Iranian pilgrims would travel to Iraq for Arbaeen Day.

The pilgrims show their commitment to the Shia imam by walking tens of miles barefoot. Pictures coming out of Iraq show mourners clad in black, walking toward Karbala, which lies 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital, Baghdad.

Ayatollah Alamolhoda in Mashad called the Arbaeen pilgrimage an encounter between two interpretations of Islam, the American Islam (a term first used by Ayatollah Khomeini), which is Islam stripped of its revolutionary characteristics, and “Husseini” Islam, an Islam which is orientated towards reform and revival of the faith. Alamolhoda called the event “a sign of the power of Islam and Shia.”