When an event shapes a practice

This lesson asks you to explain how particular incidents connect to the rituals a tradition keeps. The museum offers one Islamic example, a fast; your class adds the examples of change over time and examples from the other traditions. ¹

For the example, find the incident the source names, and the practice it is linked to. Note whether the practice is new, or an older one that the incident gave a new meaning.

The Kuwaiti encyclopaedia of jurisprudence records that Ashura is the tenth of Muharram, tasu'a the ninth, and that fasting both is recommended ². It gives a report in which the Prophet ﷺ, arriving in Medina, found the Jews fasting Ashura: "a righteous day on which God saved the Children of Israel from their enemy, so Musa fasted it." He said "I am worthier of Musa than you," fasted it and ordered it fasted. Told that Jews and Christians venerate it, he said "next year, God willing, we shall fast the ninth", but the next year did not come before he died ^{2 3}. The encyclopaedia adds that scholars give reasons for recommending the ninth: differing from the Jews, joining a fast to the tenth, and precaution for the tenth itself ^{2 3}.

The record of Ashura gives accounts labelled by tradition. The Sunni account comes first: Bukhari reports from Ibn Abbas that the Prophet found the Jews of Medina fasting Ashura because God rescued the Israelites on it and Moses fasted it, and that he fasted it ⁴; Muslim adds that Quraysh fasted it in the Jahiliyya and that after Ramadan was prescribed the Prophet left its fast optional ⁵. The academic account follows: historians note Ashura was observed before Islam, and that after 61 AH the Karbala mourning layer was added, producing the day's dual character today. The Twelver Shia account is last: Ibn Kathir records under the events of 61 AH the killing of Husayn ibn Ali (may God be pleased with him) at Karbala on Ashura ⁶, and the record says the Shia made it their greatest season of mourning with gatherings, visitations and rituals. The museum judges none of these.

There are three kinds of source: a jurists' encyclopaedia that records rulings and reports, the Kuwaiti encyclopaedia of jurisprudence; two hadith collections, Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim; and a history, Ibn Kathir's al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, from which the events of 61 AH come ⁶. The record sets out the Sunni account at length and the fast as those who keep it describe it. It gives the Shia observance in a single sentence that names gatherings, visitations and rituals and does not describe them. The museum has not yet added a source that describes those rites in the words of those who keep them, so this page is incomplete at that point.

One day carries a fast in one account and mourning in another. Of the three kinds of source in the record, a jurists' encyclopaedia, hadith collections and a history, which would you use to learn what the day means to those who keep it, and what would still be missing, and why?

• Ashura: the ruling on the fast in the Kuwaiti encyclopaedia, and the three accounts the record labels.
• Fasting in Ramadan: the fast whose prescription, in Muslim's report, left the fast of Ashura optional.

Read Ashura. Draw an arrow from the incident the source names to the practice it is linked to, and write on the arrow what the Kuwaiti encyclopaedia says was remembered.