MASHDAD, Iran — The night before Ashoura is the busiest and most passionate night of the year in Iran’s holy city of Mashhad. Iranians flock to “the place of martyrdom” to commemorate and remember Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and partake in a communal mourning experience at the Shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth Shiite Imam.

According to many locals, however, this year Ashoura had a different feel.

In the taxi going from Ferdowsi Square to Shohada (Martyrs) Square in Gharani Boulevard, a young taxi driver who had grown up in the city warned me that this year was less crowded than previous years. “In our neighborhood” he said, “I only saw one group of mourners,” adding that, still, “there were more mourning processions in the southern parts of the city.”

The road from Shohada Square to the Imam Reza shrine is closed, so you have to go on foot. Several police officers stand at the head of Tehran Street, located 300 meters [328 yards] from the Shrine of Imam Reza, where one can see the majestic gold dome of the shrine. The two-way street had been closed off and turned into a vast sidewalk for the pilgrims walking toward the shrine. On the sidewalks, like everywhere else in the city, there are tents with religious banners above their entrances, offering refreshments to the pilgrims.