Every year Shia Muslims commemorate the loss of Hussein, a grandson and would-be heir to the Prophet Muhammad who was murdered in 680AD. They mark both his martyrdom on Ashura, the tenth day of the Muslim month of Muharram, and the end of the traditional mourning period 40 days later.

Modern tragedy has intruded on these rites with dismal regularity in recent times, as Sunni extremists have repeatedly targeted Shia pilgrims. This Ashura, which fell on December 5th, bombs killed some 30 Shias in Iraq and 55 more at a crowded Shia shrine in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. Bombers struck again in Iraq on January 10th, killing 19 Shias. Five days later an attack on a Shia procession in the Pakistani province of Punjab killed 21, and another huge bomb in the Iraqi port city of Basra killed 53.

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