The ritual of Ashura is a major religious commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
In the city of Nabatiyeh (South Lebanon) thousands of Shia Muslims celebrate the last day of Ashura by marching and carrying out a ritual of self-flagellation to show mourning for the death of Imam Hussein. I have visited this celebration in different occasions. Usually the first impression from an outside view of the ritual is related to the idea of violence. But the activity of self flagellation is taken by the mourners as a way to empathize with Imam Hussein, the most venerated Imam for the Shia Muslims. He died in the battle of Karbala, which marks the beginning of the division between the two main Muslim groups, Sunni and Shia. In this commemoration many people who do not take part of the ritual of blood just go to the streets to see the march of the mourners and the theatrical representation of the battle of Karbala in the centre of the city.
I try to show in this work the mixture between tradition, modernity and religion.
All the pictures are from October 2015 in Nabatiyeh (south Lebanon)
Alfonso Moral
