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Where it's at
Shiraz in Iran is a good stopping off point for trips
into the deserts of southern Iran and the ruins at Persepolis.
It's a friendly and easygoing city with wide tree-lined avenues
and great shopping. Shiraz is famous for it's wine, textiles
and Persian rugs. It is an attractive modern city; despite
calamitous floods, pestilence, famine and earthquakes the
city has remarkably survived.
Moharram Week of Mourning
In keeping with Shiraz's troubled history, the festival of
Moharram, the Holy Week of Mourning, commiserates the
legendary leader Imam Hussain who died a thousand years ago.
This Shi'ite muslim practice involves the disciplinary and
devotional practice of beating with flagellation whips,
a purification to drive out evil spirits, a form of sadism.
Moharram remembers those who were kept starved and hungry
in the desert of Karbala.
During Ashura, the biggest day of the Moharram festival,
devotees smash themselves with chains to feel some of the
pain that the ancient leader Hussain felt when he was alive.
Flagellation whips can be purchased, in single or multiple
strands for less pain and even version for children are up
for grabs from any good market stall during the Holy Week.
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