Every year, millions of Shia Muslims and some people of other faiths from around the world take part in a special pilgrimage ritual, culminating in one of the world’s largest public gathering.

Usually on foot, for about 20 days, the pilgrims trek hundreds of kilometres from cities around Iraq and Iran to the holy city of Karbala where they commemorate the martyrs in the battle of Imam Hussein (AS).

Imam Hussein (AS), the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (AS) and son of Imam Ali (AS), was martyred in 680 AD on the plains of Karbala in a battle against the forces of Yazid.

To mark the 40th day of mourning for Imam Hussein (AS) – the traditional mourning period – the pilgrims arrive in Karbala to pay tribute at his shrine, which is surrounded by millions on the final day of Arbaeen.

Along the route, volunteers set up stations to provide the pilgrims with food, water and shelter while people from the villages along the way keep their doors open to anyone who needs a place to stop.

Many pilgrims opt to walk 80km (50 miles) from the nearby city of Najaf, where Imam Ali, Hussein’s father, is buried, to Karbala.

To get more familiar with the event and the philosophy of the Karbala battle of Imam Hussein (AS), we reached out to Charles Taliaferro an emeritus professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Faithful Research, and a member

of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of twenty books. He has been a visiting scholar or guest lecturer at a large number of universities, including Brown, Cambridge, Notre Dame, Oxford, Princeton, and the University of Chicago. Since 2013 Taliaferro is editor-in-chief of the journal Open Theology.

Following is the full text of the interview:

Millions of people from different religions including Christians take part in this ceremony which basically belongs to Shia. What is the special thing about this ceremony letting it attract millions of people from other religions? 

The sacrifice of Hussein stands out to millions as an example of heroic courage that inspires people of many faiths. Great champions of resistance to injustice, like the Christian Nelson Mandela and the Hindu Mahatma Gandhi, have been inspired by his amazing bravery at the Battle of Karbala.

Don’t you think that today’s human beings need a spiritual and divine revolution in order to meet their needs in this modern world that is tired of many isms? Can Arbaeen ceremony facilitate reaching such a revolution?

In my view, the world population is far more religious than secular commentators realize. The PEW foundation recently studied 230 countries, and found 80% of the population had religious affiliation. Secular atheism is rarely over 20% of the population in any country except China, South Korea and Vietnam. If you expand inquiry beyond religious institutions and ask people if they pray, you will measure the spirituality of a culture much higher. My own prayer is that the example of Hussein will inspire more people to seek out a religious life.

From the political point of view, how effective has this ceremony been in creating cooperation and unity among the people of the region and world to fight ugly phenomena like ISIL? 

The more this event is celebrated, the more one can defeat Islamophobia. The worldwide population of Muslims and Christians is about 4 billion people. There are about 1 billion Hindus. Hossein has the admiration of many Muslims, Christians, and Hindus. That is a massive number of persons committed to fighting injustice.