Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Chapter 4: The age of materialism (1832-1914)

(i) Mind and matter (1832-72)

Between the two French revolutions of 1830 and 1848, German writers had to battle to defi ne themselves on two different fronts.

They had to resist (or accept) the repression and censorship with which their rulers sought to prevent the French contagion from spreading eastwards. And they had to accept (or repudiate)

the inheritance of the great period of cultural achievement which had come to an end with the deaths of Beethoven, Hegel, and Goethe. But in this battle who was the enemy? Was it the repressive monarchy and bureaucracy, to which, after all, the great minds of two previous generations had accommodated themselves? To say that would be to align yourself with the bourgeoisie whom the age of absolutism had excluded both from political power and from signifi cant literary activity.

Or was the enemy the bourgeois themselves who, as chronic non-participants, deserved to be ridiculed as ‘philistines’ (a student slang term which, with the sense of ‘impervious to the Art of the elite’ came into general currency at this time)? That would be to cut yourself off from the class which in France and England was most obviously the instrument of economic, technological, and political modernization. It was an age therefore of reluctant bourgeois, and disaffected or failed officials, whose preferred relationship to their inheritance was to accept it but to reverse what they took to be its own understanding of its achievements.

The doubly ambivalent relationship to the past is crisply clear in the case of philosophy. The philosophers who dominated the new age in Germany were materialist where their predecessors had been idealist, and socially autonomous where their predecessors had been dependent. The new leaders of thought made their way outside the institutions of state. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) led a life of permanent semi-retirement on the proceeds of his father’s commercial career, reinvested in banking concerns. Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-72) was supported for the greater part of his career by a porcelain factory owned by his wife.

Karl Marx (1818-83) in his later years could rely on the assistance of Friedrich Engels’ (1820-95) family money, derived from the Manchester textile industry. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) also had the support of a family inheritance originally made in England, and not forfeited when his brother-in-law was bankrupted by a bizarre colonial adventure in Paraguay. Moreover, as literacy rose, the great expansion of publishing and journalism (the number of bookshops in Berlin, Leipzig, and Stuttgart more than doubled between 1831 and 1855) gave to Marx, and especially to the radical religious writer David Friedrich Strauss (1808-74), the opportunity of being a literary freelance which had been denied to Hölderlin and Kleist. From 1830 to 1914, as neither before nor since, Germany possessed a recognizably bourgeois intellectual class, comparable with that of contemporary France and England. Recognizably bourgeois, but not always willingly so.

Every one of these thinkers began with the ambition of becoming a university professor but turned away, or was prevented, from realizing it. Schopenhauer abandoned university life with relief after an unsuccessful attempt at direct competition with Hegel’s lectures in Berlin, but he never forgave the academic philosophers (Kathederphilosophen) their popularity and their infl uence.

Strauss was dismissed from his teaching post in Tübingen on the publication of his deconstructive Life of Jesus in 1835, and the civil war (literally) that broke out in Zurich when he was proposed for the chair of theology there put him on every university’s blacklist for good. In 1842, Bruno Bauer (1809-82) lost his post at Bonn for publishing critical works on the New Testament. His young protégé, Karl Marx, had in consequence to give up his academic ambitions as well and found himself launched into journalism.

For years Feuerbach hoped for a chair of philosophy but had to recognize it was impossible after the publication and explosive success of his scandalous The Essence of Christianity (Das Wesen des Christentums) in 1841. Nietzsche savaged Strauss, who by the 1870s was the grand old man of German letters, but shared his scorn for the academic world, from which Nietzsche decisively alienated himself by his fi rst publication as Basle professor of classics, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik, 1872). Like Schopenhauer, whom by then he also despised, Nietzsche fi nally retired from the university into pensioned isolation.

The philosophers of this generation did not therefore simply reject what they had inherited - dismiss it with indifference as irrelevant to a changed world. Their reaction was tinged with bitterness and pervaded by a combative desire to achieve the old aims in a new context, sometimes reluctantly chosen. It was not so much a rejection as a conscious inversion of the past. The major fi gures were emphatic in subordinating the human power of thought to some prior principle: in Schopenhauer the will, in Feuerbach the senses, in Marx class interest, in Nietzsche, in one form or another, all three. These very different writers had in common that they were deliberately overthrowing the primacy given to thought, or ‘reason’, by German philosophy from Leibniz to Hegel, and this act of regicide they all presented as a reversal of a relationship seen as prevalent in classical German philosophy. The pithiest formulation of the principle happens to stand in Marx’ and Engels’ German Ideology

(Die deutsche Ideologie), a manuscript of 1845-7 (published 1932), but it could as easily have been written by Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, or Nietzsche:

It is not consciousness that determines life, but life that determines consciousness.

Since, however, it was not true that classical German philosophy thought ‘consciousness determines life’, the belief of its successors that they were reversing what had gone before was not true either. But the idea of a reversal had a great emotional charge for all of them and the rhetoric of inversion is everywhere in their works. As usual, behind the appearance of parricide lay feelings of love as well as of anger. The claim to reversal was really a claim to continuity, but it also expressed an angry recognition that historical change had made mere continuity impossible.

A more subtly ambivalent relation to the past runs through the literature of these years. The poetry and prose of Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) was dominated by the conviction that he had lived through the ‘ending of the “Goethean aesthetic period” ’ into an age of industrialism, communism, and a German revolution to come. Yet his fi rst and most lasting success as a poet was achieved with collections of verse which seem at fi rst sight a limpid distillation of the lyrical and folk-song manner of Goethe and, especially, The Boy’s Magic Horn (Book of Songs [Buch der Lieder], 1827-39, New Poems [Neue Gedichte], 1844). Seen more closely, they prove to be shot through with an ironical - and Byronical - astonishment that a modern man can be such a fool as to be taken in by idealist or Romantic notions of the beauty of love, Nature, and poetry:

Teurer Freund, du bist verliebt, Und du willst es nicht bekennen, Und ich seh des Herzens Glut Schon durch deine Weste brennen.

[Dear friend, you are in love and will not admit it, and I can already see the fi re in your heart glowing through your waistcoat.]

But perhaps to be modern (at any rate, in Heine’s circumstances)

is to be a fool, and to live with divided loyalties. A life is no less real, and certainly no less painful, for being divided:

Ach Gott! Im Scherz und unbewußt Sprach ich, was ich gefühlet;

Ich hab mit dem Tod in der eignen Brust Den sterbenden Fechter gespielet.

[Oh God, in jest, and without knowing it, I uttered what I really felt; I played the dying gladiator with death in my own breast.]

Coming from a Jewish banking family, Heine had no love for Restoration Germany in which, after the repeal of Napoleon’s emancipatory legislation, he had to convert to Christianity if he was to become, as originally intended, either a lawyer or an academic. The revolution of 1830 attracted him to Paris, and from there he sent German newspapers reports on French art, literature, and politics while settling accounts with his own traditions in two pyrotechnically unfl attering studies, On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany (Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland, 1834) and The Romantic School (Die romantische Schule, 1831-2). In 1835 the Germanic Federation prohibited his writings, along with those of a number of other radical authors, collectively known as ‘Young Germany’ (Junges Deutschland). Despite the reduction in his literary earnings Heine survived on a French state pension and occasional subsidies from his family and was able to marry his mistress, an uneducated French woman, about whom he wrote some of his warmest poems. In the 1840s, when he met the young Marx, also in exile in Paris, and contributed to his journal, his poetry turned to political satire (Germany. A Winter’s Tale [Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen], 1844: ‘The Customs Union […] will give us the “material” unity, the spiritual will be provided by the censorship offi ce’) and then to historical and Jewish themes, taking on a darker colouring.

The failure of the German ‘revolution’ in 1848 coincided for Heine with the onset of spinal tuberculosis which for the next eight years confi ned him to his bed. As he faced pain and death in this ‘mattress-grave’, his sense of the irony of history grew bitterly personal, but, though Heine mocks everything else, he never mocks his relationship with his audience. If his readers are involved in an absurdity - such as the attempt to see the world of waistcoats and customs unions through the spectacles of Romanticism - he ensures that they know he is involved in it too. He writes with a journalist’s respect for his public, and his confi dence that he has a public marks him off from the tragically isolated intellectuals and elite officials who had given him and the Germany he wrote for a literary and philosophical tradition.

I have just come from the Christmas market. Everywhere groups of freezing children in rags standing wide-eyed and sad-faced in front of marvels made of water and fl our, rubbish and tinsel. The thought that for most people even the most pitiful joys and pleasures are unattainable riches made me very bitter.

Compassion for Germany’s poor and excluded drove Georg Büchner (1813-37) to an angry rejection of the tradition of idealism. He looked instead to the realism of the Storm and Stress movement that had preceded it, to Goethe’s early works and the Gretchen story in Faust, and to the plays of Lenz. Yet his writings, most of which became known only after the publication of a collected edition in 1875, are haunted by a sense of lost wholeness and a search for the meaning of suffering that seems to require a religious answer, though it is left unformulated. In 1834 he published an insurrectionary pamphlet with the slogan ‘Peace to the cottages! War on the palaces!’, he was denounced to the police and in 1835 had to fl ee to France though he was too obscure to be named in the prohibition of Young Germany later that year. To raise money for his escape he wrote, in fi ve weeks, a play of great originality. Thematically, The Death of Danton (Dantons Tod), owes much to Goethe’s Egmont and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, but its open form is deliberately opposed to the purposeful ethical structure of Schiller’s historical tragedies and looks back to Lenz’s The Soldiers. (The fi rst publisher of the complete text felt he had to explain its apparent lack of structure by adding the subtitle:

Scenes from France’s Reign of Terror.) Set in March and April 1794 it draws on verbatim extracts from revolutionary speeches to show Danton drifting towards arrest, arraignment, and execution out of lethargy, complacency (‘they will never dare’), disgust with the continuing pointless slaughter, and guilt over his own involvement in the September Massacres of 1792. Gradually, though, Danton recognizes that his weariness of life, his cynicism about human motives, his easy egotism, perhaps even his atheism, are all a pose and that for the sake of love he must fi ght to survive - but it is too late and history goes on its way. The play’s language is overwrought. But its emphatically recurrent image of burial alive is justifi ed by its essentially religious insight: that there is no escape from existence into freedom or nothingness, and that to exist is both to suffer and to love.

Büchner came of a medical family and in exile was made an anatomy lecturer in the University of Zurich. He gave up politics, but not literature. His short story, Lenz, which like The Death of Danton draws on and cites authentic materials - in this case, the diary of Pastor Oberlin, with whom Lenz stayed in 1778 -, has the complete formal assurance which the play lacks. There is no precedent in German prose, not even in Goethe or Kleist, for its dispassionate but deeply sympathetic third-person narration.

In a style free from irony and artifi ce, the narrator voices the agony of Lenz’s mental derangement but never colludes with it. Enactments of Lenz’s consciousness, through metaphor or the disruption of syntax, are continuous with the cool, medical registration of his behaviour; the internal and the external are equally open to view but they are not confused:

he could feel in himself a stirring and wriggling towards an abyss into which an implacable force was dragging him. He was now burrowing into himself. He ate little; half the nights in prayer and feverish dreams.

In a conversation with a visiting intellectual Lenz expresses his artistic principles: ‘You must love humanity in order to penetrate into the particular essence of every individual’. Such love - an understanding too deep and broad to be mere identifi cation with what is loved - is shown by Büchner in Lenz and in his dramatic masterpiece, Woyzeck. Woyzeck is incomplete and there is no single defi nitive version of it, but that hardly matters.

Büchner structured the play as a series of short, discrete, strongly drawn scenes, whose effect is cumulative rather than sequential.

Once again Büchner based his story on documentary material:

the medical reports on a private soldier executed in 1824 for the murder of his mistress after the fi rst plea in Germany of diminished responsibility due to insanity. Literature can have no higher aim, Büchner’s Lenz says, than to reproduce a little of the life that is in God’s creation, and in his Woyzeck Büchner gave life to a fi gure who would have been beneath the notice of all previous tragic writers, the fi rst proletarian ‘hero’ in German - perhaps in any - non-comic literature. Woyzeck appears as everybody’s victim, at the bottom of every hierarchy, military, social, economic, sexual; even physically he is humiliated in a fi ght, and he is treated as lower than a guinea-pig by the regimental doctor who uses him in his dietetic experiments. Yet he retains his humanity in the little household that he makes up with his Marie and their child, until even this is taken away from him by her adultery with the Drum-Major and in his madness he kills her. The bitter satire of Woyzeck’s superiors, particularly the Doctor, the lurid scenes at a fair, a drunken parody of a sermon on man’s origins in dirt, and a bleak parable of cosmic meaninglessness which sounds more like Beckett than Dickens (who began Oliver Twist in 1837), might seem to amount to a hopeless nihilism. But the play has a quite opposite effect. Because of its structural focus on its central character, its precision in locating his speech, and his speechlessness, in relation to the language of those around him, its insistence, against all the hierarchies that degrade and ignore him, that his suffering, and that of Marie, is worth attention, is perhaps the only thing worth attention, it is a deeply moving expression and vindication of the power of love. Büchner’s death from typhus at the age of 23 robbed 19th-century Germany not just of a literary genius but of a moral genius too.

In the 1830s and 1840s the German economy was still largely agricultural, and in its rural areas and small towns, where Paris and the urban masses seemed far away, the social structures of the 18th century were little affected by the slow onset of modernity.

But the growth in population, in literacy, and in the book market, was the harbinger of changes to come, and the most perceptive spirits could sense that what was making the literary life easier for them was also detaching them from the world inhabited by Goethe’s contemporaries, which their outward circumstances continued to resemble. Eduard Mörike (1804-75) was educated at the Tübingen seminary as Hölderlin was, and became a Swabian country pastor, as Hölderlin might have done, though when his doubts - possibly fostered by his fellow-seminarian Strauss - became too much for him he was able, as Hölderlin was not, to become a teacher of German literature at a girl’s school in Stuttgart - neither the subject nor the school (founded in 1818) existed when Hölderlin needed them. Mörike’s poems, both in rhymed German and unrhymed classical metres, became widely known only towards the end of the 19th century in their settings by Hugo Wolf. With delicacy, sobriety, and gentle humour Mörike writes within the formal repertoire of Goethe, Brentano, and Eichendorff, and like them, though he also enjoys narratives and genre scenes, he favours the theme of the self in a landscape, often recognizably the landscape of southwest Germany. But Mörike’s self, like Heine’s, though more subtly, is divided, both against itself and from the world beyond it. It does not penetrate the landscape with symbolic meaning, not even the meaning of distance or strangeness. Instead it is self-consciously aware of its surroundings, familiar and loved though they are, as its own outer boundary, the knowable threshold of an inner mystery which cannot be known or represented. The poet drowses on a hillside in the spring sunshine, vaguely aware of warmth and light and an indefi nite longing, his only distinct sensation the drone of a bee:

Mein Herz, o sage, Was webst du für Erinnerung In golden grüner Zweige Dämmerung?

Alte unnennbare Tage!

[O say, my heart, what memory are you weaving in the twilight of golden green branches? (‘green is the golden tree of life’ says Goethe’s Mephistopheles to Faust) - Ancient, unnameable days!]

The unity asserted in the classical age of idealism is no more.

In the age of materialism the impressions of the senses are all that can be known, and they are dissociated from a heart which is known only as the locus of unquietness and of a memory that remembers nothing.

A similar inner detachment from imagery and poetic resources which she none the less continued to use makes for the distinctive

character of the writing of Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1797 - 1848). As a member of an established Westphalian noble family she would seem socially to belong to the ancien régime as much as Mörike. But she no more fi tted the 18th-century model of the writer than he, though for different reasons: she was a Catholic, and a woman, the fi rst great woman poet of modern German literature. Unlike Mörike, who seems to receive passively the mystery of experience, she fi ghts to gain control of memory, pain, and guilt, but cannot be sure of victory. For her the ancient days may conceal an unnameable menace. Familiar images take on a quite new connotation: the distant sound of a horn in the valley recalls the lost courage of youth; the shadowy mountains before moonrise seem a sinister circle of judges. Some of the most famous motifs in poems of Goethe and Schiller - Prometheus, the lake, the cup of life cast into the waves - are reinterpreted in one of her last poems as symbols of moral nemesis. In an extraordinary - no doubt unconscious - parallel to Blake, precisely based on botanical fact, she then asks if she has to be destroyed in order that her poetry should preserve this corrective to the tradition she has inherited, as the thistle fl ower is consumed by the larva of the gall-fl y, which reputedly has medicinal properties:

Flüstern oft hör’ich dein Würmlein klein, Das dir heilend im Schoß mag weilen, Ach, soll ich denn die Rose sein, Die zernagte, um andre zu heilen?

[I often hear the whispering of that little worm of yours, that perhaps lingers healing in your womb. Alas, am I then to be the rose, gnawed apart to heal others?]

Romantic motifs - the doppelgänger, hints of devilry, a tree associated with both crime and retribution - run through Droste-Hülshoff ’s best-known prose narrative, The Jew’s Beech (Die Judenbuche, 1842, not her own title). But they point not to some other level of existence but to the moral meaning of a story in which four, partly unexplained, violent deaths are shown to originate in the neglect of basic principles of humility, honesty, charity, and Catholic religious practice. The Jewish community, though treated with brutal contempt by their Christian neighbours, appear as the guardians of the moral law fundamental to Christianity but they remain mysterious and hardly knowable. Even the identity of the principal character is fractured and indeterminate. The centre of Droste’s life, as of Mörike’s, lies outside any world that she can depict with the literary resources she has inherited, dependent as they ultimately are on a post-Lutheran theology that equates personal identity with an omnipotent state to which she owed no allegiance.

The subjection of women to male purposes became, perhaps unwittingly, the main theme and symbol in the poetry and drama of Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63), one of the last representatives of aesthetic idealism trying to give voice to the new spirit of social and material determinism, who was supported through his early struggle to write his way out of poverty by a mistress whom he discarded, and then by his wife, one of the foremost actresses in Vienna. Maria Magdalena (1844), Hebbel’s only drama with a contemporary setting, captures the transformation of small-town Germany as literacy spreads and urbanization begins, but mores are not changing fast enough to save an unmarried mother-to-be from committing suicide for fear of scandal. ‘I don’t understand the world any more’ her bear of a father confesses in the last line of a play which anticipates the social drama of a later age and had a great success in Germany’s many theatres. Hebbel had met Heine and the German communists in Paris, but politically he inclined to Hegelian constitutional monarchism. After the crisis of 1848 his reflections on the changing world became more explicitly and systematically a continuation of Hegel’s theologically tinged philosophy of history, but the women remained the victims. In Agnes Bernauer (1852), a woman who, through no fault of her own, has become a casus belli is sacrifi ced for the greater good of the people. Agnes Bernauer appealed equally to the radicals of 1848, who liked the speeches of revolutionary protest, and to the conservatives, who liked the counter-affi rmation of reason of state. But it was reason of state that had the last word, despite the statesman’s crocodile tears: Hebbel had again caught the mood of an age, the new age of nation-building (Gründerzeit), in which unscrupulousness, whether political or economic, was elevated to a moral principle. ‘Only one thing is necessary’, he had once written to his mistress, ‘- that the world should exist; how individuals fare in it is a matter of indifference’.

In his last years, at the height of his fame, Hebbel met the ageing Schopenhauer and discovered in his combination of relentless determinism with outrage at the scandal of universal suffering a philosophy that matched his own long-held convictions. Hebbel was not alone in his discovery. In the 1850s, after decades of neglect, a Schopenhauer revival began among German intellectuals, while Hegelianism waned, or metamorphosed into Marxism. Schopenhauer’s rejection of all historical and social theorizing appealed to the individualism encouraged by Germany’s most sustained period of liberal economic expansion.

However, his belief that Art was - short of annihilation - the only possible redemption of a material world totally enslaved to the cruel logic of cause and effect also offered comfort to those who had reservations about the process by which they or others were enriching themselves, but who did not want to give up the riches.

But not everyone wanted to be comforted, or to be tied like Hebbel to the philosophy and aesthetics of an earlier and less affl uent age. Between 1848 and the proclamation of the Second German Empire in 1871 the German bourgeoisie fi nally emerged from the shadow of German officialdom and, full of the confi dence of new money and prestige, threw off the leading-strings of the inherited culture. In 1855 Ludwig Büchner (1824-99) published a hugely successful summary of the new science, Energy and Matter (Kraft und Stoff), which dismissed as turgid nonsense the entire edifi ce of idealist philosophy. With none of the theological and ethical subtlety, or literary sensitivity, of his elder brother, Georg (whose literary remains he had edited), Büchner, the Richard Dawkins of his day, asserted the eternity of matter, the development of life out of inorganic particles, and of human beings out of lower animals, and the unscientifi c redundancy of any such hypotheses as God or immortality. Gone were the anguished compromises on which a hundred years of literature and philosophy had been built.

True, Energy and Matter cost Büchner his chair in Tübingen, but as a medical practitioner and prolifi c journalist he could afford to enjoy independence. After the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, Büchner became an earnest propagator of the Darwinian ideas that were thought to validate the free-market principles of which they were an expression. The work of Wilhelm Busch (1832-1908), commercially one of the most successful of German poets, was Darwinian too in its way. A freelance artist and draughtsman of genius, Busch took up the format of Heinrich Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter (1846) and combined a telling economy of line with equally lethal epigrammatic couplets in a series of early comic strips (e.g. Max and Moritz, 1865).

Busch’s satires on pretentious poets, religious hypocrites, and the nastiness of little boys, in an amoral world where only the fi ttest survive, have become part of German folk memory.

The economic basis of the new intellectual freedom was the theme of another great publishing success of 1855, Debit and Credit (Soll und Haben) by Gustav Freytag (1816-95), which remained the bestselling German novel until the end of the century. Set in Freytag’s homeland, Silesia, by then one of the power-houses of Prussian industry, it follows the lives of two school contemporaries, both bourgeois, both in confl ict with the aristocracy, both out to make their fortune, one honest, upright, and hard-working, the other deceitful, usurious, and Jewish. The anti-Semitism - of which this is the fi rst clearly non-religious example in German literature - is a consequence of the economic and social revolution that made the book possible in the fi rst place. As Germany’s Jews came out of their ghettoes their most lasting disability remained, by law or in practice, the prohibition on their employment by the state (including the central institution of traditional German culture, the university).

They therefore came to represent in the collective psyche a pure form of the forces combining to challenge the dominance of officialdom in German political and cultural life: money, business, and laissez-faire. In the great 19th-century upheaval, hostility to Jews expressed the German bourgeoisie’s fear of itself, of its power to destroy the autocratic and bureaucratic state which had

given it its (subordinate) identity for over 300 years. Because the hostility was fundamentally an irrational self-hatred (the two main characters in Debit and Credit have the same background) it tended from the start to take on grotesque or nightmarish qualities, though in 1855 the true nightmare still lay in the distant future.

If the image of ‘the Jew’ was a representation of the German bourgeois as the enemy of the German official, a counter-image of the two as identical was provided in the Gründerzeit by the new concept of the ‘Bildungsbürger’ - the citizen of the new Germany who was defi ned as middle class not by his economic role but by his (rather than her) education or culture. In 1867, a year after the Seven Weeks War had fi nally excluded Austria from the political defi nition of Germany, the cultural nation received legal recognition when the copyright which now secured the livelihood of contemporary writers was abolished in respect of a dozen ‘classical’ German authors - Goethe foremost among them - whose works were held to be so important that all publishers should be free to distribute them. Although Goethe’s private papers were still inaccessible, a vast new fi eld was thereby opened up for the universities. As independent writing became a sustainable commercial activity, the bureaucracy withdrew into the editing and philological study of the national literature.

In 1872, after Bismarck had united the German states in a war against France and left them no alternative but accession to his new Empire, David Friedrich Strauss, fi rst a critic of Bismarck but now an enthusiastic supporter, proposed that the cultivation of ‘our great poets’ (Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller) and ‘our great musicians’ (Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven) had more value for the new Germany than a Christianity that was both incredible and obsolete. In The Old Faith and the New (Der alte und der neue Glaube), he argued that the historical basis of Christianity had been destroyed by his own researches and that its philosophical claims were refuted by modern science, particularly astronomy and Darwinian biology. What remained of spiritual needs could

be satisfi ed in ‘Art’. Strauss uttered with lumbering frankness the truth about the accommodation between the bourgeoisie and the state in the newly united Germany: that with the passing of the princes national ‘culture’ had now taken the place of Lutheran religion.

If there was any single contemporary who embodied modern German culture as Strauss understood it, it was Richard Wagner (1813-83), whose operas (rather than the plays of Hebbel) were the true successors to Schiller’s drama and the true fulfi lment of the 18th century’s dream of a German national theatre. Wagner himself saw his work as the crowning synthesis of German literature, philosophy, and music, and he brought together in his personal career most of the contradictory elements that Bismarck had fused into a nation. In his twenties Wagner was closely associated with the Young Germany movement, and in his unhappy apprenticeship years in Paris from 1839 to 1842 he made the acquaintance of Heine and the Russian anarchist Bakunin, of the socialist ideas of Marx and Proudhon, and of Feuerbach’s radical secularization of religion. While conductor at the Dresden opera-house in the 1840s he wrote revolutionary journalism and in 1849 took an active part in the unsuccessful local uprising.

Exiled to Switzerland for the next 16 years by fear of the German police and of his creditors he gave up politics and even, for a while, composing, in favour of the written word. Drawing on his German predecessors from Winckelmann to Romanticism, who had seen the perfection of Greek art as expressing the perfection of Greek society, and modern art as the means of educating and transforming modern society, he elaborated a theory of opera as the successor to Greek tragedy and the true instrument of social revolution. In 1853 he published his libretto, in pseudo-archaic alliterative verse, of an operatic tetralogy, The Ring of the Nibelung (Der Ring des Nibelungen) - drawing more on Norse than on German material - which represented the development of society in terms of a much modifi ed Hegelianism: from an initial fall away from a state of nature into institutions of power and property, through the growth of individualism and so of the counter-power of love, which, however, increasingly engenders confl icts of its own, until it makes all things new in the confl agration of universal revolution. Wagner’s composition of the score for this colossal project was interrupted in 1854, however, by his discovery of the philosophy of Schopenhauer, which completed his conversion from political radicalism by its demonstration of the metaphysical priority of ‘Art’ over society, and of music over all other arts. He turned therefore to Tristan and Isolde (completed 1860), which shows individuals as transient, suffering manifestations of the endlessly yearning Will, and then to an opera about opera, or at least about words and music, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (written 1861-7). Hans Sachs here appears as a Schopenhauerian philosopher-artist (Wagner?) whose wise guidance brings together the two lovers, Walther von Stolzing and Eva Pogner. He thus reconciles the nobility, represented by the initially arrogant (stolz) Walther, with the stubbornly bourgeois artisans of Nuremberg, into whose guild Walther has sought admittance.

All parties can then join Sachs in his fi nal hymn of praise to the ‘sacred German art’, presumably of opera, which is said to be a surer bond of national unity even than the German Empire.

The union of Walther with the burghers of Nuremberg precisely parallels the union Bismarck achieved in the course of the 1860s between an autocratic and hierarchical state structure and the newly wealthy middle classes, weaned away from the parliamentarianism of 1848. It also paralleled the fairy-tale turn taken by Wagner’s own life in 1864 when Ludwig II, the 19-year-old king of Bavaria, announced his intention of freeing Wagner of all practical worries and enabling him to concentrate on composition, so transforming the self-made, and nearly self-ruined, artist into a state institution.

The Ring was completed (with a Schopenhauerian infl ection of the conclusion into universal pessimism), but Wagner’s last 18 years became a weirdly anachronistic reprise of Goethe’s time in Weimar as favourite of a minor monarch in a pre-revolutionary

age. That, however, was only the mirror-image of the role Strauss had equally weirdly assigned to the literary and musical culture of late 18th-century agricultural and absolutist Germany and Austria: to provide spiritual sustenance to an industrial, urban, late 19th-century mass society too modern for religion. The incongruity between the circumstances in which this literature and music had been produced and the purposes which they were now expected to serve, like the incongruity between Wagner’s apparently medieval themes (which were what appealed to King Ludwig) and the hyper-modernity of his music, could be concealed by dubbing them ‘classical’, ‘timeless’, or ‘sacred’ ‘Art’.

As such they could in turn conceal the incongruous hybridity of the ‘Bildungsbürger’ who consumed them, the middle classes of the new nation, united only by ‘culture’. Ludwig’s patronage allowed Wagner to build a temple to sacred German art, the opera house at Bayreuth, which was inaugurated in 1876 with the fi rst complete performance of The Ring. To ‘consecrate’ (his own word) his temple, Wagner then wrote his last opera Parsifal (1882) in which Christian symbols and rituals, their original function being explicitly declared to be obsolete, are deployed in the service of Schopenhauer’s ethics. Strauss’s favourite composer was Haydn, and he thought Schopenhauer ‘unhealthy’, but in Parsifal his programme for a new faith for modern Germany was fulfi lled.

(ii) ‘Power protecting interiority’ (1872-1914)

‘It can only be a confusion to speak of a victory of German “Bildung” and culture’, Nietzsche wrote in the middle of the nationalist euphoria that followed on the Franco-Prussian War and the proclamation of Bismarck’s Empire, ‘a confusion that rests on the fact that in Germany the pure concept of culture has been lost’. In the military victory he saw rather the potential for ‘the defeat, indeed the extirpation, of the German spirit (“Geist”) in favour of the German Empire’. ‘Culture’ for Nietzsche required ‘unity of artistic style in all the expressions of a people’s life’ and German culture he saw as hopelessly disharmonious, though he did not recognize that this disharmony resulted from forcing together the commercially successful literature and materialist philosophy of the new bourgeoisie with the elitist and idealist inheritance of the old bureaucracy. Nietzsche’s was the bitterest, though not the last, expression of the resentment of Germany’s cultural officials at being cheated of power by the rise of capital (ressentiment was the term he later made his own for the emotional revenge of history’s losers on those who conquered them). In the ideal society he envisaged in The Antichrist (1888, published 1895), one of the last works he wrote before collapsing into incurable insanity, the dominant class, superior even to the king and the military, are the intellectuals, ‘die geistigsten Menschen’. His matchless powers of destructive, and self-destructive, criticism were directed at any attempt to reconcile the principles which underlay Germany’s new success - determinist science, mass production, competitive economic individualism - with the secularized theology that had been the basis of old Germany’s culture. Sometimes he criticized the old - its enlightened rationalism, its humanitarianism, and especially its more overtly religious survivals - in the name of the new. Sometimes he criticized the new - its egalitarianism, socialism, feminism, anti-Semitism - from the standpoint of the old, and now dispossessed, elite. The detachment of thought from any real social object or context became the purpose of his writing and of his solitary, wandering way of life. From any contemporary who might have seemed to personify what he stood for he distanced himself in an often violent act of self-redefi nition: Strauss earned Nietzsche’s virulent hostility through being a more effective critic of religion than he was; Schopenhauer, whose metaphysics were the foundation on which The Birth of Tragedy was built, and Wagner whose music-dramas it represented as the summit of modern culture, were later rejected for the crypto-Christianity of their ethics. Nietzsche was incapable of constructing a book-length, or even an essay-length, argument and his attempt at a magnum opus, his biblical pastiche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (Also sprach Zarathustra, 1883-5) suffers from the stylistic inauthenticity that he diagnosed in his contemporaries. But in his collections of aphorisms and short reflections - the best are probably Human, All Too Human (Menschliches Allzumenschliches, 1878-80) and Beyond Good and Evil (Jenseits von Gut und Böse, 1886) - Nietzsche’s brilliance could show itself untrammelled by any need for sustained coherence and he became one of the most variously and subversively fruitful thinkers for the 20th century:

‘Knowledge for its own sake’ - that is the fi nal snare that morality lays: with that you are completely entangled in it once again.

‘I did that’, says my memory. ‘I cannot have done that’ - says my pride, and is implacable. Eventually - memory gives in.

He who fi ghts with monsters should take care that he does not turn into a monster himself. And if you look long into an abyss, the abyss too will look into you.

In 1885 the Empire on which Nietzsche had declared intellectual war won one of its greatest victories. Goethe’s papers were opened to the nation, on the death of his last grandchild, and Weimar became once again the city of Goethe and Schiller. A network of Goethe Societies, centred on Weimar, sprang up around Germany and the world, the houses of the poets were turned into museums, their papers were transferred into a purpose-built archive, and professors and their assistants immediately began to labour on a historical-critical edition of Goethe’s works which eventually ran to over 150 volumes and was not completed until 1919. The writings of Goethe and his fellow ‘classics’, and the scholarship of the academic bureaucracy which edited them all, became the twin pillars of a German national literature, the common property, and tribal totem, of both wings of the ‘Bildungsbürgertum’ and of the new political nation that held that strange class together. Praised or damned or played off one against the other they have retained that status in all subsequent Germanies down to the present day.

Even as the process of institutionalization was beginning, Nietzsche pointed to the false premiss on which it was based:

that the ‘classics’ defi ned in 1867 were fi nders and builders of a national culture, when in reality they were seekers for a culture who sought in vain. In 1896, however, Nietzsche’s sister moved her now famous but slowly dying brother to Weimar with all his papers, and in 1953 these literary remains of another ‘classic’ were fi nally interred in the Goethe-Schiller Archive.

Nietzsche’s revulsion from the hybrid culture of Bismarck’s Reich was shared, notably in Munich, the capital of the largest and most reluctant new member of the Empire. The patronage of the Bavarian kings extended beyond Wagner to a group of mostly second-rate writers and poets who saw themselves as keeping alive the spirit of aesthetic idealism in a hostile age - bourgeois men of means who did not have the courage of the materialism proper to their class and took refuge in the Art they owed to Germany’s officials. Among them Paul Heyse (1830-1914), eventually a Nobel prizewinner, contributed more by a single idea than by his over a hundred works of fi ction. With his anthology, A German Treasury of Tales (Deutscher Novellenschatz, 1871), and the theoretical musings that accompanied it, he created a literary concept that had the necessary multivalency to appeal to both the commercial and the academic factions in the cultural life of the Second Empire. Novella (Novelle in German) was a long-established term for a short story in prose, and there had already been some speculation (for example, by Tieck) about the characteristics of the genre. But Heyse created the idea of the ‘Novelle’ as a prose form which, by its consciously self-enclosed structure and symbolic coherence, could bring the undisciplined energies of realistic narrative, springing up all over Europe and reflecting the lives and concerns of a mass readership, under the control of the German concept of ‘Art’. If late 18th-century poetic drama had been elite culture morphing into the book, the late 19th-century ‘Novelle’ was the book morphing into elite culture. ‘Sister of the drama’ the ‘Novelle’ was called by one of its most serious practitioners, the North German lyrical poet (and state official) Theodor Storm (1817-88) for whom isolation in Schleswig-Holstein was his own form of protest against the new order.

Throughout the Second Empire Munich remained the centre of the aesthetic opposition to the Prussian commercial and industrial powerhouse that stretched from Silesia to the Ruhr. Southern, Catholic, within reach of the Alpine passes to the Mediterranean lands, and blessed both with a largely functionless monarchy happy to build temples to art and music and with a stock of cheap apartments, vacated by those who had gone to seek their fortune in the North, it was a magnet for writers, painters, anarchists, and secular prophets. In Munich, the fantasy could be maintained that the combination of Hellenism and idealism achieved by poets and philosophers in Goethe’s lifetime represented a true Germany opposed to the economic and political forces that had in fact brought the nation into being. ‘Munich is the only city on the earth without “the bourgeois”’, wrote Stefan George (1868- 1933) ‘… a thousand times better than [the] Berlin mish-mash of petty bureaucrats jews and whores.’ George, a Rhinelander who lived on private means inherited from his bourgeois parents, originally wanted to be a Catholic priest, but instead founded his own religion of poetry and male friendship.

Having met Verlaine and Mallarmé in Paris, he tried to give his German verse the qualities and even (by the elimination of capital letters) the physical appearance of French. Cultivating elusiveness, George moved from house to house of his acquaintances, but for a while in the 1890s he settled in Munich where he could be seen ‘striding’ through the cafés, ‘like a bishop through the middle of Saint Peter’s’. In his privately circulated journal Leaves for Art (Blätter für die Kunst), printed on choice paper, with carefully selected coloured inks, and decorated with Art Nouveau vignettes and calligraphy and the Indian mystical symbol of the swastika, he published poems marked by esoteric content, exquisite purity of diction, and an unfailing perfection of rhyme. The Year of the Soul (Das Jahr der Seele, 1895) - a title taken from Hölderlin whom George, like Nietzsche, saw as a personifi cation of the nobility of German poetry, disregarded by Germany itself - recounts, in a progression through the seasons, the failure of love for a woman and the ‘new adventure’ of love for a man. George ruthlessly terminates the compromises of Mörike and Droste-Hülshoff. In his poems, the self is not so much unknowable as absent: they focus, with commanding single-mindedness, on a ‘you’ (du)

who has no features of his own beyond the shared experience of the symbolic landscape, which in turn is more of an erotic dreamscape. Poetry has become the vehicle of a pure will to power, untrammelled by the opposition of independent personalities or a material world. After the turn of the century, as nationalism intensifi ed but materialism showed no signs of losing its grip, George’s writing took on a more prophetic and apocalyptic tone (The Seventh Ring [Der Siebente Ring], 1907). He devoted himself to building a circle of disciples who would look up to him as ‘the Master’ and would establish a spiritual kingdom within a world whose corruption, he now felt, could be cleansed only by war (The Star of the Covenant [Der Stern des Bundes], 1914).

If in the Second Empire Munich was the capital of Art, Berlin was the capital of Reality. In rapidly expanding Berlin Germany at last had the context and opportunity for a metropolitan and realist literature, to compare with that of 19th-century Paris, London, or St Petersburg. There is nothing reluctant or unsophisticated about the modernity of Theodor Fontane (1810-1989), a professional journalist and poet, who after periods of residence in England and France settled in Berlin and wrote 14 novels about the new Prussia in the last 20 years of his life. During the 1880s, Fontane advanced from historical themes to the life of his own time.

Comedies of Errors (Irrungen, Wirrungen, 1888), so concise it could be called a Novelle, is the fi rst masterpiece of his mature style which, with its rich texture of unobtrusive leitmotifs and its plot largely driven forward by the apparent contingencies of closely observed conversation, suggests the contemporary manner of the much younger Henry James. If the central theme - the doomed love between Botho, a nobleman, and Lene, a woman of the lower middle class - seems to hark back to mid-18th-century literature, to Intrigue and Love, and Storm and Stress, that reflects the historical signifi cance of Fontane’s achievement.

As a pronounced Anglophile he had recovered the ambition of those earlier, and defeated, revolutionaries to create a German equivalent to the English novel of contemporary society, and he was fulfi lling it. The class difference that separates the lovers, and the political repression that sustains it, are symbolized in Lene’s inability to understand the English inscriptions on two pictures - which otherwise appeal to her - on the wall of the hotel room where she and Botho are happy together, two icons of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of resistance to autocracy: ‘Washington crossing the Delaware’ and ‘The last hour at Trafalgar’. England, and a reminiscence of Trafalgar, in the person of a visiting Mr Nelson, also provide a measure of Germany’s internal discords in Frau Jenny Treibel (1893), which is devoted to the comic discrepancy between the two forms of the ‘Bildungsbürger’, the bourgeois and the academic. But Fontane was more than a satirist, he was a moralist with a penetrating sense of political and historical realities. He could not be content with merely criticizing his society: he had to use the representation of it to reflect on ultimate questions of right and wrong and human purpose. In 1892 he began a series of novels which achieve something almost without precedent in German literature: presenting lives which are as independent, responsible, and free of political oppression as it is possible for human lives to be, because they are lived by members of a ruling class. In Beyond Recall (Unwiederbringlich, 1892), Effi Briest (1895), and Der Stechlin (1898), Fontane did what his 18th-century predecessors were unable to do. He brought the resources of literary realism to bear on a class which was its own master: the landowning Prussian nobility, for the sake of which Bismarck had constructed his Empire, and which was charged by him with restraining the political ambitions of Germany’s bourgeoisie. But the issues of meaning and conscience, of deeds and consequences and the passing of time, that Fontane’s characters have to face transcend their historical circumstances and they know it. Effi Briest in particular stands out for the tautness of its psychological and symbolic structure. It is not just about the drift into adultery of its lively heroine, caught in a loveless marriage to an older husband, ambitiously climbing the ladder of promotion in one of Bismarck’s ministries, but about the consequences of the accidental discovery of the adultery years later. Effi ’s husband, von Innstetten, allows himself to be constrained by the code of honour of his caste to kill his rival in a duel, to divorce his wife, and to separate her from her only daughter, thus destroying four lives, including his own. Why he does this, he does not know, and neither do we. Is there in him a streak of cruelty? Does he just lack the human sympathy of the novel’s narrator, or of Effi ’s faithful Catholic maidservant, or even of her dog? Or is he a victim of some fate greater than himself, as unavoidable as social existence yet as arbitrary as the seeming chance that we live in one time rather than another? ‘You are right!’ says the friend in whom Innstetten confi des. ‘The world

just is the way it is, and things don’t happen the way we want but the way other people want … Our cult of honour is idolatry, but we have to submit to it as long as the idol is believed in.’ Because von Innstetten belongs to the class of those who have power, the compulsion to which he and the other characters think they have to submit is shown to us as something whose form might change with a redistribution of power but which would not then itself be eliminated. In bowing to it they are not deluded, and their human worth depends on the spirit in which they perform the obligations imposed by their transient but inescapable time and place. And so they seem proper objects of the narrator’s tactful and understated compassion as well as of his irony. Fontane knew intimately the class he made central to his three greatest novels, but he did not himself belong to it. His realism therefore always hints at another perspective from that of his principals, at the historical certainty that one day the insubstantial pageant will all fade and another idol in another temple demand submission. ‘Our old families are all victims of the idea that “things won’t work without them”, which is quite wrong’, says a thoughtful character in Fontane’s last novel, Stechlin. ‘Wherever we look we are in a world of democratic attitudes. A new age is dawning.’

In the new century the old Prussian families, and Prussia itself, did indeed pass away. For Berlin’s younger generation of writers they were already an irrelevance in a technological and industrial age. Literature needed to concentrate not on the landed but on the monied classes, and on those out of whom they made their money, the new class of industrial workers. The Naturalist movement of the 1880s and 1890s, led by Arno Holz (1863-1929) and Johannes Schlaf (1862-1944), was partly an enthusiastic response to the work of Zola and Ibsen, but it was also a recovery of the native German tradition of radical bourgeois realism which had last surfaced in the mid-18th century and then in the work of Büchner (whose Woyzeck, its title mistranscribed as Wozzeck, was fi rst published in 1878). To that extent its aims were allied to those of Fontane, who reviewed some of its productions favourably. The affl uence that made it possible to live as a professional novelist had a similar effect on drama, particularly since princely Germany continued to maintain the extensive network of subsidized theatres. Censorship might be strict, but in a centre of wealth such as Berlin it could be evaded. The impresario Otto Brahm (1856-1912) founded a private (and so uncensored) theatre club, where the fi rst production, in 1889, was of Ibsen’s Ghosts, banned for its discussion of syphilis, and the second the even more scandalous Before Sunrise (Vor Sonnenaufgang), the fi rst mature work of Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946), on the theme of hereditary alcoholism (a typical fantasy of the age of eugenics).

Hauptmann, a Silesian who, supported at fi rst by his wife, took up a writing career in Berlin, had like Heine an ambiguous attitude to the modern age which he was introducing into literature: in an early poem about a train journey by night his reverie occasioned by the moonlit landscape outside the carriage is interrupted by thoughts of the impoverished and angry workers who built the line for his comfort. Inspired not by theory but by a hugely generous sympathy, he was willing for a while to be dubbed a Naturalist by Holz and Schlaf, but it was not long before he showed the more subjective side of his versatile talent.

The family devastated by drink in Before Sunrise is an archetype of Bismarck’s Germany: Silesian farmers transformed overnight by mineral wealth into industrial capitalists. Into their brutish milieu intrudes a journalist full of the materialist and determinist ideas of the time, who seems to their Werther-reading daughter to offer a hope of escape. But as a good Darwinian he cannot bring himself to marry her for fear of the family’s supposed hereditary taint and, like Werther, she kills herself. The weak-willed intellectual, a lineal descendant of the theologian with doubts to whom 18th-century literature owed so much, is a constant feature of Hauptmann’s works with a contemporary setting. The fi gure personifi es Hauptmann’s reluctance to follow Fontane and extend the scope of his realism to the classes which were the locus of political power: a passive acceptance of necessity can be made to

seem an adequate response to suffering if you do not include in the world you represent people who are free to act.

Disguised, such a spokesman for myopia even appears in Hauptmann’s masterpiece The Weavers (Die Weber, 1892). The Weavers is a triumph of the manner pioneered by the young Goethe, Lenz, and Büchner, a drama with many strands and no hero, which lives from the energy of the language of the workers (Hauptmann fi rst drafted it in his native dialect). Its theme, the uprising of the starving Silesian cottage-weavers against the factory owners in 1844 and its suppression by military force, led to repeated attempts to prohibit its performance (and the new Emperor, Wilhelm II, cancelled his subscription to Brahm’s theatre in disgust). But, as Fontane remarked in his review, it is a revolutionary play with an anti-revolutionary conclusion. In the last act an elderly weaver emerges as the play’s moral centre, urging non-violence, and is killed in the closing moments by a stray bullet. Fontane tellingly pointed to the parallels with Schiller. Unlike the novel, the drama was in Germany still too implicated in the princely past to reflect the realities of power in the new society. Hauptmann revived not only the realism of Lenz’s era but its self-emasculating submission to autocracy and eventually its diversion into idealism. In 1896, his fi ve act ‘fairy drama’, The Sunken Bell (Die versunkene Glocke) showed he was himself still an obstinate dreamer in the moonlight. In 1912 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Looking back on the career of Richard Wagner in 1933, Thomas Mann (1875-1955) saw in it the typical progression of the entire German middle class from the disappointed revolution of 1848 to resigned cultivation of ‘interiority protected by power’ (machtgeschützte Innerlichkeit) in Bismarck’s Empire: an inner world of art and culture could fl ourish provided the authoritarian, and ultimately military, structure that protected it was not questioned. Mann was clearly thinking of himself as much as of Wagner. Few writers were as typical as he of the Second Empire middle class: in his own person he united both the bourgeoisie and the intellectuals, both Berlin and Munich. His family circumstances could not have been more bourgeois: born in what had until 1871 been the Free City of Lübeck, he was the son of a wealthy corn-merchant who married a colonial German Brazilian.

After his father’s death in 1891 he lived on inherited money and, later, his literary earnings: he was never, even indirectly, dependent on the state. Yet all his work was, more or less overtly, dominated by the concept of disinterested Art, the centrepiece in the ideology of 18th and 19th-century officialdom, and the bridge between the two wings of the ‘Bildungsbürgertum’. In the early 1890s the Mann family moved to Munich where, following in the footsteps of his older brother Heinrich (1871-1950), Thomas began to make a name for himself as a writer of unashamedly cynical short stories. Looking back from this new perspective on the world in which he had grown up he had his fi rst great success with the novel Buddenbrooks, begun when he was only 22.

Buddenbrooks. Decline of a Family (Buddenbrooks. Verfall einer Familie, 1901) is Germany’s greatest, perhaps only, contribution to the European 19th-century tradition of the realistic novel of bourgeois life. Its greatness, and its European status, is partly due to its being a specifi cally German contribution. Not just because it tells the story of four generations of a commercial family in Lübeck from 1835 to 1877, against a densely visualized backcloth of North German domestic architecture, dinner parties, and linguistic habits, of holidays by the North Sea, of schoolroom practices some of which still survive, of the strangely transient impact of public events in 1848 and the advent of street lighting.

That gives a specifi cally German cast to the marriages, divorces, and love-affairs, the black sheep and the gossip, the social friction with commercial rivals and the deals that go awry which mark the decline of the Buddenbrook fi rm and the eventual extinction of the family’s male line. But what makes Buddenbrooks more than just Galsworthy or Arnold Bennett in a German setting is a feature of its structure that only Germany could provide. Beneath the comedy, tragedy, and irony of individual lives sacrifi ced on the altar of the family business there is the implication of the working out of some more general principle or destiny. We seem to be pointed towards Nietzsche’s critique of Schopenhauer, and his variant of the Darwinists’ theory of degeneracy, of which Hauptmann had made cruder use in Before Sunrise. In Nietzsche’s view - at times at least - the intellectual and artistic insight which for Schopenhauer offered some escape from the hideous struggle for existence was itself a symptom of failure in the struggle. As the Buddenbrook family decays, so ethical qualms, philosophical puzzlement, and artistic sensibility gain more of a hold over its will to survive. But these hints of a philosophical meaning or substructure to the story have a double effect. They open up, it is true, the possibility that the book should be read as showing that human lives are ineluctably determined and ultimately meaningless. But by raising the question of the eternal value, or valuelessness, of the characters’ lives they make those lives into more than just sad or comic examples of the distortion of humanity by the power of money or social conformism: the characters and their gestures towards freedom and signifi cance, however doomed or feeble, acquire an importance - one might call it a religious importance - which it transcends the capacity of their milieu to express. By thus uniting the novelistic realism of the European bourgeoisie with the philosophical introspection of the German official tradition Thomas Mann provided the Second Empire with its greatest literary monument. There is a price. Buddenbrooks is Germany without Prussia, and without the universities. Mann’s early narratives (unlike the last works of Fontane, their virtual contemporary) give us society without the state. The social and economic origins of moral and personal judgements are shown, but not of the notions of ‘art’ and ‘spirit’, ‘life’, and ‘will’, which underpin the novel, and especially the short stories.

The supposed opposition between ‘life’ and ‘art’, ‘the bourgeois’ and ‘the artist’, is central to the stories Mann wrote in the next phase of his career, notably Tristan and Tonio Kröger (1903) and Death in Venice (Der Tod in Venedig, 1912). The opposition was unreal in so far as both ‘bourgeois’ and ‘artist’

were ‘Bildungsbürger’, but it could appear as a real and deep opposition of metaphysical principles in so far as Mann’s writing left unrepresented the ruling, ‘protective’ power that unifi ed the disparate elements of German society in the service of the new German state. Instead, the unifying principle in these early narratives was Mann’s writing itself. Tonio Kröger, though he becomes an ‘artist’ in Munich, remains in love with the North German ‘bourgeois’ world he has left, even when it treats him with indifference or suspicion. ‘You are a bourgeois who has lost his way’, a friend tells him. But he replies: ‘If anything is capable of making a littérateur [i.e. one who writes for money] into a poet [‘Dichter’, i.e. one who writes out of dedication to ‘Art’], it is this bourgeois love of mine for what is human, alive and ordinary’.

In Buddenbrooks, Mann made something that Germany’s high

cultural tradition could recognize as ‘Art’ and ‘poetry’ out of a loving representation of the bourgeois world that had previously been excluded from it. Only gradually did he recognize that it was necessary also to give an account of the dependence of high culture on collaboration with political authority. As the European centre of the global economy drifted towards crisis, it became generally apparent that Germany’s future would be determined more by power, political and military, than by bourgeois decency and ordinariness. Mann’s literary response to the crisis, the most famous of all his stories, was overwhelmingly artful but it shows the beginnings of a willingness to present German culture in a political context. ‘The realm of Art is growing, and that of health and innocence is shrinking on earth’ Tonio Kröger says, and in Death in Venice Art displaces Life everywhere. Gustav von Aschenbach, an acclaimed and mature writer, is tempted to linger too long in a cholera-ridden Venice by a homoerotic obsession with the young son of a Polish aristocratic family staying at his hotel, and succumbs to the disease. It might seem that this is another tale of Art falling in love with the Life from which it is separated and to which it pays homage. But von Aschenbach’s title of nobility shows he is no Kröger: he is the offspring of a long line of servants of the Prussian state. The Art to which he has dedicated a career of self-abnegation is not the ‘lively, intellectually undemanding concreteness of depiction’ which entertains ‘the bourgeois masses’, but, we are told, philosophical, moralistic, classicizing, and highly formal. And the love to which Aschenbach surrenders is not the healthy innocence and unproblematic eros, indifferent to things of the mind, that captivates Tonio Kröger but is already aestheticized, and knowing, and explicitly not ‘ordinary’. Aschenbach in his thoughts clothes it in the language of classical mythology and Nietzschean philosophy, but its true name is death - the death that in the story, in the form of a plague, is beginning to seep through the canals and squares of Venice and threatens the breakdown of all civilized order; the death that in Europe, in 1912, was marshalling its agents for the coming catastrophe, among them the Prussian soldiers and officials whose ethos Aschenbach had made his own.

The irony with which Aschenbach is treated in the richly physical, but always symbolically signifi cant, narrative medium - an art wholly different from that which is said to have made the story’s hero famous - shows that Mann could express in literature a far subtler understanding of German realities than we fi nd in the bellicose essays in which he spoke out for his country’s cause after 1914.

The earth creaked before it quaked. By the early years of the 20th century prescient writers could sense that the identity of the nation, collective and individual, was threatened by the growth of global industrial mass society. Heinrich Mann recognized long before his brother that protectionist nationalism was no substitute for internationalism and could lead only to war and, in his own novels, satirized the pillars of the German state that scarcely fi gured in Buddenbrooks: academic culture in Professor Unrat (1905) and monarchist ideology in His Majesty’s Subject (Der Untertan, 1914). Personal identity is dissolved into the interface between social role and sexual desire in the plays of Frank Wedekind (1864-1918), an unstable character, uncertain both of his national roots (he was an American citizen, and ‘Frank’ was short for ‘Benjamin Franklin’) and of his social position (after running through an inheritance he worked in Munich for Maggi Soup, and then as a cabaret artist, before he could live from his writings in a respectable marriage). Spring’s Awakening (Frühlings Erwachen, 1891) was fi rst produced in 1906 in Brahm’s theatre in Berlin, by then directed by Max Reinhart, but it was not performed in full until the 1960s thanks to its scenes of fl agellation, sexual intercourse, homosexual kissing, and competitive masturbation. Its fragmented manner owes much to Büchner, and its diction, combining naturalism, satirical caricature and somewhat overheated romanticism, proved very infl uential. Between the adult world of grotesque puppets and the unformed adolescents whose burgeoning sexuality they punish, suppress, or deny, there lies no area of mature or integral personality. Sexuality, after all, is prior to personality, and so is very close to the violence which destroys it. Lulu, the central character in Wedekind’s two-part drama (1895, 1904), which gave Alban Berg the plot and title of his second opera (his fi rst was Wozzeck), is more a personifi cation of sex than a sex-driven person, and she ends as a victim of Jack the Ripper - a role which Wedekind played himself. As military confrontations such as the Moroccan crisis of 1911 showed, the power of violence that for 40 years had protected interiority was about to shake itself free. Violence fi gures prominently in the work of the generation of young writers who around 1910 founded journals with titles such as Action and Storm. It seems a premonition when Georg Heym (1887-1912), who died young in an accident, writes a poem about the maggots on the face of a dead soldier in a forest, but the bodies dissolving back into nature, which are the main theme of Morgue (1912), the fi rst collection published by the Berlin doctor Gottfried Benn (1886-1956), are simply the material of a professional’s daily work. Benn’s inability to believe in personalities, let alone in relationships between them, is already apparent in his description of his affair with the Jewish poet Else Lasker-Schüler (1869-1945)

as ‘dark, sweet onanism’. Lasker-Schüler herself wrote, in a different vein, some of the best poetry of the period. Often gently, or eccentrically, rhymed, her poems draw on a restricted range of images - jewellery, stars, fl owers, primary colours, her Jewish traditions - to explore the love of others, the world, and God. She too could sense the approach of Nietzschean apocalypse, but her poem ‘World’s End’ (‘Weltende’) is free of any savage or cynical heroics:

Es ist ein Weinen in der Welt, Als ob der liebe Gott gestorben wär, […]

Du! wir wollen uns tief küssen -

Es pocht eine Sehnsucht an die Welt An der wir sterben müssen.

[There is a weeping in the world as if the good Lord had died […]

Come let us kiss each other deeply - there is a desire knocking at the world and we must die of it.]

A similar sense that even amid the confl icts and absurdities of the Second Empire a humane and compassionate life is possible informs the most delicately humorous poetry of the period, the ‘nonsense verse’ of Christian Morgenstern (1871-1914). The principal fi gures in his Gallows Songs (Galgenlieder, 1905, and subsequent collections), which despite their title are rarely macabre, are the hyper-sensitive Professor Palmström and his friend von Korf, who to the consternation of bureaucracy has no physical existence. In territory situated somewhat between Edward Lear and Heath Robinson they meet the ‘moonsheep’

and the ‘nasobeme’ (which strides around on its many noses) and relieve stress by reading the day after tomorrow’s newspaper or inventing watches that go backwards on request.

Schoolmaster’s German is parodied, dead metaphors come back to tangible life, Palmström plays Korf ’s Sneezewort Sonata on the Olfactory Organ (Geruchsorgel) and, decorated with various metaphysical grace-notes, the ingenuity of the little man cheerfully evades the constraints of a reality administered by officials and intellectuals:

Ein fi nstrer Esel sprach einmal zu seinem ehlichen Gemahl:

“Ich bin so dumm, du bist so dumm, wir wollen sterben gehen, kumm!”

Doch wie es kommt so öfter eben:

Die beiden blieben fröhlich leben.

[A gloomy donkey once said to his wedded wife: ‘I am so thick, you are so thick, let’s go and die, come on’. But as tends to happen - the two stayed happily alive.]

Chapter 7: The Tragedies Of Karbala’

The Umayyad government determined to destroy Islam and to annihilate its foundations and forces. Then it decided to degrade the Muslims, to paralyze their physical and mental activities, and to prevent them from practicing the principles of their great religion. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, witnessed this severe ordeal as his father, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, witnessed it during the days of the government of Mu‘awiya and Yazid. He shared his father’s pain and sorrow.

Imam al-Husayn was unable to carry out his great revolt during the days of Mu‘awiya because he understood that his revolt would fail, and that he would be unable to change the situations standing in the country. Because Mu‘awiya used strong policy and ruled with wisdom, it was impossible for Imam al-Husayn to overcome him and abort his plans. When this tyrannical person (Mu‘awiya) died and Yazid took the reins of government, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, decided to accomplish his religious duty. He determined to resist Yazid and to overthrow his government.

Accordingly, he would be able to preserve the Muslims’ interests and rights. Moreover he would be loyal to the fundamentals of the religion of his grandfather. So he, peace be on him, declared his great revolt through which Allah made the Book clear, and which He made a lesson for the wise. Hence we will briefly mention some sides of this great revolt, which showed terrible events to Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin. Although he was ill, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin was able to understand all the stages of this tragedy through his sensitive feelings and his careful sentiment. That is as follows:

On the Plateau of Karbala’

The pure family of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, adopted the rights of the oppressed and the persecuted, so they head for Iraq. When they arrived at the Plateau of Karbala’, they were afflicted by ordeals, misfortunes, and disasters, so they were sure of the destructive catastrophe. This occurred when they found themselves surrounded by the wicked forces who intended to shed their blood and to force them to yield to abasement, but Allah refused to accept that for them.

Imam al-Husayn looked at the young men from among the members of his family, they were in the bloom of youth, so he burst into tears and began saying: “O Allah, we are the Household of Your Prophet, Muhammad, peace be on him. We have been banished from the Scared City of our grandfather, and the Umayyads have transgressed against us, so, O Allah, take our right from them, and grant us victory over the oppressive people.”

Then he addressed the heroes from among his Household and his companions, saying: “The people are the slaves of this world, and the religion is licking on their tongues. They encompass it (the religion) as long as their livelihoods stream, but when they are tested by tribulation, they are a few in following the religion.1 ”

These brilliant words show the practical reality of the life of the people throughout the stages of history, so they are the slaves of this world at every place and time. As for the religion, it has no shade in their inner selves. When disasters befall them, they deny it and turn away from it, so, indeed, it is licking on their tongues.

Then Imam al-Husayn turned to his companions and said to them: “Then after, you have seen what has befallen us, and the world has changed and neglected (us), its kindness has turned away (from us), and nothing has remained of it except a rest like the rest of the container and a mean life which is like an unhealthy food. Don’t you see that the (people) do not put the truth into effect and do not prevent each other from (doing) falsehood? Indeed, the believer is desirous of meeting Allah. So, indeed, I see that death is (nothing) except happiness, and that life with the oppressive is (nothing) except boredom.2 ”

In this speech, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, showed that all kinds of ordeals and tribulations befell them, and that the thinking of the world toward them changed, for fate brought to them tiresome misfortunes, but the grandson of the great Prophet was brave enough to face them, for he saw that the people did not put the truth into effect and did not prevent each other from doing falsehood, and that life became abominable and martyrdom in the way of Allah was happiness.

When Imam al-Husayn finished his speech, all his companions rushed toward death to give people the most wonderful examples of sacrifice for establishing justice and fairness. Each one of them spoke with the words of sincerity, so the Imam thanked and lauded them for that.

Imam al-Husayn announced his Death

On the night of Muharram 10th, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, was sure of death, so he entered his own tent, prepared his own sword, and said:

Time, shame on you as friend! At the day’s

dawning and the sun’s setting!

How many a companion or seeker will be

a corpse! Time will not be satisfied with any

substitute.

The matter will rest with the Almighty one,

and every living creature will have to journey

along my path.

In these lines of poetry, the Imam announced his death. He was in the tent of Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin and of the granddaughter of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, Zaynab, daughter of Imam ‘Ali, the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him. When Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin heard these lines, he understood what his father wanted, so tears choked him, and he kept silent and knew that tribulation had come upon them, as he said: “As for my aunt, Zaynab, she felt that her brother and the rest of her Household had determined to meet death and to attain martyrdom. She could not control herself; she jumped up, tearing at her clothes, sighing and went to him.” “Then I will lose a brother,” Zaynab said to him, “Would death deprived me of life, (for) my mother Fatima, is dead, and my father, ‘Ali, and my brother, al-Husayn, peace be on them (all).”

“O sister,” al-Husayn said to her as he looked at her with his eyes full of tears, “don’t let Satan take away your forbearance.”

However, Zaynab became pale, and sorrow tore up her gentle, tortured heart, so she lamented to her brother al-Husayn: “O my grief, your life will be violently wrenched from you and that is more wounding to my heart and harsher to my soul.”

When she was sure that her brother would be killed, she could not control her forbearance, so she tore her garment, struck at her face, and then she fell down in a faint. Then the granddaughters of the Prophet shared that severe ordeal with her. Among them was Umm Kulthu’m, who lamented: “Oh Muhammad! Oh ‘Ali! Oh Imam! Oh Husayn! We will be lost after you!”

That distressing sight had a great effect on the soul of Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him. Sorrow and sighs melted his heart, so he walked towards the granddaughters of the Prophet and ordered them to cling to forbearance and to bear the burdens of this severe ordeal, saying: “O sister, O Umm Kulthu’m, O Fatima, O Rabab, when I am killed, you must not tear your clothes, nor scratch your faces, nor cry out with grief and loss!3 ”

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, ordered his womenfolk to cling to forbearance during those severe ordeals that had come upon them, and he ordered them not to say obscene words.

The Day of ‘Asura’

There was no event in history similar to the event that came upon Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, on the Day of ‘Asura’ because all the ordeals of the world came upon the plant of sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, talked about that tragic day which is immortal in the world of sorrows. He said: “No day was more difficult for Allah’s Messenger than the Day (Battle) of Uhud in which his uncle Hamza b. ‘Abd al-Muttalib, the lion of Allah and the lion of His Messenger, was killed, and after it was the Day (Battle) of Mu’ta in which his cousin Ja‘far b. Abi Talib was killed.” Then he (Zayn al-‘Abidin) said: “There was no day like the Day of al-Husayn, when thirty thousand men advanced against him (while) they claimed that they belonged to this community, and that they (wanted) to seek proximity to Allah, the Great and Almighty, through (shedding) his blood. He (al-Husayn) reminded them of Allah, but they did not learn (from him) till they killed him out of (their) oppression and aggression.4 ”

In the world of Islam, throughout history, there is no day more difficult than that of al-Husayn, for this great Imam revolted (against Yazid) to establish for all the peoples of the East an honorable life, freedom, welfare, security, and tranquillity. However, those wicked people rose against him and shed his blood in a savage way in which history has never seen. They committed these crimes to live under the yoke of slavery, oppression, and injustice.

Imam al-Husayn’s Sermon

Before the fire of the battle broke out, Imam al-Husayn thought that he had to establish proof for those corrupt people, to refute their justifications, and to make them understand clearly their affairs, so he, peace be on him, ordered his horse to be brought to him. He rode it and walked toward them in a highly impressive manner which was similar to that of his grandfather, Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family. He delivered among them his historical sermon, which is the purest and most eloquent one in Arabic literature. He called them at the top of his voice to make them all hear his words.

He said to them: “People, listen to my words and do not hurry (to attack me) so that I may remind you of the duties you have towards me and so that (by telling you the true circumstances) I may free myself from any blame in (your attacking me). If you give me justice, you will become happier through that. If you do not give me justice of your own accord (as individuals), then agree upon your affairs (and your associates); let not your affairs be in darkness to you. Then carry (it) out against me and do not reflect (any further). Indeed my guardian is Allah, Who sent down the Book; He takes care of the righteous.”

The air carried Imam al-Husayn’s words to the womenfolk of the Prophet and they lamented loudly, so the Imam sent to them his brother al-‘Abbas and his son ‘Ali and said to them: “Calm them. By my life, their weeping will be very much.” When they became quiet, he went on delivering his sermon. He praised and glorified Allah, and he called down blessings upon the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, and said concerning that countless words. No speaker has ever been heard before or after him more eloquent in his speech than he was5 . He continued: “People, indeed Allah, the Most High, created this world and made it the abode of annihilation and vanishing. It changes its inhabitants from state to state, so the conceited one is he whom it deludes, and the miserable one is he whom it charms. So let not this world delude you because it cuts off the hope of him who has confidence in it and despairs the greediness of him who desires for it. I see that you have unanimously agreed on an affair through which you have made Allah angry with you, turn his Holy Face away from you, and send down his vengeance upon you. So the best lord is our Lord, and you are the worst slaves! You acknowledged obedience (to Allah) and believed in the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and his family, and then you have crept against his progeny and his family, you want to kill them. Satan has wholly engaged you, so he has made you forget the remembrance of Allah, the Almighty. So woe to you and to what you want! To Allah we belong and to Him is our return. These are people who have disbelieved (in Allah) after their belief (in Him). So away with the oppressive people!”

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, preached to the people with these words. He warned them against the delusion of this world and gave them proofs for its unsuccessful final results and prevented them from killing the family of their Prophet, for they would disbelieve in Islam and be worthy of Allah’s punishment and vengeance. Then the great Imam continued: “People, trace back my lineage and consider who I am. Then look back at yourselves and remonstrate with yourselves. Consider whether it is right for you to kill me and to violate the honor of my womenfolk. Am I not the son of the daughter of your Prophet, of his testamentary trustee (wasi) and his cousin, the first of the believers in Allah and the man who (first) believed in what His Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, brought from his Lord? Was not Hamza, the lord of the martyrs, my uncle? Was not Ja‘far, the one who flies in Heaven, my uncle? Have you not heard the words of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, concerning myself and my brother: ‘These are the two lords of the youths of the inhabitants of heaven’? Whether you believe what I am saying- and it is the truth, for by Allah I have never told a lie since I learnt that Allah hated people (who told) them- or whether you regard me as a liar, there are among you those, if you asked them, would tell you: Ask Ja‘far b. ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari, Abu’ Sa‘id al-Khudari, Sahl b. Sa‘ad al-Sa‘idi, Zayd b. Arqam, and Anas b. Malik to tell you that they heard these words from the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, concerning myself and my brother. Is there not (sufficient) in this to prevent you from shedding my blood?”

It was appropriate for this sermon to change the views of the units of that army and to make a military revolt among their ranks. Through this sermon Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, summoned them to return to their intellects, to consider carefully his affair, for he was the grandson of their Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, the son of his trustee, his womb relative, the lord of the youths of the inhabitants of heaven. All these factors were enough to prevent them from shedding al-Husayn’s blood and violating the honor of his womenfolk, but that army did not understand such excellent preaching, so it was inclined to crime and drowned in error.

However, the wicked sinner, Shimr b. Dhi al-Jawshan interrupted Imam al-Husayn, saying: “If I understand what you are saying, then I only worship Allah (very shakily) on the edge.”

Habeeb b. Muzahir, an excellent Muslim believer, answered Shimr, saying: “I think that you worship Allah (very shakily) on seventy edges, for I testify you are right. You do not understand what he is saying, for Allah has impressed (ignorance) upon your heart.”

Then the great Imam (al-Husayn) continued: “If you are in doubt about these words, you are in doubt that I am the son of the daughter of your Prophet. By Allah there is no son of a prophet other than me among you and among the peoples from the East to the West. Shame on you, are you seeking retribution from me for one of your dead whom I have killed, or for property of yours which I expropriated, or for a wound which I have inflicted?”

These words shook the ground under their feet. They became perplexed, not knowing what to say. Then Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, called the commanders of the army, who wrote letters to him to come to their city, saying: “Shibth b. Rib‘i, Hajjar b. Abjar, Qays b. al-Ash‘th, Yazid b. al-Harth, didn’t you write: ‘The fruit has ripened; the dates have grown green; come to an army which has been gathered for you’?”

But those wicked sinners did not feel shame in betraying a promise and breaking a covenant; they all unanimously agreed on telling lies, saying: “We didn’t do (that).”

The Imam was astonished at their answer, so he said: “Glory belongs to Allah! Yes, by Allah, you did it.”

Thus, the Imam turned his face away from them and addressed the units of the army, saying to them: “People, if you hated me, then let me go to a safe place in the land.”

However, Qays b. al-Ash‘ath, a wicked sinner in Kufa who belonged to a corrupt family, interrupted him, saying: “Submit to the authority of your kinsmen (the Umayyads). They have never treated you with anything but what you liked.”

“By Allah, I will never give you my hand like a man who has been humiliated; nor will I flee like a slave,” said al-Husayn, peace be on him. Then he called out: “O Servants of Allah, I take refuge in my Lord and your Lord from your stoning. I take refuge in my Lord and your Lord from every haughty man who does not believe in the Day of Reckoning.”

Unfortunately, this excellent sermon did not penetrate their hearts, for ignorance had been impressed upon them, so they were like the cattle, rather they were more straying (than them) in way.

The Battle

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, took numerous measures to preserve peace and to avoid shedding blood, but ‘Umar b. Sa‘d declared public war against him, for he advanced toward the Imam’s camp, took an arrow, threw it at the Imam, and said: “Bear witness for me with the Governor that I was the first to throw (an arrow) at al-Husayn’s camp.”

This aggressive, mean person (‘Umar b. Sa‘d) asked his army to bear witness for him with his governor, b. Marjana (i.e., ‘Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad) that he was the first to throw an arrow at the Camp of the truth, dignity, and honor. Then his bowmen showered arrows upon al-Husayn and his companions and hit them all, so the Imam turned to his companions and said to them: “Noble men, stand up! These are the messengers of the people for you!”

Thus, the vanguards of the truth from among the companions of the Imam headed for the battlefield. With that, the battle started between the two armies; it was the most violent battle that ever occurred on the earth.

The Martyrdom of the Righteous

The army of the truth met the army of misguidance and falsehood. The companions of Imam al-Husayn eagerly competed with the male members of his House for death to attain Paradise. With that they led the movement of faith. None of their spirits became weak, so, with their unique sacrifice, they gave a proof of the greatness of Islam, which granted them such a steadfast spirit through which they, though few in number, were able to meet that savage army and cause it heavy casualties.

The companions of al-Husayn and the male members of his Household proved themselves brave, especially as it concerns Aba al-Fadl al-‘Abbas, peace be on him, who sacrificed his life for his brother al-Husayn. Throughout the history of humanity, there is no brotherhood more truthful, nobler, and more sincere than that of al-‘Abbas, so Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, lauded and praised it when he said: “May Allah have mercy on my uncle al-‘Abbas, for he preferred (his brother to himself), showed extreme courage, and sacrificed his life for his brother to the extent that his hands were cut off, so Allah, the Great and Almighty, gave him two wings to fly with the angels in Heaven, as He had given Ja‘far b. Abi Talib. Al-‘Abbas has a great position with Allah, the Exalted, so all the martyrs will envy it on the Day of Judgment.6 ”

Aba al-Fadl al-‘Abbas was the last brother of al-Husayn to be killed. The Imam, peace be on him, stood beside al-‘Abbas’s holy corpse and said with great sorrow: “My back has just broken and my strength become little.”

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, felt loneliness and loss when he lost his brother, who was kind and obedient to him. In our book ‘Hayat al-Imam’ al-Husayn (the Life of Imam al-Husayn), We have spoken in detail about his martyrdom and the attitude of al-Husayn toward him.

Imam al-Husayn sought Help

Imam al-Husayn, who was afflicted with disaster, looked with great sadness and sorrow at the members of his family and his companions. He saw them slaughtered like sheep on the sand of Karbala’ under the heat of the sun’s rays, and he heard his womenfolk weeping and lamenting over their martyred ones. He did not know what would happened to them after his martyrdom. That tragic sight had a great effect on him, so he sought help to protect the womenfolk of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, saying: “Is there anyone to protect the womenfolk of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family? Is there any monotheist to fear Allah through us? Is there any helper who seeks hope from Allah through helping us?7 ”

When Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin heard his father asking those people for helped, he left his bed and leant on a stick because of his severe illness. When al-Husayn saw him, he called his sister Umm Kulthu’m, saying: “Hold him back lest the earth should be void of the descendants of the family of Muhammad!” So his aunt brought him back to his bed, and he suffered psychological pain more than he suffered from his illness. Ordeals and misfortunes filled his mind when he saw that brilliant group of his brothers and cousins martyred on the ground, their sincere companions slaughtered like sheep, his father was surrounded by the enemies of Allah, and the womenfolk of the Prophet shaking with fear. Nevertheless he faced those tragedies with forbearance and entrusted his affair to Allah.

Martyrdom of the great Imam

Those savage criminals surrounded the plant of the sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, stabbing him with their swords and spears and hitting him with stones. Bleeding sapped his strength, so the wicked criminal, Shimr b. Dhi al-Jawshan hurried to behead him. The narrators said: “On the lips of Imam al-Husayn, there was the smile of pleasure and of immortal victory which he gained.”

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, sacrificed his life to establish the state of Truth in the regions of this East, to destroy oppression and injustice, to divide the bounties of Allah among the deprived and the persecuted, and to save the community from the government of the Umayyads who denied human rights and turned the Muslim countries into a farm and took from it whatever they wanted.

Setting the Tents to Fire

The rude and roguish Umayyads set fire to the tents of Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, paying no attention to the Prophet’s womenfolk and children who were in them. They carried firebrands in their hands and cried out: “Set fire to the houses of the oppressors!”

These people thought that the tents of al-Husayn were the houses of oppression while the houses of the Umayyads and of their agents were the houses of justice. They forgot that the Umayyads had drowned the Muslim countries in oppression and tyranny.

When they set the tents to fire, the women of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, escaped to the desert while the fire was following them. As for the orphans, they cried and ran away towards the desert asking the people for help, but nobody helped or aided them. That was the most tragic sight which Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin saw. He did not forget it throughout his lifetime. After the martyrdom of his father, he always said: “By Allah, when I look at my aunts and my sisters, tears choke me because I remember the day of al-Taff when they escaped from tent to tent and the caller of the people was calling: ‘Set fire to the houses of the oppressors!’8 ”

The Attack against Zayn al-‘Abidin

The rude unbelievers attacked Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin whose strength was sapped by illness, and whose heart was torn by the terrible tragedies. The wicked criminal, Shimr b. Dhi al-Jawshan wanted to kill him, but Hameed b. Muslim scolded him, saying: “Glory belongs to Allah! Do you really kill children? He is only a sick lad!”

But Shimr paid no attention to Hameed, so his aunt, the wise lady Zaynab, hurried to him and cling to him, saying: “You will not kill him before killing me first.9 ” So, the mean ones left him alone

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin became Impatient

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin felt greatly grieved and worried. He wished that he left life. This is because he witnessed the horrible tragedies which befell the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them. He was about to die when he saw the corpse of his father, the corpses of the male members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), and of his companions exposed to the wind. When his aunt, the wise lady Zaynab, saw him, she consoled him, saying: “Why do I see you pleading for death, O the legacy of my grandfather, of my father and brothers?

By Allah, this is something which Allah had divulged to your grandfather and to your father. Allah took a covenant from the people whom you do not know, the mighty ones on this land, and who are known to the people of the heavens, that they would gather these severed parts and wounded corpses and bury them, then shall they set up on his Taff a banner for the grave of your father, the lord of martyrs, the traces of which shall never be obliterated, nor shall it ever be wiped out so long as there is day and night. The leaders of apostasy and the promoters of misguidance shall try their best to obliterate and efface it, yet it shall become more and more lofty instead.10 ”

His Burying the Pure Corpses

The rude and mean ones from among the Kufans buried the corpses of their dead and left on the hot sand of Karbala’ the corpse of the plant of the sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, (i.e., al-Husayn), the corpses of the male members of his family, and of their companions. So some of the Banu Asad, who did not take part in the battle, dug graves for those pure corpses. They were perplexed because they could not identify the corpses especially since the killers had separated the heads from the bodies. While they were perplexed, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, according to the Shi‘ite sources, came and informed them of the names of the martyrs from among the male members of the House, and of their companions. The Imam himself carried the corpse of his father and buried it in its final resting place while he was shedding bitter tears and saying: “Congratulations to the land that contains your pure body, for the world after you is dark whereas the hereafter in your light shall shine. As for the night, it is the harbinger of sleep, while grief remains forever, for Allah shall choose for the members of your House your abode wherein you shall abide. From me to you is greeting, O son of the Apostle of Allah, and the mercy of Allah and his blessings.”

On the holy grave he wrote these words: “This is the grave of al-Husayn b. ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, the one whom they killed even as he was a thirsty stranger. Beside the legs of Imam al-Husayn, he buried his son ‘Ali al-Akkbar. He buried the martyrs from among the Hashimites and other than them in one grave. Then he went with the Banu Asad to the river of al-‘Alqami, where he ordered a grave to be dug and in it he buried Qamar Banu Hashim (the Moon of the Hashimites), Abu’ al-Fadl al-‘Abbas b. ‘Ali, the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him. Then he burst into bitter tears and said: “May the world after you be obliterated, O Moon of Banu Hashim, and greetings from me to you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.11 ”

Those pure graves have become a symbol for the dignity of humanity, for every sacrifice stands on honor, justice, and the truth. They have become the holiest center for worship in Islam.

The Captives of the Household taken to Kufa

The wise ladies of Revelation and the Message were taken prisoners to Kufa, so the Umayyad army blew its trumpets and raised its banners to show its victory over the plant of the sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, and lord of the youths of the heaven. Muslim al-Jassas described that sight, saying: “Ibn Ziyad summoned me to repair the House of the Governor in Kufa. While I was plastering the doors, I heard cries coming from everywhere in Kufa, so I went to the servant of the palace and asked him: “Why is Kufa noisy?”

“This hour, they will bring the head of a rebel (kharijite) who revolted against Yazid,” answered the servant.

“Who is this rebel?” I asked.

“Al-Husayn b. ‘Ali,” was the answer.

He (Muslim al-Jassas) said: “So I left the servant, struck at my face to the extent that I feared that I would become blind, washed my hands from plaster, left the palace, and went to al-Kanas. While I was with the people waiting for the arrival of the captives and the heads, forty camels came carrying women and children, and ‘Ali b. al-Husayn came riding a camel without saddle. Both sides of his neck were bleeding. He was weeping and repeating these verses:

O community of evil, may your region be not

watered,

O community that never respected in our regard

our grandfather,

on bare camels of burden have you transported

us as if we never put up a creed for you !12

Jadhlam b. Bashir said: “When I came to Kufa in the year 61 A. H., ‘Ali b. al-Husayn along with the womenfolk came from Karbala’ to Kufa surrounded by soldiers. They were (riding) bare camels. The people came out to look at them, so the women of Kufa wept and lamented over them. I saw that ‘Ali b. al-Husayn was sapped by illness, chains were placed on his neck and he was handcuffed.13 He was saying with a weak voice: ‘They are weeping and lamenting over us! So who has killed us?’14 ”

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin delivers a Speech

The Kufans surrounded Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, so he thought that he had to address them to make them know the sin of what they committed against themselves and the community. He, peace be on him, lauded and praised Allah, and then he said: “O men, whoever recognizes me knows me, and whoever does not, let me tell him that I am ‘Ali b. al-Husayn b. ‘Ali b. Abi Talib. I am the son of the man whose sanctity has been violated, whose wealth has been plundered, whose children have been seized. I am the son of the one who has been slaughtered by the Euphrates neither on blood revenge nor on account of inheritance. I am the son of the one killed in the worst manner. This suffices me to be proud.

“O men, I plead to you in the Name of Allah: Do you not know that you wrote my father then deceived him? Did you not grant him your covenant, your promise, and your allegiance, then you fought him? May you be ruined for what you have committed against your own souls, and out of your corrupt views! Through what eyes will you look at the Messenger of Allah when he says to you: ‘You killed my progeny, violated my sanctity, so you do not belong to my community’?”

Those slaves who blackened the face of history wept loudly and lamented, and they said to each other: “You have perished, yet you are not aware of it.”

The Imam continued his speech, saying: “May Allah have mercy on anyone who acts upon my advice, who safeguards my legacy with regard to Allah, His Apostle, and his Household, for we have in the Apostle of Allah a good example of conduct to emulate.”

So they all said with one tongue: “We, son of the Apostle of Allah, listen and obey, and we shall safeguard your trust. We shall not turn away from you, nor shall we disobey you; so, order us, may Allah have mercy on you, for we shall fight when you fight, and we shall make peace when you do so; we dissociate ourselves from whoever oppressed you and dealt unjustly with you.”

In response to this false obedience, the Imam said: “Far, far away it is from you to do so, people of treachery and conniving! You are separated from what you desire. Do you want to come to me as you did to my father? No, by the Lord of those (angels) that ascend and descend, the wound is yet to heal. My father was killed only yesterday, and so were his Household, and the loss inflicted upon the Apostle of Allah, upon my father, and upon my family is yet to be forgotten. Its pain, by Allah, is between both of these (sides) and its bitterness is between my throat and palate. Its choke is resting in my very chest.15 ” Then the Imam refrained from speech, turning away from those treacherous conniving people who were the mark of disgrace against mankind. It was they who killed the plant of the sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, (I. e., al-Husayn), who came to free them and to save them from the oppression and tyranny of the Umayyads. After that, they repented and wept over him.

The Tyrant with Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin

The captives of the Household of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, were caused to enter the palace of the Governor of Kufa, b. Marjana (i. e., ‘Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad). When the tyrant, b. Marjana, saw Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, who was sapped by illness, he asked him: “Who are you?”

“I am ‘Ali b. al-Husayn,” answered the Imam.

“Did not Allah kill ‘Ali b. al-Husayn?” Ibn Ziyad asked the Imam.

The Imam carefully replied: “I used to have an older brother also named ‘Ali whom you killed. He will request you on the Day of Judgment.”

Ibn Ziyad burst with anger and shouted at the Imam: “Allah killed him!”

The Imam answered him with bravery and steadfastness: “Allah takes the souls away at the time of their death; none dies except with Allah’s permission.”

Ibn Marjana was perplexed, not knowing what to answer this young captive who defeated him through giving proofs and quotations from the Qur’an, so he shouted at him, saying: “How dare you answer me like that!”

The wicked sinner, b. Marjana, ordered one of his swordsmen, saying: “Take this lad and behead him!”

The wise lady Zaynab, granddaughter of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, put her hands around the Imam and bravely said to b. Marjana: “O Ibn Ziyad, it suffices you what you have shed of our blood! Have you really spared anyone other than this? If you want to kill him, kill me with him as well!”

The tyrant admired her and said to the swordsman with astonishment: “Leave him for her! Amazing is their tie of kinship; she wishes to be killed with him!”

Were it not for this heroic attitude of the wise lady Zaynab, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin would have been killed and the rest of the progeny of Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, who was the source of good and honor in the earth, would have been destroyed. In his book ‘al-Rasa’il’, al-Jahiz reported that b. Marjana said to his companions concerning ‘Ali b. al-Husayn: “Let me kill him, for he is the rest of this progeny (i. e., the progeny of al-Husayn), so through him I will sever this horn, deaden this disease, and cut off this material.”

However, they advised him to refrain from killing him, for they thought that the Imam would be destroyed by his illness.16 ”

A Kufan Kidnaps the Imam

A Kufan Kidnapped the Imam, hid him in his house, entertained and treated him kindly. When he saw the Imam, he burst into tears. The Imam thought that the Kufan was trustworthy. A short time later, the caller of b. Ziyad announced: “Whoever finds ‘Ali b. al-Husayn and brings him will have three hundred dirhams.” When the Kufan heard the caller, he put a rope around the Imam’s neck, tied his hands with the robe, and took the dirhams.17 This initiative, if correct, gives a picture of the Kufans who spared no effort to get money.

The Captives of the Household taken to Damascus

The womenfolk and the children of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, were taken as prisoners to Damascus. They were in a condition the sight of which would cause anyone’s soul to melt. All the Kufans went out to see the captives of their Prophet off. The men and the women wept for them. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, wondered at their attitude and said: “They killed us and are weeping over us!18 ”

The wicked sinner, Shimr b. Dhi al-Jawshan, ordered a rope to be put around Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s neck.19 The historians said: “Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin did not say even a word to the rude people who accompanied him, nor did he ask them for a thing throughout the journey, for he knew that they were wicked and ignoble, and that they would not respond to any of his requests.

The caravan of the captives arrived at a place near Damascus and stopped there because the Umayyads wanted to decorate the city to show their rejoicing and the victory which the grandson of Abi Sufyan gained over the grandson of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family.

When Damascus was fully decorated, the captives of the Household of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, were caused to enter it.

A Syrian with Zayn al-‘Abidin

An elderly Syrian, who was misled by the false rumors, came near Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, and said to him: “Praise belongs to Allah Who annihilated you and Who granted the governor the upper hand over you.”

The Imam looked at the elderly Syrian. He understood that the elderly Syrian misunderstood the truth and was deceived by the false Umayyad mass media, so he asked him: “Shaykh, have you read the Qur’an?”

“Yes,” answered the man.

“Have you read,” continued the Imam, “the verse saying: ‘ Say: I do not ask you for a reward for it except that you treat my kinsfolk with kindness,’ the verse saying: ‘ and give the (Prophet’s) kinsfolk their due rights,’ and the verse saying: ‘and be informed that whatever you earn by way of booty, for Allah belongs the fifth thereof and for the Messenger (of Allah) and for the (Prophet’s) kinsfolk’? ”

The elderly Syrian admired the Imam and said to him with a faint voice: “Yes, I have read all of them.”

The Imam said to him: “We, by Allah, are the kinsfolk referred to in all these verses.” Then the Imam asked him: “Shaykh, have you read these words of Him, the exalted: ‘Allah only desires to take away uncleanness from you, O Household (of the Prophet) and purify thoroughly’? ”

“Yes,” was the answer.

“We are the Household (of the Prophet) whom Allah singled out with the Verse of Purification.”

The elderly Syrian shook all over. He wished that the earth had swallowed him up before saying his words. Then he asked the Imam: “I ask you in the Name of Allah, are you really them?”

“By our grandfather, Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, we are, without any doubt,” replied the Imam.

It was then that the elderly Syrian fell on Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s hands kissing them. His tears flowed down his cheeks, and he said: “I dissociate myself before Allah from those who killed you!”

The elderly Syrian sought repentance from the Imam from whatever rude remarks he had made earlier. So he, peace be on him, forgave him.20 ”

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin in the Assembly of Yazid

The police men of Yazid tied with ropes the wise women of Revelation and the children of Imam al-Husayn, as sheep are tied. The beginning of the rope was around the neck of Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, then around the neck of his aunt Zaynab, up to all the daughters of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family. Whenever they relaxed in their walking, they (the police men of Yazid) whipped them. They brought them in this condition whose terror cracked the mountains and made them stop before Yazid. So Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin turned to him and asked him: “What do you think the reaction of our grandfather, Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, might have been had he seen us looking like this?”

The tyrant, Yazid, collapsed. All those who were in his assembly wept. Yazid felt pain of that tragic sight, so he said: “May Allah detest b. Marjana the ugly. If there had been (any bond of) kinship between him and you, he would not have done this to you; he would not have sent you in this state.” Then the tyrannical one, Yazid, ordered the ropes to be cut off, turned to Zayn al-‘Abidin and said him: “How did you, ‘Ali, see what Allah did to your father al-Husayn?”

Al-Husayn’s brave son (Zayn al-‘Abidin) answered with calmness and tranquillity: “Whatever misfortune befalls the earth or your own selves is already in a Book even before we cause it to happen; this is easy for Allah, so that you may not grieve about what you missed nor feel elated on account of what you receive. And Allah does not love those who are haughty and proud.”

The tyrant, Yazid, burst in anger, his elation went away, and recited these words of Him, the Exalted: “Whatever misfortune befalls you is due to what your hands commit.” The Imam answered him, saying: “This (verse) concerns those who do wrong, not those who are wronged.” Then he turned his face away from him to disdain him and his position.21

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin delivers a Sermon

Yazid permitted all the people to come to his palace, so the hall of his palace became full of people who came and congratulated him on the false victory. He was pleased and happy, because the world yielded to him, and the kingdom belonged to him only. So he ordered the orator to ascend the pulpit and to defame al-Husayn and his father, Imam ‘Ali, the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him. The orator ascended the pulpit and went too far in slandering the pure family (of the Prophet), and then he lauded in a false way Yazid and his father Mu‘awiya. Thus, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, interrupted him, saying: “Woe unto you, orator! You have traded the pleasure of the creature for the wrath of the Creator, so take your place in the fire (of Hell).”

Then the Imam turned to Yazid and asked him, saying: “Do you permit me to ascend this pulpit to deliver a speech that will please Allah, the Almighty, and that will bring good rewards for these folks?”

The attendants were astonished at this sick lad, who interrupted the orator and the governor while he was a captive. Yazid refused, but the people begged him. He said to them: “If he ascends the pulpit, he will not descends (from it) till he expose me and the family of Abi Sufyan.”

The people asked him: “What will this sick lad do?”

The people did not know the Imam. They thought that he was like the other people, but the tyrant, Yazid, knew him, so he said to them: “These are people who have been spoon-fed with knowledge.”

They kept pressuring him till he agreed. So the Imam ascended the pulpit and delivered the most wonderful speech in history in eloquence. He made the people weep. The folks were confused because the Imam’s speech controlled their hearts and feelings. The following is some of what he said: “O people, we were granted six things and favored with seven: We were granted knowledge, clemency, leniency, fluency, courage, and love for us in the hearts of the believers. We were favored by the fact that from among us came the chosen Prophet, Muhammad, may Allah bless him and his family, al-siddiq (the very truthful one), al-Tayyar (the one who flies in the heaven), the Lion of Allah and of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, the mistress of the women of the world Fatima the chaste, and both lords of the youths of Heaven from among this nation”

Having introduced his family, the Imam continued his speech explaining their outstanding merits, saying: “Whoever recognizes me knows me, and whoever does not recognize, let me tell him who I am and to what family I belong: I am the son of Mecca and Mina; I am the son of Zamzam and al-Safa; I am the son of the one who carried Zakat in the ends of the mantle; I am the son of the best man who ever put on a loincloth and clothes; I am the son of the best man who ever put on sandals and walked barefooted; I am the son of the best man who ever made tawaf (the procession round the Kaaba) and Sa‘i (ceremony of running seven times between Safa and Marwa); I am the son of the best man who ever offered the hajj and pronounced talbiya (Here I am at your service); I am the son of the one who was transported on the buraq in the air; I am the son of the one who was made to travel from the Sacred Mosque to the Remote Mosque, so glory belongs to Him Who made (His Servant) travel; I am the son of the one who was taken by Gabriel to sidrat al-muntaha; I am the son of the one who drew near (his Lord) and suspended, so he was the measure of two bows or closer still; I am the son of the one who led the angels of the heavens in prayer; I am the son of the one to whom the Almighty revealed what He revealed; I am the son of Muhammad al-Mustafa; I am the son of ‘Ali al-Murtada; I am the son of the one who fought against the creatures till they said: There is no god but Allah. I am the son of the one who struck (the enemies) with two swords before Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, and stabbed (them) with two spears, emigrated twice, pledged allegiance twice (to the Prophet), prayed in the two qiblas, and fought (against the unbelievers) at Badr and Hunayn and never disbelieved in Allah not even as much as the twinkling of an eye. I am the son of the best of the believers, the heir of the prophets, the destroyer of the unbelievers, the Commander of the Muslims, the light of the mujahidin, the ornament of the worshippers, the crown of the weepers, the most patient of the patient, and the best of the steadfast from among the family of Yasin, and the Messenger of the Lord of the world’s inhabitants. I am the son of the one who was backed by Gabriel, supported by Mikael.

I am the son of the one who defended the Muslims, killed the oath breakers of allegiance and the unjust and the renegades, struggled against his tiring enemies, the most excellent one of those who walked (to war) from among Quraysh, the first to respond to Allah from among the believers, the prior to all the previous ones, the breaker of the aggressors, the destroyer of the atheists, an arrow from among the shooting-places of Allah against the hypocrites, the tongue of the wisdom of worshippers, the supporter of the religion of Allah, the protector of the affair of Allah, the garden of the wisdom of Allah, the container of the knowledge of Allah, tolerant, generous, benevolent, pure, Abtahi, satisfied, easily satisfied, intrepid, gallant, patient, fasting, refined, steadfast, courageous, honored, the severer of the backbones, the scatterer of the allies, the calmest of them, the best of them in giving free rein (to his horse), the boldest of them in tongue, the firmest of them in determination, the most powerful of them, a lion, brave, pouring rain, the one who destroyed them at the battles and dispersed them in the wind, the lion of al-Hijaz, the possessor of the miracle, the ram of Iraq, the Imam through the text and worthiness, Makki, Madani, Abtahi, Tuhami, Khay‘ani, ‘Uqbi, Badri, Uhdi, Shajari, Muhajiri, the Lord of the Arabs, the Lion of war, the inheritor of al-Mash‘arayn, the father of the two grandsons (of the Prophet) al-Hasan and al-Husayn, the one who manifested miracles, the one who scattered the phalanxes, the piercing meteor, the following light, the victorious Lion of Allah, the request of every seeker, the victorious over every victorious, such is my grandfather, ‘Ali b. Abi Talib. I am the son of Fatima, the chaste. I am the son of the mistress of women. I am the son of the purified, virgin (lady). I am the son of the part of the Messenger, may Allah bless him and his family.22 I am the son of the one who was covered with blood. I am the son of the one who was slaughtered at Karbala’. I am the son of the one for whom the Jinns wept in the dark and for whom the birds in the air cried.23 ”

The Imam continued saying ‘I am....’ until the people wailed. Yazid thought that a discord would occur, for the Imam made a cultural revolt through his speech when he introduced himself to the Syrians and made them know what they did not know, so Yazid ordered the muadhdhin to say the adhan and he said: “Allahu Akbar!”

The Imam turned to him and said: “You have made great the Great One who cannot be measured and cannot be perceived by senses, there is nothing greater than Allah.”

The muadhdhin said: “Ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah!”

‘Ali b. al-Husayn said: “My hair, my skin, my flesh, my blood, my brain, and my bones bear witness that there is no god but Allah.”

The muadhdhin said: “Ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasool Allah!”

The Imam turned to Yazid and asked him: “Yazid, is Muhammad your grandfather or mine? If you say that he is yours, then you are a liar, and if you say that he is mine, then why did you kill his family?24 ”

Yazid became silent and was unable to answer, for the great Prophet was Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s grandfather. As for Yazid’s grandfather, he was Abu’ Sufyan, who was the mortal enemy of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family. The Syrians understood that they were drowning in sin, and that the Umayyad government spared no effort to delude and mislead them.

The Imam confined his speech to introducing the Prophet’s Household to the Syrians. He indicated to them that the Prophet’s Household had a great position with Allah, that they waged jihad against the enemies of Islam, and that they suffered persecutions. The Imam mentioned nothing other than these matters. I (the author) think that this confinement to these matters is among the most wonderful considerations and among the most exact type of eloquence. This is because the Syrians knew nothing about the Prophet’s Household except what the pseudo clergy men fabricated against them; the authority and its mercenaries fed the Syrians on enmity toward the Prophet’s Household and on obedience to the Umayyads.

Anyhow, the Imam’s speech had a great effect on the Syrians, who secretly told each other about the Umayyad false mass media, and about the disappointment and loss at which they reached, so their attitudes toward Yazid changed25 and they looked at him with disdain.

The Imam with al-Minhal

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, met al-Minhal b. ‘Amr and he asked him: “How have you received the evening, O son of the Apostle of Allah?”

The Imam looked at him and said to him: “We received the evening like the Israelites among the people of Pharaoh: they kill their sons and take their women captive. The Arabs brag before the non-Arabs saying that Muhammad was one of them, while Quraysh boasts before the rest of the Arabs of Muhammad belonging to it. We, his Household, are now homeless; so, to Allah we belong and to Him is our return.26 ”

The greatest Prophet was the original source for the honor of the Arab community. It was he who planned the honorable life for it and established for it the strongest state in the world, but Quraysh, who boasted before the rest of the Arabs of Muhammad belonging to it, killed his children and took his womenfolk as captives.

The Tyrannical apologizes to the Imam

When the Syrians became indignant with Yazid because of his killing the plant of sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, he (Yazid) summoned Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, apologized to him, and regarded b. Marjana (‘Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad) responsible for killing al-Husayn, saying: “May Allah curse b. Marjana! By Allah, if I had been with him (al-Husayn), he would never have asked me for a favor without me granting him it; I would have protected him from death with all my power even through destroying some of my sons. But Allah has decreed what you have seen. My little son, write to me and everything that you need is yours.27 Affairs will occur among your people, so do not take part in them.28 ”

However, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin turned away from him and said nothing to him, for he knew that the reason for his apology was an escape from the crime he committed.

A Scholar asks about the Imam

A Jewish scholar was in the assembly of Yazid. He admired Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, so he asked Yazid: “Who is that lad?”

“‘Ali b. al-Husayn,” replied Yazid.

“Who is al-Husayn?” asked the Jewish scholar.

“Son of ‘Ali b. Abi Talib,” answered Yazid.

“Who is his mother?” asked the Jewish scholar.

“Muhammad’s daughter,” replied Yazid.

“Glory belongs to Allah,” explained the Jewish scholar, “this is the son of the daughter of your Prophet, (why did) you kill him? You opposed him by doing evil to his blood relations. By Allah, if our Prophet, Mu’sa b. ‘Umran, had left a grandson among us, we would have worshipped him instead of Allah. Your Prophet left you yesterday; nevertheless you revolted against his grandson and killed him. How bad a community you are!”

The tyrannical one, Yazid, became angry and ordered the Jewish scholar to be hit on the mouth, still the Jewish scholar said: “Kill me if you want to. I have found in the Torah that whoever kills the progeny of a prophet will be cursed as long as he remains (living). When he dies, Allah will cause him to enter the fire of Hell.29 ”

The Imam with Yazid

The tyrannical one, Yazid, met Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin and asked him to ask his needs, so the Imam, peace be on him, said: “I want you to show me my father’s face, and bring back to the women what had been taken from them, for among it is the inheritances of fathers and mothers. If you want to kill me, send with the family someone to guide them to Medina.”

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, asked Yazid to show him his father’s head to bid the final farewell to it or to bury it with the holy corpse, but the tyrannical one (Yazid) refused to give him the head because he intended to show it around the country to spread fear among the people and to be a lesson for those who might revolt against him.

He also asked him to bring back what was taken from the women on Muharram 10th. With this the Imam did not mean the ornaments, rather he meant the dear things he inherited from his grandfather, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, such as his turban, his breastplate, and his sword.

Yazid, the tyrannical, bowed his head. He thought about the Imam’s requests. Then he raised his head and said: “As for the face of your father, you will never see it. As for what was taken from you, it will be brought back to you. As for the women, no one will repatriate them except you. As for you, I will not kill you.30 ”

The Journey to Medina

Yazid ordered al-Nu‘man b. Bashir to escort the womenfolk of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, and to send them back to Medina.31 He ordered him to take them out at night because he feared dissension and repercussions.32 The caravan walked and began covering the desert. The Alid women asked al-Nu‘man b. Bashir to take them to Karbala’ to renew their covenant with the grave of the Lord of martyrs, peace be on him.

Having reached Karbala’, the Alid women hurried to the grave of Imam Abi ‘Abd Allah, peace be on him, weeping and wailing. They stayed there mourning al-Husayn for three days to the extent that their voices became hoarse and their hearts became broken. Some sources mentioned that Jabir b. ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari, a great companion of the Prophet, visited the grave of al-Husayn, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, met him and told him about the tragedies which the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them, faced, and then they left Karbala’ and headed for Medina.

Bishr announced the Death of Imam al-Husayn

When Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, came close to Medina, he alighted, set up a tent where he lodged his aunts and his sisters, turned to Bishr b. Hadhlam and said to him: “O Bishr, may Allah have mercy on your father, who was a poet! Can you compose any of it at all?” “Yes, O son of Allah’s Apostle,” replied Bishr. So the Imam ordered him to enter Medina and to announce the death of Imam al-Husayn among its people. Hence, Bishr set off towards Medina. When he came near the Mosque of the Prophet, he cried loudly and recited these verses:

O people of Yathrib! May you never stay

therein!

Al-Husayn was killed, so my tears now rain,

His body is in Karbala’ covered with blood

While his head is on spear displayed.

The people went in a hurry to the Mosque of the Prophet weeping loudly for the Imam, peace be on him. They gathered around Bishr, who was weeping, asking him for more information of al-Husayn, so he said to them: “Here is ‘Ali b. al-Husayn accompanied by his aunts and sisters; they have all returned to you. I am his messenger to you to inform you of his place.33 ”

The people went out to receive Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin all weeping and wailing. The historians said that that day was like the day when Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, passed away.34 They surrounded the Imam to offer him their condolences.

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin delivers a Speech

The Imam, peace be on him, thought that he had to tell the people about the tragedies which they were subjected to. The Imam was unable to stand up to deliver a speech, for he was sapped by illness and overcome by grief, so a chair was brought for him. He sat in the chair and said: “Praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, the King of the Day of Judgment, Creator of all creation, Who is the Exalted in the high heavens, Who is so near, He hears even the silent speech. We praise Him on the grave events, on time’s tragedies, on the pain inflicted by such tragedies, on the crushing of calamities, on the greatness of our catastrophe, on our great, monstrous, magnanimous and afflicting hardships.

“O People, Allah, the Most Exalted One, praise belong to Him, has tried us with great trials and tribulations, with a tremendous loss suffered by the religion of Islam. Abu’ ‘Abd Allah, al-Husayn, and his family have been killed, and his womenfolk and children taken captives. They displayed his head in every land from the top of a spear. Such is the catastrophe similar to which there is none at all.

“O people, which men among you are happy after him, or which heart is not grieved on his account? Which eye among you withholds its tears and is too miser with its tears? The seven great heavens wept over his killing; the seas wept with their waves, and so did the heavens with their corners and the earth with its expanse; so did the trees with their branches and the fish in the depths of the seas. So did the angels who are close to their Lord. So did all those in the heavens.

“O People, which heart is not grieved with his killing? Which heart does not yearn for him? Which hearing hears such a calamity that has befallen Islam without becoming deaf.

“O people, we have become homeless, exiles, outcasts, shunned, distanced from all countries as though we were the offspring of the Turks or of Kabul without having committed a crime, nor an abomination, nor afflicted a calamity on Islam! Never did we ever hear such a thing from our fathers of old. This is something new. By Allah, had the Prophet required them to fight us just as he had required them to be good to us, they would not have done to us any more than what they already have. So we belong to Allah and to Him is our return from this calamity, and what a great, painful, hard, cruel, and catastrophic calamity it is! To Allah do we complain from what has happened to us, from the sufferings we have endured, for He is the Omnipotent, the Vengeful.”

Sa‘sa‘a, an invalid who could barely walk on his feet, stood up and apologized to the Imam for not rushing to help his family due to his handicap. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, responded to him by accepting his excuse, telling him that he thought well of him, thanked him and asked Allah to have mercy on his father. Then the Imam walked accompanied by his aunts and sisters. The people surrounded him weeping and wailing until they reached the Mosque of the Prophet. There Zaynab, the wise lady of the family of Abi Talib, took both knobs of the door of the mosque and cried out and addressed her grandfather, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, saying: “O my grandfather, I mourn to you my brother al-Husayn!35 ”

The wise ladies who were born and grew up in the lap of the Prophet held a mourning ceremony for the Lord of the martyrs. They put on the most coarse clothes and shrouded themselves in black and continued weeping and wailing.

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s Grief

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, kept weeping day and night over his father and the members of his Household. Imam al-Sadiq, peace be on him, said: “My grandfather, ‘Ali b. al-Husayn, wept over his father for twenty years. When food was put before him, he wept.36 ” One of his retainers blamed him, saying: “I fear for you lest you should perish.”

So the Imam kindly said to him: “I only convey my complaints and my grief to Allah, and I know from Allah what you all do not know. Ya‘qu’b (Jacob) was a prophet from whom Allah caused one of his sons to be separated. He had twelve sons, and he knew that his son (Joseph) was still alive, he wept over him till he lost his eye sight. I looked at my father, my brothers, my uncles, and my companions (and saw them) slain all around me, so how can my grief end? Whenever I remember how Fatima’s children were slaughtered, tears choke me. Whenever I look at my aunts and sisters, I remember how they were fleeing from one tent to another.37 ”

When the Imam looked at water, his weeping increased, and his pain doubled. This is because water reminded him of the thirst of his father and the members of his Household. The narrators said: “When he took some water to drink, he wept. So he was asked about that, and he answered: ‘How do I not weep (while) my father was prevented from drinking the water which was free for beasts and wild animals?’38 ”

The Imam always wept over his father, and it was said to him: “You always weep, even if you kill yourself, you will increase (nothing) with this.” So he said: “I have killed my soul, and over it I weep.39 ”

A group of his retainers and the members of his Household felt pity for him because of his abundant weeping, so one of them asked him: “Has n’t your grief end yet?”

The Imam answered him, saying: “Woe unto you! Ya‘qu’b (Jacob) was a prophet from whom Allah caused one of his sons to be separated. He had twelve sons, and he knew that his son (Joseph) was still alive in the world, he wept over him till he lost his eye sight. I looked at my father, my brother, my uncle, and seventeen (persons) from the members of my Household (and saw them) slain all around me, so how can my grief end?40 ”

His heart melt with pity for his father, his Household, and his friends whose heads the swords of aggression severed in a cruel manner.

His Paying the Debts which his Father owed

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, was indebted to a group of people for more than seventy thousand dinars, so Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, took great care of paying them to the extent that he prevented himself from having food and water. When he prepared this sum (of money), he hurried to pay every debt to the person to whom it was owed, and thus he could free his father from such an obligation.41

His Kindness to the Family of ‘Aqil

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, was very kind to the Family of ‘Aqil. He preferred them to his cousins and the members of his family, for they had an outstanding attitude during the Battle of Karbala’. That was when the sons and the honorable grandsons of ‘Aqil sacrificed their souls for Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, while they were still young. They competed with each other for martyrdom, so they were all killed at that battle, and thus they sacrificed their lives for the religion of Allah.

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, had mercy on them and preferred them to the surviving members of his family. He was asked about that, and he, peace be on him, replied: “I remember their day with Abu ‘Abd Allah (al-Husayn), so I feel pity for them.42 ” An example of his kindness to the family of ‘Aqil was that al-Mukhtar b. Yousif, a great revolutionist, gave him a lot of money, and he built with it houses for them, but the Umayyad government ordered the houses to be demolished.43

His Staying in Medina

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, stayed in Medina and did not leave it except for performing the hajj to the Sacred House of Allah. The narrators said: “He traveled to Iraq to visit the grave of Imam (‘Ali) the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him.44 ” It is certain that he visited the grave of his father, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him. With this we will end our talk about the tragedies of Karbala’, and the oppression and persecution to which Imam’ al-Husayn was subjected.

Notes

1.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 97.

2.Al-Tabarani, al-Mu‘jam. Ibn ‘Asakir, Tarikh, vol. 13, p. 74.

3.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 1, pp. 172 - 173.

4.Al-Majjlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 9, p. 147.

5.Al-Tabari, Tarikh, vol. 6, p. 242.

6.Al-Majjlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 9, p. 147.

7.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 274.

8.Ibid., p. 3.

9.Al-Qarmani, Tarikh, p. 108.

10.Kamil al-Ziyarat, p. 261.

11.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, pp. 324 - 325.

12.Ibid., p. 333.

13.Shaykh al-Mufeed, al-Amali, p. 143.

14.‘Abd Allah, Maqqtal al-Husayn.

15.Ibn Nama, Muthir al-Ahzan.

16.Hayat al-Imam al-Yusayn, vol. 3, pp. 345 - 347.

17.Mir’at al-Zaman fi Tawarikh al-A‘yan, p. 98. Ibn al-Jawzi, vol. 5. Ibn Sa‘d, Tabaqat.

18.Mir’at al-Zaman fi Tawarikh al-A‘yan, p. 99.

19.Ansab al-Ashraf, Q1/vol. 1.

20.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 371.

21.Ibid., p. 376.

22.Ibid., p. 387.

23.Nafs al-Mahmu`m, p. 242.

24.Al-Khawarizmi, Maqqtal al-Husayn, vol. 2, p. 242.

25.Jawhart al-Kalam fi Maddh al-Sada al-‘Alam, p. 128.

26.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 291.

27.Ibn al-Athir, Tarikh, vol. 3, p. 300.

28.Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, vol. 1, p. 157.

29.Al-Hada’iq al-Wardiya, vol. 1, p. 131. Al-Futu`h, vol. 5, p. 246.

30.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 414.

31.Jawhart al-Kalam fi Maddh al-Sada al-‘Alam, p. 128.

32.Tafsir al-Matalib fi Amali Abi Talib, p. 93. Al-Hada’iq al-Wardiya, vol. 1, p. 133.

33.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 423.

34.Al-Luhu`f, p. 116.

35.Al-Muqrim, Maqtal al-Husayn, p. 472.

36.Ahmed Fahmi, al-Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, p. 31.

37.Al-Muqrim, Maqtal al-Husayn, p. 47. A narration similar to this has been reported in Hulyat al-Awliya’, vol. 3, p. 138.

38.Al-Majjlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 46, p. 108.

39.Ibid, p. 109.

40.Ibid, p. 108.

41.Sir al-Silsila al-‘Alawiya, p. 32.

42.Kamil al-Ziyarat, p. 107.

43.Ghayat al-Ikhtisar, p. 160.

44.Ibid.

Chapter 7: The Tragedies Of Karbala’

The Umayyad government determined to destroy Islam and to annihilate its foundations and forces. Then it decided to degrade the Muslims, to paralyze their physical and mental activities, and to prevent them from practicing the principles of their great religion. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, witnessed this severe ordeal as his father, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, witnessed it during the days of the government of Mu‘awiya and Yazid. He shared his father’s pain and sorrow.

Imam al-Husayn was unable to carry out his great revolt during the days of Mu‘awiya because he understood that his revolt would fail, and that he would be unable to change the situations standing in the country. Because Mu‘awiya used strong policy and ruled with wisdom, it was impossible for Imam al-Husayn to overcome him and abort his plans. When this tyrannical person (Mu‘awiya) died and Yazid took the reins of government, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, decided to accomplish his religious duty. He determined to resist Yazid and to overthrow his government.

Accordingly, he would be able to preserve the Muslims’ interests and rights. Moreover he would be loyal to the fundamentals of the religion of his grandfather. So he, peace be on him, declared his great revolt through which Allah made the Book clear, and which He made a lesson for the wise. Hence we will briefly mention some sides of this great revolt, which showed terrible events to Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin. Although he was ill, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin was able to understand all the stages of this tragedy through his sensitive feelings and his careful sentiment. That is as follows:

On the Plateau of Karbala’

The pure family of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, adopted the rights of the oppressed and the persecuted, so they head for Iraq. When they arrived at the Plateau of Karbala’, they were afflicted by ordeals, misfortunes, and disasters, so they were sure of the destructive catastrophe. This occurred when they found themselves surrounded by the wicked forces who intended to shed their blood and to force them to yield to abasement, but Allah refused to accept that for them.

Imam al-Husayn looked at the young men from among the members of his family, they were in the bloom of youth, so he burst into tears and began saying: “O Allah, we are the Household of Your Prophet, Muhammad, peace be on him. We have been banished from the Scared City of our grandfather, and the Umayyads have transgressed against us, so, O Allah, take our right from them, and grant us victory over the oppressive people.”

Then he addressed the heroes from among his Household and his companions, saying: “The people are the slaves of this world, and the religion is licking on their tongues. They encompass it (the religion) as long as their livelihoods stream, but when they are tested by tribulation, they are a few in following the religion.1 ”

These brilliant words show the practical reality of the life of the people throughout the stages of history, so they are the slaves of this world at every place and time. As for the religion, it has no shade in their inner selves. When disasters befall them, they deny it and turn away from it, so, indeed, it is licking on their tongues.

Then Imam al-Husayn turned to his companions and said to them: “Then after, you have seen what has befallen us, and the world has changed and neglected (us), its kindness has turned away (from us), and nothing has remained of it except a rest like the rest of the container and a mean life which is like an unhealthy food. Don’t you see that the (people) do not put the truth into effect and do not prevent each other from (doing) falsehood? Indeed, the believer is desirous of meeting Allah. So, indeed, I see that death is (nothing) except happiness, and that life with the oppressive is (nothing) except boredom.2 ”

In this speech, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, showed that all kinds of ordeals and tribulations befell them, and that the thinking of the world toward them changed, for fate brought to them tiresome misfortunes, but the grandson of the great Prophet was brave enough to face them, for he saw that the people did not put the truth into effect and did not prevent each other from doing falsehood, and that life became abominable and martyrdom in the way of Allah was happiness.

When Imam al-Husayn finished his speech, all his companions rushed toward death to give people the most wonderful examples of sacrifice for establishing justice and fairness. Each one of them spoke with the words of sincerity, so the Imam thanked and lauded them for that.

Imam al-Husayn announced his Death

On the night of Muharram 10th, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, was sure of death, so he entered his own tent, prepared his own sword, and said:

Time, shame on you as friend! At the day’s

dawning and the sun’s setting!

How many a companion or seeker will be

a corpse! Time will not be satisfied with any

substitute.

The matter will rest with the Almighty one,

and every living creature will have to journey

along my path.

In these lines of poetry, the Imam announced his death. He was in the tent of Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin and of the granddaughter of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, Zaynab, daughter of Imam ‘Ali, the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him. When Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin heard these lines, he understood what his father wanted, so tears choked him, and he kept silent and knew that tribulation had come upon them, as he said: “As for my aunt, Zaynab, she felt that her brother and the rest of her Household had determined to meet death and to attain martyrdom. She could not control herself; she jumped up, tearing at her clothes, sighing and went to him.” “Then I will lose a brother,” Zaynab said to him, “Would death deprived me of life, (for) my mother Fatima, is dead, and my father, ‘Ali, and my brother, al-Husayn, peace be on them (all).”

“O sister,” al-Husayn said to her as he looked at her with his eyes full of tears, “don’t let Satan take away your forbearance.”

However, Zaynab became pale, and sorrow tore up her gentle, tortured heart, so she lamented to her brother al-Husayn: “O my grief, your life will be violently wrenched from you and that is more wounding to my heart and harsher to my soul.”

When she was sure that her brother would be killed, she could not control her forbearance, so she tore her garment, struck at her face, and then she fell down in a faint. Then the granddaughters of the Prophet shared that severe ordeal with her. Among them was Umm Kulthu’m, who lamented: “Oh Muhammad! Oh ‘Ali! Oh Imam! Oh Husayn! We will be lost after you!”

That distressing sight had a great effect on the soul of Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him. Sorrow and sighs melted his heart, so he walked towards the granddaughters of the Prophet and ordered them to cling to forbearance and to bear the burdens of this severe ordeal, saying: “O sister, O Umm Kulthu’m, O Fatima, O Rabab, when I am killed, you must not tear your clothes, nor scratch your faces, nor cry out with grief and loss!3 ”

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, ordered his womenfolk to cling to forbearance during those severe ordeals that had come upon them, and he ordered them not to say obscene words.

The Day of ‘Asura’

There was no event in history similar to the event that came upon Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, on the Day of ‘Asura’ because all the ordeals of the world came upon the plant of sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, talked about that tragic day which is immortal in the world of sorrows. He said: “No day was more difficult for Allah’s Messenger than the Day (Battle) of Uhud in which his uncle Hamza b. ‘Abd al-Muttalib, the lion of Allah and the lion of His Messenger, was killed, and after it was the Day (Battle) of Mu’ta in which his cousin Ja‘far b. Abi Talib was killed.” Then he (Zayn al-‘Abidin) said: “There was no day like the Day of al-Husayn, when thirty thousand men advanced against him (while) they claimed that they belonged to this community, and that they (wanted) to seek proximity to Allah, the Great and Almighty, through (shedding) his blood. He (al-Husayn) reminded them of Allah, but they did not learn (from him) till they killed him out of (their) oppression and aggression.4 ”

In the world of Islam, throughout history, there is no day more difficult than that of al-Husayn, for this great Imam revolted (against Yazid) to establish for all the peoples of the East an honorable life, freedom, welfare, security, and tranquillity. However, those wicked people rose against him and shed his blood in a savage way in which history has never seen. They committed these crimes to live under the yoke of slavery, oppression, and injustice.

Imam al-Husayn’s Sermon

Before the fire of the battle broke out, Imam al-Husayn thought that he had to establish proof for those corrupt people, to refute their justifications, and to make them understand clearly their affairs, so he, peace be on him, ordered his horse to be brought to him. He rode it and walked toward them in a highly impressive manner which was similar to that of his grandfather, Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family. He delivered among them his historical sermon, which is the purest and most eloquent one in Arabic literature. He called them at the top of his voice to make them all hear his words.

He said to them: “People, listen to my words and do not hurry (to attack me) so that I may remind you of the duties you have towards me and so that (by telling you the true circumstances) I may free myself from any blame in (your attacking me). If you give me justice, you will become happier through that. If you do not give me justice of your own accord (as individuals), then agree upon your affairs (and your associates); let not your affairs be in darkness to you. Then carry (it) out against me and do not reflect (any further). Indeed my guardian is Allah, Who sent down the Book; He takes care of the righteous.”

The air carried Imam al-Husayn’s words to the womenfolk of the Prophet and they lamented loudly, so the Imam sent to them his brother al-‘Abbas and his son ‘Ali and said to them: “Calm them. By my life, their weeping will be very much.” When they became quiet, he went on delivering his sermon. He praised and glorified Allah, and he called down blessings upon the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, and said concerning that countless words. No speaker has ever been heard before or after him more eloquent in his speech than he was5 . He continued: “People, indeed Allah, the Most High, created this world and made it the abode of annihilation and vanishing. It changes its inhabitants from state to state, so the conceited one is he whom it deludes, and the miserable one is he whom it charms. So let not this world delude you because it cuts off the hope of him who has confidence in it and despairs the greediness of him who desires for it. I see that you have unanimously agreed on an affair through which you have made Allah angry with you, turn his Holy Face away from you, and send down his vengeance upon you. So the best lord is our Lord, and you are the worst slaves! You acknowledged obedience (to Allah) and believed in the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and his family, and then you have crept against his progeny and his family, you want to kill them. Satan has wholly engaged you, so he has made you forget the remembrance of Allah, the Almighty. So woe to you and to what you want! To Allah we belong and to Him is our return. These are people who have disbelieved (in Allah) after their belief (in Him). So away with the oppressive people!”

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, preached to the people with these words. He warned them against the delusion of this world and gave them proofs for its unsuccessful final results and prevented them from killing the family of their Prophet, for they would disbelieve in Islam and be worthy of Allah’s punishment and vengeance. Then the great Imam continued: “People, trace back my lineage and consider who I am. Then look back at yourselves and remonstrate with yourselves. Consider whether it is right for you to kill me and to violate the honor of my womenfolk. Am I not the son of the daughter of your Prophet, of his testamentary trustee (wasi) and his cousin, the first of the believers in Allah and the man who (first) believed in what His Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, brought from his Lord? Was not Hamza, the lord of the martyrs, my uncle? Was not Ja‘far, the one who flies in Heaven, my uncle? Have you not heard the words of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, concerning myself and my brother: ‘These are the two lords of the youths of the inhabitants of heaven’? Whether you believe what I am saying- and it is the truth, for by Allah I have never told a lie since I learnt that Allah hated people (who told) them- or whether you regard me as a liar, there are among you those, if you asked them, would tell you: Ask Ja‘far b. ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari, Abu’ Sa‘id al-Khudari, Sahl b. Sa‘ad al-Sa‘idi, Zayd b. Arqam, and Anas b. Malik to tell you that they heard these words from the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, concerning myself and my brother. Is there not (sufficient) in this to prevent you from shedding my blood?”

It was appropriate for this sermon to change the views of the units of that army and to make a military revolt among their ranks. Through this sermon Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, summoned them to return to their intellects, to consider carefully his affair, for he was the grandson of their Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, the son of his trustee, his womb relative, the lord of the youths of the inhabitants of heaven. All these factors were enough to prevent them from shedding al-Husayn’s blood and violating the honor of his womenfolk, but that army did not understand such excellent preaching, so it was inclined to crime and drowned in error.

However, the wicked sinner, Shimr b. Dhi al-Jawshan interrupted Imam al-Husayn, saying: “If I understand what you are saying, then I only worship Allah (very shakily) on the edge.”

Habeeb b. Muzahir, an excellent Muslim believer, answered Shimr, saying: “I think that you worship Allah (very shakily) on seventy edges, for I testify you are right. You do not understand what he is saying, for Allah has impressed (ignorance) upon your heart.”

Then the great Imam (al-Husayn) continued: “If you are in doubt about these words, you are in doubt that I am the son of the daughter of your Prophet. By Allah there is no son of a prophet other than me among you and among the peoples from the East to the West. Shame on you, are you seeking retribution from me for one of your dead whom I have killed, or for property of yours which I expropriated, or for a wound which I have inflicted?”

These words shook the ground under their feet. They became perplexed, not knowing what to say. Then Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, called the commanders of the army, who wrote letters to him to come to their city, saying: “Shibth b. Rib‘i, Hajjar b. Abjar, Qays b. al-Ash‘th, Yazid b. al-Harth, didn’t you write: ‘The fruit has ripened; the dates have grown green; come to an army which has been gathered for you’?”

But those wicked sinners did not feel shame in betraying a promise and breaking a covenant; they all unanimously agreed on telling lies, saying: “We didn’t do (that).”

The Imam was astonished at their answer, so he said: “Glory belongs to Allah! Yes, by Allah, you did it.”

Thus, the Imam turned his face away from them and addressed the units of the army, saying to them: “People, if you hated me, then let me go to a safe place in the land.”

However, Qays b. al-Ash‘ath, a wicked sinner in Kufa who belonged to a corrupt family, interrupted him, saying: “Submit to the authority of your kinsmen (the Umayyads). They have never treated you with anything but what you liked.”

“By Allah, I will never give you my hand like a man who has been humiliated; nor will I flee like a slave,” said al-Husayn, peace be on him. Then he called out: “O Servants of Allah, I take refuge in my Lord and your Lord from your stoning. I take refuge in my Lord and your Lord from every haughty man who does not believe in the Day of Reckoning.”

Unfortunately, this excellent sermon did not penetrate their hearts, for ignorance had been impressed upon them, so they were like the cattle, rather they were more straying (than them) in way.

The Battle

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, took numerous measures to preserve peace and to avoid shedding blood, but ‘Umar b. Sa‘d declared public war against him, for he advanced toward the Imam’s camp, took an arrow, threw it at the Imam, and said: “Bear witness for me with the Governor that I was the first to throw (an arrow) at al-Husayn’s camp.”

This aggressive, mean person (‘Umar b. Sa‘d) asked his army to bear witness for him with his governor, b. Marjana (i.e., ‘Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad) that he was the first to throw an arrow at the Camp of the truth, dignity, and honor. Then his bowmen showered arrows upon al-Husayn and his companions and hit them all, so the Imam turned to his companions and said to them: “Noble men, stand up! These are the messengers of the people for you!”

Thus, the vanguards of the truth from among the companions of the Imam headed for the battlefield. With that, the battle started between the two armies; it was the most violent battle that ever occurred on the earth.

The Martyrdom of the Righteous

The army of the truth met the army of misguidance and falsehood. The companions of Imam al-Husayn eagerly competed with the male members of his House for death to attain Paradise. With that they led the movement of faith. None of their spirits became weak, so, with their unique sacrifice, they gave a proof of the greatness of Islam, which granted them such a steadfast spirit through which they, though few in number, were able to meet that savage army and cause it heavy casualties.

The companions of al-Husayn and the male members of his Household proved themselves brave, especially as it concerns Aba al-Fadl al-‘Abbas, peace be on him, who sacrificed his life for his brother al-Husayn. Throughout the history of humanity, there is no brotherhood more truthful, nobler, and more sincere than that of al-‘Abbas, so Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, lauded and praised it when he said: “May Allah have mercy on my uncle al-‘Abbas, for he preferred (his brother to himself), showed extreme courage, and sacrificed his life for his brother to the extent that his hands were cut off, so Allah, the Great and Almighty, gave him two wings to fly with the angels in Heaven, as He had given Ja‘far b. Abi Talib. Al-‘Abbas has a great position with Allah, the Exalted, so all the martyrs will envy it on the Day of Judgment.6 ”

Aba al-Fadl al-‘Abbas was the last brother of al-Husayn to be killed. The Imam, peace be on him, stood beside al-‘Abbas’s holy corpse and said with great sorrow: “My back has just broken and my strength become little.”

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, felt loneliness and loss when he lost his brother, who was kind and obedient to him. In our book ‘Hayat al-Imam’ al-Husayn (the Life of Imam al-Husayn), We have spoken in detail about his martyrdom and the attitude of al-Husayn toward him.

Imam al-Husayn sought Help

Imam al-Husayn, who was afflicted with disaster, looked with great sadness and sorrow at the members of his family and his companions. He saw them slaughtered like sheep on the sand of Karbala’ under the heat of the sun’s rays, and he heard his womenfolk weeping and lamenting over their martyred ones. He did not know what would happened to them after his martyrdom. That tragic sight had a great effect on him, so he sought help to protect the womenfolk of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, saying: “Is there anyone to protect the womenfolk of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family? Is there any monotheist to fear Allah through us? Is there any helper who seeks hope from Allah through helping us?7 ”

When Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin heard his father asking those people for helped, he left his bed and leant on a stick because of his severe illness. When al-Husayn saw him, he called his sister Umm Kulthu’m, saying: “Hold him back lest the earth should be void of the descendants of the family of Muhammad!” So his aunt brought him back to his bed, and he suffered psychological pain more than he suffered from his illness. Ordeals and misfortunes filled his mind when he saw that brilliant group of his brothers and cousins martyred on the ground, their sincere companions slaughtered like sheep, his father was surrounded by the enemies of Allah, and the womenfolk of the Prophet shaking with fear. Nevertheless he faced those tragedies with forbearance and entrusted his affair to Allah.

Martyrdom of the great Imam

Those savage criminals surrounded the plant of the sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, stabbing him with their swords and spears and hitting him with stones. Bleeding sapped his strength, so the wicked criminal, Shimr b. Dhi al-Jawshan hurried to behead him. The narrators said: “On the lips of Imam al-Husayn, there was the smile of pleasure and of immortal victory which he gained.”

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, sacrificed his life to establish the state of Truth in the regions of this East, to destroy oppression and injustice, to divide the bounties of Allah among the deprived and the persecuted, and to save the community from the government of the Umayyads who denied human rights and turned the Muslim countries into a farm and took from it whatever they wanted.

Setting the Tents to Fire

The rude and roguish Umayyads set fire to the tents of Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, paying no attention to the Prophet’s womenfolk and children who were in them. They carried firebrands in their hands and cried out: “Set fire to the houses of the oppressors!”

These people thought that the tents of al-Husayn were the houses of oppression while the houses of the Umayyads and of their agents were the houses of justice. They forgot that the Umayyads had drowned the Muslim countries in oppression and tyranny.

When they set the tents to fire, the women of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, escaped to the desert while the fire was following them. As for the orphans, they cried and ran away towards the desert asking the people for help, but nobody helped or aided them. That was the most tragic sight which Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin saw. He did not forget it throughout his lifetime. After the martyrdom of his father, he always said: “By Allah, when I look at my aunts and my sisters, tears choke me because I remember the day of al-Taff when they escaped from tent to tent and the caller of the people was calling: ‘Set fire to the houses of the oppressors!’8 ”

The Attack against Zayn al-‘Abidin

The rude unbelievers attacked Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin whose strength was sapped by illness, and whose heart was torn by the terrible tragedies. The wicked criminal, Shimr b. Dhi al-Jawshan wanted to kill him, but Hameed b. Muslim scolded him, saying: “Glory belongs to Allah! Do you really kill children? He is only a sick lad!”

But Shimr paid no attention to Hameed, so his aunt, the wise lady Zaynab, hurried to him and cling to him, saying: “You will not kill him before killing me first.9 ” So, the mean ones left him alone

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin became Impatient

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin felt greatly grieved and worried. He wished that he left life. This is because he witnessed the horrible tragedies which befell the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them. He was about to die when he saw the corpse of his father, the corpses of the male members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), and of his companions exposed to the wind. When his aunt, the wise lady Zaynab, saw him, she consoled him, saying: “Why do I see you pleading for death, O the legacy of my grandfather, of my father and brothers?

By Allah, this is something which Allah had divulged to your grandfather and to your father. Allah took a covenant from the people whom you do not know, the mighty ones on this land, and who are known to the people of the heavens, that they would gather these severed parts and wounded corpses and bury them, then shall they set up on his Taff a banner for the grave of your father, the lord of martyrs, the traces of which shall never be obliterated, nor shall it ever be wiped out so long as there is day and night. The leaders of apostasy and the promoters of misguidance shall try their best to obliterate and efface it, yet it shall become more and more lofty instead.10 ”

His Burying the Pure Corpses

The rude and mean ones from among the Kufans buried the corpses of their dead and left on the hot sand of Karbala’ the corpse of the plant of the sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, (i.e., al-Husayn), the corpses of the male members of his family, and of their companions. So some of the Banu Asad, who did not take part in the battle, dug graves for those pure corpses. They were perplexed because they could not identify the corpses especially since the killers had separated the heads from the bodies. While they were perplexed, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, according to the Shi‘ite sources, came and informed them of the names of the martyrs from among the male members of the House, and of their companions. The Imam himself carried the corpse of his father and buried it in its final resting place while he was shedding bitter tears and saying: “Congratulations to the land that contains your pure body, for the world after you is dark whereas the hereafter in your light shall shine. As for the night, it is the harbinger of sleep, while grief remains forever, for Allah shall choose for the members of your House your abode wherein you shall abide. From me to you is greeting, O son of the Apostle of Allah, and the mercy of Allah and his blessings.”

On the holy grave he wrote these words: “This is the grave of al-Husayn b. ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, the one whom they killed even as he was a thirsty stranger. Beside the legs of Imam al-Husayn, he buried his son ‘Ali al-Akkbar. He buried the martyrs from among the Hashimites and other than them in one grave. Then he went with the Banu Asad to the river of al-‘Alqami, where he ordered a grave to be dug and in it he buried Qamar Banu Hashim (the Moon of the Hashimites), Abu’ al-Fadl al-‘Abbas b. ‘Ali, the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him. Then he burst into bitter tears and said: “May the world after you be obliterated, O Moon of Banu Hashim, and greetings from me to you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.11 ”

Those pure graves have become a symbol for the dignity of humanity, for every sacrifice stands on honor, justice, and the truth. They have become the holiest center for worship in Islam.

The Captives of the Household taken to Kufa

The wise ladies of Revelation and the Message were taken prisoners to Kufa, so the Umayyad army blew its trumpets and raised its banners to show its victory over the plant of the sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, and lord of the youths of the heaven. Muslim al-Jassas described that sight, saying: “Ibn Ziyad summoned me to repair the House of the Governor in Kufa. While I was plastering the doors, I heard cries coming from everywhere in Kufa, so I went to the servant of the palace and asked him: “Why is Kufa noisy?”

“This hour, they will bring the head of a rebel (kharijite) who revolted against Yazid,” answered the servant.

“Who is this rebel?” I asked.

“Al-Husayn b. ‘Ali,” was the answer.

He (Muslim al-Jassas) said: “So I left the servant, struck at my face to the extent that I feared that I would become blind, washed my hands from plaster, left the palace, and went to al-Kanas. While I was with the people waiting for the arrival of the captives and the heads, forty camels came carrying women and children, and ‘Ali b. al-Husayn came riding a camel without saddle. Both sides of his neck were bleeding. He was weeping and repeating these verses:

O community of evil, may your region be not

watered,

O community that never respected in our regard

our grandfather,

on bare camels of burden have you transported

us as if we never put up a creed for you !12

Jadhlam b. Bashir said: “When I came to Kufa in the year 61 A. H., ‘Ali b. al-Husayn along with the womenfolk came from Karbala’ to Kufa surrounded by soldiers. They were (riding) bare camels. The people came out to look at them, so the women of Kufa wept and lamented over them. I saw that ‘Ali b. al-Husayn was sapped by illness, chains were placed on his neck and he was handcuffed.13 He was saying with a weak voice: ‘They are weeping and lamenting over us! So who has killed us?’14 ”

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin delivers a Speech

The Kufans surrounded Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, so he thought that he had to address them to make them know the sin of what they committed against themselves and the community. He, peace be on him, lauded and praised Allah, and then he said: “O men, whoever recognizes me knows me, and whoever does not, let me tell him that I am ‘Ali b. al-Husayn b. ‘Ali b. Abi Talib. I am the son of the man whose sanctity has been violated, whose wealth has been plundered, whose children have been seized. I am the son of the one who has been slaughtered by the Euphrates neither on blood revenge nor on account of inheritance. I am the son of the one killed in the worst manner. This suffices me to be proud.

“O men, I plead to you in the Name of Allah: Do you not know that you wrote my father then deceived him? Did you not grant him your covenant, your promise, and your allegiance, then you fought him? May you be ruined for what you have committed against your own souls, and out of your corrupt views! Through what eyes will you look at the Messenger of Allah when he says to you: ‘You killed my progeny, violated my sanctity, so you do not belong to my community’?”

Those slaves who blackened the face of history wept loudly and lamented, and they said to each other: “You have perished, yet you are not aware of it.”

The Imam continued his speech, saying: “May Allah have mercy on anyone who acts upon my advice, who safeguards my legacy with regard to Allah, His Apostle, and his Household, for we have in the Apostle of Allah a good example of conduct to emulate.”

So they all said with one tongue: “We, son of the Apostle of Allah, listen and obey, and we shall safeguard your trust. We shall not turn away from you, nor shall we disobey you; so, order us, may Allah have mercy on you, for we shall fight when you fight, and we shall make peace when you do so; we dissociate ourselves from whoever oppressed you and dealt unjustly with you.”

In response to this false obedience, the Imam said: “Far, far away it is from you to do so, people of treachery and conniving! You are separated from what you desire. Do you want to come to me as you did to my father? No, by the Lord of those (angels) that ascend and descend, the wound is yet to heal. My father was killed only yesterday, and so were his Household, and the loss inflicted upon the Apostle of Allah, upon my father, and upon my family is yet to be forgotten. Its pain, by Allah, is between both of these (sides) and its bitterness is between my throat and palate. Its choke is resting in my very chest.15 ” Then the Imam refrained from speech, turning away from those treacherous conniving people who were the mark of disgrace against mankind. It was they who killed the plant of the sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, (I. e., al-Husayn), who came to free them and to save them from the oppression and tyranny of the Umayyads. After that, they repented and wept over him.

The Tyrant with Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin

The captives of the Household of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, were caused to enter the palace of the Governor of Kufa, b. Marjana (i. e., ‘Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad). When the tyrant, b. Marjana, saw Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, who was sapped by illness, he asked him: “Who are you?”

“I am ‘Ali b. al-Husayn,” answered the Imam.

“Did not Allah kill ‘Ali b. al-Husayn?” Ibn Ziyad asked the Imam.

The Imam carefully replied: “I used to have an older brother also named ‘Ali whom you killed. He will request you on the Day of Judgment.”

Ibn Ziyad burst with anger and shouted at the Imam: “Allah killed him!”

The Imam answered him with bravery and steadfastness: “Allah takes the souls away at the time of their death; none dies except with Allah’s permission.”

Ibn Marjana was perplexed, not knowing what to answer this young captive who defeated him through giving proofs and quotations from the Qur’an, so he shouted at him, saying: “How dare you answer me like that!”

The wicked sinner, b. Marjana, ordered one of his swordsmen, saying: “Take this lad and behead him!”

The wise lady Zaynab, granddaughter of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, put her hands around the Imam and bravely said to b. Marjana: “O Ibn Ziyad, it suffices you what you have shed of our blood! Have you really spared anyone other than this? If you want to kill him, kill me with him as well!”

The tyrant admired her and said to the swordsman with astonishment: “Leave him for her! Amazing is their tie of kinship; she wishes to be killed with him!”

Were it not for this heroic attitude of the wise lady Zaynab, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin would have been killed and the rest of the progeny of Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, who was the source of good and honor in the earth, would have been destroyed. In his book ‘al-Rasa’il’, al-Jahiz reported that b. Marjana said to his companions concerning ‘Ali b. al-Husayn: “Let me kill him, for he is the rest of this progeny (i. e., the progeny of al-Husayn), so through him I will sever this horn, deaden this disease, and cut off this material.”

However, they advised him to refrain from killing him, for they thought that the Imam would be destroyed by his illness.16 ”

A Kufan Kidnaps the Imam

A Kufan Kidnapped the Imam, hid him in his house, entertained and treated him kindly. When he saw the Imam, he burst into tears. The Imam thought that the Kufan was trustworthy. A short time later, the caller of b. Ziyad announced: “Whoever finds ‘Ali b. al-Husayn and brings him will have three hundred dirhams.” When the Kufan heard the caller, he put a rope around the Imam’s neck, tied his hands with the robe, and took the dirhams.17 This initiative, if correct, gives a picture of the Kufans who spared no effort to get money.

The Captives of the Household taken to Damascus

The womenfolk and the children of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, were taken as prisoners to Damascus. They were in a condition the sight of which would cause anyone’s soul to melt. All the Kufans went out to see the captives of their Prophet off. The men and the women wept for them. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, wondered at their attitude and said: “They killed us and are weeping over us!18 ”

The wicked sinner, Shimr b. Dhi al-Jawshan, ordered a rope to be put around Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s neck.19 The historians said: “Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin did not say even a word to the rude people who accompanied him, nor did he ask them for a thing throughout the journey, for he knew that they were wicked and ignoble, and that they would not respond to any of his requests.

The caravan of the captives arrived at a place near Damascus and stopped there because the Umayyads wanted to decorate the city to show their rejoicing and the victory which the grandson of Abi Sufyan gained over the grandson of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family.

When Damascus was fully decorated, the captives of the Household of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, were caused to enter it.

A Syrian with Zayn al-‘Abidin

An elderly Syrian, who was misled by the false rumors, came near Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, and said to him: “Praise belongs to Allah Who annihilated you and Who granted the governor the upper hand over you.”

The Imam looked at the elderly Syrian. He understood that the elderly Syrian misunderstood the truth and was deceived by the false Umayyad mass media, so he asked him: “Shaykh, have you read the Qur’an?”

“Yes,” answered the man.

“Have you read,” continued the Imam, “the verse saying: ‘ Say: I do not ask you for a reward for it except that you treat my kinsfolk with kindness,’ the verse saying: ‘ and give the (Prophet’s) kinsfolk their due rights,’ and the verse saying: ‘and be informed that whatever you earn by way of booty, for Allah belongs the fifth thereof and for the Messenger (of Allah) and for the (Prophet’s) kinsfolk’? ”

The elderly Syrian admired the Imam and said to him with a faint voice: “Yes, I have read all of them.”

The Imam said to him: “We, by Allah, are the kinsfolk referred to in all these verses.” Then the Imam asked him: “Shaykh, have you read these words of Him, the exalted: ‘Allah only desires to take away uncleanness from you, O Household (of the Prophet) and purify thoroughly’? ”

“Yes,” was the answer.

“We are the Household (of the Prophet) whom Allah singled out with the Verse of Purification.”

The elderly Syrian shook all over. He wished that the earth had swallowed him up before saying his words. Then he asked the Imam: “I ask you in the Name of Allah, are you really them?”

“By our grandfather, Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, we are, without any doubt,” replied the Imam.

It was then that the elderly Syrian fell on Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s hands kissing them. His tears flowed down his cheeks, and he said: “I dissociate myself before Allah from those who killed you!”

The elderly Syrian sought repentance from the Imam from whatever rude remarks he had made earlier. So he, peace be on him, forgave him.20 ”

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin in the Assembly of Yazid

The police men of Yazid tied with ropes the wise women of Revelation and the children of Imam al-Husayn, as sheep are tied. The beginning of the rope was around the neck of Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, then around the neck of his aunt Zaynab, up to all the daughters of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family. Whenever they relaxed in their walking, they (the police men of Yazid) whipped them. They brought them in this condition whose terror cracked the mountains and made them stop before Yazid. So Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin turned to him and asked him: “What do you think the reaction of our grandfather, Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, might have been had he seen us looking like this?”

The tyrant, Yazid, collapsed. All those who were in his assembly wept. Yazid felt pain of that tragic sight, so he said: “May Allah detest b. Marjana the ugly. If there had been (any bond of) kinship between him and you, he would not have done this to you; he would not have sent you in this state.” Then the tyrannical one, Yazid, ordered the ropes to be cut off, turned to Zayn al-‘Abidin and said him: “How did you, ‘Ali, see what Allah did to your father al-Husayn?”

Al-Husayn’s brave son (Zayn al-‘Abidin) answered with calmness and tranquillity: “Whatever misfortune befalls the earth or your own selves is already in a Book even before we cause it to happen; this is easy for Allah, so that you may not grieve about what you missed nor feel elated on account of what you receive. And Allah does not love those who are haughty and proud.”

The tyrant, Yazid, burst in anger, his elation went away, and recited these words of Him, the Exalted: “Whatever misfortune befalls you is due to what your hands commit.” The Imam answered him, saying: “This (verse) concerns those who do wrong, not those who are wronged.” Then he turned his face away from him to disdain him and his position.21

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin delivers a Sermon

Yazid permitted all the people to come to his palace, so the hall of his palace became full of people who came and congratulated him on the false victory. He was pleased and happy, because the world yielded to him, and the kingdom belonged to him only. So he ordered the orator to ascend the pulpit and to defame al-Husayn and his father, Imam ‘Ali, the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him. The orator ascended the pulpit and went too far in slandering the pure family (of the Prophet), and then he lauded in a false way Yazid and his father Mu‘awiya. Thus, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, interrupted him, saying: “Woe unto you, orator! You have traded the pleasure of the creature for the wrath of the Creator, so take your place in the fire (of Hell).”

Then the Imam turned to Yazid and asked him, saying: “Do you permit me to ascend this pulpit to deliver a speech that will please Allah, the Almighty, and that will bring good rewards for these folks?”

The attendants were astonished at this sick lad, who interrupted the orator and the governor while he was a captive. Yazid refused, but the people begged him. He said to them: “If he ascends the pulpit, he will not descends (from it) till he expose me and the family of Abi Sufyan.”

The people asked him: “What will this sick lad do?”

The people did not know the Imam. They thought that he was like the other people, but the tyrant, Yazid, knew him, so he said to them: “These are people who have been spoon-fed with knowledge.”

They kept pressuring him till he agreed. So the Imam ascended the pulpit and delivered the most wonderful speech in history in eloquence. He made the people weep. The folks were confused because the Imam’s speech controlled their hearts and feelings. The following is some of what he said: “O people, we were granted six things and favored with seven: We were granted knowledge, clemency, leniency, fluency, courage, and love for us in the hearts of the believers. We were favored by the fact that from among us came the chosen Prophet, Muhammad, may Allah bless him and his family, al-siddiq (the very truthful one), al-Tayyar (the one who flies in the heaven), the Lion of Allah and of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, the mistress of the women of the world Fatima the chaste, and both lords of the youths of Heaven from among this nation”

Having introduced his family, the Imam continued his speech explaining their outstanding merits, saying: “Whoever recognizes me knows me, and whoever does not recognize, let me tell him who I am and to what family I belong: I am the son of Mecca and Mina; I am the son of Zamzam and al-Safa; I am the son of the one who carried Zakat in the ends of the mantle; I am the son of the best man who ever put on a loincloth and clothes; I am the son of the best man who ever put on sandals and walked barefooted; I am the son of the best man who ever made tawaf (the procession round the Kaaba) and Sa‘i (ceremony of running seven times between Safa and Marwa); I am the son of the best man who ever offered the hajj and pronounced talbiya (Here I am at your service); I am the son of the one who was transported on the buraq in the air; I am the son of the one who was made to travel from the Sacred Mosque to the Remote Mosque, so glory belongs to Him Who made (His Servant) travel; I am the son of the one who was taken by Gabriel to sidrat al-muntaha; I am the son of the one who drew near (his Lord) and suspended, so he was the measure of two bows or closer still; I am the son of the one who led the angels of the heavens in prayer; I am the son of the one to whom the Almighty revealed what He revealed; I am the son of Muhammad al-Mustafa; I am the son of ‘Ali al-Murtada; I am the son of the one who fought against the creatures till they said: There is no god but Allah. I am the son of the one who struck (the enemies) with two swords before Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, and stabbed (them) with two spears, emigrated twice, pledged allegiance twice (to the Prophet), prayed in the two qiblas, and fought (against the unbelievers) at Badr and Hunayn and never disbelieved in Allah not even as much as the twinkling of an eye. I am the son of the best of the believers, the heir of the prophets, the destroyer of the unbelievers, the Commander of the Muslims, the light of the mujahidin, the ornament of the worshippers, the crown of the weepers, the most patient of the patient, and the best of the steadfast from among the family of Yasin, and the Messenger of the Lord of the world’s inhabitants. I am the son of the one who was backed by Gabriel, supported by Mikael.

I am the son of the one who defended the Muslims, killed the oath breakers of allegiance and the unjust and the renegades, struggled against his tiring enemies, the most excellent one of those who walked (to war) from among Quraysh, the first to respond to Allah from among the believers, the prior to all the previous ones, the breaker of the aggressors, the destroyer of the atheists, an arrow from among the shooting-places of Allah against the hypocrites, the tongue of the wisdom of worshippers, the supporter of the religion of Allah, the protector of the affair of Allah, the garden of the wisdom of Allah, the container of the knowledge of Allah, tolerant, generous, benevolent, pure, Abtahi, satisfied, easily satisfied, intrepid, gallant, patient, fasting, refined, steadfast, courageous, honored, the severer of the backbones, the scatterer of the allies, the calmest of them, the best of them in giving free rein (to his horse), the boldest of them in tongue, the firmest of them in determination, the most powerful of them, a lion, brave, pouring rain, the one who destroyed them at the battles and dispersed them in the wind, the lion of al-Hijaz, the possessor of the miracle, the ram of Iraq, the Imam through the text and worthiness, Makki, Madani, Abtahi, Tuhami, Khay‘ani, ‘Uqbi, Badri, Uhdi, Shajari, Muhajiri, the Lord of the Arabs, the Lion of war, the inheritor of al-Mash‘arayn, the father of the two grandsons (of the Prophet) al-Hasan and al-Husayn, the one who manifested miracles, the one who scattered the phalanxes, the piercing meteor, the following light, the victorious Lion of Allah, the request of every seeker, the victorious over every victorious, such is my grandfather, ‘Ali b. Abi Talib. I am the son of Fatima, the chaste. I am the son of the mistress of women. I am the son of the purified, virgin (lady). I am the son of the part of the Messenger, may Allah bless him and his family.22 I am the son of the one who was covered with blood. I am the son of the one who was slaughtered at Karbala’. I am the son of the one for whom the Jinns wept in the dark and for whom the birds in the air cried.23 ”

The Imam continued saying ‘I am....’ until the people wailed. Yazid thought that a discord would occur, for the Imam made a cultural revolt through his speech when he introduced himself to the Syrians and made them know what they did not know, so Yazid ordered the muadhdhin to say the adhan and he said: “Allahu Akbar!”

The Imam turned to him and said: “You have made great the Great One who cannot be measured and cannot be perceived by senses, there is nothing greater than Allah.”

The muadhdhin said: “Ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah!”

‘Ali b. al-Husayn said: “My hair, my skin, my flesh, my blood, my brain, and my bones bear witness that there is no god but Allah.”

The muadhdhin said: “Ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasool Allah!”

The Imam turned to Yazid and asked him: “Yazid, is Muhammad your grandfather or mine? If you say that he is yours, then you are a liar, and if you say that he is mine, then why did you kill his family?24 ”

Yazid became silent and was unable to answer, for the great Prophet was Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s grandfather. As for Yazid’s grandfather, he was Abu’ Sufyan, who was the mortal enemy of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family. The Syrians understood that they were drowning in sin, and that the Umayyad government spared no effort to delude and mislead them.

The Imam confined his speech to introducing the Prophet’s Household to the Syrians. He indicated to them that the Prophet’s Household had a great position with Allah, that they waged jihad against the enemies of Islam, and that they suffered persecutions. The Imam mentioned nothing other than these matters. I (the author) think that this confinement to these matters is among the most wonderful considerations and among the most exact type of eloquence. This is because the Syrians knew nothing about the Prophet’s Household except what the pseudo clergy men fabricated against them; the authority and its mercenaries fed the Syrians on enmity toward the Prophet’s Household and on obedience to the Umayyads.

Anyhow, the Imam’s speech had a great effect on the Syrians, who secretly told each other about the Umayyad false mass media, and about the disappointment and loss at which they reached, so their attitudes toward Yazid changed25 and they looked at him with disdain.

The Imam with al-Minhal

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, met al-Minhal b. ‘Amr and he asked him: “How have you received the evening, O son of the Apostle of Allah?”

The Imam looked at him and said to him: “We received the evening like the Israelites among the people of Pharaoh: they kill their sons and take their women captive. The Arabs brag before the non-Arabs saying that Muhammad was one of them, while Quraysh boasts before the rest of the Arabs of Muhammad belonging to it. We, his Household, are now homeless; so, to Allah we belong and to Him is our return.26 ”

The greatest Prophet was the original source for the honor of the Arab community. It was he who planned the honorable life for it and established for it the strongest state in the world, but Quraysh, who boasted before the rest of the Arabs of Muhammad belonging to it, killed his children and took his womenfolk as captives.

The Tyrannical apologizes to the Imam

When the Syrians became indignant with Yazid because of his killing the plant of sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, he (Yazid) summoned Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, apologized to him, and regarded b. Marjana (‘Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad) responsible for killing al-Husayn, saying: “May Allah curse b. Marjana! By Allah, if I had been with him (al-Husayn), he would never have asked me for a favor without me granting him it; I would have protected him from death with all my power even through destroying some of my sons. But Allah has decreed what you have seen. My little son, write to me and everything that you need is yours.27 Affairs will occur among your people, so do not take part in them.28 ”

However, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin turned away from him and said nothing to him, for he knew that the reason for his apology was an escape from the crime he committed.

A Scholar asks about the Imam

A Jewish scholar was in the assembly of Yazid. He admired Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, so he asked Yazid: “Who is that lad?”

“‘Ali b. al-Husayn,” replied Yazid.

“Who is al-Husayn?” asked the Jewish scholar.

“Son of ‘Ali b. Abi Talib,” answered Yazid.

“Who is his mother?” asked the Jewish scholar.

“Muhammad’s daughter,” replied Yazid.

“Glory belongs to Allah,” explained the Jewish scholar, “this is the son of the daughter of your Prophet, (why did) you kill him? You opposed him by doing evil to his blood relations. By Allah, if our Prophet, Mu’sa b. ‘Umran, had left a grandson among us, we would have worshipped him instead of Allah. Your Prophet left you yesterday; nevertheless you revolted against his grandson and killed him. How bad a community you are!”

The tyrannical one, Yazid, became angry and ordered the Jewish scholar to be hit on the mouth, still the Jewish scholar said: “Kill me if you want to. I have found in the Torah that whoever kills the progeny of a prophet will be cursed as long as he remains (living). When he dies, Allah will cause him to enter the fire of Hell.29 ”

The Imam with Yazid

The tyrannical one, Yazid, met Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin and asked him to ask his needs, so the Imam, peace be on him, said: “I want you to show me my father’s face, and bring back to the women what had been taken from them, for among it is the inheritances of fathers and mothers. If you want to kill me, send with the family someone to guide them to Medina.”

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, asked Yazid to show him his father’s head to bid the final farewell to it or to bury it with the holy corpse, but the tyrannical one (Yazid) refused to give him the head because he intended to show it around the country to spread fear among the people and to be a lesson for those who might revolt against him.

He also asked him to bring back what was taken from the women on Muharram 10th. With this the Imam did not mean the ornaments, rather he meant the dear things he inherited from his grandfather, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, such as his turban, his breastplate, and his sword.

Yazid, the tyrannical, bowed his head. He thought about the Imam’s requests. Then he raised his head and said: “As for the face of your father, you will never see it. As for what was taken from you, it will be brought back to you. As for the women, no one will repatriate them except you. As for you, I will not kill you.30 ”

The Journey to Medina

Yazid ordered al-Nu‘man b. Bashir to escort the womenfolk of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, and to send them back to Medina.31 He ordered him to take them out at night because he feared dissension and repercussions.32 The caravan walked and began covering the desert. The Alid women asked al-Nu‘man b. Bashir to take them to Karbala’ to renew their covenant with the grave of the Lord of martyrs, peace be on him.

Having reached Karbala’, the Alid women hurried to the grave of Imam Abi ‘Abd Allah, peace be on him, weeping and wailing. They stayed there mourning al-Husayn for three days to the extent that their voices became hoarse and their hearts became broken. Some sources mentioned that Jabir b. ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari, a great companion of the Prophet, visited the grave of al-Husayn, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, met him and told him about the tragedies which the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them, faced, and then they left Karbala’ and headed for Medina.

Bishr announced the Death of Imam al-Husayn

When Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, came close to Medina, he alighted, set up a tent where he lodged his aunts and his sisters, turned to Bishr b. Hadhlam and said to him: “O Bishr, may Allah have mercy on your father, who was a poet! Can you compose any of it at all?” “Yes, O son of Allah’s Apostle,” replied Bishr. So the Imam ordered him to enter Medina and to announce the death of Imam al-Husayn among its people. Hence, Bishr set off towards Medina. When he came near the Mosque of the Prophet, he cried loudly and recited these verses:

O people of Yathrib! May you never stay

therein!

Al-Husayn was killed, so my tears now rain,

His body is in Karbala’ covered with blood

While his head is on spear displayed.

The people went in a hurry to the Mosque of the Prophet weeping loudly for the Imam, peace be on him. They gathered around Bishr, who was weeping, asking him for more information of al-Husayn, so he said to them: “Here is ‘Ali b. al-Husayn accompanied by his aunts and sisters; they have all returned to you. I am his messenger to you to inform you of his place.33 ”

The people went out to receive Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin all weeping and wailing. The historians said that that day was like the day when Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, passed away.34 They surrounded the Imam to offer him their condolences.

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin delivers a Speech

The Imam, peace be on him, thought that he had to tell the people about the tragedies which they were subjected to. The Imam was unable to stand up to deliver a speech, for he was sapped by illness and overcome by grief, so a chair was brought for him. He sat in the chair and said: “Praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, the King of the Day of Judgment, Creator of all creation, Who is the Exalted in the high heavens, Who is so near, He hears even the silent speech. We praise Him on the grave events, on time’s tragedies, on the pain inflicted by such tragedies, on the crushing of calamities, on the greatness of our catastrophe, on our great, monstrous, magnanimous and afflicting hardships.

“O People, Allah, the Most Exalted One, praise belong to Him, has tried us with great trials and tribulations, with a tremendous loss suffered by the religion of Islam. Abu’ ‘Abd Allah, al-Husayn, and his family have been killed, and his womenfolk and children taken captives. They displayed his head in every land from the top of a spear. Such is the catastrophe similar to which there is none at all.

“O people, which men among you are happy after him, or which heart is not grieved on his account? Which eye among you withholds its tears and is too miser with its tears? The seven great heavens wept over his killing; the seas wept with their waves, and so did the heavens with their corners and the earth with its expanse; so did the trees with their branches and the fish in the depths of the seas. So did the angels who are close to their Lord. So did all those in the heavens.

“O People, which heart is not grieved with his killing? Which heart does not yearn for him? Which hearing hears such a calamity that has befallen Islam without becoming deaf.

“O people, we have become homeless, exiles, outcasts, shunned, distanced from all countries as though we were the offspring of the Turks or of Kabul without having committed a crime, nor an abomination, nor afflicted a calamity on Islam! Never did we ever hear such a thing from our fathers of old. This is something new. By Allah, had the Prophet required them to fight us just as he had required them to be good to us, they would not have done to us any more than what they already have. So we belong to Allah and to Him is our return from this calamity, and what a great, painful, hard, cruel, and catastrophic calamity it is! To Allah do we complain from what has happened to us, from the sufferings we have endured, for He is the Omnipotent, the Vengeful.”

Sa‘sa‘a, an invalid who could barely walk on his feet, stood up and apologized to the Imam for not rushing to help his family due to his handicap. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, responded to him by accepting his excuse, telling him that he thought well of him, thanked him and asked Allah to have mercy on his father. Then the Imam walked accompanied by his aunts and sisters. The people surrounded him weeping and wailing until they reached the Mosque of the Prophet. There Zaynab, the wise lady of the family of Abi Talib, took both knobs of the door of the mosque and cried out and addressed her grandfather, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, saying: “O my grandfather, I mourn to you my brother al-Husayn!35 ”

The wise ladies who were born and grew up in the lap of the Prophet held a mourning ceremony for the Lord of the martyrs. They put on the most coarse clothes and shrouded themselves in black and continued weeping and wailing.

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s Grief

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, kept weeping day and night over his father and the members of his Household. Imam al-Sadiq, peace be on him, said: “My grandfather, ‘Ali b. al-Husayn, wept over his father for twenty years. When food was put before him, he wept.36 ” One of his retainers blamed him, saying: “I fear for you lest you should perish.”

So the Imam kindly said to him: “I only convey my complaints and my grief to Allah, and I know from Allah what you all do not know. Ya‘qu’b (Jacob) was a prophet from whom Allah caused one of his sons to be separated. He had twelve sons, and he knew that his son (Joseph) was still alive, he wept over him till he lost his eye sight. I looked at my father, my brothers, my uncles, and my companions (and saw them) slain all around me, so how can my grief end? Whenever I remember how Fatima’s children were slaughtered, tears choke me. Whenever I look at my aunts and sisters, I remember how they were fleeing from one tent to another.37 ”

When the Imam looked at water, his weeping increased, and his pain doubled. This is because water reminded him of the thirst of his father and the members of his Household. The narrators said: “When he took some water to drink, he wept. So he was asked about that, and he answered: ‘How do I not weep (while) my father was prevented from drinking the water which was free for beasts and wild animals?’38 ”

The Imam always wept over his father, and it was said to him: “You always weep, even if you kill yourself, you will increase (nothing) with this.” So he said: “I have killed my soul, and over it I weep.39 ”

A group of his retainers and the members of his Household felt pity for him because of his abundant weeping, so one of them asked him: “Has n’t your grief end yet?”

The Imam answered him, saying: “Woe unto you! Ya‘qu’b (Jacob) was a prophet from whom Allah caused one of his sons to be separated. He had twelve sons, and he knew that his son (Joseph) was still alive in the world, he wept over him till he lost his eye sight. I looked at my father, my brother, my uncle, and seventeen (persons) from the members of my Household (and saw them) slain all around me, so how can my grief end?40 ”

His heart melt with pity for his father, his Household, and his friends whose heads the swords of aggression severed in a cruel manner.

His Paying the Debts which his Father owed

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, was indebted to a group of people for more than seventy thousand dinars, so Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, took great care of paying them to the extent that he prevented himself from having food and water. When he prepared this sum (of money), he hurried to pay every debt to the person to whom it was owed, and thus he could free his father from such an obligation.41

His Kindness to the Family of ‘Aqil

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, was very kind to the Family of ‘Aqil. He preferred them to his cousins and the members of his family, for they had an outstanding attitude during the Battle of Karbala’. That was when the sons and the honorable grandsons of ‘Aqil sacrificed their souls for Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, while they were still young. They competed with each other for martyrdom, so they were all killed at that battle, and thus they sacrificed their lives for the religion of Allah.

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, had mercy on them and preferred them to the surviving members of his family. He was asked about that, and he, peace be on him, replied: “I remember their day with Abu ‘Abd Allah (al-Husayn), so I feel pity for them.42 ” An example of his kindness to the family of ‘Aqil was that al-Mukhtar b. Yousif, a great revolutionist, gave him a lot of money, and he built with it houses for them, but the Umayyad government ordered the houses to be demolished.43

His Staying in Medina

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, stayed in Medina and did not leave it except for performing the hajj to the Sacred House of Allah. The narrators said: “He traveled to Iraq to visit the grave of Imam (‘Ali) the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him.44 ” It is certain that he visited the grave of his father, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him. With this we will end our talk about the tragedies of Karbala’, and the oppression and persecution to which Imam’ al-Husayn was subjected.

Notes

1.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 97.

2.Al-Tabarani, al-Mu‘jam. Ibn ‘Asakir, Tarikh, vol. 13, p. 74.

3.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 1, pp. 172 - 173.

4.Al-Majjlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 9, p. 147.

5.Al-Tabari, Tarikh, vol. 6, p. 242.

6.Al-Majjlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 9, p. 147.

7.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 274.

8.Ibid., p. 3.

9.Al-Qarmani, Tarikh, p. 108.

10.Kamil al-Ziyarat, p. 261.

11.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, pp. 324 - 325.

12.Ibid., p. 333.

13.Shaykh al-Mufeed, al-Amali, p. 143.

14.‘Abd Allah, Maqqtal al-Husayn.

15.Ibn Nama, Muthir al-Ahzan.

16.Hayat al-Imam al-Yusayn, vol. 3, pp. 345 - 347.

17.Mir’at al-Zaman fi Tawarikh al-A‘yan, p. 98. Ibn al-Jawzi, vol. 5. Ibn Sa‘d, Tabaqat.

18.Mir’at al-Zaman fi Tawarikh al-A‘yan, p. 99.

19.Ansab al-Ashraf, Q1/vol. 1.

20.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 371.

21.Ibid., p. 376.

22.Ibid., p. 387.

23.Nafs al-Mahmu`m, p. 242.

24.Al-Khawarizmi, Maqqtal al-Husayn, vol. 2, p. 242.

25.Jawhart al-Kalam fi Maddh al-Sada al-‘Alam, p. 128.

26.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 291.

27.Ibn al-Athir, Tarikh, vol. 3, p. 300.

28.Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, vol. 1, p. 157.

29.Al-Hada’iq al-Wardiya, vol. 1, p. 131. Al-Futu`h, vol. 5, p. 246.

30.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 414.

31.Jawhart al-Kalam fi Maddh al-Sada al-‘Alam, p. 128.

32.Tafsir al-Matalib fi Amali Abi Talib, p. 93. Al-Hada’iq al-Wardiya, vol. 1, p. 133.

33.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 423.

34.Al-Luhu`f, p. 116.

35.Al-Muqrim, Maqtal al-Husayn, p. 472.

36.Ahmed Fahmi, al-Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, p. 31.

37.Al-Muqrim, Maqtal al-Husayn, p. 47. A narration similar to this has been reported in Hulyat al-Awliya’, vol. 3, p. 138.

38.Al-Majjlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 46, p. 108.

39.Ibid, p. 109.

40.Ibid, p. 108.

41.Sir al-Silsila al-‘Alawiya, p. 32.

42.Kamil al-Ziyarat, p. 107.

43.Ghayat al-Ikhtisar, p. 160.

44.Ibid.

Chapter 7: The Tragedies Of Karbala’

The Umayyad government determined to destroy Islam and to annihilate its foundations and forces. Then it decided to degrade the Muslims, to paralyze their physical and mental activities, and to prevent them from practicing the principles of their great religion. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, witnessed this severe ordeal as his father, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, witnessed it during the days of the government of Mu‘awiya and Yazid. He shared his father’s pain and sorrow.

Imam al-Husayn was unable to carry out his great revolt during the days of Mu‘awiya because he understood that his revolt would fail, and that he would be unable to change the situations standing in the country. Because Mu‘awiya used strong policy and ruled with wisdom, it was impossible for Imam al-Husayn to overcome him and abort his plans. When this tyrannical person (Mu‘awiya) died and Yazid took the reins of government, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, decided to accomplish his religious duty. He determined to resist Yazid and to overthrow his government.

Accordingly, he would be able to preserve the Muslims’ interests and rights. Moreover he would be loyal to the fundamentals of the religion of his grandfather. So he, peace be on him, declared his great revolt through which Allah made the Book clear, and which He made a lesson for the wise. Hence we will briefly mention some sides of this great revolt, which showed terrible events to Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin. Although he was ill, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin was able to understand all the stages of this tragedy through his sensitive feelings and his careful sentiment. That is as follows:

On the Plateau of Karbala’

The pure family of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, adopted the rights of the oppressed and the persecuted, so they head for Iraq. When they arrived at the Plateau of Karbala’, they were afflicted by ordeals, misfortunes, and disasters, so they were sure of the destructive catastrophe. This occurred when they found themselves surrounded by the wicked forces who intended to shed their blood and to force them to yield to abasement, but Allah refused to accept that for them.

Imam al-Husayn looked at the young men from among the members of his family, they were in the bloom of youth, so he burst into tears and began saying: “O Allah, we are the Household of Your Prophet, Muhammad, peace be on him. We have been banished from the Scared City of our grandfather, and the Umayyads have transgressed against us, so, O Allah, take our right from them, and grant us victory over the oppressive people.”

Then he addressed the heroes from among his Household and his companions, saying: “The people are the slaves of this world, and the religion is licking on their tongues. They encompass it (the religion) as long as their livelihoods stream, but when they are tested by tribulation, they are a few in following the religion.1 ”

These brilliant words show the practical reality of the life of the people throughout the stages of history, so they are the slaves of this world at every place and time. As for the religion, it has no shade in their inner selves. When disasters befall them, they deny it and turn away from it, so, indeed, it is licking on their tongues.

Then Imam al-Husayn turned to his companions and said to them: “Then after, you have seen what has befallen us, and the world has changed and neglected (us), its kindness has turned away (from us), and nothing has remained of it except a rest like the rest of the container and a mean life which is like an unhealthy food. Don’t you see that the (people) do not put the truth into effect and do not prevent each other from (doing) falsehood? Indeed, the believer is desirous of meeting Allah. So, indeed, I see that death is (nothing) except happiness, and that life with the oppressive is (nothing) except boredom.2 ”

In this speech, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, showed that all kinds of ordeals and tribulations befell them, and that the thinking of the world toward them changed, for fate brought to them tiresome misfortunes, but the grandson of the great Prophet was brave enough to face them, for he saw that the people did not put the truth into effect and did not prevent each other from doing falsehood, and that life became abominable and martyrdom in the way of Allah was happiness.

When Imam al-Husayn finished his speech, all his companions rushed toward death to give people the most wonderful examples of sacrifice for establishing justice and fairness. Each one of them spoke with the words of sincerity, so the Imam thanked and lauded them for that.

Imam al-Husayn announced his Death

On the night of Muharram 10th, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, was sure of death, so he entered his own tent, prepared his own sword, and said:

Time, shame on you as friend! At the day’s

dawning and the sun’s setting!

How many a companion or seeker will be

a corpse! Time will not be satisfied with any

substitute.

The matter will rest with the Almighty one,

and every living creature will have to journey

along my path.

In these lines of poetry, the Imam announced his death. He was in the tent of Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin and of the granddaughter of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, Zaynab, daughter of Imam ‘Ali, the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him. When Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin heard these lines, he understood what his father wanted, so tears choked him, and he kept silent and knew that tribulation had come upon them, as he said: “As for my aunt, Zaynab, she felt that her brother and the rest of her Household had determined to meet death and to attain martyrdom. She could not control herself; she jumped up, tearing at her clothes, sighing and went to him.” “Then I will lose a brother,” Zaynab said to him, “Would death deprived me of life, (for) my mother Fatima, is dead, and my father, ‘Ali, and my brother, al-Husayn, peace be on them (all).”

“O sister,” al-Husayn said to her as he looked at her with his eyes full of tears, “don’t let Satan take away your forbearance.”

However, Zaynab became pale, and sorrow tore up her gentle, tortured heart, so she lamented to her brother al-Husayn: “O my grief, your life will be violently wrenched from you and that is more wounding to my heart and harsher to my soul.”

When she was sure that her brother would be killed, she could not control her forbearance, so she tore her garment, struck at her face, and then she fell down in a faint. Then the granddaughters of the Prophet shared that severe ordeal with her. Among them was Umm Kulthu’m, who lamented: “Oh Muhammad! Oh ‘Ali! Oh Imam! Oh Husayn! We will be lost after you!”

That distressing sight had a great effect on the soul of Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him. Sorrow and sighs melted his heart, so he walked towards the granddaughters of the Prophet and ordered them to cling to forbearance and to bear the burdens of this severe ordeal, saying: “O sister, O Umm Kulthu’m, O Fatima, O Rabab, when I am killed, you must not tear your clothes, nor scratch your faces, nor cry out with grief and loss!3 ”

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, ordered his womenfolk to cling to forbearance during those severe ordeals that had come upon them, and he ordered them not to say obscene words.

The Day of ‘Asura’

There was no event in history similar to the event that came upon Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, on the Day of ‘Asura’ because all the ordeals of the world came upon the plant of sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, talked about that tragic day which is immortal in the world of sorrows. He said: “No day was more difficult for Allah’s Messenger than the Day (Battle) of Uhud in which his uncle Hamza b. ‘Abd al-Muttalib, the lion of Allah and the lion of His Messenger, was killed, and after it was the Day (Battle) of Mu’ta in which his cousin Ja‘far b. Abi Talib was killed.” Then he (Zayn al-‘Abidin) said: “There was no day like the Day of al-Husayn, when thirty thousand men advanced against him (while) they claimed that they belonged to this community, and that they (wanted) to seek proximity to Allah, the Great and Almighty, through (shedding) his blood. He (al-Husayn) reminded them of Allah, but they did not learn (from him) till they killed him out of (their) oppression and aggression.4 ”

In the world of Islam, throughout history, there is no day more difficult than that of al-Husayn, for this great Imam revolted (against Yazid) to establish for all the peoples of the East an honorable life, freedom, welfare, security, and tranquillity. However, those wicked people rose against him and shed his blood in a savage way in which history has never seen. They committed these crimes to live under the yoke of slavery, oppression, and injustice.

Imam al-Husayn’s Sermon

Before the fire of the battle broke out, Imam al-Husayn thought that he had to establish proof for those corrupt people, to refute their justifications, and to make them understand clearly their affairs, so he, peace be on him, ordered his horse to be brought to him. He rode it and walked toward them in a highly impressive manner which was similar to that of his grandfather, Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family. He delivered among them his historical sermon, which is the purest and most eloquent one in Arabic literature. He called them at the top of his voice to make them all hear his words.

He said to them: “People, listen to my words and do not hurry (to attack me) so that I may remind you of the duties you have towards me and so that (by telling you the true circumstances) I may free myself from any blame in (your attacking me). If you give me justice, you will become happier through that. If you do not give me justice of your own accord (as individuals), then agree upon your affairs (and your associates); let not your affairs be in darkness to you. Then carry (it) out against me and do not reflect (any further). Indeed my guardian is Allah, Who sent down the Book; He takes care of the righteous.”

The air carried Imam al-Husayn’s words to the womenfolk of the Prophet and they lamented loudly, so the Imam sent to them his brother al-‘Abbas and his son ‘Ali and said to them: “Calm them. By my life, their weeping will be very much.” When they became quiet, he went on delivering his sermon. He praised and glorified Allah, and he called down blessings upon the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, and said concerning that countless words. No speaker has ever been heard before or after him more eloquent in his speech than he was5 . He continued: “People, indeed Allah, the Most High, created this world and made it the abode of annihilation and vanishing. It changes its inhabitants from state to state, so the conceited one is he whom it deludes, and the miserable one is he whom it charms. So let not this world delude you because it cuts off the hope of him who has confidence in it and despairs the greediness of him who desires for it. I see that you have unanimously agreed on an affair through which you have made Allah angry with you, turn his Holy Face away from you, and send down his vengeance upon you. So the best lord is our Lord, and you are the worst slaves! You acknowledged obedience (to Allah) and believed in the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and his family, and then you have crept against his progeny and his family, you want to kill them. Satan has wholly engaged you, so he has made you forget the remembrance of Allah, the Almighty. So woe to you and to what you want! To Allah we belong and to Him is our return. These are people who have disbelieved (in Allah) after their belief (in Him). So away with the oppressive people!”

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, preached to the people with these words. He warned them against the delusion of this world and gave them proofs for its unsuccessful final results and prevented them from killing the family of their Prophet, for they would disbelieve in Islam and be worthy of Allah’s punishment and vengeance. Then the great Imam continued: “People, trace back my lineage and consider who I am. Then look back at yourselves and remonstrate with yourselves. Consider whether it is right for you to kill me and to violate the honor of my womenfolk. Am I not the son of the daughter of your Prophet, of his testamentary trustee (wasi) and his cousin, the first of the believers in Allah and the man who (first) believed in what His Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, brought from his Lord? Was not Hamza, the lord of the martyrs, my uncle? Was not Ja‘far, the one who flies in Heaven, my uncle? Have you not heard the words of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, concerning myself and my brother: ‘These are the two lords of the youths of the inhabitants of heaven’? Whether you believe what I am saying- and it is the truth, for by Allah I have never told a lie since I learnt that Allah hated people (who told) them- or whether you regard me as a liar, there are among you those, if you asked them, would tell you: Ask Ja‘far b. ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari, Abu’ Sa‘id al-Khudari, Sahl b. Sa‘ad al-Sa‘idi, Zayd b. Arqam, and Anas b. Malik to tell you that they heard these words from the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, concerning myself and my brother. Is there not (sufficient) in this to prevent you from shedding my blood?”

It was appropriate for this sermon to change the views of the units of that army and to make a military revolt among their ranks. Through this sermon Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, summoned them to return to their intellects, to consider carefully his affair, for he was the grandson of their Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, the son of his trustee, his womb relative, the lord of the youths of the inhabitants of heaven. All these factors were enough to prevent them from shedding al-Husayn’s blood and violating the honor of his womenfolk, but that army did not understand such excellent preaching, so it was inclined to crime and drowned in error.

However, the wicked sinner, Shimr b. Dhi al-Jawshan interrupted Imam al-Husayn, saying: “If I understand what you are saying, then I only worship Allah (very shakily) on the edge.”

Habeeb b. Muzahir, an excellent Muslim believer, answered Shimr, saying: “I think that you worship Allah (very shakily) on seventy edges, for I testify you are right. You do not understand what he is saying, for Allah has impressed (ignorance) upon your heart.”

Then the great Imam (al-Husayn) continued: “If you are in doubt about these words, you are in doubt that I am the son of the daughter of your Prophet. By Allah there is no son of a prophet other than me among you and among the peoples from the East to the West. Shame on you, are you seeking retribution from me for one of your dead whom I have killed, or for property of yours which I expropriated, or for a wound which I have inflicted?”

These words shook the ground under their feet. They became perplexed, not knowing what to say. Then Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, called the commanders of the army, who wrote letters to him to come to their city, saying: “Shibth b. Rib‘i, Hajjar b. Abjar, Qays b. al-Ash‘th, Yazid b. al-Harth, didn’t you write: ‘The fruit has ripened; the dates have grown green; come to an army which has been gathered for you’?”

But those wicked sinners did not feel shame in betraying a promise and breaking a covenant; they all unanimously agreed on telling lies, saying: “We didn’t do (that).”

The Imam was astonished at their answer, so he said: “Glory belongs to Allah! Yes, by Allah, you did it.”

Thus, the Imam turned his face away from them and addressed the units of the army, saying to them: “People, if you hated me, then let me go to a safe place in the land.”

However, Qays b. al-Ash‘ath, a wicked sinner in Kufa who belonged to a corrupt family, interrupted him, saying: “Submit to the authority of your kinsmen (the Umayyads). They have never treated you with anything but what you liked.”

“By Allah, I will never give you my hand like a man who has been humiliated; nor will I flee like a slave,” said al-Husayn, peace be on him. Then he called out: “O Servants of Allah, I take refuge in my Lord and your Lord from your stoning. I take refuge in my Lord and your Lord from every haughty man who does not believe in the Day of Reckoning.”

Unfortunately, this excellent sermon did not penetrate their hearts, for ignorance had been impressed upon them, so they were like the cattle, rather they were more straying (than them) in way.

The Battle

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, took numerous measures to preserve peace and to avoid shedding blood, but ‘Umar b. Sa‘d declared public war against him, for he advanced toward the Imam’s camp, took an arrow, threw it at the Imam, and said: “Bear witness for me with the Governor that I was the first to throw (an arrow) at al-Husayn’s camp.”

This aggressive, mean person (‘Umar b. Sa‘d) asked his army to bear witness for him with his governor, b. Marjana (i.e., ‘Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad) that he was the first to throw an arrow at the Camp of the truth, dignity, and honor. Then his bowmen showered arrows upon al-Husayn and his companions and hit them all, so the Imam turned to his companions and said to them: “Noble men, stand up! These are the messengers of the people for you!”

Thus, the vanguards of the truth from among the companions of the Imam headed for the battlefield. With that, the battle started between the two armies; it was the most violent battle that ever occurred on the earth.

The Martyrdom of the Righteous

The army of the truth met the army of misguidance and falsehood. The companions of Imam al-Husayn eagerly competed with the male members of his House for death to attain Paradise. With that they led the movement of faith. None of their spirits became weak, so, with their unique sacrifice, they gave a proof of the greatness of Islam, which granted them such a steadfast spirit through which they, though few in number, were able to meet that savage army and cause it heavy casualties.

The companions of al-Husayn and the male members of his Household proved themselves brave, especially as it concerns Aba al-Fadl al-‘Abbas, peace be on him, who sacrificed his life for his brother al-Husayn. Throughout the history of humanity, there is no brotherhood more truthful, nobler, and more sincere than that of al-‘Abbas, so Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, lauded and praised it when he said: “May Allah have mercy on my uncle al-‘Abbas, for he preferred (his brother to himself), showed extreme courage, and sacrificed his life for his brother to the extent that his hands were cut off, so Allah, the Great and Almighty, gave him two wings to fly with the angels in Heaven, as He had given Ja‘far b. Abi Talib. Al-‘Abbas has a great position with Allah, the Exalted, so all the martyrs will envy it on the Day of Judgment.6 ”

Aba al-Fadl al-‘Abbas was the last brother of al-Husayn to be killed. The Imam, peace be on him, stood beside al-‘Abbas’s holy corpse and said with great sorrow: “My back has just broken and my strength become little.”

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, felt loneliness and loss when he lost his brother, who was kind and obedient to him. In our book ‘Hayat al-Imam’ al-Husayn (the Life of Imam al-Husayn), We have spoken in detail about his martyrdom and the attitude of al-Husayn toward him.

Imam al-Husayn sought Help

Imam al-Husayn, who was afflicted with disaster, looked with great sadness and sorrow at the members of his family and his companions. He saw them slaughtered like sheep on the sand of Karbala’ under the heat of the sun’s rays, and he heard his womenfolk weeping and lamenting over their martyred ones. He did not know what would happened to them after his martyrdom. That tragic sight had a great effect on him, so he sought help to protect the womenfolk of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, saying: “Is there anyone to protect the womenfolk of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family? Is there any monotheist to fear Allah through us? Is there any helper who seeks hope from Allah through helping us?7 ”

When Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin heard his father asking those people for helped, he left his bed and leant on a stick because of his severe illness. When al-Husayn saw him, he called his sister Umm Kulthu’m, saying: “Hold him back lest the earth should be void of the descendants of the family of Muhammad!” So his aunt brought him back to his bed, and he suffered psychological pain more than he suffered from his illness. Ordeals and misfortunes filled his mind when he saw that brilliant group of his brothers and cousins martyred on the ground, their sincere companions slaughtered like sheep, his father was surrounded by the enemies of Allah, and the womenfolk of the Prophet shaking with fear. Nevertheless he faced those tragedies with forbearance and entrusted his affair to Allah.

Martyrdom of the great Imam

Those savage criminals surrounded the plant of the sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, stabbing him with their swords and spears and hitting him with stones. Bleeding sapped his strength, so the wicked criminal, Shimr b. Dhi al-Jawshan hurried to behead him. The narrators said: “On the lips of Imam al-Husayn, there was the smile of pleasure and of immortal victory which he gained.”

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, sacrificed his life to establish the state of Truth in the regions of this East, to destroy oppression and injustice, to divide the bounties of Allah among the deprived and the persecuted, and to save the community from the government of the Umayyads who denied human rights and turned the Muslim countries into a farm and took from it whatever they wanted.

Setting the Tents to Fire

The rude and roguish Umayyads set fire to the tents of Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, paying no attention to the Prophet’s womenfolk and children who were in them. They carried firebrands in their hands and cried out: “Set fire to the houses of the oppressors!”

These people thought that the tents of al-Husayn were the houses of oppression while the houses of the Umayyads and of their agents were the houses of justice. They forgot that the Umayyads had drowned the Muslim countries in oppression and tyranny.

When they set the tents to fire, the women of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, escaped to the desert while the fire was following them. As for the orphans, they cried and ran away towards the desert asking the people for help, but nobody helped or aided them. That was the most tragic sight which Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin saw. He did not forget it throughout his lifetime. After the martyrdom of his father, he always said: “By Allah, when I look at my aunts and my sisters, tears choke me because I remember the day of al-Taff when they escaped from tent to tent and the caller of the people was calling: ‘Set fire to the houses of the oppressors!’8 ”

The Attack against Zayn al-‘Abidin

The rude unbelievers attacked Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin whose strength was sapped by illness, and whose heart was torn by the terrible tragedies. The wicked criminal, Shimr b. Dhi al-Jawshan wanted to kill him, but Hameed b. Muslim scolded him, saying: “Glory belongs to Allah! Do you really kill children? He is only a sick lad!”

But Shimr paid no attention to Hameed, so his aunt, the wise lady Zaynab, hurried to him and cling to him, saying: “You will not kill him before killing me first.9 ” So, the mean ones left him alone

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin became Impatient

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin felt greatly grieved and worried. He wished that he left life. This is because he witnessed the horrible tragedies which befell the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them. He was about to die when he saw the corpse of his father, the corpses of the male members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), and of his companions exposed to the wind. When his aunt, the wise lady Zaynab, saw him, she consoled him, saying: “Why do I see you pleading for death, O the legacy of my grandfather, of my father and brothers?

By Allah, this is something which Allah had divulged to your grandfather and to your father. Allah took a covenant from the people whom you do not know, the mighty ones on this land, and who are known to the people of the heavens, that they would gather these severed parts and wounded corpses and bury them, then shall they set up on his Taff a banner for the grave of your father, the lord of martyrs, the traces of which shall never be obliterated, nor shall it ever be wiped out so long as there is day and night. The leaders of apostasy and the promoters of misguidance shall try their best to obliterate and efface it, yet it shall become more and more lofty instead.10 ”

His Burying the Pure Corpses

The rude and mean ones from among the Kufans buried the corpses of their dead and left on the hot sand of Karbala’ the corpse of the plant of the sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, (i.e., al-Husayn), the corpses of the male members of his family, and of their companions. So some of the Banu Asad, who did not take part in the battle, dug graves for those pure corpses. They were perplexed because they could not identify the corpses especially since the killers had separated the heads from the bodies. While they were perplexed, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, according to the Shi‘ite sources, came and informed them of the names of the martyrs from among the male members of the House, and of their companions. The Imam himself carried the corpse of his father and buried it in its final resting place while he was shedding bitter tears and saying: “Congratulations to the land that contains your pure body, for the world after you is dark whereas the hereafter in your light shall shine. As for the night, it is the harbinger of sleep, while grief remains forever, for Allah shall choose for the members of your House your abode wherein you shall abide. From me to you is greeting, O son of the Apostle of Allah, and the mercy of Allah and his blessings.”

On the holy grave he wrote these words: “This is the grave of al-Husayn b. ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, the one whom they killed even as he was a thirsty stranger. Beside the legs of Imam al-Husayn, he buried his son ‘Ali al-Akkbar. He buried the martyrs from among the Hashimites and other than them in one grave. Then he went with the Banu Asad to the river of al-‘Alqami, where he ordered a grave to be dug and in it he buried Qamar Banu Hashim (the Moon of the Hashimites), Abu’ al-Fadl al-‘Abbas b. ‘Ali, the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him. Then he burst into bitter tears and said: “May the world after you be obliterated, O Moon of Banu Hashim, and greetings from me to you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.11 ”

Those pure graves have become a symbol for the dignity of humanity, for every sacrifice stands on honor, justice, and the truth. They have become the holiest center for worship in Islam.

The Captives of the Household taken to Kufa

The wise ladies of Revelation and the Message were taken prisoners to Kufa, so the Umayyad army blew its trumpets and raised its banners to show its victory over the plant of the sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, and lord of the youths of the heaven. Muslim al-Jassas described that sight, saying: “Ibn Ziyad summoned me to repair the House of the Governor in Kufa. While I was plastering the doors, I heard cries coming from everywhere in Kufa, so I went to the servant of the palace and asked him: “Why is Kufa noisy?”

“This hour, they will bring the head of a rebel (kharijite) who revolted against Yazid,” answered the servant.

“Who is this rebel?” I asked.

“Al-Husayn b. ‘Ali,” was the answer.

He (Muslim al-Jassas) said: “So I left the servant, struck at my face to the extent that I feared that I would become blind, washed my hands from plaster, left the palace, and went to al-Kanas. While I was with the people waiting for the arrival of the captives and the heads, forty camels came carrying women and children, and ‘Ali b. al-Husayn came riding a camel without saddle. Both sides of his neck were bleeding. He was weeping and repeating these verses:

O community of evil, may your region be not

watered,

O community that never respected in our regard

our grandfather,

on bare camels of burden have you transported

us as if we never put up a creed for you !12

Jadhlam b. Bashir said: “When I came to Kufa in the year 61 A. H., ‘Ali b. al-Husayn along with the womenfolk came from Karbala’ to Kufa surrounded by soldiers. They were (riding) bare camels. The people came out to look at them, so the women of Kufa wept and lamented over them. I saw that ‘Ali b. al-Husayn was sapped by illness, chains were placed on his neck and he was handcuffed.13 He was saying with a weak voice: ‘They are weeping and lamenting over us! So who has killed us?’14 ”

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin delivers a Speech

The Kufans surrounded Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, so he thought that he had to address them to make them know the sin of what they committed against themselves and the community. He, peace be on him, lauded and praised Allah, and then he said: “O men, whoever recognizes me knows me, and whoever does not, let me tell him that I am ‘Ali b. al-Husayn b. ‘Ali b. Abi Talib. I am the son of the man whose sanctity has been violated, whose wealth has been plundered, whose children have been seized. I am the son of the one who has been slaughtered by the Euphrates neither on blood revenge nor on account of inheritance. I am the son of the one killed in the worst manner. This suffices me to be proud.

“O men, I plead to you in the Name of Allah: Do you not know that you wrote my father then deceived him? Did you not grant him your covenant, your promise, and your allegiance, then you fought him? May you be ruined for what you have committed against your own souls, and out of your corrupt views! Through what eyes will you look at the Messenger of Allah when he says to you: ‘You killed my progeny, violated my sanctity, so you do not belong to my community’?”

Those slaves who blackened the face of history wept loudly and lamented, and they said to each other: “You have perished, yet you are not aware of it.”

The Imam continued his speech, saying: “May Allah have mercy on anyone who acts upon my advice, who safeguards my legacy with regard to Allah, His Apostle, and his Household, for we have in the Apostle of Allah a good example of conduct to emulate.”

So they all said with one tongue: “We, son of the Apostle of Allah, listen and obey, and we shall safeguard your trust. We shall not turn away from you, nor shall we disobey you; so, order us, may Allah have mercy on you, for we shall fight when you fight, and we shall make peace when you do so; we dissociate ourselves from whoever oppressed you and dealt unjustly with you.”

In response to this false obedience, the Imam said: “Far, far away it is from you to do so, people of treachery and conniving! You are separated from what you desire. Do you want to come to me as you did to my father? No, by the Lord of those (angels) that ascend and descend, the wound is yet to heal. My father was killed only yesterday, and so were his Household, and the loss inflicted upon the Apostle of Allah, upon my father, and upon my family is yet to be forgotten. Its pain, by Allah, is between both of these (sides) and its bitterness is between my throat and palate. Its choke is resting in my very chest.15 ” Then the Imam refrained from speech, turning away from those treacherous conniving people who were the mark of disgrace against mankind. It was they who killed the plant of the sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, (I. e., al-Husayn), who came to free them and to save them from the oppression and tyranny of the Umayyads. After that, they repented and wept over him.

The Tyrant with Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin

The captives of the Household of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, were caused to enter the palace of the Governor of Kufa, b. Marjana (i. e., ‘Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad). When the tyrant, b. Marjana, saw Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, who was sapped by illness, he asked him: “Who are you?”

“I am ‘Ali b. al-Husayn,” answered the Imam.

“Did not Allah kill ‘Ali b. al-Husayn?” Ibn Ziyad asked the Imam.

The Imam carefully replied: “I used to have an older brother also named ‘Ali whom you killed. He will request you on the Day of Judgment.”

Ibn Ziyad burst with anger and shouted at the Imam: “Allah killed him!”

The Imam answered him with bravery and steadfastness: “Allah takes the souls away at the time of their death; none dies except with Allah’s permission.”

Ibn Marjana was perplexed, not knowing what to answer this young captive who defeated him through giving proofs and quotations from the Qur’an, so he shouted at him, saying: “How dare you answer me like that!”

The wicked sinner, b. Marjana, ordered one of his swordsmen, saying: “Take this lad and behead him!”

The wise lady Zaynab, granddaughter of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, put her hands around the Imam and bravely said to b. Marjana: “O Ibn Ziyad, it suffices you what you have shed of our blood! Have you really spared anyone other than this? If you want to kill him, kill me with him as well!”

The tyrant admired her and said to the swordsman with astonishment: “Leave him for her! Amazing is their tie of kinship; she wishes to be killed with him!”

Were it not for this heroic attitude of the wise lady Zaynab, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin would have been killed and the rest of the progeny of Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, who was the source of good and honor in the earth, would have been destroyed. In his book ‘al-Rasa’il’, al-Jahiz reported that b. Marjana said to his companions concerning ‘Ali b. al-Husayn: “Let me kill him, for he is the rest of this progeny (i. e., the progeny of al-Husayn), so through him I will sever this horn, deaden this disease, and cut off this material.”

However, they advised him to refrain from killing him, for they thought that the Imam would be destroyed by his illness.16 ”

A Kufan Kidnaps the Imam

A Kufan Kidnapped the Imam, hid him in his house, entertained and treated him kindly. When he saw the Imam, he burst into tears. The Imam thought that the Kufan was trustworthy. A short time later, the caller of b. Ziyad announced: “Whoever finds ‘Ali b. al-Husayn and brings him will have three hundred dirhams.” When the Kufan heard the caller, he put a rope around the Imam’s neck, tied his hands with the robe, and took the dirhams.17 This initiative, if correct, gives a picture of the Kufans who spared no effort to get money.

The Captives of the Household taken to Damascus

The womenfolk and the children of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, were taken as prisoners to Damascus. They were in a condition the sight of which would cause anyone’s soul to melt. All the Kufans went out to see the captives of their Prophet off. The men and the women wept for them. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, wondered at their attitude and said: “They killed us and are weeping over us!18 ”

The wicked sinner, Shimr b. Dhi al-Jawshan, ordered a rope to be put around Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s neck.19 The historians said: “Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin did not say even a word to the rude people who accompanied him, nor did he ask them for a thing throughout the journey, for he knew that they were wicked and ignoble, and that they would not respond to any of his requests.

The caravan of the captives arrived at a place near Damascus and stopped there because the Umayyads wanted to decorate the city to show their rejoicing and the victory which the grandson of Abi Sufyan gained over the grandson of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family.

When Damascus was fully decorated, the captives of the Household of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, were caused to enter it.

A Syrian with Zayn al-‘Abidin

An elderly Syrian, who was misled by the false rumors, came near Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, and said to him: “Praise belongs to Allah Who annihilated you and Who granted the governor the upper hand over you.”

The Imam looked at the elderly Syrian. He understood that the elderly Syrian misunderstood the truth and was deceived by the false Umayyad mass media, so he asked him: “Shaykh, have you read the Qur’an?”

“Yes,” answered the man.

“Have you read,” continued the Imam, “the verse saying: ‘ Say: I do not ask you for a reward for it except that you treat my kinsfolk with kindness,’ the verse saying: ‘ and give the (Prophet’s) kinsfolk their due rights,’ and the verse saying: ‘and be informed that whatever you earn by way of booty, for Allah belongs the fifth thereof and for the Messenger (of Allah) and for the (Prophet’s) kinsfolk’? ”

The elderly Syrian admired the Imam and said to him with a faint voice: “Yes, I have read all of them.”

The Imam said to him: “We, by Allah, are the kinsfolk referred to in all these verses.” Then the Imam asked him: “Shaykh, have you read these words of Him, the exalted: ‘Allah only desires to take away uncleanness from you, O Household (of the Prophet) and purify thoroughly’? ”

“Yes,” was the answer.

“We are the Household (of the Prophet) whom Allah singled out with the Verse of Purification.”

The elderly Syrian shook all over. He wished that the earth had swallowed him up before saying his words. Then he asked the Imam: “I ask you in the Name of Allah, are you really them?”

“By our grandfather, Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, we are, without any doubt,” replied the Imam.

It was then that the elderly Syrian fell on Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s hands kissing them. His tears flowed down his cheeks, and he said: “I dissociate myself before Allah from those who killed you!”

The elderly Syrian sought repentance from the Imam from whatever rude remarks he had made earlier. So he, peace be on him, forgave him.20 ”

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin in the Assembly of Yazid

The police men of Yazid tied with ropes the wise women of Revelation and the children of Imam al-Husayn, as sheep are tied. The beginning of the rope was around the neck of Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, then around the neck of his aunt Zaynab, up to all the daughters of Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family. Whenever they relaxed in their walking, they (the police men of Yazid) whipped them. They brought them in this condition whose terror cracked the mountains and made them stop before Yazid. So Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin turned to him and asked him: “What do you think the reaction of our grandfather, Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, might have been had he seen us looking like this?”

The tyrant, Yazid, collapsed. All those who were in his assembly wept. Yazid felt pain of that tragic sight, so he said: “May Allah detest b. Marjana the ugly. If there had been (any bond of) kinship between him and you, he would not have done this to you; he would not have sent you in this state.” Then the tyrannical one, Yazid, ordered the ropes to be cut off, turned to Zayn al-‘Abidin and said him: “How did you, ‘Ali, see what Allah did to your father al-Husayn?”

Al-Husayn’s brave son (Zayn al-‘Abidin) answered with calmness and tranquillity: “Whatever misfortune befalls the earth or your own selves is already in a Book even before we cause it to happen; this is easy for Allah, so that you may not grieve about what you missed nor feel elated on account of what you receive. And Allah does not love those who are haughty and proud.”

The tyrant, Yazid, burst in anger, his elation went away, and recited these words of Him, the Exalted: “Whatever misfortune befalls you is due to what your hands commit.” The Imam answered him, saying: “This (verse) concerns those who do wrong, not those who are wronged.” Then he turned his face away from him to disdain him and his position.21

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin delivers a Sermon

Yazid permitted all the people to come to his palace, so the hall of his palace became full of people who came and congratulated him on the false victory. He was pleased and happy, because the world yielded to him, and the kingdom belonged to him only. So he ordered the orator to ascend the pulpit and to defame al-Husayn and his father, Imam ‘Ali, the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him. The orator ascended the pulpit and went too far in slandering the pure family (of the Prophet), and then he lauded in a false way Yazid and his father Mu‘awiya. Thus, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, interrupted him, saying: “Woe unto you, orator! You have traded the pleasure of the creature for the wrath of the Creator, so take your place in the fire (of Hell).”

Then the Imam turned to Yazid and asked him, saying: “Do you permit me to ascend this pulpit to deliver a speech that will please Allah, the Almighty, and that will bring good rewards for these folks?”

The attendants were astonished at this sick lad, who interrupted the orator and the governor while he was a captive. Yazid refused, but the people begged him. He said to them: “If he ascends the pulpit, he will not descends (from it) till he expose me and the family of Abi Sufyan.”

The people asked him: “What will this sick lad do?”

The people did not know the Imam. They thought that he was like the other people, but the tyrant, Yazid, knew him, so he said to them: “These are people who have been spoon-fed with knowledge.”

They kept pressuring him till he agreed. So the Imam ascended the pulpit and delivered the most wonderful speech in history in eloquence. He made the people weep. The folks were confused because the Imam’s speech controlled their hearts and feelings. The following is some of what he said: “O people, we were granted six things and favored with seven: We were granted knowledge, clemency, leniency, fluency, courage, and love for us in the hearts of the believers. We were favored by the fact that from among us came the chosen Prophet, Muhammad, may Allah bless him and his family, al-siddiq (the very truthful one), al-Tayyar (the one who flies in the heaven), the Lion of Allah and of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, the mistress of the women of the world Fatima the chaste, and both lords of the youths of Heaven from among this nation”

Having introduced his family, the Imam continued his speech explaining their outstanding merits, saying: “Whoever recognizes me knows me, and whoever does not recognize, let me tell him who I am and to what family I belong: I am the son of Mecca and Mina; I am the son of Zamzam and al-Safa; I am the son of the one who carried Zakat in the ends of the mantle; I am the son of the best man who ever put on a loincloth and clothes; I am the son of the best man who ever put on sandals and walked barefooted; I am the son of the best man who ever made tawaf (the procession round the Kaaba) and Sa‘i (ceremony of running seven times between Safa and Marwa); I am the son of the best man who ever offered the hajj and pronounced talbiya (Here I am at your service); I am the son of the one who was transported on the buraq in the air; I am the son of the one who was made to travel from the Sacred Mosque to the Remote Mosque, so glory belongs to Him Who made (His Servant) travel; I am the son of the one who was taken by Gabriel to sidrat al-muntaha; I am the son of the one who drew near (his Lord) and suspended, so he was the measure of two bows or closer still; I am the son of the one who led the angels of the heavens in prayer; I am the son of the one to whom the Almighty revealed what He revealed; I am the son of Muhammad al-Mustafa; I am the son of ‘Ali al-Murtada; I am the son of the one who fought against the creatures till they said: There is no god but Allah. I am the son of the one who struck (the enemies) with two swords before Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, and stabbed (them) with two spears, emigrated twice, pledged allegiance twice (to the Prophet), prayed in the two qiblas, and fought (against the unbelievers) at Badr and Hunayn and never disbelieved in Allah not even as much as the twinkling of an eye. I am the son of the best of the believers, the heir of the prophets, the destroyer of the unbelievers, the Commander of the Muslims, the light of the mujahidin, the ornament of the worshippers, the crown of the weepers, the most patient of the patient, and the best of the steadfast from among the family of Yasin, and the Messenger of the Lord of the world’s inhabitants. I am the son of the one who was backed by Gabriel, supported by Mikael.

I am the son of the one who defended the Muslims, killed the oath breakers of allegiance and the unjust and the renegades, struggled against his tiring enemies, the most excellent one of those who walked (to war) from among Quraysh, the first to respond to Allah from among the believers, the prior to all the previous ones, the breaker of the aggressors, the destroyer of the atheists, an arrow from among the shooting-places of Allah against the hypocrites, the tongue of the wisdom of worshippers, the supporter of the religion of Allah, the protector of the affair of Allah, the garden of the wisdom of Allah, the container of the knowledge of Allah, tolerant, generous, benevolent, pure, Abtahi, satisfied, easily satisfied, intrepid, gallant, patient, fasting, refined, steadfast, courageous, honored, the severer of the backbones, the scatterer of the allies, the calmest of them, the best of them in giving free rein (to his horse), the boldest of them in tongue, the firmest of them in determination, the most powerful of them, a lion, brave, pouring rain, the one who destroyed them at the battles and dispersed them in the wind, the lion of al-Hijaz, the possessor of the miracle, the ram of Iraq, the Imam through the text and worthiness, Makki, Madani, Abtahi, Tuhami, Khay‘ani, ‘Uqbi, Badri, Uhdi, Shajari, Muhajiri, the Lord of the Arabs, the Lion of war, the inheritor of al-Mash‘arayn, the father of the two grandsons (of the Prophet) al-Hasan and al-Husayn, the one who manifested miracles, the one who scattered the phalanxes, the piercing meteor, the following light, the victorious Lion of Allah, the request of every seeker, the victorious over every victorious, such is my grandfather, ‘Ali b. Abi Talib. I am the son of Fatima, the chaste. I am the son of the mistress of women. I am the son of the purified, virgin (lady). I am the son of the part of the Messenger, may Allah bless him and his family.22 I am the son of the one who was covered with blood. I am the son of the one who was slaughtered at Karbala’. I am the son of the one for whom the Jinns wept in the dark and for whom the birds in the air cried.23 ”

The Imam continued saying ‘I am....’ until the people wailed. Yazid thought that a discord would occur, for the Imam made a cultural revolt through his speech when he introduced himself to the Syrians and made them know what they did not know, so Yazid ordered the muadhdhin to say the adhan and he said: “Allahu Akbar!”

The Imam turned to him and said: “You have made great the Great One who cannot be measured and cannot be perceived by senses, there is nothing greater than Allah.”

The muadhdhin said: “Ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah!”

‘Ali b. al-Husayn said: “My hair, my skin, my flesh, my blood, my brain, and my bones bear witness that there is no god but Allah.”

The muadhdhin said: “Ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasool Allah!”

The Imam turned to Yazid and asked him: “Yazid, is Muhammad your grandfather or mine? If you say that he is yours, then you are a liar, and if you say that he is mine, then why did you kill his family?24 ”

Yazid became silent and was unable to answer, for the great Prophet was Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s grandfather. As for Yazid’s grandfather, he was Abu’ Sufyan, who was the mortal enemy of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family. The Syrians understood that they were drowning in sin, and that the Umayyad government spared no effort to delude and mislead them.

The Imam confined his speech to introducing the Prophet’s Household to the Syrians. He indicated to them that the Prophet’s Household had a great position with Allah, that they waged jihad against the enemies of Islam, and that they suffered persecutions. The Imam mentioned nothing other than these matters. I (the author) think that this confinement to these matters is among the most wonderful considerations and among the most exact type of eloquence. This is because the Syrians knew nothing about the Prophet’s Household except what the pseudo clergy men fabricated against them; the authority and its mercenaries fed the Syrians on enmity toward the Prophet’s Household and on obedience to the Umayyads.

Anyhow, the Imam’s speech had a great effect on the Syrians, who secretly told each other about the Umayyad false mass media, and about the disappointment and loss at which they reached, so their attitudes toward Yazid changed25 and they looked at him with disdain.

The Imam with al-Minhal

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, met al-Minhal b. ‘Amr and he asked him: “How have you received the evening, O son of the Apostle of Allah?”

The Imam looked at him and said to him: “We received the evening like the Israelites among the people of Pharaoh: they kill their sons and take their women captive. The Arabs brag before the non-Arabs saying that Muhammad was one of them, while Quraysh boasts before the rest of the Arabs of Muhammad belonging to it. We, his Household, are now homeless; so, to Allah we belong and to Him is our return.26 ”

The greatest Prophet was the original source for the honor of the Arab community. It was he who planned the honorable life for it and established for it the strongest state in the world, but Quraysh, who boasted before the rest of the Arabs of Muhammad belonging to it, killed his children and took his womenfolk as captives.

The Tyrannical apologizes to the Imam

When the Syrians became indignant with Yazid because of his killing the plant of sweet basil of Allah’s Apostle, he (Yazid) summoned Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, apologized to him, and regarded b. Marjana (‘Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad) responsible for killing al-Husayn, saying: “May Allah curse b. Marjana! By Allah, if I had been with him (al-Husayn), he would never have asked me for a favor without me granting him it; I would have protected him from death with all my power even through destroying some of my sons. But Allah has decreed what you have seen. My little son, write to me and everything that you need is yours.27 Affairs will occur among your people, so do not take part in them.28 ”

However, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin turned away from him and said nothing to him, for he knew that the reason for his apology was an escape from the crime he committed.

A Scholar asks about the Imam

A Jewish scholar was in the assembly of Yazid. He admired Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, so he asked Yazid: “Who is that lad?”

“‘Ali b. al-Husayn,” replied Yazid.

“Who is al-Husayn?” asked the Jewish scholar.

“Son of ‘Ali b. Abi Talib,” answered Yazid.

“Who is his mother?” asked the Jewish scholar.

“Muhammad’s daughter,” replied Yazid.

“Glory belongs to Allah,” explained the Jewish scholar, “this is the son of the daughter of your Prophet, (why did) you kill him? You opposed him by doing evil to his blood relations. By Allah, if our Prophet, Mu’sa b. ‘Umran, had left a grandson among us, we would have worshipped him instead of Allah. Your Prophet left you yesterday; nevertheless you revolted against his grandson and killed him. How bad a community you are!”

The tyrannical one, Yazid, became angry and ordered the Jewish scholar to be hit on the mouth, still the Jewish scholar said: “Kill me if you want to. I have found in the Torah that whoever kills the progeny of a prophet will be cursed as long as he remains (living). When he dies, Allah will cause him to enter the fire of Hell.29 ”

The Imam with Yazid

The tyrannical one, Yazid, met Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin and asked him to ask his needs, so the Imam, peace be on him, said: “I want you to show me my father’s face, and bring back to the women what had been taken from them, for among it is the inheritances of fathers and mothers. If you want to kill me, send with the family someone to guide them to Medina.”

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, asked Yazid to show him his father’s head to bid the final farewell to it or to bury it with the holy corpse, but the tyrannical one (Yazid) refused to give him the head because he intended to show it around the country to spread fear among the people and to be a lesson for those who might revolt against him.

He also asked him to bring back what was taken from the women on Muharram 10th. With this the Imam did not mean the ornaments, rather he meant the dear things he inherited from his grandfather, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, such as his turban, his breastplate, and his sword.

Yazid, the tyrannical, bowed his head. He thought about the Imam’s requests. Then he raised his head and said: “As for the face of your father, you will never see it. As for what was taken from you, it will be brought back to you. As for the women, no one will repatriate them except you. As for you, I will not kill you.30 ”

The Journey to Medina

Yazid ordered al-Nu‘man b. Bashir to escort the womenfolk of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, and to send them back to Medina.31 He ordered him to take them out at night because he feared dissension and repercussions.32 The caravan walked and began covering the desert. The Alid women asked al-Nu‘man b. Bashir to take them to Karbala’ to renew their covenant with the grave of the Lord of martyrs, peace be on him.

Having reached Karbala’, the Alid women hurried to the grave of Imam Abi ‘Abd Allah, peace be on him, weeping and wailing. They stayed there mourning al-Husayn for three days to the extent that their voices became hoarse and their hearts became broken. Some sources mentioned that Jabir b. ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari, a great companion of the Prophet, visited the grave of al-Husayn, Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, met him and told him about the tragedies which the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them, faced, and then they left Karbala’ and headed for Medina.

Bishr announced the Death of Imam al-Husayn

When Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, came close to Medina, he alighted, set up a tent where he lodged his aunts and his sisters, turned to Bishr b. Hadhlam and said to him: “O Bishr, may Allah have mercy on your father, who was a poet! Can you compose any of it at all?” “Yes, O son of Allah’s Apostle,” replied Bishr. So the Imam ordered him to enter Medina and to announce the death of Imam al-Husayn among its people. Hence, Bishr set off towards Medina. When he came near the Mosque of the Prophet, he cried loudly and recited these verses:

O people of Yathrib! May you never stay

therein!

Al-Husayn was killed, so my tears now rain,

His body is in Karbala’ covered with blood

While his head is on spear displayed.

The people went in a hurry to the Mosque of the Prophet weeping loudly for the Imam, peace be on him. They gathered around Bishr, who was weeping, asking him for more information of al-Husayn, so he said to them: “Here is ‘Ali b. al-Husayn accompanied by his aunts and sisters; they have all returned to you. I am his messenger to you to inform you of his place.33 ”

The people went out to receive Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin all weeping and wailing. The historians said that that day was like the day when Allah’s Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, passed away.34 They surrounded the Imam to offer him their condolences.

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin delivers a Speech

The Imam, peace be on him, thought that he had to tell the people about the tragedies which they were subjected to. The Imam was unable to stand up to deliver a speech, for he was sapped by illness and overcome by grief, so a chair was brought for him. He sat in the chair and said: “Praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, the King of the Day of Judgment, Creator of all creation, Who is the Exalted in the high heavens, Who is so near, He hears even the silent speech. We praise Him on the grave events, on time’s tragedies, on the pain inflicted by such tragedies, on the crushing of calamities, on the greatness of our catastrophe, on our great, monstrous, magnanimous and afflicting hardships.

“O People, Allah, the Most Exalted One, praise belong to Him, has tried us with great trials and tribulations, with a tremendous loss suffered by the religion of Islam. Abu’ ‘Abd Allah, al-Husayn, and his family have been killed, and his womenfolk and children taken captives. They displayed his head in every land from the top of a spear. Such is the catastrophe similar to which there is none at all.

“O people, which men among you are happy after him, or which heart is not grieved on his account? Which eye among you withholds its tears and is too miser with its tears? The seven great heavens wept over his killing; the seas wept with their waves, and so did the heavens with their corners and the earth with its expanse; so did the trees with their branches and the fish in the depths of the seas. So did the angels who are close to their Lord. So did all those in the heavens.

“O People, which heart is not grieved with his killing? Which heart does not yearn for him? Which hearing hears such a calamity that has befallen Islam without becoming deaf.

“O people, we have become homeless, exiles, outcasts, shunned, distanced from all countries as though we were the offspring of the Turks or of Kabul without having committed a crime, nor an abomination, nor afflicted a calamity on Islam! Never did we ever hear such a thing from our fathers of old. This is something new. By Allah, had the Prophet required them to fight us just as he had required them to be good to us, they would not have done to us any more than what they already have. So we belong to Allah and to Him is our return from this calamity, and what a great, painful, hard, cruel, and catastrophic calamity it is! To Allah do we complain from what has happened to us, from the sufferings we have endured, for He is the Omnipotent, the Vengeful.”

Sa‘sa‘a, an invalid who could barely walk on his feet, stood up and apologized to the Imam for not rushing to help his family due to his handicap. Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, responded to him by accepting his excuse, telling him that he thought well of him, thanked him and asked Allah to have mercy on his father. Then the Imam walked accompanied by his aunts and sisters. The people surrounded him weeping and wailing until they reached the Mosque of the Prophet. There Zaynab, the wise lady of the family of Abi Talib, took both knobs of the door of the mosque and cried out and addressed her grandfather, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, saying: “O my grandfather, I mourn to you my brother al-Husayn!35 ”

The wise ladies who were born and grew up in the lap of the Prophet held a mourning ceremony for the Lord of the martyrs. They put on the most coarse clothes and shrouded themselves in black and continued weeping and wailing.

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin’s Grief

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, kept weeping day and night over his father and the members of his Household. Imam al-Sadiq, peace be on him, said: “My grandfather, ‘Ali b. al-Husayn, wept over his father for twenty years. When food was put before him, he wept.36 ” One of his retainers blamed him, saying: “I fear for you lest you should perish.”

So the Imam kindly said to him: “I only convey my complaints and my grief to Allah, and I know from Allah what you all do not know. Ya‘qu’b (Jacob) was a prophet from whom Allah caused one of his sons to be separated. He had twelve sons, and he knew that his son (Joseph) was still alive, he wept over him till he lost his eye sight. I looked at my father, my brothers, my uncles, and my companions (and saw them) slain all around me, so how can my grief end? Whenever I remember how Fatima’s children were slaughtered, tears choke me. Whenever I look at my aunts and sisters, I remember how they were fleeing from one tent to another.37 ”

When the Imam looked at water, his weeping increased, and his pain doubled. This is because water reminded him of the thirst of his father and the members of his Household. The narrators said: “When he took some water to drink, he wept. So he was asked about that, and he answered: ‘How do I not weep (while) my father was prevented from drinking the water which was free for beasts and wild animals?’38 ”

The Imam always wept over his father, and it was said to him: “You always weep, even if you kill yourself, you will increase (nothing) with this.” So he said: “I have killed my soul, and over it I weep.39 ”

A group of his retainers and the members of his Household felt pity for him because of his abundant weeping, so one of them asked him: “Has n’t your grief end yet?”

The Imam answered him, saying: “Woe unto you! Ya‘qu’b (Jacob) was a prophet from whom Allah caused one of his sons to be separated. He had twelve sons, and he knew that his son (Joseph) was still alive in the world, he wept over him till he lost his eye sight. I looked at my father, my brother, my uncle, and seventeen (persons) from the members of my Household (and saw them) slain all around me, so how can my grief end?40 ”

His heart melt with pity for his father, his Household, and his friends whose heads the swords of aggression severed in a cruel manner.

His Paying the Debts which his Father owed

Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, was indebted to a group of people for more than seventy thousand dinars, so Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, took great care of paying them to the extent that he prevented himself from having food and water. When he prepared this sum (of money), he hurried to pay every debt to the person to whom it was owed, and thus he could free his father from such an obligation.41

His Kindness to the Family of ‘Aqil

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, was very kind to the Family of ‘Aqil. He preferred them to his cousins and the members of his family, for they had an outstanding attitude during the Battle of Karbala’. That was when the sons and the honorable grandsons of ‘Aqil sacrificed their souls for Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him, while they were still young. They competed with each other for martyrdom, so they were all killed at that battle, and thus they sacrificed their lives for the religion of Allah.

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, had mercy on them and preferred them to the surviving members of his family. He was asked about that, and he, peace be on him, replied: “I remember their day with Abu ‘Abd Allah (al-Husayn), so I feel pity for them.42 ” An example of his kindness to the family of ‘Aqil was that al-Mukhtar b. Yousif, a great revolutionist, gave him a lot of money, and he built with it houses for them, but the Umayyad government ordered the houses to be demolished.43

His Staying in Medina

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, peace be on him, stayed in Medina and did not leave it except for performing the hajj to the Sacred House of Allah. The narrators said: “He traveled to Iraq to visit the grave of Imam (‘Ali) the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him.44 ” It is certain that he visited the grave of his father, Imam al-Husayn, peace be on him. With this we will end our talk about the tragedies of Karbala’, and the oppression and persecution to which Imam’ al-Husayn was subjected.

Notes

1.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 97.

2.Al-Tabarani, al-Mu‘jam. Ibn ‘Asakir, Tarikh, vol. 13, p. 74.

3.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 1, pp. 172 - 173.

4.Al-Majjlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 9, p. 147.

5.Al-Tabari, Tarikh, vol. 6, p. 242.

6.Al-Majjlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 9, p. 147.

7.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 274.

8.Ibid., p. 3.

9.Al-Qarmani, Tarikh, p. 108.

10.Kamil al-Ziyarat, p. 261.

11.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, pp. 324 - 325.

12.Ibid., p. 333.

13.Shaykh al-Mufeed, al-Amali, p. 143.

14.‘Abd Allah, Maqqtal al-Husayn.

15.Ibn Nama, Muthir al-Ahzan.

16.Hayat al-Imam al-Yusayn, vol. 3, pp. 345 - 347.

17.Mir’at al-Zaman fi Tawarikh al-A‘yan, p. 98. Ibn al-Jawzi, vol. 5. Ibn Sa‘d, Tabaqat.

18.Mir’at al-Zaman fi Tawarikh al-A‘yan, p. 99.

19.Ansab al-Ashraf, Q1/vol. 1.

20.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 371.

21.Ibid., p. 376.

22.Ibid., p. 387.

23.Nafs al-Mahmu`m, p. 242.

24.Al-Khawarizmi, Maqqtal al-Husayn, vol. 2, p. 242.

25.Jawhart al-Kalam fi Maddh al-Sada al-‘Alam, p. 128.

26.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 291.

27.Ibn al-Athir, Tarikh, vol. 3, p. 300.

28.Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, vol. 1, p. 157.

29.Al-Hada’iq al-Wardiya, vol. 1, p. 131. Al-Futu`h, vol. 5, p. 246.

30.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 414.

31.Jawhart al-Kalam fi Maddh al-Sada al-‘Alam, p. 128.

32.Tafsir al-Matalib fi Amali Abi Talib, p. 93. Al-Hada’iq al-Wardiya, vol. 1, p. 133.

33.Hayat al-Imam al-Husayn, vol. 3, p. 423.

34.Al-Luhu`f, p. 116.

35.Al-Muqrim, Maqtal al-Husayn, p. 472.

36.Ahmed Fahmi, al-Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin, p. 31.

37.Al-Muqrim, Maqtal al-Husayn, p. 47. A narration similar to this has been reported in Hulyat al-Awliya’, vol. 3, p. 138.

38.Al-Majjlisi, Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 46, p. 108.

39.Ibid, p. 109.

40.Ibid, p. 108.

41.Sir al-Silsila al-‘Alawiya, p. 32.

42.Kamil al-Ziyarat, p. 107.

43.Ghayat al-Ikhtisar, p. 160.

44.Ibid.