Processions became an annual tradition in Zanzibar and Tanga, a port city in northeast Tanzania. He requested from the British colonial government that the 10th day of Muharram, called Ashoura, be a public holiday. Haji Ali Nathoo was the longtime president of the Khoja Shiite community in Zanzibar, an Indian Ocean archipelago off the coast of Tanzania. Khojas have been marching in Ashoura processions for the past century in what is today the United Republic of Tanzania. Now headquartered in a large complex in the environs of Arusha, a city in northern Tanzania, ABC developed into a prominent African-led Shiite network. With the support of Gulf Shiites, the nongovernmental organization expanded its influence. One Shiite organization in Tanzania, Ahl al-Bayt Centre, or ABC, was established in 1986. Many perceived Shiite jurisprudence to provide clearer answers to the religious questions they had long been asking. Ultimately, those attracted by Shiite Islam were convinced by its genealogical authority, since it follows the guidance of the family of the prophet. Reasons for changing one’s religious affiliation were many. A 2012 Pew Research Center report put the percentage of Sunnis in Tanzania at 40% of Muslims and Shiites at 20%. Some African Sunnis even became Shiites after extensive personal study that compared the primary texts of the various schools of Islamic thought. Yet some Sunni Muslims around the world began to inquire about Shiite Islam, the faith’s minority branch, in part because of how they saw Khomeini and his Islamic state depicted in Western media. Muslims of all denominations were inspired by this first successful Islamic revolution since the time of the prophet. This cataclysmic event, known as the Iranian revolution, led to a political resurgence for Muslims globally, including in Africa. In 1979, the Iranian government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, was overthrown and replaced by an Islamic state headed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that rejected Western influence. Shiite Islam was slow to develop in East Africa.
Initially, Shiite Islam was associated with Asian Muslims, whereas African Muslims were predominantly Sunni. Gregor Aisch via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY Since the 1979 Iranian revolution, Shiites have adapted the commemoration to connect Islamic history with the present and to highlight the need for social justice for Muslim populations today. Scholars have long been fascinated by the variety of cultural performances evoking intense emotions that occur during Muharram. Hussein was killed in 680 on the 10th day of the Islamic month of Muharram, a day known as Ashoura. But Hussein and his army were outnumbered and suffered a brutal defeat during the Battle of Karbala. The inhabitants of Kufa, a garrison town in Iraq, were among those who defied the Umayyads and invited Hussein to lead them in revolt. For Shiites, Hussein was their third Imam, a beloved spiritual and political leader.Īfter many years of war, the Umayyad dynasty, which lasted from 661 to 750, established its rule over the Middle East and North Africa.
This became the source of the Sunni-Shiite divide. 632, a dispute developed over who would be his rightful successor. 17.įollowing the death of the prophet in A.D. This procession from Najaf to Karbala, where Hussein is buried, commemorates the 40th day after his martyrdom, a typical length of mourning in Muslim traditions. Before the pandemic, this event reportedly drew more than 30 million people, but in recent years participation declined to more than 14 million. Each year, the largest contemporary Muslim pilgrimage takes place in Iraq to remember Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson.
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