Ashura in some English reference books

Being an international language used in reliable scholarly reference books, English enjoys a unique status among the world languages. The present article is an attempt to study “ashura” in a number of English reference books. The study shows that ashura is looked at more from a Sunnite perspective introducing it as a day of “recommended fast” rather that a Shiite one. Only few of these sources have handled the matter from a Shiite point of view.