Whip it, whip it good...

Now, I feel like I should explain the much more sombre nature of my extended four day weekend. Perhaps I feel some guilt for attempting to guiltlessly revel in my time off.

Where I work is fairly deep into the city, where the streets are narrow and markets infringe on both sides. Traffic is quite bad, on the best of days. But this weekend is the religious holiday of muharram, and the religious processions make traffic impassable.

Muharram is the first month of the Islamic calendar and a time of celebration of the wonderous feats of Allah for most muslims. However, for the Shi'a branch of muslims, it starts a forty day period of mourning. The tenth day, being the holiday that kept me from work this weekend, is a remembrance of the martyrdom of the grandson of the Prophet Muhammed (may the peace of Allah be upon him). The Shi'ites all get together and perform ritual recitations and prayers and the like. Now, this is a little bit strange, because the mourning period for Islam, as I understand it, is three days. But this ritual mourning has been going on for nigh on 1400 years. Now, where this gets even stranger, is that the men all get together after sunset and inflict wounds on themselves (self-flagellation, if you will, and not the type that makes you go blind). They walk across burning coals and use daggers and whips with spikes on them (picture all those scenes in The Passion that you had to look away from), to lash themselves into a frenzy. There is blood everywhere, and apparently it's a pretty appalling spectacle.

So, of course I had to see it. Just as with the mass sacrifice of goats on Eid, I was morbidly fascinated to see it just the once. But I couldn't find anyone to take me. No dice. (and no slice for that matter). Apparently, it's just as disgusting to most people here as it is to me.

I don't even pretend to understand it, and to tell you the truth, from my perspective, and with all due respect, it seems pretty insane. I guess the idea is that just as the Prophet and his grandson suffered, so should they suffer... I dunno. I'm sure I'll get some emails explaining it all to me. As far as I'm concerned, they can whip themselves until the cows come home... I'll stay home an enjoy my long weekend.