Mourning of Muharram - Origin and Reason For Mourning

Origin and Reason For Mourning

Zaynab binte Ali sister of Imam Husain after Karbala vowed that as long as the people do not recognise the actual cause of Karbala, the followers of Hussain will continue to protest on the streets and in the dwellings as to what happened in Karbala. She organized first majlis (mourning-assembly) while still in Damascus in honour of Imam Husain.

Though besides Sunnis several Shias do not know that it's a protest and invitation to people to come and listen to mourners as to what happened in Karbala. It is believed by some non-Shias that Hussain's journey to Karbala was to claim his Imamat over the people of Kufa who had written letters inviting him to Kufa whereas per Shia's belief Husain knew he was to be killed there. He undertook this journey to deny his approval or Bait to Yazid becoming caliph because he considered Yazid to be a danger to the Muslim Ummah and a threat to Islam. His sacrifice and revolution were to preserve Islam and his Grandfather's Ummah against the innovation, hypocrisy, wickedness as well as the attempts to destroy and alter Islam and the quest for worldly pleasures and worldly gains by Yazid and his people. It was a matter of right and wrong, just and unjust and Hussain chose what is just, despite the consequences.