page_title: Criticism of Twelver Shia Islam
section_title: Mourning Husayn and self-flagellation during Ashura
hierarchical_section_title: Criticism of Twelver Shia Islam / Mourning Husayn and self-flagellation during Ashura
caption_attribution_description: Shia Muslims commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali on the Day of Ashura during Sunni-Shia conflict in the early history of Islam. Muharram is the day of mourning. Shia march in the streets, self flagellating, flailing and beating themselves. The injury and blood during this festival of mourning serves as a reminder to Shia of the sacrifice and pain of Ali. Certain traditional flagellation rituals such as Talwar zani (talwar ka matam or sometimes tatbir) use a sword (shown above). Other rituals such as zanjeer zani or zanjeer matam involve the use of a zanjeer (a chain with blades). Moharram in Bahrain 2011.
context_page_description: Criticism of Twelver Shia Islam dates from the initial rift between the two primary denominations of Islam, the Sunni and the Shia. The question of succession to Muhammad, the nature of the Imamate, the status of the twelfth Shia Imam, and other areas in which Shia Islam differ from Sunni Islam have been criticized by Sunni scholars, even though there is no disagreement between the two regarding the centrality of the Quran, Muhammad, and many other doctrinal, theological and ritual matters. Shia commentators such as Musa al-Musawi and Ali Shariati have themselves, in their attempts to reform the faith, criticized practices and beliefs which have become prevalent in the Shia community.
context_section_description: Twelvers have been criticised for the practice of Tatbir (a form of self-flagellation) during Ashura, the observation of the martyrdom of Husayn, traditionally accompanied by acts of ritual self-harm, which is often described as barbaric. The practice is contested among Shi'ite clerics: while traditionalist clerics allow believers to indulge in Tatbir, modernist clerics deem it not to be permissible because it is considered as self-damage and haram in Islam. Suffering and cutting the body with knives or chains was banned by the Shi'ite marja Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran and by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Khamenei issued a fatwa on 14 June 1994 banning this practice. He considered it irreligious and not suitable for good Muslims.
  According to Salafi Sunni scholars such as Ibn Taymiyyah and Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz, the celebration of Ashura is itself a blatant and primary example of the propensity of the Shia to indulge in Bid‘ah (religious innovation). They argue that the annual mourning occasion for Husayn (or any other individual) was never instituted or practiced by Muhammad — not even for his closest family members — and hence has no validity in Islam. Likewise, Ibn Rajab in his Kitab al-Iata'if argued against Ashura: "Neither God ..., nor His Messenger ... have ordered that days on which prophets met with calamities and the day of their death be instituted as a day of mourning. How much more is this true for a person lesser than they?"
caption: Tatbir during Moharram, Bahrain, 2011
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