The History of the Endowment of Husseini Consolation and the Founding of Al-Husseiniyyats

Dr. Imad Abdulsalam Raouf, Prof.

	The History of the Endowment of Husseini Consolation and the Founding of Al-Husseiniyyats
AL-SSBET JORNAL
Article 1, Volume 1, Issue 5, 2018, Pages 13-30
Author
Prof. Dr. Imad Abdulsalam Raouf
Abstract
Abstract The growing number of visitors arriving to the cities of the holy shrines, some of whom came from distant cities especially from the East Muslim countries, causes difficulties in providing comfortable accommodation, food, drinking and washing water, etc., in these cities where the limited capacity is not enough to receive them. Hence the need for a new solution to this problem is urgent. The travelling agents have to rent residences for the visitors. With the time passing, rich people found it is necessary to replace temporary rental by permanent residency either bought or built. Those residencies are to be lived in by citizen visitors. This is most notably happening in the holy city of Karbala as a basic destination. On the other hand, many philanthropists have begun to make use of their commercial sites and they bought whatever they can to shelter the visitors. Thirdly, some affluent persons turned parts of their homes, known as Diwan or Diwankhana, which is the part where people receive their guests, as places where Shiite ceremonies are held. It is thus necessary to make some changes or modifications for the performance of condolence, for example, there should be a large place for prayer, ablution and bathroom, courtyards accommodate to do obituary, and some has prepared sites for providing medical treatment to the poor, and circumcision of orphans, help poor men to get marriage, shrouding foreign dead persons and so forth. On the other hand, the conditions that determine the period of stay varied. Some stay for days, others for all occasions, or more, and so those sites become new institutions as a response to the uurgent needs, although the main purpose is to facilitate the stay of those visitors who want to visit Imam Al-Hussein; the father of the martyrs. In the first half of the twentieth century, these locations have become the new institutions to provide services that had never been provided before, such as the libraries of some intellectuals, allocating appropriate reading places, lecturing, and teaching students of religious sciences, not to mention the other usual social services. Those in charge of serving Shiite mosques keep pace with the evolution of technology and provide these mosques with modern devices. Since the sixties of the last century, some of the Shiite mosques have become rooms fit for large seminars, public lectures attended by a large audience of people, which in turn raised their political and social position. Besides, expanded pray locations have later become independent mosques.

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