In Lebanon, the celebration of Ashura reduced to a ceremony broadcast on the networks

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4 min

This Sunday, Shia Muslims commemorate Ashura. A day of religious mourning which recalls the death of Imam Hussein (grandson of the prophet Mahommet) during the battle of Kerbala in the 7th century. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, celebrations are reduced in several countries where Shia communities live. This is the case in Lebanon.

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With our special envoys in Beirut, Nicolas Falez and Nicolas Benita

The black Ashura flags fly over Khanda el Ghamik, a Shiite neighborhood near central Beirut. Khalil, in his fifties, wears a shirt, also black. Each year Achoura is a mourning.

Khalil recounts the usual processions and rituals of self-flagellation and slapping on the chest by which Shia worshipers remember the violent death of Imam Hussein. But there will be nothing like it this year in the streets of Khanda el Ghamik.

“  We all cried when we knew the celebrations would not take place,  ” says Khalil. Due to Covid, no procession this year, no gathering at the mosque, but a religious ceremony which will be broadcast live on social networks.

It is the highest Shiite religious authorities in Lebanon and their political representatives Hezbollah and Amal who issued these instructions. In these times of pandemic, it is also impossible to make a pilgrimage to the holy Shiite city of Kerbala in Iraq.

► See also: Coronavirus: Lebanon re-confined until September 7, after the upsurge in cases

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• Coronavirus
• Lebanon
• Religion
• Islam

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