In a unique workshop at Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, northeast Iran, around 500 thousand prayer turbahs are produced and repaired each year. These turbahs are mostly made from the soil of Karbala.
Between 10 in the morning and 2:00 am the next day, he toils at a shawarma shop in Karbala, where millions of pilgrims congregate every year. "My greatest fear is to be expelled back to Syria ...
Most pilgrims begin in Najaf and walk north to Karbala, the site of Hussein’s tomb. But this pilgrimage takes place in a country that the United Nations says is among the most vulnerable to ...