Arba'in

But I want to be clear that the five pillars aren't an official framework for, like, all Muslims.

For example, Shia Muslims practice the Arbaeen, a pilgrimage that typically has almost ten times more participants than the Hajj.

Millions make this nearly 20-day pilgrimage to the city of Karbala in Iraq every year.

In much of Western history, Islam has often been essentialized and monolithicized, if that makes sense.

The blood was the seed.

Today 20 million people make the pilgrimage to Karbala for Arba'in, more than the Hajj to Mecca.

It is the single largest annual pilgrimage concentrated in one location on the face of this earth.

The man who lost in 680 CE is more powerful today than the armies that killed him.

But let's not, let's not split hairs right now.

Um, but essentially a lot of the Shia, uh, so for example, um, the Arba'een was banned.

Uh, uh, Ashura rituals were banned.

Ta'bien was banned.

There's a disconnect between the political class and that understanding, that pride in what Iran does.

is achieving, right? I mean, I saw, and Ehsan will have to correct me on the details, but I just saw a post on Telegram before I came on that a family in Iran had forgiven two murderers because it's the start of Arbaeen.

And this is And I think a lot of people in the West don't understand the honor, the dignity, the morality and the humanity that drives Iranian ideology through the war.

So in other words, even if Iran is talking about an eye for an eye, et cetera, and the IRGC has said, if you hit X, Y, Z, we will hit X, Y, Z.

How do you change a regime by martyring their supreme leader in a nation that is built on the concept of martyrdom? When Hussein was killed by the forces of Yazid at Karbala, he enshrined the concept of martyrdom.

When people there celebrate Ashura and they march in Arbaeen.

If you don't know what Ashura and Arbaeen is, then shut up.

You don't know what you're talking about.

This is the kind of ignorance that exists.