(Part 4) What other services are offered to the pilgrims during Arbaeen

Arba’in walking routes host the largest gathering of voluntary and complimentary services in the world. In fact, the largest amount of voluntary work happens during one event – the Arba’in pilgrimage. According to the announcement, more than 17,000 mawkibs will be set up on the Arba’in walking routes to welcome the pilgrims and provide health, medical and welfare services.

Apart from providing various meals, mawkibs are a place for pilgrims to rest. It’s impossible for you to need a place to rest during the pilgrimage and not be able to find a place to sleep. In cases where the pilgrims are faced with not being able to find a place to sleep, the mawkib organizers provide their own resting place to the pilgrims, and despite being extremely tired, they rest outside the mawkib leaning on chairs and spend the night with the love of Imam al-Husayn (a).

We might not have experienced this level of sacrifice and forgiveness among our family and close relatives. Loving other people, respecting them and the desire to give up oneself and one’s belongings and property is a part of the humanistic school of Imam al-Husayn, which is manifested in his path.

During the pilgrimage, you will see strange scenes that you might not have seen in any corner of the vast world of history before. From point to point of the route, you will see the pilgrims who are engaged in serving with any expertise and social status, you will see women who are baking bread, men who are begging you to let them massage your tired feet and others wax or clean the pilgrims’ shoes. In another corner, you see an old man who lovingly invites you to a glass of a beverage. This endless sea of ​​love is a sign of the formation of a system of pure human desires based on mutual love and humanity.

Here, rich and poor, old and young, male and female, Black and White, all are equal and are treated like kings and queens but they are on the way to the same destination.

As you walk towards Karbala, you will see more amazing scenes of services, from repairing baby strollers to free internet and even mawkibs that are just a place to charge your cell phone battery.

Another free service of this great human community is medical mawkibs, which are organized by volunteer doctors at certain intervals along the entire route. At these medical mawkibs, you can get any medication you need for free. In fact, pilgrims do not need to carry anything except their clothes on this long journey.

Another service that will definitely surprise you is when you enter the procession to rest. It might be hard to believe, but as soon as the mawkib organizers arrive, they respectfully hand over your clothes and iron them after washing and return them to you again.

Perhaps one of the most important manifestations of the great Arba’in pilgrimage is the manifestation of the purest human desires, which can well lead to the formation of a new civilization based on love and affection for each other.