TEHRAN – For many outside the region, Arbaeen is unfamiliar. It often surfaces unexpectedly while scrolling through headlines about West Asia accompanied by striking images of massive crowds walking toward Iraqi cities. 

These scenes, filled with people offering free food, water, medical aid, and places to rest, evoke a mix of amazement, curiosity, and sometimes skepticism. To some, the scale and spirit appear almost unbelievable. Yet behind this enormous mobilization lies a powerful social and political reality.

Arbaeen, which means “forty” in Arabic, marks the fortieth day after Ashura, the day Imam Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, was martyred in the Battle of Karbala over 1,400 years ago. 

The pilgrimage commemorates the return of the battle’s survivors, especially the women and children of Hussein’s family, to Karbala to mourn. Their return was both a ritual of grief and a defiant act, ensuring the truth of Karbala would not be forgotten.

Throughout history, tyrants tried to suppress this pilgrimage. During the Umayyad and Abbasid eras, pilgrims were forced to go underground, taking hidden forest routes to avoid persecution. Under Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime, the Arbaeen pilgrimage was violently suppressed, pilgrims were arrested, tortured, and killed. Yet, many continued to make the journey in secret.

Following the fall of Saddam in 2003, Arbaeen experienced a dramatic revival. From two to three million pilgrims in the early years, the numbers quickly grew. By 2013, official Iraqi figures recorded 1.3 million foreign pilgrims among the attendees. In 2014, an estimated 20 million people participated, making Arbaeen the largest annual gathering on earth, surpassing even the Hajj, which is obligatory but smaller in scale, and second only to the Hindu Kumbh Mela, held once every three years.

Unlike the Hajj, Arbaeen is entirely voluntary. Yet millions walk great distances to Karbala, with the most popular route stretching about 80 kilometers from Najaf. The journey takes about three days on foot. Along the way, volunteers provide food, shelter, and medical care, all free of charge. This generosity is a hallmark of Arbaeen and a profound display of communal solidarity.

Despite the pilgrimage’s revival and unprecedented growth, it continues to face censorship, particularly from imperialist powers and mainstream media, which often distort or ignore its significance. 

Some coverage frames Arbaeen as extremist or politically subversive, revealing an effort to undermine what has become a powerful symbol of unity, identity, and resistance for Muslims around the world.

Arbaeen is more than a religious ritual, it is a method of processing grief and injustice. Anthropologists have long observed how collective rituals transmit values, build solidarity, and resist oppression. Arbaeen exemplifies this. It speaks to the perseverance of a people who have endured repeated efforts to erase their memory, faith, and culture.

Arbaeen also carries deeply political undertones. It symbolizes defiance against global imperialism and colonialism; forces that have long stripped many Muslim nations of their sovereignty, freedom, and voice. 

The U.S. occupation of Iraq, much like the Israeli occupation of Palestine, involved not just military force but a cultural assault.

For decades, Palestinian resistance was framed in Western media as synonymous with terrorism. Similarly, the identity and dignity of the Iraqi people were attacked through dehumanizing portrayals. The deaths of over 300,000 Iraqi civilians during the U.S. war were largely ignored or justified, and the Arab Muslim identity was reduced to caricatures: violent, irrational, fanatical.

This cultural conditioning helped enable atrocities, uranium-based weapons, the torture at Abu Ghraib, illegal detentions at Guantanamo, the killing of civilians by private military contractors. 

Political leaders played their part too. Just as Israeli regime officials today refer to Gazans as “human animals,” George W. Bush cast Muslims as spiteful enemies of American values, using language that portrayed them as irrational and inherently destructive.

These narratives laid the groundwork for systemic violence, and continue to shape public opinion. In contrast, Arbaeen challenges these perceptions. Despite decades of war and underdevelopment in Muslim countries, often due to external intervention, millions cooperate to build a self-sustaining pilgrimage. The extensive network of volunteers that provide security, food, shelter, transportation and hygiene for over 20 million people, do so with no reported casualties. 

Crucially, the stereotype of Muslim societies as oppressive to women is debunked along the Arbaeen route. Women are present in large numbers, walking, volunteering, and receiving equal hospitality. Dedicated spaces ensure their comfort and safety. This contradicts the Western narrative that veiled women are excluded from public life. 

Arbaeen also dismantles racial and ethnic barriers. While racial inequality continues to plague Western societies, the pilgrimage promotes a vision of unity that overrides national, sectarian, and racial lines. 

One powerful image captures Nigerian cleric Sheikh Zakzaky leading prayers in a tent hosted by Sunni Palestinian scholars, surrounded by Muslims from across the world. 

In today’s geopolitical landscape where alliances like the Trump-Netanyahu axis seek to redraw borders and suppress Muslim identity, Arbaeen stands out as a powerful counterforce. It’s a space where the oppressed can raise their voices. It’s not only a commemoration, but also a social and political statement of collective defiance against marginalization.

Recent years have seen participation grow to an estimated 25 million pilgrims, journeying to Karbala from across Iraq and beyond. These millions chant the same slogans, pray with the same vision, and commit themselves anew to a shared cause, one that imperialist propaganda seeks to divide and erase.

Arbaeen is an expression of resilience and a bold rejection of the narratives imposed from outside. Local and regional efforts to sustain and grow Arbaeen reflect its profound strategic importance. It must be protected, not just as a religious event, but as a vital platform for resistance, solidarity, and hope.

This year, like in 2024, Gaza was a central theme. Processions carried placards, banners, and chants calling for an end to occupation and oppression while condemning the Israeli regime’s ongoing war crimes. 

In a world increasingly divided and surveilled, Arbaeen offers something rare: a public space where millions can come together, in peace, to reaffirm their values, their identity, and their determination to resist injustice.