The politics of Ashura in Nabatieh
Ana Maria Luca/Now Lebanon/October 28/15
Each year, the southern town attracts hundreds of Shiites who mark the commemoration of the Battle of Karbala when Imam Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, was killed by the forces of the second Umayyad caliph Yazid I at Karbala, Iraq. Blood flows in Nabatieh during the procession that takes place in the central square of the town. Men, teenagers and even little boys and a few women make a pledge to perform the bloodletting ritual, making an incision with a sword into their foreheads and letting the blood flow on their faces in a sign of mourning. In order to keep the blood flowing, they hit the incision with the flat of the sword, chanting Haidar! Haidar! (Lion! Lion!), the nickname of Imam Ali, Hussein’s father, the son-in-law and cousin of Prophet Muhammad. In religious terms, this is the Tatbir — in slang: “to hit Haidar.” Members of the procession are often rushed from the central square in ambulances.
The 10th day of Muharram was a Saturday this year, but not as many people crowded the alleyways of central Nabatieh as in past years. Security was tight.
Among scores of policemen and Red Cross volunteers, security officers wearing utility vests and black t-shirts with the green Amal Movement logo also supervise everything. The entrances are separate for men and women. The women’s entrance is in a tent, where four women search all the female believers and tourists and carefully go through their purses. Foreign women are also briefly interrogated by the guards covered in abayas. They ask who they are, why they are there and who their friends in town are. If you don’t know anybody, you don’t get in.
Nabatieh is the only place in Lebanon and one of the few places in the world where people still practice the Tatbir. In the southern suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah organizes a grandiose and clean commemoration with Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah showing up in person to deliver his speech. In Nabatieh, the Party of God does not sanction the controversial Tatbirand insteadorganizes a procession the 13th day of Muharram, the third day after Ashura.
The reason for this is, residents and political analysts say, that Amal Movement and Hezbollah, although political allies, have always had a convention of not mixing their crowds for the religious celebrations. The convention is about tradition and religion but also political struggle to keep a strong grip over the most important Shiite-majority town in the southern region of Lebanon.
The controversy of hitting Haidar in Nabatieh
The first Hussainiya [congregation hall for Shiite Muslim commemoration ceremonies during the Remembrance of Muharram] in the Levant was built in Nabatieh in 1910 by the grandfather of current imam of Nabatieh, Sheikh Abdul Hussein al-Sadiq. At the time, Lebanese Shiites weren’t very permissive concerning Ottoman rule.
“My great-grandparents used to commemorate it in secret, at home,” a resident of Nabatieh told NOW, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Also there was a commemoration in the Hay al-Serail Mosque, but it was also all very much in secret.”. There was no bloodletting ritual in Nabatieh until Iranian doctor Bahij Mirza moved to the town. His house still stands in the city today. Miza moved to Nabatieh just after the ruling Iranian Pahlavi family convinced the Ottomans to allow public Ashura ceremonies in Farsi for the Iranian residents of the town. “The Arabs only watched, never participated,” the resident said. “But they started taking part in the procession after the WWI and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Gradually, the Iranian influence decreased, Arabic took the place of Farsi. I’m not sure exactly what year that happened — it was a gradual transition.”
The Tatbir is one of the most controversial practices in Shiite Islam. According to residents, Nabatieh Imam of Sheikh Abdel Hussein Sadik cannot be convinced to give up the ritual because he says it is not a sin to shed blood for one day a year to commemorate Imam Hussein. The sheikh enjoys great popularity in Nabatieh. Politically he is closer to Amal circles that he is to Hezbollah. Moreover, he holds an old grudge against the Party of God. Ashura was held in the town’s Hussainiya and it is forbidden to hold it elsewhere. But Hezbollah set up a tent in front of the Hussainiya and only took it down in 2005. Sheikh Sadiq wasn’t pleased. To this day, the Hussainiya of Nabatiyeh is the only place where no image of Sayyed Nasrallah or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei can be found.
A split town
The bloodletting ritual in Nabatieh is still associated with the Amal Movement. That is because the party was there before Hezbollah and even before the Iranian Revolution and Ayattollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s decision to forbid theTatbir. When the Amal Movement was founded as the Movement of the Dispossessed in 1974 by Moussa al-Sadr, it emerged as the only group to represent the Shite community in Lebanon.
“In the ‘70s, there was nothing political about Ashura,” Ali, Nabatieh resident, told NOW. “Amal did not go against the already existing popular beliefs. In part, this is because the Sadiq family, the imams of Nabatieh and Imam Moussa al-Sadr are of the Arab Hawza of Najaf, and do not follow the Iranian Qom doctrine that forbids the bloody practices. Therefore, they were pretty much in agreement.”
But Imam Al-Sadr disappeared, the Lebanese Civil War turned the Amal Movement into a militia, and Islamist Hezbollah emerged. Hezbollah supporters participated in Ashura, but it was obvious that they did not share the same enthusiasm for the Tatbir. Following Ayatollah Khamenei’s decision, Hezbollah forbade its members to perform the ritual and had its people donate blood instead.
“The Amal militiamen turned Ashura into a festival of blood, where they assert their courage and manhood by self-flagellation. Hezbollah was always against any kind of bloodletting. It was obvious that they would never mix as far as these religious practices were concerned,” Ali explained. “I don’t think that Amal and Hezbollah were ever united in celebrating the day of Ashura. Joint marches are rare, to say the least.”
A tale of many commemorations
On Ashura the Nabatiyeh central market closes and the road to Marjayoun is closed up to the Hussainiya. If you look around carefully, you notice how different the groups attending the Ashura ceremonies in Nabatieh are, the woman resident told NOW. The people of Nabatieh, who are not keen on showing their affiliation with any school of thought, march first. The followers of Najaf doctrine, nicknamed ‘Iraqis’ in town, come second. Then there are the Shirazis — the followers of Mohammad al-Shirazi’s teachings. Then the Amal Movement supporters show up. The last group is Hezbollah’s.
“Hezbollah’s women always wear black abayas, while the men have beards and wear black shirts closed at the neck. They flash banners with Ayatollah Khomeini’s sayings, carry pictures of the martyrs and, of course, Hassan Nasrallah and other political leaders,” the resident said. “The Amal groups are much less organized: young men are sometimes topless, women don’t wearabayas and sometimes not even the veil, but they’re dressed in black. Let’s just say that the Ashura march reflects exactly the situation in the party they represent,” she says, smiling.
The agreement
Historically, the massacre of Karbala happened on the 10th day of Muharram. The legend says that the heads of the slaughtered Imam Hussein and his companions were taken to Damascus to Yazid bin Muawiya, the second Umayyad caliph Sayyida Zaynab followed the convoy and recovered the heads from the Umayyad soldiers on the 13th day. This is the day Hezbollah holds a separate march in Nabatieh, the result of an agreement it reached with Amal Movement in 2002.
“The two parties remained at odds well after the war they fought against each other in the 1980s; there was always friction during Ashura, even after they stopped fighting in 1990,” the woman said. “Once, in 2002, they provoked each other. They started throwing stones at each other and the incident remained in the history of Nabatieh as ‘the stone intifada.’ They then agreed to separate the marches: Amal March on the 11th or 12th day of Muharram, and Hezbollah on the 13th day.”
According to journalist and political commentator Qassem Qassir, neither Amal nor Hezbollah leaders want to overlap with the Ashura processions — they simply want to avoid friction. “But it seems that the Amal Movement wants score more points over Hezbollah,” Qassir says, “so they decided to hold processions on the 10th, the 11th and 12th day, while Hezbollah only holds the march on the 13th day. I believe that, despite the political alliance, there is a competition for power in Nabatieh. This is a show of force between Amal and Hezbollah. It turned out that despite the strong political presence of Hezbollah, Amal enjoys some popularity in the south and the party wants to maintain it, so they express it through the marking of Ashura in the most assertive way possible.”
Amin Nasr and Myra Abdallah contributed with translation.
Ana Maria Luca tweets @aml1609
