To be a strong man is not enough

In 2010, Ashura (‘Āšūrā’) was on 16^th December.  Ashura, of course, commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Hosayn at the Battle of Karbala on 10 Muharram 61 AH (2^nd October 680).   To show respect to that important date in the Shi’a religious calendar, and also to present some ancient and more modern objects; here is a posting about alams (religious banners) and nakls (wooden structures acting as a symbolic representation of the funeral bier for Hosayn’s body).

Alams and nakls are both an important part of modern-day Ashura ceremonies.  Part of a modern alam is illustrated here – and a ‘dressed’ version is shown being carried in this video: this is my ONE MINUTE RECOMMENDATION.  As the ‘100 objects’ Radio 4 broadcast about one of the Safavid alams now in the British Museum explains; the modern-day alam-bearer has to be strong enough to carry an unwieldy banner – 100kg, perhaps even the width of the street, and in a crowd of people.  Since Imam Hosayn’s martyrdom can be regarded as “the model for self sacrifice in the way of God, a revolt against wrong-doing”; the alam bearer has to not only be strong – he must also be a respected member of the community.

Nakls are especially common on the edge of the great Iranian central desert, and the nakl shown here is indeed from there. The largest nakl in Iran is from Yazd: it’s 8 by 8 by 8m – some photos of it are shown here. Note that the Dehabad nakl here has some archaic military objects (helmets) on it – this is less common now than mirrors and representations of green cypress trees.  Nakls also need strong, respected bearers.

Several European visitors to Safavid Persia wrote about the ceremonies they witnessed: Gouvea, in 1602, saw near-continuous and very noisy day-time marches and night-time meetings (click here and here for short videos of the modern equivalents); while Figueroa (in 1618) describes the sacrifice of a camel, and interminable sermons – which he was (to his great surprise) invited to attend, in the main Shiraz mosque.  Neither of them reports seeing anything quite like alams or nakls – though both of them saw men apparently buried up to their necks, as a penance, for the whole ten days.