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Our Pilgrims
The pilgrims featured in the Karbala - City of Martyrs special,
on Channel 4 on April 12, 2004.
Find out more about them below.
Hussein Mehdi and his wife Hoda live in Leeds. Hussein works
as a manager in the family food processing business. Originally from Iraq, both
have lost relatives. They're keen to find out the fate of relatives imprisoned
by the Ba'athist regime. Hoda's family also lost a family home which was requisitioned
and used as an interrogation centre. Neither Hussein nor Hoda has been to Iraq
since they were children.
Nadeem Abbas and his father Kazim worship at the Shi'a mosque
in Tooting, South London. Each year they parade a white horse known as the Zulzinar,
which symbolises the horse ridden by Imam Husayn the day he was killed at Karbala.
The horse then took the news of his death to Husayn's family. It was Kazim who
revived this Pakistani tradition at the Tooting mosque. This year Nadeem and Kazim
are trying to arrange horse in Karbala. They will dress the horse in white blood
stained sheets and parade it through the streets of Karbala to evoke the pain
and loss of Husayn's family on the day of Ashura. Kazim visited Karbala under
the restrictions of the Saddam era but it is Nadeem's first journey to the holy
city.
Zainab Sumar, is a devout 19 year old Pharmacy student in Birmingham.
She and her sister Fatima believe Ashura in Karbala this year will be like making
history. She will tell us what the experience means to her as she makes her first
visit to pray at the Shrine of Husayn. The cameras will follow her as she and
her sister soak up the atmosphere of Karbala, the street actors, the crowds, and
the Ashura parade.
Mehdi Amersy has been to Karbala before and will compare his
last visit under the Saddam regime to the current freedom which will allow him
to perform matam with chains (zinjeer) on Ashura. The scars on his back from his
use of the chains testify to his devotion to Husayn. He has travelled with a group
of 110 men from Karachi, Pakistan so that they can do zinjeer together, openly
and publicly in the streets of Karbala.
Abd al-Hakeem is a white American convert who is training to
become a Shi'a cleric. We trace his spiritual journey and see him preaching at
a mosque in Dearborn, Michigan, to the mainly Arab-American audience. He discusses
the unpredictable security situation in Iraq with his anxious parents at home
in Rhode Island - will it be safe for an American to be in Karbala?
In Iraq
Abu Zainab is a wealthy businessman who runs a clothing wholesale trade business in Baghdad.
He and a group of friends have bought a house in Karbala where they will provide free food for the pilgrims.
On the 9th day of Muharram they stay awake for the night, in memory of Bibi Zainab, the sister of Husayn, as
she stayed awake waiting for her brother.
Sheikh Sallah is an English speaking cleric in Baghdad who was arrested and tortured by agents
of Saddam. He was jailed three times during the Saddam period. He prays that Muharrum this year will be a time
of peace and a new beginning for Shi'a in their life with Imam Husayn.
Go back to the Karbala - City of Martyrs page.
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