About 50 Shia Muslim pilgrims settle down to chant and prostrate themselves in worship near an ancient tomb. Not an unusual scene in the Middle East, but this shrine is located on the grounds of an Israeli hospital known mainly for treating the casualties of conflict in the nearby Gaza Strip. The Barzilai Medical Centre in the coastal town of Ashkelon is home to a tomb where, in the view of some Shia Muslims, the head of Hussein ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, lay interred for centuries following his death in battle.
“We pray, first of all, to respect the head of Hussein because he was martyred,” the worshippers’ leader, Sheikh Moiz Tarmal, told Reuters. “And we believe that if we pray here, God will listen to you.” The slaying of Hussein in the seventh century Battle of Karbala fuelled the split between Sunni and Shia Muslims that has recently erupted with renewed ferocity in conflicts in Iraq and Syria.
Many Shias believe all of Hussein’s body was buried near where he died at Karbala in present-day Iraq. Others hold that his head was hidden by Sunnis in Ashkelon in the 10th century before later being spirited away to its final resting place in Egypt for safety as Crusaders invaded the Holy land. Reuters