Also on this day, Nuh disembarked from the Ark, God forgave Adam, and Joseph was released from prison, among various other auspicious events having occurred on Ashura according to Sunni tradition.

[2] Alternatively, there are traditions in canonical Sunni collections that describe fasting on Ashura as a pre-Islamic practice among the Quraysh tribe, in which Muhammad also partook while he was in Mecca.

[2] Some early Sunni traditions, many classified as unreliable,[10] possibly invented by the Umayyads (r. 661–750),[11] link Ashura to various auspicious events: On this day, Moses parted the Red Sea,[9][10] Noah disembarked from the Ark,[10] God forgave Adam, Joseph was released from prison, Jesus, Abraham, and Adam were born, Muhammad was conceived,[2] and Jonah was freed from the fish that had swallowed him.

[2] While not endorsed by all Sunni scholars,[2][13] Ashura is further viewed as a day of thanksgiving (shukr) to God, a joyous occasion, celebrated through pious acts and acceptable expressions of delight.

[14] Ashura is thus an important festival for many Sunnis, in contrast to the Shia, who mourn on this day the slaughter of Muhammad's grandson, Husayn ibn Ali, and his small retinue in the Battle of Karbala in 680.

[15][2] In line with the former view, under the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (r. 685–705), Ashura was celebrated as a festive public holiday to counter the commemoration of Husayn.

[17] Another instance is the reenactment by a Sunni mob of the Battle of the Camel (656) against Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first Shia imam, in the Buyid-era Baghdad on Ashura 973.

[18][19] Whatever the case is for their origins, such festivities were firmly established by the time of the Sunni jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), to whom a questioner wrote, observing that people are joyful on Ashura; they bathe, adorn themselves, shake hands with each other, and cook grains.

[20] Husayn was killed, alongside most of his male relatives and his small retinue, on 10 Muharram 61 AH (10 October 680) in the Battle of Karbala against the army of the Umayyad caliph Yazid ibn Mu'awiya (r. 680–683), having been surrounded for some days and deprived of the drinking water of the nearby Euphrates river.

The battle followed failed negotiations and Husayn's refusal to pledge his allegiance to Yazid, who is often portrayed by Muslim historians as impious and immoral.

[31] For instance, a tradition attributed to the Shia imam Ali al-Rida (d. 818) describes Ashura as a day of grieving and somber resignation from material affairs.

[34][35] In Shia Islam, Karbala symbolizes the eternal struggle between good and evil,[36][37] the pinnacle of self-sacrifice,[38] and the ultimate sabotage of Muhammad's prophetic mission.

majlis) is the narration of the stories of Karbala (rawza-khwani, qiraya),[47][30][27] and the recitation of elegies and dirges (nawha, niyaha, marsia-khwani),[48][49] all intended to raise the sympathy of audience and move them to tears.

[49] Rooted in ancient Arab practices,[28][53] mild forms of self-flagellation, that is, striking one's face and chest in grief (latm, sina-zani, matam),[49][48][54] are common today in Shia communities.

[55] But there are also extreme forms of self-flagellation (tatbir, tiq-zani, qama-zani), in which the participants strike themselves, usually on the forehead or back, with knives, swords, or chains to which razor blades are attached.

[48] Another mourning ritual is the dramatic reenactment of Karbala narratives (ta'ziya, shabih-khwani), practiced today in Iran, in the western Gulf shore, and in Lebanon.