Arba'een — Rawzat

What Is Arba’een?

Arba’een (أَربَعُون — Arabic for “forty”) refers to the fortieth day after the martyrdom of Imam Husayn ibn ‘Ali (AS) at Karbala on 10 Muharram 61 AH (October 10, 680 CE). The fortieth day falls on 20 Safar each year.

The Arba’een is:

A day of continued mourning and commemoration for Imam Husayn (AS)
The day associated with the first ziyara (visit/pilgrimage) to the Imam’s grave
A day when the sabr (patience/endurance) of the mourning period reaches its particular expression of grief-after-reflection

The Historical Event: Jabir’s Visit and the Return of the Captives

Jabir ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari

Jabir ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari was among the oldest surviving Companions of the Prophet (SAW). He was one of the Ansar (the Medinan Muslims who welcomed the Prophet) — a man who had been with the Prophet from the very beginning and who carried a deep love for the Prophet’s family.

By 61 AH, Jabir was elderly and reportedly had lost his sight. Yet on the fortieth day after Karbala, he made the journey from Medina to Karbala to visit the grave of Imam Husayn (AS) — accompanied by ‘Ata’ ibn Abi Rabah (a distinguished scholar of the following generation). When they arrived at the grave, Jabir placed his hand on the earth of the grave and wept — performing the first recorded ziyara to the Imam’s grave.

Jabir’s visit is recorded across Shi’i hadith literature and marks the beginning of the tradition of visiting (ziyarat) Imam Husayn’s shrine.

The Return of the Captives

According to tradition, on the same day that Jabir arrived at Karbala, the captives of the Ahl al-Bayt — Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin (AS), Sayyida Zaynab (AS), and the women of the household — were returning from Damascus and stopped at Karbala on their way back to Medina.

The convergence at Karbala on the fortieth day — Jabir arriving to visit, the Imam’s family returning — has made the Arba’een a day of extraordinary emotional and spiritual significance: the grief of the friend who comes to mourn, and the grief of the family returning to the site of the loss.

The Significance of Forty in Islamic Tradition

The number forty (arba’een) carries deep significance throughout the Quranic and prophetic tradition:

The Prophet Muhammad’s arba’een: The Prophet received the first revelation at age forty — completing the ashudda (full human maturity) that the Quran associates with forty years (46:15).

Musa’s forty nights: Sayyidna Musa (Moses) spent forty nights on Mount Sinai receiving the divine’s revelation (7:142). The forty days of divine preparation before the delivery of the Torah.

‘Isa’s forty days in the wilderness: Sayyidna ‘Isa (Jesus) spent forty days in the desert before beginning his prophetic mission.

The forty-day mourning period: In multiple cultural and religious traditions (including Islamic tradition), forty days marks the completion of the first intense mourning period. The soul is understood to have passed through its most immediate grief; the survivors are beginning to integrate the loss.

The forty as a number of completion: In Islamic tradition, forty appears as a number of completion or full maturation: forty companions (arbain) hadith collections; the forty days of arba’een as the completion of the initial crisis period; forty years as the age of full human maturation.

The Ziyara of Arba’een

The ziyara (visit/pilgrimage) to Imam Husayn’s shrine in Karbala on Arba’een has become one of the largest annual human gatherings on earth. In recent decades, the Arba’een walk (masira) — a foot pilgrimage from Najaf to Karbala, approximately 80 km — attracts tens of millions of pilgrims each year, predominantly from Iraq and Iran but also from across the Islamic world.

The Prayer of Arba’een (Ziyarat al-Arba’een)

The tradition records a specific ziyarat (visitation prayer) to be recited at Imam Husayn’s grave on Arba’een — attributed to Safwan al-Jamal, transmitted through Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq. This ziyarat:

Addresses the Imam directly, declaring faith in his station
Affirms the injustice of what was done to him
Aligns the visitor with the Imam’s cause and against those who opposed him
Asks for the Imam’s intercession

In the Bohra Tradition

The Dawoodi Bohra community observes the Arba’een within the broader context of the Muharram-Safar mourning cycle. The majalis (gatherings) of Muharram continue into the first days of Safar in many Bohra communities, culminating on the Arba’een. In the tradition of rawzah (the reading of the events of Karbala) and marasi’ (elegies), the Arba’een marks the end of the forty-day cycle that begins with Muharram 1.

Theological Significance of Arba’een

The Martyrdom Is Not Over

Arba’een marks not merely forty days after a historical event but the ongoing reality of the Imam’s martyrdom in its consequences:

The truth of the Imam’s cause continues to need proclaiming
The injustice has not yet been answered in this world
The community’s grief is not merely historical but a living relationship with the Imam

Sabr (Patience) and Shukr (Gratitude)

The forty days from Ashura to Arba’een are understood as a period of sabr — the patient endurance of grief that does not diminish the grief but transforms it. The Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s entire post-Karbala life models this: surviving the unbearable, continuing to worship and teach, not collapsing under the weight of loss.

Arba’een is the point at which the sabr of the initial period crystallizes into something lasting: the grief becomes memory, the memory becomes commitment, the commitment becomes continuous practice.

The Community’s Bond with the Imam

The Arba’een gathering — whether one physically visits Karbala or observes the day in one’s local community — is a statement of communal identification with the Imam Husayn’s cause. The vast scale of the modern Arba’een pilgrimage represents something extraordinary in the contemporary world: millions of people voluntarily, without coercion or state pressure, expressing their love for the Imam and their solidarity with his sacrifice.

The Arba’een and the Ismaili Ta’wil

The zahir of Arba’een is the historical commemoration: the fortieth day after the Imam’s martyrdom, the first visitation to his grave, the return of the family.

The batin of Arba’een is the soul’s own forty-day journey after a rupture:

When the soul encounters the haqiqat — the inner reality that shatters its previous understanding of life — the integration of that encounter takes time. The Imam’s martyrdom is not merely an external event to be mourned but a mirror in which the sincere mu’min sees the nature of the soul’s situation in this world: surrounded by forces of ghafla (heedlessness) and oppression, the soul that is loyal to the divine is often in a position of apparent defeat.

The forty days of Arba’een are the soul’s time to integrate this recognition: to let the grief of Karbala become not a wound that disables but a fire that illuminates — the same fire that Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s tears in prostration kept burning across thirty-four years of patient imamate.

Arba'een — The Fortieth Day of Muharram and the Karbala Commemoration