Shiit Pilgrims from Syria and abroad who have placed in the Sayyide Zeinab sanctuary from the outside Damascus Every year to board Ashoura, a festival day marked by the martyrdom of the prophet of Muhammad prophets from the 7th century. Century.
In the days leading to Ashour, the street would be lined with black and red banners and funeral tents. On the day of commemoration, he was black and coilted, and he would address the streets, while in collecting the hall, the Huseiniyas, religious would listen and cried because clerics recounted death I have Hussein And his 72 companions in the battle for carbal in today’s Iraq.
The protection of the shrines dedicated to Sayyidi Zeinab, grandson proprika Muhammad and Sister Husseist, from the sun of extremists became a rally for Shiite fighters during the 14-year-old civil war in Syria. It often indicated an excuse for militants intervention from Iran, Lebanon and Iraq in the Syrian conflict in support of the former president Bashar Assad.
This year after Assad’s interruption in the ribbon fevers offensive to the head of Sunites Islamist rebels, they subdemes subtles subtles neighborhoods in Damascus. Hotels who used to be full of religious tourists were empty. There was no transparent or process.
The faithful continued to observe his rituals within the shrine and prayer halls, but quietly and strict security measures.
Violence takes its toll
Syrian shittets have already felt they were in an unsafe position after Assad’s interruption. Their fears have increased after the suicide in the church outside the Damascus last month, killing 25 people and wounded dozens of more. Government officials blame the attack on the cell of the Islamic state group and said that they rebel the plans of the same cell to attack Sayyida Zeinab.
In the Damascus’ Zain Al Abded, the prosecutors entered the collectors with the leased halls after passing through the search and screening with metal detectors.
Qassem Soleiman, the head of the body who coordinates between the Shiite community and the new government agreed with the state to lead their rituals of Ashours, but would “reduce anyone to hurt anyone and not to hurt themselves and would not be any problems.”
The attack on the church Mar Elias in Dweil “put us in a state of great fear and anxiety,” he said. “So, we tried as much as possible to make our commemoration and rites and the Ashoura Ceremonies in the hall.”
Jafar Mashhadiyia, a participant in one of the collecting halls, echoed with a similar fers.
“The security situation is still not stable – there are not many preventive measures taken in the streets,” he said. “Groups trying to implement terrorist attacks have negative views on Shiites, so there is a fear of security incidents.”
Caring affects the economy
The absence of pilgrims coming from abroad was an economic goal in the area.
“No visitors,” said the hotel owner in the Sayyide Zeinab area near the shrine, who asked him to identify him only his nickname, Abu Mohammad, for security concerns. During the leader to Ashoura, “the hotels should be 100% full,” he said. “Iraqis usually fill that area.” But they didn’t come this year.
His economic distress areas are the Assad’s fall. In months before the offensive rebel in Syria, the low-level conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite Group of Hezbollah escalated in the full war in Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands ran away from Lebanon across the border to Syria to avoid bombing, with many of them staying in hotels in Sayyidi Zeinab at reduced rates, Abu Mohammad said.
Keep the checkpoint in Sayyidi Zeinab, which gave only his nickname, Abu Omar, in accordance with the regulations, said that he did not see security issues in the area from the fall of Assad.
“There are attempts in Skjacki and Sectarism to corrupt people who were with the former regime and want to play on a series of sitarism and destroy the country and create questions between us,” he said, describing them as “individual efforts.
Abu Omar pointed to a group of local men sitting in chairs on the sidewalk near the smoking of the Nargil.
“If they don’t feel safe here next to us, next to the security checkpoint, they wouldn’t come and sit here.”
Soleiman said he hopes that the next year of foreign pilgrims will return to Shiiti openly mentioned by Ashoura, with Syrians from other groups who saw in the past as they saw rituals in the past.
“We hope that the next year, things will return to how before, and it is a call to the state and the general security agency and all political figures,” he said. “We are one of the components in building this country.”
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