After Ashoura, Alattar answered questions from the Deseret Morning News. He said Sunnis and Shiites get along well in this country, where all are free to worship as they wish. While Sunnis probably wouldn't take part in the Ashoura services, they will visit a Shiite mosque on regular days of worship (Thursdays, especially). And Shiites also worship at Sunni mosques, he said.

As for the bloody photos that many Americans have come to associate with Ashoura, photos published online and in newspapers around the country these past weeks, Alattar said bloodletting is not part of the Ashoura observances in most places in Europe and North America. Westerners don't understand it, he said. Westerners don't approve of men making cuts in their heads or backs.

Alattar said he had shed his own blood in his native Iraq, on Ashoura. It doesn't hurt to make a small cut with a sword, he said.

And anyway, the ritual is not done out of violence. Like the chest-slapping and weeping, he said, it is about grief. "It brings the emotion of lovingness."

Muslims, perhaps more than those of other faiths, recognize that life is not all about joy, Alattar said. He explained that the period of mourning that began with Ashoura will continue for two months, ending in the month Westerners call March, with the day of Muhammad's death.

For two months every winter, then, Utah's Shiites, like those around the world, live a more serious life. They don't schedule weddings or parties. They delay the celebration of birthdays.

They remember Hussein's sacrifice; they think about the sin-free life he lived. They reflect on what it means to be Shiite.

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E-mail: susan@desnews.com