The pilgrims of Arbaeen are returning to Iran and all the four border points are secure on both sides, said Brigadier-General Qasem Rezaee on the sidelines of a visit to Mehran Border Point.
Thanking the border guards of Iran and Iraq, he said that services to the pilgrims are in progress as well as possible.
He added that the border guards will carry on giving the necessary services until the last pilgrims come back to Iran.
Arbaeen, an Arabic word meaning the 40th, is a mourning ceremony held 40 days after Imam Hossein (AS), the third Imam of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) Infallible Household and his 72 companions, including 18 of family members and close relatives, were brutally martyred in Karbala on Ashura, the 10th day of the lunar month, by the army of the second Umayyad caliph, Yazid, in AD 680.
The mourning ceremony began and was soon established when Jabir ibn Abdollah Ansari, a close follower of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), then 77, visited the grave of Imam Hossein (AS) as the Imam's first pilgrim, 40 days after Ashura.
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