Essay
Culture
Freedom of Belief
Islam
Middle East
8 min read

Inside one of the world's great pilgrimages

Invited to experience Arbaeen, a vicar ponders its perpetual lament.

Andrew Thompson MBE is an Anglican priest who served in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

A black clad pilgrim squats and holds his head on the side of a desert road as other pilgrims walk along.
Mhrezaa on Unsplash.
Mhrezaa on Unsplash.

A few months ago, an estimated 20 million pilgrims travelled to the city of Karbala in Iraq. Many were on foot, walking days from cities like Najaf, Basra, Baghdad and even from neighbouring countries. Imagine the population of London and Birmingham deciding to walk from their city to Leicester cathedral to pray. I am not talking thousands here; I am talking millions. Picture being a member of the cathedral staff as they manage the flow of several million people turning up at the entrance to pray, to push them in and to push them out as a never-ending stream of people continues to pour in.  This was my experience of the Arbaeen – part of a great Shi’a pilgrimage. 

The Al Khoei Foundation, an Iraqi religious charity based in London, had invited me to travel to Iraq. There I joined the pilgrims for a brief part of the Arbaeen (an Arabic word meaning fortieth) and to participate in a conference looking at the impact of Imam Hussein’s life in today’s world. I flew into Baghdad knowing very little about the Shi’a and their beliefs. 

In Iraq I saw pilgrims of all ages, genders, able and disabled all walking the same roads, at all hours of the day. I witnessed thousands of volunteers, lining the route offering free food, drinks, and a place to sleep ranging from open tents to their own homes. Hospitality is rendered as a sacred duty to complete strangers.   

I spent a couple of nights walking from midnight to 4am on the road from Najaf to Karbala.  During countless encounters with pilgrims from all over the world, one question was continually asked of me. “Why does the media in the west not report on this event?” After all it is one of, if not the biggest, annual pilgrimages in the world. There is one bigger event, a Hindu festival in India, but that only takes place every three years. When I asked my fellow sojourner what they would like me to take back from the Arbaeen, the answer was invariably the same. “Tell them what you have seen and experienced here”. 

In a sea of black clad Muslims who were displaying zeal and fervour in intense displays of physically punitive rituals, I felt safe, welcomed, and even honoured wherever I went. I was wearing my white robes as a priest which made me stand out from the crowd and often as people passed me by, they would stroke or touch my shoulder as a way of receiving baraka or a blessing from the priest. For, as I learned later, the Christians have a role in the story of Karbala, which for the Shi’a made the story complete when they see a Christian priest among them on this sacred occasion. 

The Arbaeen is an event in which millions of Shi’as relive and remember the martyrdom of Imam Hussein who was killed in a battle at Karbala. This takes place on the fortieth day after the battle was fought following the example of the women of Hussein’s family who returned after captivity in Damascus to lament the loss of their loved ones. 

This event is vital in comprehending the split between the two biggest schools of Islam, the Sunni, and the Shi’a. The conflict was triggered by the death of Prophet Muhammad and the question of who would succeed in leading the Islamic empire next. There were those who saw the vacancy needing to be filled by an elected leader who met the criteria of capability and spirituality. Others saw the vacancy as belonging to the prophet’s kin. This would start with Ali, the Prophet’s cousin who was married to Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad.  

Among those killed, were two Christians who chose to take their stand with Imam Hussein in recognition of his evident spirituality.

After Ali was assassinated as the fourth Caliph (the Caliphs were seen as the undisputed leaders of the Muslim world), Hasan his eldest son became the perceived spiritual leader of the Islamic faithful. Unfortunately, the third Caliph Uthman, had already appointed his successor Mu’awiya who established headquarters in Damascus. This became a time of empire building and Mu’awiya was quickly seduced and corrupted by the trappings of power. The stage for conflict between the Uthmanic regime and the family of the Prophet was set. Assassinations and scandalous behaviour by imperial successors led to the faithful looking to Imam Hussein to take a stand. 

Hussein responded. Against all advice, he set off to recruit an army who would take on the Uthmanic empire now led by Yazid. It did not end well. After a series of betrayals, Hussein was reduced to a band of 72 men facing an army of 30,000 troops sent by Yazid.  The massacre took place in Karbala, a dusty desert outpost south of Baghdad. The only survivors were the women, including Zaynab, the sister of Hussein and granddaughter of the Prophet. Hussein was beheaded and his body was desecrated by horses trampling his body front and back.  While his head was carried off to Damascus in triumph, the rest of Hussein’s body was buried where he was slain. 

Among those killed, were two Christians who chose to take their stand with Imam Hussein in recognition of his evident spirituality. A Christian priest demanded the honour of guarding the decapitated head of Hussein overnight in which he reports a divine light emanating through the bandages which wrapped Hussein’s head. 

In many ways I felt the Shi’a faith resembled a perpetual Good Friday lament with no resurrection waiting around the corner.

This is the story that the Shi’a recalls during the Arbaeen pilgrimage. It is a massive outpouring of grief for the martyrdom of Hussein who is seen as sacrificing his life for the sake of preserving the message of Islam. It was a way of remembering the betrayals, the injustice, the impossible odds at which Hussein refused to be intimidated. The story of Hussein provokes a blend of guilt, sorrow, admiration, and a determination of his followers to not betray him or his ideals.  This is expressed in ritual lament. The self-flagellation, the head and chest beating which so often alarms and disturbs a western audience is the Shi’a way of processing these intense emotions. The closest thing I have experienced to anything like this in my own Christian tradition is the Good Friday ritual. In many ways I felt the Shi’a faith resembled a perpetual Good Friday lament with no resurrection waiting around the corner. With no such reassuring good news in their religious narrative, I found myself admiring their resilience and faith, that there is meaning in their suffering. 

 

When was the last time my personal faith mobilized me to go on an arduous journey? 

Indeed, they have suffered. There was the brutal persecution under Saddam Hussein, the tragic and senseless Gulf war between Iran and Iraq, massacres by ISIS and Al Qaida. Thousands died. Posters of the young men who were martyred line the highway from Baghdad to Basra.  

I was taken to visit the Ayatollahs in their meeting rooms; I came face to face with the intimidating, black-turbaned men who I had seen on media, who never seemed to smile.   I came to understand this when I saw the nonstop stream of broken and hurt people who visited them, seeking their wisdom during pain and suffering. I saw a weeping mother who had lost her child to illness find comfort in the ministry of the Ayatollahs who offered her scripture and prayers. Their serious demeanors gave weight to a theology of suffering which was lived and experienced daily. 

Our dialogue with one another varied from the cut and thrust of competing understandings on the role and identity of Jesus, through to agreeing on the importance of interfaith dialogue. 

I was taken to visit the shrines of the Imams in Karbala, Najaf and Baghdad and on each occasion, I was blown away by the scale and the beauty of them.  One shrine could hold 200,000 worshippers at any one time. It was a glittering palace of polished mirror and marble. In this place, thousands of people were fed and watered, and had a place to sleep if they needed to. In terms of capacity and practical hospitality, these shrines made St Paul’s Cathedral in London look small and sterile. 

I returned to London deeply challenged by the spirituality and faith of the Shi’a.  When was the last time my personal faith mobilized me to go on an arduous journey? To walk miles in punishing heat and be utterly dependent on the kindness of strangers? Somehow, I cannot imagine it. 

Learn the story of Imam Hussein, and celebrate that in this epoch-making battle, Christians were there, taking a stand in the face of tyranny and corrupt empire. 

I was introduced to Imam Hussein, a figure who had always been on the periphery of my knowledge, but who came into sharp focus on this trip. The language used by the Shi’a to refer to Hussein evoked comparisons with the language used by Christians of Jesus. For example, Hussein was often referred to as the ‘light of the world’, a ‘gateway to heaven’ and even ‘saviour’. I recognized the faith and hope in them, mirrored in my own beliefs in Jesus Christ. 

One thing is for certain, I will always have something to talk about with the Shi’a whenever I meet them. When I tell Shi’a in London, I have been on the Arbaeen, they light up, and very quickly we connect deeply through our spiritual experiences. 

For Christians in the West, I would encourage them to talk to the Shi’a about pilgrimage, sacrifice, and faith. Learn the story of Imam Hussein, and celebrate that in this epoch-making battle, Christians were there, taking a stand in the face of tyranny and corrupt empire. 

After decades of war, terrorism and persecution, the Shi’a are finally emerging into a world of increasing stability. There was evidence of a renewed confidence in their future, as witnessed in the building of new hotels, homes and hospital renovations. They are proactively reaching out to other religious communities and exploring new alliances for a future in which they can feel safe and prosper. 

Will the current conflict in the Levant derail these ambitions?  

One abiding memory is of a young child, standing with her family in the streets of Karbala at 4am. She was handing out bottles of water to the swarming pilgrims and crying out the blessings of God as they passed by.  Indelibly imprinted in my mind was her expression of joy in serving her people. I pray that her future will be marked by peace and freedom from fear. 

The Arabeen.

An elderly couple with rucsacks walk along a dusty road on pilgrimage
Article
Culture
Economics
Ethics
1 min read

The rights and wrongs of making money with meme coins

When does investing become speculating, or even addictive gambling?
A montage shows Trump with a raised fist against other images of him and the phrase 'fight fight fight'.
$Trump coin marketing image.
gettrumpmemes.com,

Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs may have driven sharp swings in global financial markets, but his actions in markets a few months earlier were in some ways even more peculiar.

On the Friday before his inauguration as the 47th US President in January, the Republican surprised many with the launch of the $TRUMP memecoin, described by its website as “the only official Trump meme”. The cryptocurrency token, in which Trump’s family business owned a stake, initially soared in value to more than $14bn over that following weekend. 

Then, on the Sunday, Trump’s wife Melania launched her own memecoin, $MELANIA, which reached a value of $8.5bn. Even the pastor who spoke at the president’s inauguration subsequently launched his own memecoin. 

For those wondering what exactly a memecoin is, you are not alone. In short, they are a form of cryptocurrency - an asset class that itself has attracted plenty of questions about its substance and purpose - representing online viral moments. They have no fundamental value or business model and, according to the US securities regulator, “typically have limited or no use or functionality”. 

Donald and Melania Trump’s coins subsequently plunged in price, but still have a value of around $2.5bn and $214mn respectively, according to website CoinMarketCap. 

There are plenty of others in existence. PEPE, based on a comic frog, has a value of around $3.6bn; BONK, a cartoon dog, has a market cap of $1.5bn; and PNUT, a reference to a squirrel euthanised by authorities in New York and about which Trump was allegedly “fired up” (although doubt has since been cast on the president’s involvement in the matter), is still valued at around $174mn, despite having fallen sharply in price.  

Dogecoin, seen as the world’s first memecoin and originally created as a joke, boasts a market value of around $25bn. (There are other memecoins which may not be suitable for these pages). 

Some people’s willingness to buy an “asset” with no use or fundamental value may seem strange to more traditional investors. But it can be viewed as just one manifestation of the speculative investor behaviour evident since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and, indeed, at times throughout history. 

The price of Bitcoin recently rose above $100,000, despite many investors still viewing it as having little or no value (in 2023 the UK’s Treasury select committee described cryptocurrencies as having “no intrinsic value, huge price volatility and no discernible social good”). In early 2021, shares in GameStop - a loss-making US video games retailer that some hedge funds were betting against - rocketed as much as 2,400 per cent, as retail investors piled in, many with the aim of inflicting pain on the hedge fund short sellers (in that respect at least, a highly successful strategy that became the subject of the film Dumb Money). The huge rise in AI and other tech stocks in recent years - until the recent tariff-driven volatility - has also been described as a bubble by some commentators. 

Whether or not such episodes can be compared to infamous bouts of speculative mania in history depends on your point of view (and often can only be judged with the benefit of hindsight) - be it the 17th century Dutch tulip bulb mania, shares in the South Sea Company in the 18th century or the dotcom boom and bust of the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

But it does give rise to the question of when investment should start to be described as speculation or even as gambling? And what are the rights and wrongs of any of those activities? 

There can be negative effects, for instance if the actions of speculators force businesses in the real economy to change their plans or divert time and resources... 

Gambling can be thought of as risking a stake on, for instance, the result of a game of chance or sport in the hope of a bigger payout. While often the result is purely down to chance, in some cases a strategy or an element of research (for instance of a horse or football team’s form) can be used. Investment, in contrast, tends to involve purported economic utility and assets believed to have some sort of underlying value, and holds the hope of future profit (although there are also plenty of bad investments or those that have gone to zero). While an investor must be prepared to lose their entire stake, in some cases such an event is relatively unlikely (for instance, if they buy a fund tracking the performance of a major stock exchange). Speculation is harder to define, but is generally seen as shorter term than investment, with more chance of a bigger gain or loss, and dependent on price fluctuations. Rightly or wrongly, the term has a more negative connotation than investment. 

One writer who explored the ethics of these activities was Oswald von Nell-Breuning, a Jesuit theologian and economist who served as an adviser to the Pope and who was banned from publishing under the Nazis. 

While he found that “one general definition cannot capture all the nuances” of speculation, he identified two different types of speculative activity - one that was purely trying to make a profit from financial market trading, and one based on trying to create a viable business. (See this article in the Catholic Social Science Review for a fuller explanation of Nell-Breuning’s views on speculation). 

As the CSSR article shows, Nell-Breuning found that there can be positive effects from speculation - one might think of better liquidity and price discovery in a market, while, in commodity futures markets, speculators allow producers to hedge risk

But he also argued that there can be negative effects, for instance if the actions of speculators force businesses in the real economy to change their plans or divert time and resources away from production. 

And whereas gambling typically takes place within a circle of players who have chosen to take part, speculation, he wrote, can affect a greater portion of society - for instance, if it affects the price of shares or bonds they hold. 

The Bible - on which Nell-Breuning’s faith and analysis was based - does not take a prescriptive approach to such activities. But it does provide some interesting guidance.  

An entrepreneurial approach to business and investment is applauded, for instance when the writer of the book of Proverbs (traditionally believed to be King Solomon) praises the virtues of “an excellent wife”. These include investing in a field and using her earnings from business to plant a vineyard, and feeding her family from her gains. 

Jesus tells a story of a master who, before going on a journey, gives his property to his servants, each according to their ability. To one he gives five “talents” (a large unit of money), to a second two and to a third servant he gives one. 

The first servant trades with his talents and makes five more talents - a 100 per cent profit - and is applauded by the master on his return. The second servant also trades and similarly makes two more talents and is again applauded. 

But the third servant, being afraid and believing the master to be “a hard man”, hides the money in a hole in the ground. He is condemned as “wicked and slothful”, and told that he should at least have put the money in the bank. 

While Jesus’s story may primarily be about how we view God’s nature, how we use our God-given abilities and whether or not we can take risks in faith for Him, it is also hard not to see investment and indeed wise speculation as being virtuous activities here. Putting the money into a bank account is, in this story anyway, more of a fallback option. 

But the Bible also warns us against putting money above all else in our lives. The love of money is, famously, a root of all sorts of evil, while we are also told to be content with what we have, and that “wealth gained hastily will dwindle”. 

Nell-Breuning similarly warns that a “get-rich-quick” mindset, when this is placed above all else, can be harmful, and advises caution in situations where the lure of big profits can lead the speculator into market manipulation or fraud. 

After all, both gambling and crypto trading have the potential to become dangerous and damaging addictions needing treatment

Ultimately, Nell-Breuning struggled to come to a simple conclusion on the question of whether speculation, in and of itself, is morally wrong. It is, he wrote, a judgment call for those involved. 

When making such decisions ourselves, his - and the Bible’s - warnings may be worth bearing in mind.