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Millions of Muslims across the world mark Arba’een, the 40th day after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (AS), the third Shia Imam and the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).
Each year, pilgrims from different countries travel on foot to get to Imam Hussein’s holy shrine, in the Iraqi city of Karbala, to commemorate the event, which falls on Sunday this year.
The Arba’een march is one of the largest annual religious congregations in the world, where the participants pay tribute to Imam Hussein (AS), who is the all-time icon of fighting injustice, oppression, and despotism.
The third Shia Imam and his 72 companions were martyred in the Battle of Karbala in southern Iraq in 680 AD while resisting the much larger army of the despot Umayyad ruler of the time, Yazid.
People in the Iranian capital of Tehran, under the banner of “Those left behind from Arba’een,” take part in a symbolic march to the holy shrine of Shah Abdol-Azim Hasani in the southern town of Rey.
Some of the participants at Tehran’s march wore the keffiyeh and carried Palestinian flags in a show of support for the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, who have been enduring a genocidal Israeli war since October 2023.
In an X post on Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani said, “The great lesson of Arba’een is to move on the path of truth, support the oppressed, and practically disavow of the Yazidis of today’s world, whose killing machine has martyred more than 40,000 innocent Palestinian citizens, mostly women and children, in Gaza for about eleven months.”
“The blood of the oppressed Palestinians will win over the Yazidis’ sword of oppression, God willing,” he added.
