RNA - In a meeting with a group of Iraqi preachers, eulogists and servants of the holy shrine of Imam Hussain (AS), Ayatollah Mohammad Saeed Hakim, a source of emulation based in the holy city of Najaf said: preachers, poets and eulogists of Imam Hussain (AS) should try their best to propagate the message of Ashura instead of thinking about profiteering.
He added that those who seek to preserve religious rites should seek to preserve the Ashura culture and point out this to each other, because this great movement has saved Shi'a Islam.
The source of emulation called for avoidance of extremism in conducting of Ashura rites, saying: "Hussaini Majlis should only be devoted to Sayyid al-Shohada. Other issues should be dealt with in their own specific time and place.”
Ayatollah Hakim, at the end, appreciated all Shiites of the world with different ethnicities and nationalities, for preserving Muharram rituals.
Muslims worldwide hold mourning rituals during the month of Muharram on the lunar calendar in remembrance of the sufferings imposed on Imam Hossein (PBUH), his family and his companions, by the tyrant of the time, Yazid I, an Umayyad caliph, in early Islamic history.
The events peak on the 10th day, traditionally known as Ashura — 40 days prior to Arba’een — when the Imam and 72 of his companions were martyred at the hands of the despot’s forces, to whom they had refused to pledge allegiance.
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