festivals: The Islamic World 439 day that brought local people together Although the type of festive activities performed on this holiday differed from one region to another, medieval Islamic communities celebrated this festival as a way to continue a religious tradition that was first celebrated by Muhammad and his companions in 624 in the town of Medina in Saudi Arabia, where Muhammad had traveled to create the first Muslim community According to the Koran, God required Abraham to sacrifice his son as a sign of his submission to God who existed beyond the world When God offered a ram in place of the child as a sacrifice, Abraham was able to recognize the divinely ordained trial as a sign of God and to reaffirm his faith through the act of animal sacrifice as an expression of human ability to submit to God’s will This Koranic story has served as one of the most important sacred narratives to remind Muslims to celebrate an ideal act of devotion to God in recognizing his total authority and control over life During the four days of Id ul-Adha, which means “sacrificial festival” and begins on the 10th day of the month of Dhul-Hijja of the lunar calendar, communal festivities center on the ritual of animal sacrifice and the festive consumption of the animal’s meat, which is believed to embody bliss From the Umayyad to Abbasid rule and continuing into the Ilkhanid (1256–1353) and Timurid (1370–1506) periods, the provincial rulers organized feasts in various provinces that involved the slaughter of two types of domestic animals, mainly goats and sheep But in the most festive display of the ceremonies in major urban places, such as Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Empire, camels were used as a sacrificial animal The sacrifice and consumption of camel was important mostly because of the belief that the animal embodied a sacred spirit, which Muhammad first recognized when he followed a camel to choose a spot for the first Muslim mosque in a village outside the town of Medina in 622 Although the most important Muslim festivities were built around certain ritual obligations, such as fasting or sacrifice, the Mawlid, or birthday and death day of Muhammad (occurring on the same day, June 8), is celebrated with great care and importance The day marks an occasion when the faithful can express their devotion to the messenger of God Under the Umayyads, when the Islamic empire was ruled under the nondescendents of Muhammad, the Mawlid was secondary to other holidays, such as Id ul-Fitr or Id ul-Adha Under Abbasid rule, however, the festivities gained greater importance as Abbasid caliphs (leaders), who originally claimed family linkage to Muhammad, used the celebrations to legitimatize their political power The term mawlid also applies to other festivities organized for the birthday of local saints and Sufi mystics who were revered by many Muslims, Christians, and Jews in North Africa, particularly Morocco, and parts of the Middle East, especially Lebanon and Syria These celebrations usually took place at the tomb of the saint, which many of the saint’s devotees visited as an act of pilgrimage The first day of the month of Muharram is the beginning of the Islamic lunar calendar For this occasion some Sunni Muslims, especially in Morocco, mark the day by organizing a special feast, performing music, and visiting the local cemetery to honor the dead Shiite Muslims, however, recognize the first 10 days of the month as a period of mourning for the martyrdom of the grandson of Muhammad, Husayn (ca 629–80), by the caliph Yazid I (r 680–83) at the battle of Karbala in central Iraq During the first 10 days of Muharram, Shiite mourners perform a number of lamentation rituals, including poetic recitation, chest beating, and self-lamentation, which symbolically display the devotees’ allegiance to the martyred grandson of Muhammad On the 10th day of Muharram, known as Ashura, Shiite devotees congregate to exhibit the most passionate and bloody ceremonies of Islamic festivals, commemorating the beheading of Husayn by Yazid’s army through various sorrowful rituals The early Shiite Muharram performers displayed these mourning ceremonies as a way to distinguish themselves from the majority Sunni communities However, under the Sunni rule of al-Qaidr (991–1031) Muharram rituals were also organized by Sunnis to rival the Shiite ceremonies In the 12th century, when Shiism and the cults of saints continued to spread in the Mesopotamia and the Plateau of Iran, Muharram festivals were observed by many Sunnis, performed even in the zealot Sunni city of Hamadan in western Iran The rituals became increasingly violent with the rise of the Sufi brotherhood movements in the Islamic world from the 13th to the 14th centuries In his famous journals, the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta (1304–68 or 69) describes a Sufi brotherhood in Anatolia that celebrated the Muharram ceremonies through acts of self-mutilation by knife and sword These violent ceremonies were meant to signify a state of trance, which was said to enable the ritual participants to have access to a supernatural world through passionate lamentation for the martyred saint These forms of lamentation ceremonies also took place on the 40th day after Ashura, known as Arbain, when Shiites marked another grand occasion to mourn the martyrdom of Husayn The most significant feature of Arbain festivals is the pilgrimage ceremony to the burial place of Husayn in Karbala, a tradition that came into practice under the Umayyad rule in the late seventh century Both the Muharram and Arbain festivals became hugely popular in Iran in the 16th century when the Safavids (1501–1732) declared Shia the official religion of the state