“Tawirij”; The largest mourning group in the world/ the peak of affection for Imam Hussein (AS)
Mehr News Agency – International Group: Today, Wednesday (July 27), coincides with the tenth day of Muharram and Ashura in Iraq. Millions of Husseini mourners mourn on the day of Ashura and the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (a.s.) and his Ahl al-Bayt and his companions (peace be upon him) in Karbala, and it is one of the mourning rituals of the Iraqi people in Haruleh Tuweerij on the day of Ashura.
Toweerij group is the longest group of Hosseini mourners. Every year, this group organizes the biggest Hossein mourning ceremony in the world on the day of Ashura.
On the day of Ashura, after the noon and evening prayers, Hosseini mourners from Qantara al-Salam area, located twenty kilometers east of Karbala-Maali, and from the direction of Towirij city, move towards Karbala. They come and reach between the two holy places.
Mourners regularly beat their heads and chests along the way and celebrate this ceremony with enthusiasm.
This ceremony is often carried out in a chorus, and the mourners on the 20 km route from the small town of Towerej (the area known as Al-Handiya) to Karbala chant the slogans of “Vahsina, Labik, or Hussain and Wa”. “Weil Ali al-Abbas”.
The root of the ceremony known as “Rakzah Tuwayrij” goes back to the year 61 AH. When the news of the incident of Karbala reached the people of Al-Hindiya (Tuweerij) late, they ran towards Karbala to help Seyyed al-Shahda (AS), but they did not arrive in time.
Since then, the mourners of this region run the route between their place of residence and Karbala every year with a sadness that is 14 centuries deep.
The people of Taweerij continued this form of mourning in the following years and eventually joined them in running from all the cities of Iraq to Karbala until, based on the announcement, According to Iraqi sources, in recent years, the number of people present at this event has reached one million people.
Iraqi sources describe this mourning procession as the largest mourning procession for Aba Abdullah al-Hussein in the whole world. Another important point is that this mourning was banned by Saddam’s Baathist regime in 1991 after the Shabaniyah intifada in Iraq, but the people of this region, insisting on holding it, once again sent mourning processions to the streets, which were met with severe repression by Saddam’s military.
In that year, many mourners were arrested and many others were martyred. Finally, after the fall of the Baathist criminal regime in 2003, this ceremony was resumed with the same enthusiasm as usual.
