Festival...
Last Wednesday we were invited to a festival by our Muslim friends. We've hung out with them before during other festivals, but this one was like nothing I've ever seen. In fact, "festival" would not be the way I'd describe it, because it was a very dark and mournful event.
Mohorram is a time where Muslims mourn the death of Husain, the grandson of Muhammad. Everyone wore black that night, and all the women had their heads covered. The men began marching in a large group, chanting and hitting their chests with their fists. After about half an hour of this, the now large group that was gathered there moved and encircled about 15-20 men. These men took of their shirts and began beating themselves with chains and blades. They chanted Husain's name, and my friend told me they were doing this to remember his suffering and death, which happend about 1400 years ago.
Because it was fairly graphic, I'm not going to put up a lot of pictures, but you can kind of get an idea of what was going on from these. It wasn't an easy experience, but I'm glad we got a deeper glimpse into culture here...