View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkczWmBt6ME
In darkened halls across Iran, hundreds of men dressed in black beat their chests in unison as religious eulogists chant rhythmic laments of martyrdom, sacrifice and war.
The performances, often lit in red and shared widely on YouTube and social media in Iran, have become a recurring feature of the country's wartime atmosphere since the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June 2025.
Known as latmiyah, these mourning recitations are rooted in
Ashura rituals commemorating the martyrdom of Shia Imam Hussain ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE.
Eulogists such as Mahdi Rasouli, Hossein Taheri, Seyed Reza Narimani and Hossein Sotoudeh have released new wartime recitations framing the
US-Israel war on Iran through the symbolic language of Karbala.
Increasingly, these performances have also incorporated Persian nationalist motifs, presenting the conflict not only as a defence of Islam, but of Iran itself.
Millions of Iranians and Shia Muslims across the region mark Ashura each year through mourning rituals, poetry recitations and pilgrimage to Karbala, a city in central Iraq.
In Shia memory, Hussain’s killing at Karbala after his refusal to pledge allegiance to the Caliph Yazid ibn Muawiyah became a defining story of resistance to unjust rule.
This story of resistance later became deeply embedded in Iranian social life.
After the Safavid dynasty made Twelver Shia Islam Iran’s official religion in the 16th century, Ashura rituals became a central part of religious and communal life. The result was a ritual infrastructure that outlasted dynasties and political systems and has, at various points, shaped Iranian politics.
The protests that deposed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979 featured chants such as “Our movement is Hussaini, our leader is Khomeini”, drawing a direct parallel between revolutionary struggle and Hussain’s martyrdom.
Across these moments, mourning rituals did more than preserve religious memory.
During the Iran-
Iraq War that followed, Karbala became a central language of wartime mobilization.
In a statement made on 17 February, two weeks before his death, martyred Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that just as Hussain refused to pledge allegiance to Yazid, Iran would never “pledge allegiance to the corrupt people who are today in power in America”.
Official
figures indicate that tens of thousands of privately hosted mourning ceremonies were held during Ashura commemorations last year, showing how deeply these rituals remain rooted in Iranian society.
That social depth helps explain why Karbala remains useful to the Islamic Republic in moments of war and crisis.