Ashura: Men Stabbing Themselves, Women Crying, and Everyone Asking "Is This Normal?"
So, you’re scrolling through your feed, minding your own business, when you see a video of a guy absolutely going to town on his own forehead with a machete. Not in a “I just lost my job and found my wife with the mailman” way, but in a “this is my religious obligation” way. Welcome to Ashura, the one day on the Islamic calendar where the line between “deeply spiritual” and “that’s enough internet for today” gets blurred into a bloody, weeping smear.
For the uninitiated, Ashura is the tenth day of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic lunar calendar. For Shia Muslims, it’s the ultimate downer anniversary: the day in 680 AD when Hussein ibn Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, got his entire crew massacred in the desert by the Umayyad caliph’s army at Karbala, modern-day Iraq. Think of it as the world’s oldest, most tragic “my boss screwed me over” story, but the boss was a caliph, and the severance package was a beheading.
And how do the faithful commemorate this? By throwing the biggest pity party in human history. We’re talking processions that make Mardi Gras look like a corporate retreat. Men, stripped to the waist, rhythmically whipping their backs with chains attached to blades. Others, like the guy in your feed, slashing their scalps with swords until the blood runs down their faces like a bad horror movie prop. Women, dressed in black, wailing and beating their chests in a synchronized grief that would make a funeral director jealous. It’s loud, it’s messy, and it’s got “HR violation” written all over it.
Now, before you grab your popcorn and start typing “bruh, what is wrong with these people?” in the comments, let’s get one thing straight: I’m not here to be a cultural diplomat. I’m here to tell you that this tradition is a goldmine of “AITA” material, and the verdict is… complicated.
First, the elephant in the room (or the blood-soaked camel, if you will): the self-flagellation. Medically speaking, this is a disaster. You’ve got open wounds, rusty blades, and thousands of people in close quarters. That’s not a religious ritual; that’s a public health crisis waiting for a grant from the CDC. We’ve seen the videos—dudes passing out from blood loss, infections turning into sepsis, and the occasional “oops, I hit an artery” moment that turns a spiritual ceremony into an ER visit. Is this really the best way to honor a guy who died for justice? By giving your local hospital’s trauma unit a busy day?
Let’s be real: if I showed up to my boss and said, “Hey, I’m taking a day off to slice my own back open to mourn a 7th-century relative of my prophet,” I’d be in a psych ward, not a procession. But context is king, and in some corners of the world, this is as normal as a Christmas ham. The Shia leadership has actually been trying to pump the brakes on the bloodier stuff for years. Ayatollahs in Iran and Iraq have issued fatwas saying, “Hey, maybe don’t stab yourselves? Donating blood is fine, though.” But try telling a tradition that’s been going for over a thousand years to chill out. It’s like asking your grandpa to stop telling that one racist joke at Thanksgiving.
And then there’s the vibe check. The whole thing is a masterclass in emotional manipulation. You’ve got speakers telling the story of Karbala in the most gut-wrenching detail—the children dying of thirst, the women being dragged into captivity, the head on a spear. And the crowd? They’re sobbing. Not just a little tear or two. We’re talking full-on, ugly-cry, snot-everywhere sobbing. It’s like a Taylor Swift breakup album, but with more blood and less glitter.
Here’s where the Reddit brain kicks in: Is this performative grief? Or is it genuine? Because let’s be honest, if you’re crying about something that happened 1,300 years ago every single year, you might need a therapist, not a sword. But then again, Americans cry about a football team losing a game they weren’t even playing in, so who are we to judge? At least their grief is about a guy who died for a cause, not about a fumbled pass in the fourth quarter.
The irony is that the entire point of Ashura, according to the scholars, is to remind people of the struggle against tyranny. Hussein stood up against a corrupt ruler, and he got murdered for it. It’s a lesson in moral courage. But somewhere along the way, the lesson got buried under a pile of self-inflicted wounds and collective hysteria. It’s like if Martin Luther King Jr. Day was celebrated by everyone getting a paper cut and screaming about the Birmingham jail. The message is lost in the mess.
And let’s not forget the Sunni side of things. For Sunnis, Ashura is a much tamer affair—they fast, they pray, they might eat a special meal. It’s like comparing a frat party to a book club. The Sunnis are over here like, “We remember the day Moses split the Red Sea, so we’re gonna fast.” And the Shias are like, “We remember the day our guy got his head chopped off, so we’re gonna bleed.” Both are valid, but only one is going to get you flagged on TikTok.
Now, the internet’s take on this is predictably chaotic. You’ve got the “all religions are stupid” crowd using it as evidence that faith is just a fancy word for brain damage. You’ve got the apologetics trying to explain the “symbolic” meaning behind the bloodletting, often while conveniently ignoring the literal blood
Final Thoughts
Having covered conflicts across the Middle East for decades, what strikes me most about Ashura is how a 7th-century tragedy continues to serve as a living political and spiritual mirror. It is simultaneously a profound act of collective grief and a potent, often volatile, tool for modern protest—a reminder that when faith and political oppression intertwine, the martyrdom narrative becomes the sharpest sword. In the end, Ashura isn't just about mourning the past; it is an annual test of how each generation chooses to wield that grief in the present.