Pinault-Shia History and the Battle of Karbala

8/6/2019 Pinault-Shia History and the Battle of Karbala

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1-Shiism: An Overview

PROLOGUE: EVENING IN HYDERABAD

lIT ry not to hit the water buffaloes." I didn't wish to play back-seat driver,but Hyder had an unsettling habit of looking back over his shoulder at mewhile chatting as we rode together on his motorcycle. The herd ahead wasdistracting me from his argument.

"Oh." We swerved neatly around the animals, who were clearly accus-tomed to enjoying right of way as they moved slowly along the crowdedstreet. I had a brief impression of blue-black flanks caked with ordure andmud; then we were clear.

"They are a nuisance," he pronounced with a wave of the hand.Now we passed the Moazzam Jahi Market and were in the surging

business center, with its money lenders and tinsmiths, its bookstalls andshops sell ing striped Eikot fabrics. Hindus, Muslims, Parsees, Jains-al lhurried to finish their buying and make their way home.

It was twilight by the time we reached the Salar Jung Bridge, nosing ourcycle among the oxcarts and buses and rickshaws. Near the bridge's rai ling,fruit vendors reclined against their barrows. Below, a glimpse of the sluggishRiver Musi; downstream, the red stone of the nizam's High Court, with itsbulbous cupolas in Victorian Indo-Saracenic style. On the farther shore theminarets and domes of the Old City displayed black banners marked withthe name of Husain, the slain Imam. For this was the eve of the first ofMuharram, season of mourning in Shiite Islam.Once across the bridge and within the Shii te quarter we went briefly fromhouse to house, visit ing the private chapels set up for Muharram by Hyder'sfriends in the courtyards of their homes. Here tazias, gilded wood models of

F r t m ? ; J)aLJId / ? 4 e u f _ L t 7 1 e j"h.J(ces


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4 The Shiites

the tombs of the martyred Imams, were erected, flanked by alams , thebattle-standards carried in the Ashura procession.

Then we came to our evening's goal, the shrine of Harrat Abbas, whereHyder was scheduled to preach. My host settled me comfortably in theshrine's portico among a small group of black-clad men and boys; then hesat before the alam of Abbas and, head down, intoned an opening prayer.This completed, he looked out at us and began his sermon, remindingeveryone once more of the old tale, of how Husain came to die at Karbala.

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:BATTLE AND DEATH AT KARBALA

Essential to any understanding of Shiite Islam is an acquaintance with theevents of A.D. 680 (the year6l in the hijri or Islamic calendar) and the battleof Karbala, What follows is only a sketch, focusing on the actions andhistorical figures that playa prominent role in Shiite devotions today.Left unsettled at the death of the Prophet Muhammad in A.D. 632 wasthe question of succession (al-khilafah, the "caliphate") to leadership of thegrowing Islamic community: to whom should power now devolve, and howshould a ruler's qualifications be determined? One party favored the processof election by a circle of councillors and community leaders; the otherespoused the cause of Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin and son-in-law of theProphet, who had married the Prophet's own daughter Fatima. The lattergroup referred tothemselves as Shi' atAli ("Alid partisans/supporters of Ali")or simply as al-Shi' ah. They maintained that the Prophet himself, guided bydivine inspiration, had designated Ali as his successor; moreover, Ali's t iesby marriage and blood bound him more closely than anyone else to the familyof Muhammad. Both factions agreed that the caliphate should be restrictedto members of the Quraysh, the tribe to which the Prophet belonged; but theShiites limited candidacy to the immediate family of Muhammad and hisdescendants, the Ahl al-Bayt (Ahl-e Bayt, in Persian and Urdu: the "peopleof the household"). Despite his qualifications, Ali was blocked repeatedlyfrom power: first the Prophet's companion Abu Bakr became caliph, thenUmar, then Uthman. Ali did not contest their election, apparently out of adesire to avoid civil war. Finally, he did obtain the caliphate and ruled forsome five years, only to be murdered in 661. Thereafter the caliphate passedto Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, governor of Damascus and Syria. Muawiya wasa Qurayshi but also a member of the wealthy Umayyad clan, notorious forits late conversion to Islam and its obstinate hostility to Muhammad in theearly days before the Prophet's final success in Mecca.

Shiism: An Overview 5

The Shiites' hopes now focused on Hasan and Husain, the two sons ofAli and Fatima. At stake was a growing Islamic empire which already hadconquered much of the Near East, North Africa, and Iran. Muawiya coercedthe elder son Hasan into yielding him the caliphate; Hasan was then forcedinto a pensioned retirement in Medina (where, according [0 Shiite sources,he was subsequently poisoned at the caliph's order). Although he wasdeprived of the caliphate, Hasan is nevertheless revered today as the secondImam after Ali. In Shiism the term Imam indicates those members of Ahl-eBayt who are the true spiritual leaders of the Muslim community, regardlessof any political recognition or lack thereof extended by the Muslim world atlarge.'In the year 680 Muawiya died and was succeeded by his son Yazid, Thelatter is reviled today as a tyrant who felt no shame atmaking a public displayof his drinking and his immoral life-style. At Muawiya' sdeath Alid partisansin the Iraqi city of Kufa, long a Shiite stronghold, sent messengers to Meccato Ali's surviving son Husain (now known as the third Imam), urging himto come to Kufa, lead a Shiite revolt against Yazid, and claim the caliphatethat was rightfully his by virtue of descent from the Prophet. Husain acceptedthe call and set out from Mecca with only a small band offollowers, includinghis personal bodyguard and the women and children of his household.

But Ali 's son never made itto Kufa. At Karbala, near the River Euphrates,southwest of what is today Baghdad, he was intercepted and surrounded byforces loyal to Yazid. Meanwhile the Urnayyad governor of Kufa had queliedthe incipient rebellion there and by intimidation had prevented any Shiiteattempts to rescue their leader at Karbala, From the second to the tenth dayof the month of Muharram the Imam Husain and his followers withstoodsiege by Yazid's army, which hoped to force the small band to surrender.Husain chose death instead. Throughout the siege the defenders sufferedfrom hunger and thirst. Anguished by the cries of Husain's children, Abual-Fadl al-Abbas, half brother and personal attendant of the Imam, gallopedto the Euphrates in an attempt to bring water. He perished in the attempt,dying in his brother's arms. Shortly thereafter, on Ashura, the tenth ofMuharram, Husain's camp was overrun by the enemy. Husain himself waskilled (an Umayyad soldier known as Shemr, portrayed in later accounts asa personification of evil, dealt the deathblow), his household taken captive.The train of prisoners, including Zaynab, Husain's sister, was marchedthrough the desert to Damascus. Here Yazid gloated over the severed headof his rival, which had been brought from the battlefield for the caliph todishonor with blows from a cane. Here too, within the very palace of Yazid,Zaynab held the first majlis, or lamentation assembly, to mourn for her


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6 The Shiites Shiism: An Overview 7

brother. During this period of imprisonment Husain's four-year-old daughterSakina died (in Hyderabadi iconography she is often represented by jasminegarlands intertwined with chains).

Given this history, it is not surprising that Damascus today has a numberof shrines associated with the battle of Karbala, including one on the city'ssouthern outskirts consecrated to Sayyidah Zaynab, another in the cemeteryof Bab al-Saghir honoring sixteen of the warriors killed in the battle, and athird known as Mashhad Ra's al-Husayn, "the shrine of Husain's head." Thelatter site is of particular interest, located as it is in the northeast comer ofthe Great Umayyad Mosque. The site occupied by the mosque has been thefocus of veneration since the ninth century B.C., as a shrine to the Syrianstorm-god Hadad. as a Roman temple of Jupiter, and as a Christian basilicaof lohn the Baptist. Because of the Husain chapel located within, theUmayyad Mosque is the object of Shiite visitation today, as are Bab al-Saghirand the shrine of Zaynab. I encountered numerous Iranian pilgrims at allthree sites in a visit to Damascus in 1990.

THE IMAMATE AND THE '.. IERARCHYOF RELIGIOUS SCHOLARS

Imams. A scholar who is recognized by his peers as sufficiently learned inthe law bears the title of mujtahid, one qualified to engage in ijtihad, or theexercise of independent reasoning in applying the law to specific issues athand, whether personal or public. Few Shiites are considered educatedenough in the legal and scriptural tradition to attempt ijtihad; anyone lackingsuch expertise-the vast majority of believers-is commanded to select arecognized living mujtahid as his marja' al-taqlid or "reference model ~orimitation" and tofollow such a cleric's example in ordering the moral affairsof his life. Until his death in 1989 Ruhollah Khomeini served as the maria 'al-taqlid for many Shiites throughout the world; since then Abu al-Qasimal-Khui (a long-time resident of Najaf who was placed under house arrest bySaddam Hussein during the 1991 Persian Gulf crisis and Iraqi Shiite uprisingagainst Saddam) has become one of the most celebrated maraji': ~~merousShiites in Hyderabad today take al-Khui astheir exemplar. In the Shute worldthe ulama are characterized by a series of ranks and titles including hujjatat-islam, "argument in defense of Islam," ayat Allah, "the sign of God," andayat Allah al-uzma, "the mightiest sign of God." .

The ulama play animportant role too in Sunni Islam, although the Sunnislack as stratified a hierarchy of religious-legal authorities. From a compara-tive historical perspective, if the Shiites can be described as partisans of Aliand his descendants (the Imams), the Sunnis in tum can be regarded as thoseMuslims (the vast majority) who upheld the legitimacy of the reigningcaliphs, not (the Sunnis would say) out of lack of reverence for Ahl-e Bayt,but out of a pragmatic wish to avoid the chaos and social strife that wouldhave ensued in any attempt to install the Imams by force. (The above is ofcourse no more than a rough shorthand distinction.) Acting on this principle,Sunnis extended recognition even toUmayyad rulers whom they knew to bebrutal and corrupt.At this point, however, it may be of interest to compare the attitudes ofSunni and Shiite ulama toward their own ideal role in society (as it shouldbe) and toward the political rulers who govern the world as it is. Thegeneralizations involved are considerable but still useful.

The collective self-image of the Sunni ulama can be said to have evolvedin response to the fact that these scholars had an active and cooperative roleto play in supporting the governing caliphs and in helping administer theIslamic state. True, that role was always limited and at times narrowlysubordinated to the wishes of the regime in power. This especially holds forthose scholars who were on the government payroll; at worst, such employ-ees would be expected by their masters to scan Scripture for evidence to backthe latest government edict, issuing [atwas (learned religious opinions)

What has been described above is no more than an outline of the events ofKarbala known to every devout Shiite. According to the Ithna-Ashari or"Twelver" denomination of Shiism (the most widely espoused form ofShiism today, prevalent inIran and Iraq aswell as among the Shiites of India),since the time of Muhammad there has been a succession of twelve Imamsin Islamic history. Each in turn was persecuted by the reigning caliph, eachdeprived of his rightful worldly rank and (with the exception of the twelfth)eventually murdered. Itis believed that as a child, in the year 874, the twelfthImam was taken into occultation by God: as a safeguard against murder hewas divinely concealed from his enemies. According toTwelver theologians,this "Hidden Imam" has not been seen in the world since 941, when heentered the "Great Occultation." Yet he remains alive and will ultimatelyreturn as the Mahdi, "the one guided by God," who will usher in the end oftime and final ludgment.

True worldly authority, then, rests with the Hidden Imam, but in hisabsence leadership of the Shiite community has devolved upon the ulama(plural of the Arabic term alim, "learned one," in the Iranian world some-times referred to as mullahs). These are scholars trained in Islamic law, whichhas as its foundations Quranic scripture and the voluminous biographicaltraditions concerning the attested actions and sayings of the Prophet and the


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8 The Shiites

which lent Islamic legitimization to patently corrupt rulers. But from a Sunniperspective such compromises have seemed justifiable: stable governmentengenders a stable social order, in which the u lama, securely salaried andsupported by the government, oversee the religious education and guidanceof the Muslim population at large. The same pattern continues today: evenwith the abolition of the caliphate in 1924, the ulama-government ententecan be seen atwork in a staunchly Sunni country such asEgypt. Accustomedas they were to some share of authority and to the experience of the world'sinevitable imperfection, Sunni ulama never insisted on the necessity of themoral superiority or spiritual infallibility of the caliph. If his administrationmade possible the practice of Islam, that sufficed. As for worldly perfection:this resided if anywhere in the principle of ijma", "the consensus of thecommunity." When moral and doctr inal issues arise, the ulama, as learnedrepresentatives of the community, have the responsibility of publicly debat-ing the proper course to be taken. The consensus they eventually arrive atwill be shielded from error because of divine guidance. Infallibi li ty then inSunni Islam is collective and is found in the Muslim community as a whole.

The question of human sinlessness and infallibility (ismah) is one of theprincipal doctrinal issues distinguishing Shiism from Sunnism. The twelfth-century Sunni author al-Shahrastani, in his survey of religious sects entitledKitab al-milal wa-al-nihal, "The book of religious communities and creeds,"said the fol lowing of the Shiites:

The Shiites are thosewhowithexclusivedevotionhavebecomepartisansof Ali(may God be pleased with him). They state their belief inhis claim toboth theimamate and caliphate, by right of designation and inheritance-whether thiscame about in secretor by publicproclamation.They believe that Ali's descen-dants retain the right to be leadersof the community;and ifin fact theyarenotpresently rulers, this is because of tyrannous injustice (zulm) on the part ofsomeoneelse, or because ofnecessarydissimulation(laqiyah) onthepart of th eImams. Andtheysay that theimamateis notan administrativeissuewhichmaybe dependenton choice by thecommonmasses,nor may the Imambe appointedby their election. Rather the imamateis an issue of ancient lineage, and it is apillar of the faith ... The Shiites agree on the necessity of stipulation anddesignation, and the certaintyof the sinless infallibility (ismah) of theprophetsandof theImams?This passage neatly summarizes Shiite notions of communal leadership.

Unlike the Sunni caliph, the Shiite Imam is (at least in theory) not only aworldly ruler but the highest spiritual authority. He is characterized byismah-sinlessness and infall ibili ty-a claim never put forward by the Sunni

Shiism: An Overview 9

ulama for the caliph; hence the Imam is catapulted in rank above the cal iph.The Imam's appointment takes place not through any process of collectiveelection, but through nass, "designation" by his spiritual predecessor alone;and this designation can only be conferred on one who is a sinless descendantof the Prophet. The concepts of nass and i sman betray a mistrust of the"common masses"-the people and their representatives-who might err inthe selection of a Muslim leader just as they once erred in their early neglectof the Ahl-e Bayt's political claims.

These concepts of the imamate evolved within a community which sawitself as persecuted and excluded from power. If an Imam was denied hisr ightful place in the poli tical realm, this was either because of "tyrannousinjustice" (zulm) of the kind which befell Husain at the hands o~ Yazi~, orbecause of "necessary dissimulation" (taqiyah), as was the case with All, thefirst Imam: he made a show of initially accepting his exclusion from thethrone and pretended to support the first three caliphs because of thenecessity of avoiding civil war. The uiama retrospectively assigned taqiyabas a motive to Ali and then elevated it into a guiding principle for any Shiitel iving under a tyrannous government too powerful to be safely resisted: onemay give an external show of acquiescence while preserving silent resistancein one's interior , in one's heart . This concept affects both the Shii te ulama'sself-image and how they have defined their relations with worldly powers.Any government other than that of the twelfth Imam, the living sinlessdescendant of the Prophet, is necessarily flawed and unjust in its denial ofthe rightful claims of Ahl-e Bayt; but a mullah may cooperate with .such agovernment to the extent necessary for survival, while treasuring resistancein his heart. The hidden sovereignty of the occulted Imam, although notmirrored in any worldly government, is manifested in the Imam 's deputie~.the ulama, who see themselves as custodians of his spiritual legacy; and hiselevated moral rank is reflected in some fashion onto those religious leaderswhom he guides.' .Such a quietist stance-silent opposit ion to worldly powers, coupled wahspiritual authority among a persecuted and excluded minority-has s~itedthe Shiite ulama well when they have been out of power. A problem arises,however when the ulama suddenly find themselves to be the overt andmanifest' wielders of governmental authori ty. Such has been the case sincethe 1979 Iranian Revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republicof Iran. In these circumstances the Shii te ulama have felt themselves chal-lenged to preserve their traditional worldview of persecution and exclusion;this they have achieved by portraying the Iranian nation as a righteousminority menaced by powerful external enemies who seek to deprive it of


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its proper place in the world. Once more, then, as in the past, the Prophet'sfamily and its defenders are threatened with violence and expropriation: thusthe paradigm is preserved."

2-Essentialsof Islam Common to the

Shiite and Sunni Traditions

TAWHID: GO~'S ONENESS. TAWHID EXAMINED IN THELIGHT OFANCIENT ARABBELIEFS

Having reviewed some of the distinguishing events central to Shiite sacredhistory, it may be good for us to pause here and examine aspects of theIslamic faith adhered to by Shiite and Sunni Muslims alike. For although thehistorical events of the seventh century-Ali's caliphate, Karbala, the ima-mate of Husain-generated a Shiite theology which differs from Sunnism inimportant ways, nevertheless the two traditions share in common numerousreligious beliefs and essential insights concerning the nature of divinity andGod's relations with humanity.

All Muslims subscribe to a common shahadah (testimony of faith): "Nogod is there save God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God." (Shiites,however, subjoin an additional assertion, "And Ali is the beloved friend ofGod," a statement reflecting the exalted status of the Prophet's householdand the Imams in Shiite popular piety. More will be said in a later sectionconcerning Shiite devotion to the Imams). To begin, let us examine the firstpart of the shahadah, which summarizes the universal Islamic belief intawhid or God's absolute Oneness.

The message of tawhid enunciated by the Prophet can best be appreciatedby glancing at the audience to whom it was first directed, the Arab tribesliving in and around Mecca. The religion of the Arab Jahiliyah ("the periodof ignorance," asMuslim historians term the pre- Islamic era) can be charac-terized as animist: spirits (jinn or "genies") were believed to reside in andaround rock formations, trees, and ruins in the desert wastes. Reverence waspaid as well to numerous astral deit ies, including a creator-God, Allah, and

Pinault-Shia History and the Battle of Karbala

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