Iraqi Shia men take part in mourning rituals in Karbala (Picture: AFP/ THE EDITOR)
Shia Muslims in Iraq re-enact the Battle of Karbala during the Islamic month of Muharram (Picture: AFP/ THE EDITOR)

MIDDLE EAST – The day of Ashura is an important occasion in the Islamic calendar that carries a spiritual and historical significance for both Sunni and Shia Muslims.

For the Sunni majority, the day is marked with fasting and special prayers in mosques. For Shia Muslims, it marks the anniversary of the killing of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein during the Battle of Karbala, and is therefore a day of mourning.

Shia rites on the day include colourful plays re-enacting the battle’s events, with the faithful taking on the role of Hussein and his followers as they took on Umayyad forces loyal to the Caliph Yazid I.

The battle took place in 680 CE and while it became one of the causes of the split between Shia and Sunni Muslims, it happened long before religious differences between Sunni and Shia factions had crystallised.

For example, Sunnis also revere Hussein and many also take a negative view of Yazid, who is often criticised for his impiety.

While some Sunni Muslims do take part in mourning ceremonies for Hussein, especially followers of Sufi traditions, the events are less intense than their Shia counterparts.

One controversial aspect of the Shia mourning of Hussein is the practice among some of self-flagellation, or tatbir. Many leading Shia Islamic jurists, including the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, have either condemned the act or argued that it is redundant in the modern era, but a minority of religious figures continue to stress its importance, usually with the caveat that no harm occurs to those taking part in the ritual.

Middle East Eye takes a closer look at the day and how it is marked by Muslims.

What is Ashura?

For Muslims, Ashura marks the day God delivered the Israelites, led by the Prophet Musa (Moses), from the tyranny of Egypt’s Pharaoh by parting the Red Sea, thus allowing them to cross safely.

The day is observed with a fast and religious ceremonies, including sermons and communal meals in Sunni communities.

For Shia Muslims, the significance of the day also stems from it being the anniversary of the death of Hussein, who is venerated as an Imam, or the rightful leader of the Muslim community.

Twelver Shias, as the name suggests, recognise 12 successors of the Prophet Muhammad who are descended from him through his daughter Fatima and cousin and son-in-law Ali, who is the first Imam.

Hussein is the third of these successors and the Battle of Karbala marks the climax of his attempts to acquire leadership of the Muslim community from the Umayyads under Yazid.

In a bloody confrontation near the river Euphrates in what is now Iraq, Hussein and most of his followers were killed.

For Shias, Hussein’s martyrdom represents paying the ultimate price in the pursuit of justice and righteouness, and he is therefore mourned to this day at his shrine in Karbala, as well as in mourning ceremonies across the Muslim world.

The line of Imams would continue through Hussein’s surviving son, also named Ali. For Twelvers, the line stops with the twelth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who in Shia tradition disappeared into occultation and will return to precipitate the Day of Judgement.

When is Ashura?

Ashura is marked on the tenth day of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic lunar calendar, widely considered to be one of the holiest months in Islam.

Ashura falls on either 17 and 18 August in the Gregorian calendar, depending on the method of moon sighting used to determine the start of Muharram.

Why is it called Ashura?

“Ashura” comes from the Arabic word for the number ten, and the word Muharram comes from the Arabic word haram, meaning forbidden.

According to Islamic tradition, the month of Muharram was one of the most sacred months of the calendar, during which warfare was forbidden.

What is the religious significance?

Muslims fasting on the day of Ashura believe that God will forgive their sins from the previous year.

According to the Quran, God then commanded Moses to strike the sea with his staff, causing the sea to be parted.

Moses then started fasting on the day of Ashura as a form of worship and gratitude to God for saving himself and his followers.

The Prophet Mohammed encouraged Muslims to fast on the ninth of Muharram as well as the tenth, in order to differentiate Muslims from other faiths. While the fast is optional, many Muslims choose to observe it.

How is it marked by Shia Muslims?

Shia preachers will deliver sermons and recount the history of the Battle of Karbala. Some will also recite poetry relating to the life of Hussain, highlighting his virtues.

In many parts of Iraq and Iran, large public plays, marches and processions are held in front of thousands of people who gather to mourn and commemorate the event.

The “passion plays” are meant to highlight the significance of Hussein’s sacrifice and evoke the emotional fervour needed to pursue the cause of justice.

Some take part in tatbir, which is banned in some counties but still takes place during Ashura. The use of blades, chains and other items to beat oneself symbolises sacrifice and struggle.

As previously mentioned, the practice is frowned upon by many clerics and many worshippers choose to mourn in alternative ways, such as by donating blood.

During the period of Muharram, Shia worshippers will often wear black as a symbol of mourning and sadness. Many will take this time as an opportunity to derive lessons from Hussein’s life.

JERUSALEM – Could the taxman take everything you’ve got? He could if you are trading over the internet using an online marketplace, such as Amazon, Ebay or Shopify. Online marketplaces have been turned into the long arm of the taxman in many countries.

And the taxman is interested in many different taxes. Currently the emphasis is mainly on collecting indirect taxes – VAT or sales tax – from online marketplaces on behalf of their users. Soon online marketplaces will be collecting income tax too from online marketplaces and their users. Below is an overview.

Jerusalem Post said, special provisions were introduced on July 1, 2021, whereby online marketplaces/platforms facilitating supplies of goods are deemed for VAT purposes to have received and supplied the goods themselves (“deemed supplier”). EU standard VAT rates typically range from 15% to 25%.

An electronic interface (EI) should be understood as a broad concept. An EI could include a website, portal, gateway, marketplace, platform, application program interface (API), etc.

An online marketplace may be considered a deemed supplier if it facilitates:

Distance sales of goods imported into an EU country with a value not exceeding €150; and/or supplies of goods to customers in the EU, irrespective of their value, when the underlying supplier/seller is not established in the EU.

To declare and pay the VAT due in other Member States, online marketplaces/platforms will register in special electronic EU portals – OSS (one stop shop) or IOSS (import one stop shop). Online marketplaces/platforms will need to keep records for all the transactions they facilitate.

UK VAT

The standard UK VAT rate is 20%. Consignments of goods with a value of £135 or less that are outside the UK will be liable to VAT.

Where those goods are sold through an online marketplace, the online marketplace will be liable for the VAT. Online marketplaces will also be liable for the VAT on goods of any value that are located in the UK at the point of sale and sold by an overseas business through an online marketplace.

US Sales Taxes

Following the Wayfair case in the US Supreme Court in June 2018, most US states now impose sales tax on out-of-state suppliers with an “economic nexus” in that state – sales above a certain value or quantity.

Most of these states extend the sales tax collection obligation to online marketplaces. Specific inquiry is necessary as the US has 50 states with their own rules, and over 20,000 cities and towns with their own rates of sales tax.

Sales tax rates typically range from 5% to 12%, with exceptions.

For example, in New York state, a remote marketplace provider that facilitated more than $500,000 in gross sales and 100 transactions in the state in the preceding four quarterly periods is required to obtain a certificate of authority, collect sales tax, file returns and remit tax on all sales into the state. All in-state marketplaces are required to collect tax on all sales in the state.

Israel and elsewhere

Many other countries with VAT or GST are starting to impose these taxes on foreign suppliers, such as Australia. The Israeli budget contains a proposal to collect 17% VAT from online stores.

Income Tax – OECD

The OECD is jumping the gun. It is proposing rules to implement automatic supply/exchange of data for income tax purposes from digital platforms to tax authorities before the rules are agreed for imposing such income tax.

In 2020, the OECD published rules relating only to sellers offering accommodation, transportation or personal services (“gig economy”). In 2021, the OECD expanded its proposals to cover the sale of goods and the rental of means of transportation facilitated by digital platforms.

Each platform would report to its own home country tax authority, which will then exchange information with the seller’s home country tax authority.

This is termed “prefilling of tax returns” – the platform or online marketplace starts filling in your income tax return for you!

GAZA – Ministry of Agriculture Nizar Alwhaidi said that Israel made a policy to dispose of the tomato crowns before they are exported. This issue is dangerous, and certainly not according to scientific standards. It has nothing to do with science, or with production, technology, and it has nothing to do with the cleanliness and quality of crops.

Khalid Muhammad Saleem Alattar has been a farmer in northern Gaza for 40 years. He grows various types of vegetables such as potatoes, cucumbers, beans, and peppers. However, tomatoes have been the mainstay of his agriculture from which he has been able to support his family.

Saleem said his agriculture was doing well before the Israeli aggression began last Ramadan. “Tomatoes are our main source of income, and the price is very high. For farmers, each kilo of tomato costs 1 shekel (approximately USD 0.30),” said Saleem when met by Aksi Cepat Tanggap team in his agricultural land, Tuesday (7/6/2021).

However, conditions changed when the Israeli aggression began. Farmers in Gaza, including Saleem, are prohibited from farming. They cannot water the plants. A lot of tomatoes are not maintained and are eventually damaged. Israeli attacks also destroyed some of Saleem’s tomato fields.

“This situation forces farmers to throw away their crops because we cannot sell them. It causes huge losses for us,” as ACT released in June 2021.

The Israelis still made it difficult for the farmers in Gaza even though the attacks had stopped in June. The Israeli authorities make a new policy regarding the export of tomatoes out of Gaza, namely that farmers must remove the sepals or crowns of tomatoes before they are exported. Otherwise, the tomatoes will not be allowed out of Gaza.

This is certainly very detrimental to farmers. Removing the crown would both take extra time and lead to the tomato going off quicker.

“We were surprised when Israel ordered that the tomatoes to be exported must be without a crown. Tomatoes without a crown will not be useful for consumers. Hence, we stopped exporting because of strict restrictions. Israel does want products from Gaza to be exported,” said Saleem.

ACT Palestine Team also interviewed Nizar Alwhaidi, a General Manager at the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture. Nizar says that the climate in Gaza is very suitable for farming. However, according to him, being a farmer in Gaza is difficult. Israel uses the agriculture sector to discipline the Gazan residents who intend to fight back.

“Israel deliberately crushes the infrastructure of the agricultural sector. In every aggression they committed, they also target agriculture. From my perspective, the destruction of agriculture is the destruction of the food security system in Palestine,” explained Nizar.

“One of the examples is what happened last week when Israel decided to dispose of the tomato crowns before they are exported. This policy is very dangerous, and certainly unscientific. It has nothing to do with science, or with production, and technology, and it has nothing to do with the cleanliness and quality of crops,” he added

TOKYO – The Russian Kalashnikov AK-47 and its derivatives have long been the assault rifle of choice for militant groups because of their rugged design, but some Taliban fighters are trading them in for captured U.S. guns as Afghanistan’s government collapses.

Video and pictures published by the Taliban on Twitter and elsewhere show fighters carrying M4 carbines and M16 rifles discarded by Afghan army units. Other images show Taliban forces capturing abandoned government vehicles.

The U.S. guns are more accurate and have greater range than the their AK-47s, but on their own may not deliver much added capability on the battlefield.

“Some of the hardware might be useful to have if looking to intimidate rival warlords, but that’s about it. They’ve done rather well with what they already had,” said Grant Newsham, a retired United States Marine Corps colonel in Reuters (17/8).

Still, the image of U.S.-made weapons in the hands of the Taliban as it sweeps aside the Afghan National Army – funded with billions of dollars from the U.S. government over the past two decades – is a propaganda coup for the militants.

Many of the AK-47s in Afghanistan are copies, but some were left over from the 10-year Soviet occupation that ended in 1989. First manufactured just after the end of World War Two, based on a German design, the assault rifle has since become common around the world in the arsenals of governments and insurgent groups.

The American weapons could be in service with the Taliban for years because of plentiful ammunition supplies. The 5.56mm round it fires is available to civilian gun owners in the United States.

“The Russians crank out millions of rounds of AR 5.56 NATO each year for the U.S. market under the brand names of Tula, Wolf, and Red Army just to name a few,” said another retired U.S. Marines officer, who asked not to be identified because his current employer does not allow him to talk to the media.

“I suspect the Taliban’s allies will have no trouble supplying parts for just about any infantry system,” he added.

SAUDI ARABIA – Saudi Arabia will impose a three-year travel ban on citizens travelling to countries on the kingdom’s “red list” as part of efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus and its new variants, the interior ministry reported on Tuesday.

Those found to have travelled to restricted countries will face “hefty penalties… as well as being prevented from travelling abroad for a period of three years”, the interior ministry reported.

“Due to the ongoing corona virus pandemic and the spread of new variants, the ministry warns against travelling to countries on its (restricted) list, whether directly or indirectly via other countries,” as publish in Middle East Eyes.

Saudi Arabia has banned travel or transit to a number of countries including: Afghanistan; Argentina; Brazil; Egypt; Ethiopia; India; Indonesia; Lebanon; Pakistan; South Africa; Turkey; Vietnam; and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Earlier this month, the kingdom announced it was suspending flights to the UAE, Ethiopia and Vietnam to protect against a coronavirus variant.

The decision was taken due to “the spread of a new mutated strain of the (Covid-19) virus”, the interior ministry said at the time, without explicitly mentioning the increasingly widespread Delta variant.

The variant, first detected in India and now present in dozens of countries around the world, is the most contagious of any Covid-19 strain yet identified.

The UAE announced in June it had recorded cases of the Delta variant.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, put major limits on the annual hajj pilgrimage in an effort to combat infections.

The kingdom recorded 1,379 new Covid-19 infections on Tuesday, bringing its total to 520,774 cases and 8,189 deaths.

It saw daily infections fall from a peak above 4,000 in June 2020 to below the 100 mark in early January.

CHINA – With chaotic scenes at Kabul airport of hundreds and thousands of people fleeing after the Taliban took full control of Afghanistan grabbing global attention and many calling the evacuation of US diplomats another “Saigon moment,” more discussions emerged online over “who’s next” amid the US failed commitment.

The Taliban took over Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, on Sunday as the country’s president Ashraf Ghani fled the country. Many were shocked at the speed with which the Taliban took control as the US-backed government collapsed, and they compared the scenes in Kabul of US diplomats being taken to safety by helicopters to the US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, when US Marines burned sensitive documents on the roof of the US embassy in Saigon.

The Washington Post also pointed out that the Taliban’s stunningly swift advances across the country have sparked global alarm, reviving doubts about the credibility of US foreign policy promises and drawing harsh criticism even from some of its closest allies.

Taiwan is nervous

“Yesterday’s Saigon, today’s Afghanistan, and tomorrow’s Taiwan?” read some online posts by internet users in the island of Taiwan, implying that the so-called alliance that Taiwan has forged with the US is nothing but an empty promise that will eventually “leave the Taiwan people hurting alone,” said Global Times (16/8).

An Op-Ed in local Taiwan news site udn.com said that the unexpected end in Afghanistan has “shocked” US allies and partners, who have become wary of putting the safety of Taiwan in the hands of the US, as the latter may pull the same tricks played in Kabul.

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan will also have a global impact, especially weighing on its image and credibility, the Op-Ed in a Taipei-based news site said, as Washington’s strength in maintaining the global order will be challenged, and the power confrontation in the Indo-Pacific Strategy targeting China will be questioned.

“They should say the day before yesterday, Vietnam, yesterday, Taiwan and today, Afghanistan. Wasn’t the island abandoned by the US in 1979?” Chang Ching, a research fellow at the Society for Strategic Studies based in the island, told the Global Times on Monday.

As part of its latest efforts to play the “Taiwan card” in countering China, the Biden administration recently announced it would hold a virtual Summit for Democracy, which excited the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority of Taiwan. Since taking office in January, US President Joe Biden has taken various measures to demonstrate its deterrent against China, such as deploying military aircraft to the island, sending warships across the Taiwan Straits several times and dispatching senior officials to visit the island, blatantly playing the “Taiwan card” to ruffle China’s feathers.

However, the failure of the US in Afghanistan should serve as a warning to the secessionists in the island, who have to understand that they cannot count on Washington, as Afghanistan is not the first place where the US abandoned its allies, nor will it be the last, experts warned.

Credibility tarnished

The aftermath of its failure in Afghanistan will further weigh on the Biden administration, as it is still struggling to contain the COVID-19 epidemic, which will put the US government in an awkward position not only at home but also overseas, as the total defeat of the US has dealt a fatal blow to Biden’s political career and the Democrats’ credibility, Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Monday.

“The US’ fleeing action is a warning to the Taiwan secessionists, or rather, a forecast,” Li said. He noted that if the island of Taiwan continues on a path misled by secessionists to directly confront the Chinese mainland, the US will cast Taiwan aside just as it has done with Vietnam, and now Afghanistan.

The Associated Press said in a report on Sunday that the 20-year war in Afghanistan was the US’ longest and most expensive one, and generations of Americans will have to be burdened by the cost of paying it off. As of 2020, the estimated cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that the US has debt-financed has reached $2 trillion, the report said.

While observers doubted the geopolitical value the island of Taiwan could deliver to the US in confronting China, some also raised questions about how much the Biden administration, which upholds the one-China policy, is willing to pay for the interests of Taiwan secessionists compared to its heavy investment in time and resources in Afghanistan.

“Those who have a clear mind should understand that Taiwan residents can’t rely on the US. However, given the ideology-driven influence, some observers may see the situation in the island as being different from that in Afghanistan, but there’s one thing in common – America’s empty promise,” Jin Canrong, associate dean of the School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Monday.

The failure of America in Afghanistan will surely deala heavy blow to the Taiwan residents, and the DPP-led green camp may try to downplay its impact, Jin said, noting that the US retreat showed that it always puts its own national interests above everything else without taking care of its own allies.

One media outlet in Taiwan also pointed out that the key issue is if a war breaks out across the Taiwan Straits, there will be doubts over whether the US will honor its commitments and intervene militarily, as the US’ “blurry” policy on the island and its snap decision on the Afghanistan issue have left its commitment to Taiwan “full of question marks.”

The US retreat from Afghanistan has taught the island of Taiwan an important lesson, that is, the cross-Straits relations must be resolved by Taiwan itself, as the US may choose to abandon the island at any time according to its own core interests, Chang Ya-chung, a Taipei-based political scientist and member of the Kuomintang, told the Global Times on Monday.

Furthermore, the US has never promised to send troops if a military conflict occurs across the Taiwan Straits, and only said that it would sell weapons to Taiwan to increase its military strength, Chang noted.

Recalling history, Chang said that the US abandoned the Kuomintang authority in the 1940s after World War II, roped Taiwan in during the Cold War to cater to its own needs, but cast it away again in the late 1970s.

Chang also emphasized that in face of the crisis, both the mainland and the island should keep in mind that we should not try to seek the answer from the past, but to find a way out in the future.