Mahdi Mahmud :
What did really happen in the desert of Karbala in the tenth of Muharram that resulted into killing of Hazrat Imam Husain (Ra), the beloved grandson of Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu ‘alaihi wa Aalih), for which even after more than thirteen century and half still we are lamenting?
Was it a clash to grab power, crown and throne? No. It was not a war between Imam Husain (Ra) and Yazid for political power. It was not a communal war between Bani Hashim and Bani Umayyah as some try to term it. In fact the event of Karbala was the most glorious and glorifying instance of struggle in the human history where the Imam, the guide of his time, and the ideal for followers of Islam, sacrificed along with himself his six month old son Ali Asghar, brother Abbas, nephew Qasim and other 72 of his devoted companions. Moreover, his wife, daughters, sister and children and all other close relatives accompanied him and were tortured and taken captive after Imam Husain (Ra) had been butchered by the Yazidi army.
There were at least two reasons behind the movement of Imam Husain : to protest against the zulm (tyranny) of the Umayyad monarchy and to make the people awaken from the unconcerned state and insouciance.
It is really a wonderful piece of quote from Charles Dickens, “If Husain had fought to quench his worldly desire then I do not understand why his sister, wife and children accompanied him. It stands for reason therefore, that he sacrificed purely for Islam.”
Tyranny or aggression is such a sin which will never be forgiven by Allah until that is forgiven by the person or persons to whom tyranny or aggression was done. So Imam Husain (Ra) said: “If you neither believe in religion, nor fear the hereafter, then at least be free from doing aggression.”
The tyranny and aggression of the rulers are the worst kind of aggression one can think of. If for even one instance aggression, tyranny, monarchy and arbitrariness of rulers are taken as granted without protesting, then it implies that silently there is a process of decaying going on in the system and that will soon backfire to the people in general who shut their eyes to aggression. It was the period of Umayyad rule when aggression and sup pression reached to the highest peak.
In front of the army of Hur bin Yazid, Imam Husain (Ra) gave a sermon. He said, “O people! The Prophet (Sm.) said: If anyone notices the ruler to be a tyrant who makes the Halal (lawful) to be Haram (prohibited) and the Haram to be Halal, and makes the Baitul Maal (State Treasury) his personal property along with trampling the laws of Allah, the Almighty, and doesn’t ensure protection for the wealth of the Muslims, then, if the individual stay silent, Allah will punish the individual (equally) with that tyrant ruler.”
Again he said in that sermon, “The rulers of this nation take the worship of Satan to be obligatory, given up allegiance to Allah, publicly violated the laws of Allah and made His laws obsolete, embezzled the Baitul Maal and war booty, and have made the permissible by Allah to be impermissible. So, I am entitled to rise against the system.”
The difference between Yazid and the other Umayyad leaders was that Yazid did all his misdeeds publicly without any sense of guilt. Sitting in the pulpit of the Holy Prophet (Sm.) Yazid was busy with doing prohibited deeds with woman, gambling, liquor, music, and playing with dog and monkey. During the period of Umayyad rule the class discrimination became acute and went to the extreme height in the history of Muslim Ummah. Rich and the slave-dealers were getting richer day by day. And all these were becoming more and more normal, legal and generalized.” (Social Justice in Islam By Martyr Sayyid Qutb can be studied for more information).
In this regard one of the sayings of the Prophet (Sm.) can be related, “A country can stay even in the hand of a disbeliever but not in the hand of an oppressor.”
And, so, the grandson of the Prophet (Sm.), the rightful guide Imam Husain (Ra) chose the path of struggle and rose against Yazid. The motto of the Imam was ‘enjoining the good and forbidding the evil.” Imam said: ‘Don’t sell yourself for this world, be free and independent and don’t let yourself to be chained in the chain of servitude to the world.”
The Imam again reminded the people saying, “I haven’t risen to spread evil or show off, nor for spreading immorality or oppression. But I have risen for the betterment of the Ummah of my grandfather and I desire to propagate the religion and forbid the evil, following the footsteps of my grandfather and my father Ali.”
The revolutionary scholar Martyr Ayatullah Mortaza Mutahhari said, “There will be no limit of misery if by deceiving the ignorant people religion is made a tool of politics. May Allah protect us from seeing the day when religion be made the tool of politics.” (Hamsaay-e-Husaini)
Imam Husain (Ra) made the plots of shrewd and so-called mullahs of the Yazidi Court exposed and nipped in the bud their master plan to make the religion a tool of politics.
It is indeed appropriate to remember what the Holy Prophet (Sm.) said, “Husain is from me and I am from Husain.” (Sahih Tirmizi and Sahih Ibn Majah) It means that Husain (Ra) is from the lineage of the Prophet (Sm.). He was brought up under the guardianship of the Prophet and fought in the battle of Karbala for keeping the message of the Prophet (Sm.) alive.
What did really happen in the desert of Karbala in the tenth of Muharram that resulted into killing of Hazrat Imam Husain (Ra), the beloved grandson of Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu ‘alaihi wa Aalih), for which even after more than thirteen century and half still we are lamenting?
Was it a clash to grab power, crown and throne? No. It was not a war between Imam Husain (Ra) and Yazid for political power. It was not a communal war between Bani Hashim and Bani Umayyah as some try to term it. In fact the event of Karbala was the most glorious and glorifying instance of struggle in the human history where the Imam, the guide of his time, and the ideal for followers of Islam, sacrificed along with himself his six month old son Ali Asghar, brother Abbas, nephew Qasim and other 72 of his devoted companions. Moreover, his wife, daughters, sister and children and all other close relatives accompanied him and were tortured and taken captive after Imam Husain (Ra) had been butchered by the Yazidi army.
There were at least two reasons behind the movement of Imam Husain : to protest against the zulm (tyranny) of the Umayyad monarchy and to make the people awaken from the unconcerned state and insouciance.
It is really a wonderful piece of quote from Charles Dickens, “If Husain had fought to quench his worldly desire then I do not understand why his sister, wife and children accompanied him. It stands for reason therefore, that he sacrificed purely for Islam.”
Tyranny or aggression is such a sin which will never be forgiven by Allah until that is forgiven by the person or persons to whom tyranny or aggression was done. So Imam Husain (Ra) said: “If you neither believe in religion, nor fear the hereafter, then at least be free from doing aggression.”
The tyranny and aggression of the rulers are the worst kind of aggression one can think of. If for even one instance aggression, tyranny, monarchy and arbitrariness of rulers are taken as granted without protesting, then it implies that silently there is a process of decaying going on in the system and that will soon backfire to the people in general who shut their eyes to aggression. It was the period of Umayyad rule when aggression and sup pression reached to the highest peak.
In front of the army of Hur bin Yazid, Imam Husain (Ra) gave a sermon. He said, “O people! The Prophet (Sm.) said: If anyone notices the ruler to be a tyrant who makes the Halal (lawful) to be Haram (prohibited) and the Haram to be Halal, and makes the Baitul Maal (State Treasury) his personal property along with trampling the laws of Allah, the Almighty, and doesn’t ensure protection for the wealth of the Muslims, then, if the individual stay silent, Allah will punish the individual (equally) with that tyrant ruler.”
Again he said in that sermon, “The rulers of this nation take the worship of Satan to be obligatory, given up allegiance to Allah, publicly violated the laws of Allah and made His laws obsolete, embezzled the Baitul Maal and war booty, and have made the permissible by Allah to be impermissible. So, I am entitled to rise against the system.”
The difference between Yazid and the other Umayyad leaders was that Yazid did all his misdeeds publicly without any sense of guilt. Sitting in the pulpit of the Holy Prophet (Sm.) Yazid was busy with doing prohibited deeds with woman, gambling, liquor, music, and playing with dog and monkey. During the period of Umayyad rule the class discrimination became acute and went to the extreme height in the history of Muslim Ummah. Rich and the slave-dealers were getting richer day by day. And all these were becoming more and more normal, legal and generalized.” (Social Justice in Islam By Martyr Sayyid Qutb can be studied for more information).
In this regard one of the sayings of the Prophet (Sm.) can be related, “A country can stay even in the hand of a disbeliever but not in the hand of an oppressor.”
And, so, the grandson of the Prophet (Sm.), the rightful guide Imam Husain (Ra) chose the path of struggle and rose against Yazid. The motto of the Imam was ‘enjoining the good and forbidding the evil.” Imam said: ‘Don’t sell yourself for this world, be free and independent and don’t let yourself to be chained in the chain of servitude to the world.”
The Imam again reminded the people saying, “I haven’t risen to spread evil or show off, nor for spreading immorality or oppression. But I have risen for the betterment of the Ummah of my grandfather and I desire to propagate the religion and forbid the evil, following the footsteps of my grandfather and my father Ali.”
The revolutionary scholar Martyr Ayatullah Mortaza Mutahhari said, “There will be no limit of misery if by deceiving the ignorant people religion is made a tool of politics. May Allah protect us from seeing the day when religion be made the tool of politics.” (Hamsaay-e-Husaini)
Imam Husain (Ra) made the plots of shrewd and so-called mullahs of the Yazidi Court exposed and nipped in the bud their master plan to make the religion a tool of politics.
It is indeed appropriate to remember what the Holy Prophet (Sm.) said, “Husain is from me and I am from Husain.” (Sahih Tirmizi and Sahih Ibn Majah) It means that Husain (Ra) is from the lineage of the Prophet (Sm.). He was brought up under the guardianship of the Prophet and fought in the battle of Karbala for keeping the message of the Prophet (Sm.) alive.
