Ashura, The Eternal Human Epic

Be Free in Your LifeImam Hussin

Ashura is an eternal event that embodies the finest example of sacrifice and nobility throughout human history. The event is centered around demandingreform in the world, stimulating humankind emotionally and mentally, purifying it and encouraging it to liberate itself and make active the Culture of Awaiting.

Edward G. Brown(Professor at the University of Cambridge):

“…a reminder of that blood-stained field of Karbala, where the grandson of the Apostle of God fell, at length, tortured by thirst, and surrounded by the bodies of his murdered kinsmen, has been at any time since then, suffi-cient to evoke, even in the most lukewarm and the heedless, the deepest emotion, the most frantic grief, and an exaltation of spirit before which pain, danger, and death shrink to unconsidered trifles.”

(A Literary History of Persia, London, 1919, p.227)

Before the Day of

Ashura

“The most generous of

people is he who gives

to those who have not

asked for it”

Imam Hussin

In the year 61 AH (680 AD), upon the death of Muawiyah bin Abi Sufyan, his son Yazid was crowned, forcefully and wrongfully, as the ruler of the Islamic world. Imam Hussein (AS), the third Imam of the Shias, refused to pay alle-giance, declaring, “Yazid is an immoral

man who drinks alcohol, is a killer of

innocent people, a proponent of immorali-

ty. A man like me cannot pay allegiance to

a man like him.”

Yazid ordered the killing of the Imam (AS) unless he pledged allegiance. The response of Hussein was a categori-cal decline—a decline all free people around the world consider an emblem of pride and integrity. “The falsely ap-

pointed ruler has offered either to draw

swords or humiliation, and we will never

submit to be humiliated!”

The deterioration of the situation in the Islamic nation, the rule of tyrants and the fall of the people into a deep state of absent conscience moved the Imam (AS) to lead a process of reform and change, saying: “I have risen to ask for

reform in the nation of my grandfather

(the Prophet). I want to promote virtue and

prevent vice.”

The Imam realized that to awaken the nation, a great saga was needed: one that embodied the meanings of gran-deur, heroism, giving and sacrifice. He stirred the conscience of humanity throughout history, by declaring: “If you

have no religion, and are not afraid of a

day where you would be judged, then at

least be of free will in your life!”

Thus he, presented himself and his fam-ily as an offering to God and humanity, and announced his intention very clear-ly, so as not to be followed except by those who share his goals, saying: “One

who is willing to share our goals, die with

us, and is prepared to meet God Almighty,

then they shall come with us.”

He was aware that the day of his martyr-dom was a great day of enlightenment [of the minds] and eagerly awaited it, for he was told about this day by the Prophet since he was a young child, thus he said: “Those who follow us will be

martyrs, and those who stay behind will

not reach enlightenment.”

“That which people require

from you is a sign of God’s

grace to you, so do not tire

of this grace”

Imam Hussin

The Day of

AshuraPeter J. Chelkowski

Professor of Middle EasternStudies, New York University.

“Nobody in the history of the human kind has seen such atrocities.”

[Ta’ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran, New York, 1979, p. 2]

Ashura is the tenth day of the month of Muharram. On that day, Imam Hussain was slaughtered unjustly in the cruelest, ugliest, and most terroristic way, along with seventy-two other people including members of his family, his children, and his companions. This happened after a three-day long siege to cut off their supply of water by the army of Yazid in the year 61 AH. This army included more than thirty thousand fighters.

With all these events, Ashura became a byword for all meanings of humanity, heroism, and dignity and embodied them like never before.

It is narrated in Al-Mustadrak alaa al-Sahihain that Um al-Fadhl said: “I put Hussain in the Prophet’s (SAAW) lap and I glanced, where I saw the Prophet’s eyes pouring tears, so I said: O Prophet of God, may my father and mother be sacrificed for you, what has befallen you? He said: I was visited by Gabriel and he

informed me that my People will kill this

son of mine. So, I said: This? And he said:

yes, and he gave me his red soil.

After the Day of

Ashura

The story did not conclude on the Day of Ashura but continued with the capture of the surviving women and children of the household of the Prophet (S) and the parading of them across the nation on saddle-less camels in caravans, in a great show of humiliation. Along with this, the severed heads of the Imam (AS) and his companions were raised on long spears. This treatment was usually reserved for the capture of mercenaries and bandits.

Edward Gibbon(1737-1794) Considered the greatest British historian of his time.

“In a distant age and climate, the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader.”

[The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London, 1911, volume 5, pp. 391-2]

The captives were paraded from the province of Kufa (modern city of Najaf, Iraq) up to Damascus and the Levant, across the main towns on the coast.The revolution of Hussein would not have succeeded without the role played by his sister, Zainab (daughter of Imam Ali, and granddaughter of the holy Prophet (S)), who was one of the captives. She embraced the ideals of the revolution, reporting its aims and narrating the tragedies and torments of Ashura to the Muslim nation as a whole.

On the Day of Ashura, she raised the body of her beheaded brother, Hussein, looked to the sky and addressed Allah, saying: “O’ Allah please accept this

sacrifice from us.”

“Those who refrain from opinion and finds no solution,

would find a solution in leniency”

Imam Hussin

Robert Durey Osborn(1835-1889) Major of the Bengal Staff Corps.

“Hosain had a child named Abdal-lah, only a year old. He had ac-companied his father in this terrible march. Touched by its cries, he took the infant in his arms and wept. At that instant, a shaft from the hostile ranks pierced the child’s ear, and it expired in his father’s arms. Hosain placed the little corpse upon the ground. ‘We come from God, and we return to Him!’ he cried; ‘O Lord, give me strength to bear these mis-fortunes!’ …

Faint with thirst, and exhausted with wounds, he fought with desperate courage, slaying several of his an-tagonists. At last he was cut down from behind; at the same instance a lance was thrust through his back and bore him to the ground; as the

dealer of this last blow withdrew his weapon, the ill-fated son of Ali rolled over a corpse. The head was severed from the trunk; the trunk was trampled under the hoofs of the victors’ horses; and the next morn-ing the women and a surviving infant son were carried away to Koufa. The bodies of Hosain and his follow-ers were left unburied on the spot where they fell. For three days they remained exposed to the sun and the night dews, the vultures and the prowling animals of the waste; but then the inhabitants of a neighbour-ing village, struck with horror that the body of a grandson of the Prophet should be thus shamefully aban-doned to the unclean beasts of the field, dared the anger of Obaidallah, and interred the body of the martyr and those of his heroic friends.

[Islam Under the Arabs, Delaware, 1976, pp. 126-7]

What about now?

“Studying is the seed of

knowledge, and the long

the experiments are an

increase in intellect”

Imam Hussin

For more than 14 centuries, hundreds of millions of Muslims and Non-Mus-lims worldwide have come together to mourn and commemorate the occasion of Ashura every year during the months of Muharram and Safar in the Arabic cal-endar. Sermons are given nightly, stories are retold, lessons are retaught, and people weep for what the Imam had to go through in terms of sacrifice and viola-tion of his and his family’s rights. People annually pledge to the Imam to move for-ward in his footsteps and to always take a stand against evil and injustice.

These ceremonies include long list of rituals; some of them were reportedly encouraged by the Household of the Prophet (Ahl ul- Bayt), such as visitingthe shrine of Imam Hussain, poetry, lectures and retelling the lessons learned. Other forms of remembrance were not encouraged historically but were con-ceived as a result of the interaction of socio-cultural norms with the concept of remembering Ashura, and they are different from one community to another, such as participating in marches, enjoy-ing a variety of cultural activities such as theatre and film, Tatbir, blood donation and others. Some of these practices have stirred debate and opposition in the Shiite community and have been banned by some Shia scholars.

The Ashura period is not limited to two months per year, but extends through-out the year, through the visit of Imam Hussain’s shrine, giving sermons and crying on Hussein, in various religious and social events.

Every time we visit the shrine of Imam Hussain, we recite “Peace be upon you O’ inheritor of Adam, elite of Allah. Peace be upon you O’ inheritor of Noah, Allah’s prophet. Peace be upon you O’ inheritor of Abraham, the admirer of Allah. Peace

be upon you O’ inheritor of Moses, the

one who spoke to Allah. Peace be upon

you O’ inheritor of Jesus, the Spirit of

Allah. Peace be upon you O’ inheritor of

Mohammed, the one beloved to Allah.”

This ingrains in our beings that the path of Allah and the path of righteousness are identical across history; connecting human beings to Allah.

The revolutions of the prophets were revolutions against deviation from the line of Allah and against submission to tyrants and darkness. And so was the revolution of Imam Hussain: to awaken the world throughout history to the Day of Judg-ment and create in the hearts of human beings a power driving them forwards toward reform.

“So long as a person seeks to

please God, even if he incurs

the wrath of the people, God

will settle the people’s wrath”

Imam Hussin

Sir William Muir(1819-1905) Scottish scholar and statesman.

Held the post of Foreign Secretaryto the Indian government as well asLieutenant Governor of the Northwest-ern Provinces.

“The tragedy of Karbala decided not only the fate of the caliphate, but of the Mohammedan kingdoms long after the Caliphate had waned and disap-peared.”

[Annals of the Early Caliphate, London, 1883, pp. 441-2]

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