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From Karbala to Dearborn: Muharram Banners and the Making of a Shīʿī Pilgrimage Landscape in America
Graduate Theological Union PhD student Zeinab Vessal was recently featured in the Detroit Free Press for her participation in Dearborn, Michigan’s 22nd annual Arbaeen procession, the largest outdoor gathering of Shīʿa Muslims in the United States. The August 16, 2025 event drew thousands of participants from across the country, commemorating the 7th-century martyrdom of Imam Husayn ibn ʿAlī and reaffirming a commitment to justice, compassion, and resistance to tyranny. For Vessal, the Dearborn procession was not only a public act of mourning and devotion but also a deeply meaningful extension of her academic work. In this reflection she shared with the GTU, she describes how Muharram banners—inscribed with Qurʾānic verses, sacred names, and devotional poetry—transformed Dearborn’s streets into a “sacred pilgrimage space.”
Arba’een, meaning “forty” in Arabic, marks the fortieth day after the martyrdom of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī at Karbala in 680 CE. It is one of the largest annual gatherings in the world, as millions of pilgrims walk to Karbala, Iraq, to commemorate the Imam’s sacrifice and renew their commitment to justice, compassion, and resistance against tyranny. For the global Shīʿī community, Arba’een embodies both mourning and solidarity, linking past tragedy with present devotion.
In Dearborn, this global practice finds a powerful local expression. Since 2004, when the Karbalaa Islamic Center began the procession, thousands of Shīʿa have walked through the city’s streets each year, creating a pilgrimage at a distance. Each step is a remembrance, and each mile is a meditation on justice and sacrifice for pilgrims. I traveled from Chicago with a group of friends a day earlier to participate fully in the walk and its rituals. Along the way, the streets were lined with votive foods offered freely, echoing the hospitality of Karbala and binding participants through acts of generosity.
However, the most significant for me was the visual landscape shaped by Muharram banners. Since studying them in 2022 for a final paper in Prof. Kathryn Barush’s class, I have seen banners as unique emblems of Shīʿī ritual identity. They are not merely decorative but operate as art and theology—inscribed with Qurʾānic verses, poetry, and sacred names, proclaiming memory, mourning, and solidarity in material form. Raised high above the crowd, the banners transformed the urban avenues of Dearborn into a sacred pilgrimage space. Their colors, inscriptions, and movements carried the weight of centuries, making visible the grief and devotion that words alone cannot capture.
Carrying one of these banners myself was a transformative moment. The weight of the fabric, its sway in the wind, and the awareness of countless hands that had lifted similar emblems through generations turned the act into an embodied practice. It was no longer study or observation but participation in a living chain of devotion and resistance. After the march, I visited a local shop filled with banners, many imported from Iran, their circulation across borders sustaining Shīʿī communities in America and enriching the pilgrimage landscape of Dearborn.
Reflecting on this experience, I see banners not only as objects of research but as vessels of meaning that shape the terrain of pilgrimage. To walk with them, to carry them, and to see them raised in Dearborn is to witness how art and ritual converge to transform public space into sacred space. In this way, banners remain central to the landscape of Arba’een—rooted in history, alive in diaspora, and enduring at the heart of Shīʿī identity.