Shiite Muslims commemorate Ashoura

Muslims around the world marked Tuesday Ashura, a day of commemoration in Islam.

Thousands of Shiite Muslims traveled to the Iraqi city of Karbala to pray inside the holy shrine of Imam Husayn.

The grandson of Prophet Mohamed is entombed in a gold-domed shrine there.

Hussein was defeated and killed in October 630 AD.

A controversial aspect of the Shia mourning rituals is the practice among some of self-flagellation, or tatbir in arabic.

Shiites represent over 10% of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims.

In Afghanistan where Sunna Islam is dominant, the Taliban-run government-imposed limits on Shia mourners.

"There were some restrictions this year", one mourner says. "There was an order from the vice and virtue (morality police) that the boys (mourners) shouldn’t beat themselves with knives (publicly), but it was allowed inside worshipping places.”

For Sunni Muslims, Ashura is a more joyous commemoration. Some remember it as the day on which the Prophet Musa (Moses) parted the Red Sea for the Israelites to safely flee Egypt.