Essay

Culture

Freedom of Belief

Islam

Middle East

3 April 2024

8 min read

Inside one of the world's great pilgrimages

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

Andrew Thompson

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.

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.

A man holds a basket of oranges and offers one to pilgrims passing by

A woman pligrim wearing black carries a green flag over her shoulder an looks weary.

Two black clad women pligrims hold the hands of a toddler walking along the side of a road.

Pilgrims walk along a dusty road carrying colour flags with text on them on long poles

A family of pilgrims walk together along a road.

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

Explainer

Culture

Film & TV

Identity

11 July 2025

8 min read

The old stories that shaped the Superman we know today

How much messiah is there in the Man of Steel?

Giles Gough

Giles Gough is a writer and creative who hosts the God in Film podcast.

Superman's stars and director research.

Warner Bros.

This month is sure to leave cinemagoers vibrating with excitement as we see the long-awaited release of James Gunn’s Superman film, starring David Corenswet as the titular last son of Krypton and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane.

If the trailer is anything to go by, the film is going to be leaning into some of the more whimsical aspects of the character, which may well be a reaction against the darker, grittier interpretation we saw in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, Batman vs. Superman and Justice League films. Snyder was depicting a Superman with genuine pathos, one that emphasised the messiah parallels of a man with god-like abilities. Snyder may have leaned into the ‘Superman-as-God’ angle, but he didn’t invent that perspective. In fact, it’s an aspect that may well have been there from the very beginning.

So, before we watch the new film and once again believe a man can fly, let’s dive into his background and see how much messiah there is in the Man of Steel.

The first thing that we’re going to focus on is the idea of Superman as a Jewish superhero. I would love to say that I was the first person to spot this, but I am at best, the 6,289th person to spot this particular parallel. But it’s definitely not talked about enough. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were both Jewish European immigrants. Like Stan Lee at Marvel some twenty years later, they probably understood the feeling of looking the same, but being treated differently by people. Similarly, Kal-El looks just like a normal human man, but is anything but. There is a reason that the comic book industry at this time appears to have so many Jewish creatives in it, and that’s because the anti-Semitism of mid-twentieth century America created a strong barrier to getting any more prestigious jobs. You need to remember that at this point comic books and comic book creators were not considered special or valuable in any way. These days, a person would need to be exceptionally talented and phenomenally well connected to get a foot in the door at DC or Marvel. Whereas at that time, a high school education and the ability to write or draw were enough to get you a decent spot. Jewish people were not able to get jobs in advertising or publishing, and no one was really bragging about their work in comics. Comics back then were treated like they were disposable, like collecting newspapers. That’s why getting hold of a copy of something like Action Comics #1 or Detective Comics #27 (the first appearances of Superman and Batman respectively) is so rare. It would just not occur to anyone to keep a copy.

But the more we look at Superman, the more Jewish parallels we see. Let’s look at Moses, one of the most central figures in Judaism, who is also a key figure in Christianity.

Many of you will be familiar with Moses’s ‘origin story’. At the time of the story, the Hebrews are enslaved in Egypt, and the Pharaoh was controlling the population by killing every Hebrew baby boy at birth. So, the mother of one boy places her baby in a basket and hides him in the reeds along the banks of the Nile. The boy’s older sister watches over him from a distance. The basket is spotted by the daughter of the Pharaoh as she is going down to bathe. She speaks to the baby’s older sister, who cunningly offers the baby’s own mother as a wet nurse without revealing her parental connection. The Pharaoh’s daughter agrees and decides to raise him as her own son.

So what we have here is a baby being sent away by their parents from what would almost certainly be total destruction, and death. The baby is found by a prospective parent who then adopts them as their own. That baby then grows up to be the child of two worlds, at some points torn between a dual heritage, but nonetheless able to go on to achieve miraculous things. We are literally one spaceship away from Superman’s origin story.

Next, let’s consider Superman’s real name. No, not ‘Clark Kent’, I mean his real name; Kal-El. This made-up name sounds similar to some words in Hebrew. For example, the suffix El, means ‘of God’. This has led to some scholars interpreting the name Kal-El as ‘Voice of God’. ‘Clark Kent’ was said to be inspired by explorer William Clark, who along with Meriwether Lewis (‘Lois and Clark’, get it?) were the American explorers who discovered an overland route to the Pacific Ocean. Therefore as well as ‘Superman’, he has one name with significance in Hebrew, and another anglicised name that was a nod to American history. The idea that Superman has a real name and a public name is another Jewish element. At the time many Jewish people knew that they could be identified, and therefore persecuted, for their name. In Hollywood, ‘Bernard Schwartz’ became ‘Tony Curtis’, ‘Issur Danielovitch Demsky’ became ‘Kirk Douglas’. Even over at Marvel, ‘Stanley Martin Lieber’ became ‘Stan Lee’ (nice one Stan). This is a practise that continues to this day. You may not know the name ‘Natalie Herschlag’, but suffice to say she absolutely killed it as the Mighty Thor.

It is easy to read Superman as an immigrant’s desire to belong to their adopted society and make a positive contribution to it.

Some of the conscious influences for Superman came from characters like Zorro, or the Scarlet Pimpernel, and was said to be visually inspired by Douglas Fairbanks. But what is interesting is if we think about what things could have unconsciously inspired the creation of Superman. The term ‘Superman’ was used fairly commonly in the twenties and thirties to refer to men doing phenomenal feats. However, if we hearken all the way back to Friedrich Nietzsche’s first reference to the Ubermensche, this has sometimes been translated (quite poorly) into ‘Superman.’ Now, both Siegel and Shuster have denied that Nietzsche was an influence in the creation of Superman, but considering that the ubermensche was such a popular idea in 1930s Nazi Germany at the time, it’s fun to see Superman as a reaction against this. If you imagine that the strongest most powerful man alive is also Jewish, then I imagine Jewish readers might get a kick out of that.

As Christianity sprang from Judaism, there’s not always a clear delineation in terms of who is important to which religion. Since we’ve covered Moses, we need to look at another Jewish man who caused quite a stir; Jesus. It is not difficult to see the parallels between ‘the last son of Krypton’ and ‘the Son of Man’. Kal-El is sent to earth from another world by his father, to save the human race.

This parallel is particularly explicit in Russell Crowe’s incarnation of Jor-El in 2013’s Man of Steel when he says:

‘You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun, Kal. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders’.

Superman and Jesus are both raised in a humble setting (Clark is raised on a farm and Jesus is raised to be a tektōn, which is often interpreted as a ‘carpenter’ but could just as easily be ‘builder’). Neither Nazareth, nor Kansas were thought to be particularly glamorous places (sorry Kansas!) and yet, both grow up to become the saviour of the world. Superman spends time in his ‘Fortress of Solitude’ to learn from his father, Jesus spends time praying and fasting in the wilderness. Same principle, but very different aesthetic.

Jesus may have been the messiah, but he was not the kind of messiah high on first century Jewish people’s wish-list. Having been oppressed by the Romans for over 90 years at the time of Jesus’ ministry, the Jewish people were desperate for a messiah and to put it delicately, Jesus was not what most Jewish people were expecting. They expected a warrior, a champion who would throw off the oppressors of the Jewish people.

So it’s possible to consider that Siegel and Shuster are, in fact, creating the Jewish messiah. Superman uses force, his unrivalled physical strength and power, to protect people. When you consider the first Superman comic came out just before the start of the second world war, it adds real weight to this desire for a mighty protector. In fact, Superman is also compared to Samson, an Old Testament figure who is granted supernatural strength; and this is what the Jewish people were expecting from a messiah. Jesus is not this. He didn’t fight, he didn’t raise rebellions, he didn’t incite violence against the oppressors. His fight was in the form of the ultimate sacrifice. Any hero who dies to save his friends is an automatic Christ parallel right there, and Superman has died more than his fair share.

When all is said and done, it’s Superman’s unwavering morality, not his physical strength and power, that makes him most like Jesus. Superman is incredibly gentle and peaceful. He doesn’t want to dominate and he tries to avoid violence on the whole. It would take far too long to determine exactly what came from Siegel and Schuster and what has been added in the subsequent decades by other writers. But it is easy to read Superman as an immigrant’s desire to belong to their adopted society and make a positive contribution to it. Along with Batman, Spiderman and Wonder Woman, Superman transcends the comic book universe that he belongs to. He exists in the hearts and minds of every person who once loved him in any iteration, and it’s possible that his influence from the meta-narratives in Judaism and Christianity helped him to be embraced by society at large. Or it could just be the cape and the tights, who knows?

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