Ashura

Synopsis

The Battle of Karbala was a military engagement that took place on 10 Muharram, 61 AH (October 10, 680) in Karbala, in present day Iraq, between the forces of Yazid I, the Umayyad caliph and Hussein, the grandson of prophet Muhammad. Hussein and all his supporters were killed; women and children were taken as prisoners. This battle is central to Shi’a Muslim belief in which the martyrdom of Hussein is mourned by an annual commemoration, Ashura. There are approximately one million Caferi Shiites in Turkey, most of which live in Istanbul and the eastern border town of Igdir. In Istanbul they inhabit a shanty town neighbourhood in the outskirts of the city, which they started building in the late 1970s. The neighbourhood is called Zeynebiye, referring to Hussein’s courageous sister, Zeyneb.

Director Biography

Born in Istanbul, in 1976, Köken Ergun studied acting at the İstanbul University and completed his postgraduate diploma degree in Ancient Greek Literature at King’s College London, followed by an MA degree on Art History at the Bilgi University. Having a focus on rituals in his works, Ergun has been recently collaborating with ethnologists extending his practice to academia. He is currently writing his PhD thesis at the Interart Graduate College of the Freie Universität on the subject of “Rituals of Isolation: Emotional Bonding in Wedding Ceremonies of the Turkish/Kurdish Community in Berlin”.