Word: shi'a
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...Shi'ite mourning is not simply a time to react with sadness. Particularly in times of conflict, it is also an opportunity for renewal. The commemorations for Neda and the others killed this weekend are still to come. And the 40th-day events are usually the largest and most important...
...Neda is already being hailed as a martyr, a second important concept in Shi'ism. With the reported deaths of 19 people on June 20, martyrdom provides a potent force that could further deepen public anger at Iran's regime. (See the top 10 players in Iran's power struggle...
...belief in martyrdom is central to modern politics as well as Shi'ite tradition dating back centuries in Iran. It, too, helped propel the 1979 revolution. It sustained Iran during the eight-year war with Iraq, when more than 120,000 Iranians died in the bloodiest modern Middle East conflict. Most major Iranian cities have a martyrs' museum or a martyrs' cemetery...
...first Shi'ite martyr was Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson. He believed it was better to die fighting injustice than to live with injustice under what he believed was illegitimate rule...
...Fourteen centuries later, Hussein's tomb in Karbala is one of the two holiest Shi'ite shrines - millions of Iranians make pilgrimages there every year. Just as Christians re-enact Jesus' procession bearing the cross past the 14 stops to Calvary before his crucifixion, so, too, do Shi'ites every year re-enact Hussein's martyrdom in an Islamic passion play during the holy period of Ashura...