Ashoura

Part of a walkway collapsed as tens of thousands of people celebrated Ashoura on Sept. 10, causing a stampede and killing at least 31 pilgrims on one of the most sacred religious holy days for the Shiite sect, officials said.

The growing Islamic community of Greece marked the festival of Ashura on Saturday to commemorate the killing of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein. Tears, prayer, and self-flagellation were the order of the day in an international festival that had Shiite muslims self-harming as part of a controversial practice known as Ashura.

Several thousand Iranians gathered outside the former US embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4 to mark its storming by students 35 years ago, burning the American flag.
      
In what has become an annual spectacle, demonstrators chanted "Death to America" and "Death to Israel, Death to Britain."       

A suicide bombing at a Shiite ceremony killed at least 15 people in northeastern Nigeria on Nov. 3 while 132 inmates were at large after a daring prison break.
      
The attack in Potiskum, the commercial capital of Yobe state, came as Shia Muslims marked Ashura, the anniversary of the death of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.
      

Iraq stepped up security amid fears of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launching major attacks as thousands of Shiites flocked Monday to the shrine city of Karbala for an annual pilgrimage.
      

A car bomb blast targeting Shiites in Baghdad ahead of the major Ashura religious commemorations killed at least 13 people on Nov. 2, security and medical officials said.
      
The blast struck near a tent from which they were distributing tea and water in the Al-Ilam area in southwest Baghdad, also wounding at least 29 people, the sources said.
      

The head of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has sent a letter to the Alevi community for the holy month of Muharram, as well as Ashura and Karbala, saying all Muslims should unit under common values in order to avoid new Karbalas, regardless of sectarian differences.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is planning to take new steps embrace Turkey’s Alevi citizens, with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu also announcing that he will visit Hacıbektaş in the upcoming days within the holy month of Muharrem.

The holy month of Ramadan is an age-old tradition that brings fasting by the day and celebrations by the night, the faithful keep their bellies empty while the sun sets ablaze, following the Prophet’s plight Once again, it’s the month of Ramadan, a month filled with centuries-old traditions and especially that of fasting during daylight hours and breaking one’s fast, feasting if yo