ON Aug 1, 1990, when much of Iraq was observing Ashura, the 10th of Muharram, to mark the martyrdom of Imam Husain in Karbala in 680 AD, Saddam Hussein was massing his troops along the border with Kuwait. On Aug 2, Iraq invaded the tiny emirate over a festering oil resource-sharing dispute. Saddam believed he had the approval of April Glaspie, the US ambassador in Baghdad. She had met him a week before the invasion. Controversy arose from reports that she told Hussein the US had “no opinion” on Arab-Arab conflicts, interpreted as a ‘green light’ to invade. She later defended her actions, claiming the transcript was misleading and she had warned against violence. In other words, Glaspie gave Saddam Hussein a go-ahead for conflict but without violence. Figure that out.
That year, a journalist friend requested some footage of the Muharram procession in my ancestral qasbah of Mustafabad about 100 kilometres from Lucknow. It so happened that Ashura in 1990 coincided in India with the Aug 2 invasion of Kuwait, the variation in date caused by a near routine difference of opinion among the clergy in the sighting of the new moon. I remember the date because the tension in the Middle East was a major discussion for radio addicts in Mustafabad. I took a friendly cameraman to film the Ashura procession replete with the tazias, zuljinah, horse depicting Imam Husain’s loyal and wounded steed, and a very high standard, the alam, held by a muscular adult and controlled by three others with the help of ropes. The cameraman found a perch on a balcony from where elite womenfolk usually got a clear view of the maatam. The practice involved copious bloodletting with self-flagellation. A sharp knife or qama was handed to willing adults to lacerate their scalps with turn by turn.
The cameraman was a genial Nair Hindu from Kerala. He was steeped in his work for a few short minutes. Then suddenly there was commotion in the balcony. The camera on the tripod was working, but the man was nowhere in sight. It turned out he had fainted, and some of the women were fanning him hard. I first thought it was the blazing sun and the humidity of August, which may have caused him to faint. But he had passed out, he told me later, after taking close-ups of the gushing blood that was mixed with rosewater by the procession’s monitors. The rosewater water is considered a healing agent.
Tatbir or ritual self-flagellation with blades has been officially banned in Iran since the mid-1990s by state authorities. While some Shias in India and Pakistan still practise this form of maatam, it is not common in Iran.
Perhaps Iran can still be wrecked as Donald Trump has threatened to do, but it’s difficult to see how.
Ayatollah Khomeini frowned on the qama zani or striking the head with swords and knives. His successor Ali Khamenei banned it, citing the harm it causes to the body and the negative image created by the practice. Mourning in Iran in memory of Imam Husain and his family focuses on emotional lamentation and seena zani or beating of the chest. The cameraman’s fear was writ large.
Iran’s detractors including Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu would do well to understand this aspect of the faith. It’s practised in Iran by teeming followers of the revolution. Over the years and particularly in the early days of the revolution, Iran successfully endured major assaults from groups within the country largely due to its religious cohesion. The faux Marxist Mujahideen-i-Khalq (MEK) militants staged devastating attacks in the heart of Tehran without significantly denting the government’s hold on its supporters. They blew up prime minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar’s office killing him and president Mohammad Ali Rajai and several eminent members of the regime.
The closest MEK came to targeting the highest echelon of the revolution was their being linked to the assassination of Ayatollah Mohammed Beheshti, Khomeini’s charismatic confidante and potential successor. They then exploded a bomb that crippled the current Supreme Leader’s right hand. All this was happening when Iran was fighting a bitter war with the US-backed army of Saddam Hussein over eight years. What threat can work against a culture that celebrates grief, annually, perpetually? Recent violence against the clerical regime spurred on by the US and Israel also leaned on the MEK, the communists turned CIA’s catspaw. Israel’s nearly successful attempt to decapitate Iran saw the country take the hit and bounce back to turn the tables on Israel. Perhaps the country can still be wrecked as Donald Trump has threatened to do, but it’s difficult to see how.
What Trump may benefit from knowing a little more laterally is the frequently doubted but steadily articulated Iranian doctrine against producing a nuclear weapon. There is indeed a conversation going on in the country about the merits of having or shunning nuclear weapons, but who are the interlocutors in case they are talking to each other, which they are probably not? The silent tiff has terrifying implications for the region, not least for Israel. A fatwa by Ayatollah Khamenei is cited as the basis for Iran forsaking nuclear weapons. In a religiously conservative country, who could challenge the Supreme Leader’s authority? One group does; the Hojjatiyeh, a traditionalist, largely conservative Shia lay organisation in Iran, founded in the 1950s by cleric Mahmoud Halabi.
Formed to target Bahais, the Hojjatiyeh believe in creating circumstances for the early return of Imam Mahdi. “Bia Bia Mahdi Bia, Ya Waaris-i-Khana-i-Khuda.” The chant implicitly beckons the early end of the world. Khomeini was wary of the group and got some vocal leaders arrested. A change of guard in Iran, something that Saddam Hussein attempted unsuccessfully, would only strengthen those that see themselves as destined for paradise as soon as a nuclear exchange is enabled. Which is neither good for the world nor the cameraman.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
jawednaqvi@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2026
