Article September 15, 2003 Issue

An Iranian asks, 'Where is heaven?'

By Marta Greenwood

I had just turned off Notting Hill Gate and was walking down the street to attend a meeting, when I heard a familiar sound—right out of my childhood days in Iran. It was a distant beating of a drum and voices of people chanting. I couldn't believe I was hearing this—in London of all places.

I rushed to the street from which the sound was coming, to see a huge procession of people in the middle of the road, beating their chests while chanting fervently. Most of the people were Iranians, in a procession two miles long, on their way to the local mosque.

This kind of procession is a custom of Shia Muslims, who are mainly from Iran, and this was the month of Muharram and the holy day of Ashura. Ashura is a day of great historical significance for the Shia Muslims. In approximately A.D. 680 in Iraq, at a place known as Karbala on the banks of the river Euphrates, Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, was martyred. Religious Muslims believe that he and his brother Imam Hasan are "leaders of the youth of Paradise." Shia Muslims commemorate the sacrifice of Imam Hussein annually.