The Saga of Karbala
A religious scholar had once remarked, “Karbala is like a colossal mountain. Every angle presents a different view holding the human conscience in ever increasing awe.” Karbala is a phenomenon, monumental, multidimensional and mysterious. The enormity of the tragedy in which almost the entire family of the holy Prophet (PBUH) was ruthlessly decimated still evokes intense grief and compassion that the time centuries could not diminish. The yearning lingers, unsatiated like the unquenched thirst of the valiant martyrs. According to Iqbal, there are two parts to the story. One was written by Hussain at Karbala and the other by Zainab at Damascus. One was the prophetic courage of conviction of a saint solely intent on his glorious connect with the Sublime and the other was the dauntless and unique courage of an Arab lady refusing to buckle under the enormous physical, emotional, religious and social pressures. The Islamic doctrine, “there is no God but God,” did not only challenge the three hundred odd deities stacked in Kaaba, but it also intended to transform the Jahiliya Arab entire outlook on life based on superfluous pretensions. The fragmentation of the tribal system was transformed into the unity of one Ummah. The old age pride and arrogance of Muruwwa (manliness) had to give way to humility and piety, essentials of the concept of Taqwa or love of God. ‘Achieving fame or legacy’ had to be eliminated from the system in view of the accountability on the day of judgement. “Reverence of and compliance with ancient traditions was challenged by Islam which instead assigned primacy to submit to God and following revelations.” The foreword of the story of Karbala was written by the first righteous Caliph, Abu Bakr. Before he breathed his last, he nominated Omar as his successor, in his perception, the most popular choice. More importantly, he did not nominate his son to succeed him. Omar faithfully followed his predecessor. He also did not designate his son to succeed him. When Othman took over, according to Madelung, Abu Sufyan had remarked that the caliphate had landed in the courtyard of the Umayyads, it should never be allowed to leave. Still, while Othman lived, he did not nominate his son to succeed him or anyone from the Umayyads he was alleged to have unduly favoured. Imam Hussain had quietly endured the vitriolic campaign to undermine his family, honouring the part of his older brother’s commitment to peace. Ali as the caliph, according to a respected Ahl e Hadith scholar, Maulvi Ishaq, kept pleading with the people to support him otherwise they would be condemned to the eternal slavery of the dynastic despots. Ali also did not propose his son be the next caliph. His son Imam Hassan was elected by the people. That is why all the famous scholars call Imam Hassan the fifth and last of the Rashidun Caliphs. Imam Hassan admirably wrote his part of the story. He abdicated in favour of Muawiya to avoid further shedding of the Muslim blood. His pact with the ruler of Syria was truly the first ever charter of democracy recorded in the history of the Saracens. The Muslim world was not familiar with the word democracy, but its spirit was unambiguously defined by the farsightedness of a saint. The predominant clause of the pact emphasized that after Muawiya his son would not be named a caliph. The people would be allowed to choose their ruler. He could not have more emphatically rejected monarchy and dynastic rule and equally upheld the election and freedom of the people to choose their ruler. As the fantasy dream of the Caliphate ended with the unceremonious termination of the Ottoman Empire, and the Muslim scholars and the mainstream intellectuals began their search for a model of Islamic government, all of them had to pause at the tragedy of Karbala. They all came to unanimously condemn the infliction of the monarchy on the Muslims. Most vociferous critics of Monarchy and consequently, the Umayyads happened to be the Wahhabi scholars including Moudodi and Syed Qutab. While Moudodi carefully chose his words in his criticism of Uthman, the third caliph, Syed Qutab was too blunt to be quoted here. Imam Hussain had quietly endured the vitriolic campaign to undermine his family, honouring the part of his older brother’s commitment to peace. But, when in flagrant violation of the agreement, Yazid was nominated as the caliph (King), he decided to intervene. Allegiance to Yazid would have perhaps saved Imam’s life. But Imam Hussain was determined. He, as the Imam of his time or spiritual heir to the Prophet (PBUH) could not put his stamp of approval on an oppressive system that was being introduced, the system of dynastic rule and absolute monarchy. That in his view would destroy the very basic human values Islam stood for. The stakes were too high for Imam Hussain to give in. For Imam Hussain, the two concepts symbolized the two ends of the political spectrum, the difference between imposed and free will, absolute monarchy and popular democracy, utter slavery and complete freedom. Imam Abu Hanifa had refused to be the chief judge of the Abbasid, calling them the usurpers. He was by no stretch of imagination pleading the cause of the Fatimide. But he was at the same time, also totally rejecting monarchy. History upheld the vision of the Imam. The kings changed and reversed the traditions of the Prophet (PBUH), completely devastated the concept of the prohibited and the lawful, right and wrong and injected innovations to justify their lust and greed for power. The theory of predestination lent Divine sanction to a king’s rule as ‘destined’ and ‘preordained’. The Ulema spousing predeterminism while basking in the rulers’ beneficence preached blind obedience to the sovereigns. Opposition to the king thus came to be regarded as a sin against God. The determined men at Karbala lost a battle. But with their blood, they had written for humanity the true meanings of freedom, liberty, justice and human dignity. This is another view of Karbala beckoning the true believers to enjoin good and forbid wrong, stand by the truth and reject falsehood. This message is as eternal as the compassion the tragedy evokes. The writer is a published author. Karbala: Story of unlimited resolve “Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor”- Sholem Aleichem When any natural or man-made calamity strikes, most of the time, it initially damages the scum of the earth before its harmful effects reach the rich and the powerful, if they ever do. As Jean-Paul Sartre said: “When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die.” Check out the latest situation in Europe where an armed conflict has not left heads of warring states bleeding, but rendered the non-political people of Ukraine either dead, wounded or refugees. In a nutshell, the world apparently seems to run on lines that exploit the poor for the benefit of the wealthy. The reasons could be many but the principal one seems to be one’s birth in a privileged background. “Children of lesser gods” either lead miserable lives or are forced to bend over backwards to reach a respectable level of existence. As James Baldwin said: “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” The rags-to-riches stories are very few. According to a research conducted by Rosner & Ortiz-Ospina in 2013 and revised in 2019, 85 per cent of the world would not be living on less than $30 per day whereas two-thirds on less than $10 per day while every tenth person lives on less than $1.90 per day. Thus, it proves the point that the earth revolves around the axis of the advantaged. Considering this crucial reality, it may not be difficult to comprehend why and how, the majority is, either inadvertently or more so compulsorily, made to suffer for the sake of the preferential treatment of 1.1 per cent of the global population holding nearly half of the world’s total wealth, as per a report published in September 2021. To ease the restlessness of those well-off who are constantly grumbling without counting their innumerable blessings, a famous quote by an unknown person could be seen as a reminder: “If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep you are richer than 75 per cent of the world. If you have money in the bank, your wallet, and some spare change you are among the top eight per cent of the world’s wealthy.” Unfortunately, this particular group is so occupied with its life that it has no time to think or care about those who fall below the poverty line or those who are forced to bear the brunt of its preponderance. The nobility of Imam Hussain’s character reflects in the love he had for his companions and for the willingness to subject himself and his family to the tortious consequences of battle. In this gloomy atmosphere, a lucky few born with a softer heart cannot but feel the pain of the suffering people and despite belonging to the upper classes of society or holding a venerable position, throw themselves in the service of humanity to undergo similar hardships, giving them the feeling of oneness and togetherness. Their love for human beings is aptly depicted in St Augustine’s following words: “What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.” The selfless among mankind have no relation with prejudices and kinships. They are ready to embrace strangers and willing to sacrifice themselves when in a clash with principles. They have the courage to bear witness against their own, choosing the righteous to side with. Again, these are no easy tasks for the feeble-minded. Only the strongest and courageous among humans are endowed with these amazing qualities. Such examples are rare as Siddhartha Gautama, popularly known as Buddha, who abandoned the luxuries of his princely life to seek answers to miseries faced by the people of his time and some of those unsung heroes who choose to become hermits to roam the jungles or who spend their lives in the service of mankind in the hope of seeking to please God or just out of love. These are mostly cases of individuals and not their entire clan. One exception, however, is that of Imam Hussain AS, who walked the path of truth, not alone but with his family, including women, children, and friends. He, too, could have left them in protection in a safe place and sent a proper army to battle with forces of obscurantism. He, too, like the earlier and modern generals, could have easily let the soldiers die while his near and dear ones survived but no-the nobility of his character reflects in the love he had for his companions and for the willingness to subject himself and his family to the tortious consequences of battle. This is why, on the eve of 10th Muharram, he dimmed the lights in his tent where his small congregation of soldiers had gathered, and openly and without any grudge, permitted them to leave in the cover of darkness that would have left him and his family to face the well-equipped Yazidi forces by themselves. Of course, they were too devoted to giving up the opportunity to earn martyrdom. The strength of Imam AS’s resolve dominated his fear and the depth of his faith conquered all inhibitions including his anxiety regarding the after-effects of the battle, especially on the surviving members of his family. How many men today would dare expose their kith and kin to a volley of arrows, sharpness of swords, piercing spears and the torments of imprisonment? The ongoing political circus within Pakistan has fully unmasked the superficial faces of elected leaders who, after securing their wealth in foreign countries, are bent on destroying both the economy and the people of this country with their egoistic warfare to establish their hold over power. During this sensitive period, instead of setting aside differences and gathering under the common agenda of rescuing the nation and saving the country from an economic free-fall, all efforts are being directed towards salvaging their existence. In such circumstances, one cannot but help appreciate Imam Hussain AS for whom his resolve was mightier than this temporary earthly life and this is why his sacrifice is celebrated with complete fervour every year since 61 AH. The writer, lawyer and co-author of many books, is Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). The Spirit Of Karbala This is the revised text of a talk —'Talking about Muharram' — given at Chicago in Muharram 1998 before a group of concerned young Muslims who call themselves South Asian-American Professionals (SAMP). It is heartening to note now that it is not the only association of its kind in the United States. The horrific sectarian violence that rages in Pakistan and Afghanistan and has reached its worst form in Iraq impelled me to revise and share these remarks now. When I accepted your kind invitation, I had no intention of going into the ‘facts’ of Muharram—the whys and wherefores of the martyrdom at Karbala. I did not feel any useful purpose would be served by re-hashing the political/theological issues that for centuries have engaged historians and rogues alike. Arguments on ‘facts’ only too often lead to sectarian conflict, particularly in South Asia. I was going to stick to the cultural and literary aspects of Muharram. However, as I began to prepare my remarks, my mind gradually changed, influenced by what was happening around me. I had not been unaware of the long-enduring tensions between the Shi’ahs and the Sunnis in South Asia, which have resulted in recent years in some most horrific incidents in Pakistan. But what really triggered the shift was a different recent incident, as I shall explain in conclusion. The bulk of my remarks will be in two parts. In the first, I briefly offer my own narrative of the events that led to the tragedy at Karbala; in the second, I present the way some important Urdu writers idealize Imam Husain, perceiving in his martyrdom the optimum expression of human courage and virtue. Muharram is the first month of the Islamic calendar, and its first day should be a day of rejoicing for Muslims. The advent of Muharram in the pre-Islamic days marked a period of peace, bringing a temporary closure to internecine warfare among the tribes of Arabia. Presumably it was also a time for celebration and joy. But now, for devout Muslims, Muharram is the month for a profoundly sombre engagement with what happened at Karbala—in present-day Iraq—on the tenth day of the 61st year of Hijra (10 October 680 CE). On that day, barely fifty years after the Prophet Muhammad’s death, his beloved grandson, Husain, was killed on the battlefield, together with several members of his own family, and the killers were none other than some members of the Prophet’s own ummah, the community of the Faithful. Just before the Prophet’s death in 632 CE at Madinah, the dÃn (religion) named Islam had been explicitly declared ‘complete’ in a divine revelation, but the shape that the polity of the Faithful was expected to take after his death was left undefined. Who was to succeed the Prophet within the newly formed and constantly expanding community of the Believers, not in his prophetic role, for that ended with him, but as his khalÃfa, his representative or viceroy, in worldly affairs? The Prophet had brought together the tribally divided people of Arabia into a single polity, whose binding power lay as much in his own person as in the shared faith in Allah. Now that his person was going to be no more, would the faith in One God be enough to hold all the Faithful together? Soon after the Prophet breathed his last, and even before his body could be prepared for burial, a group of Ansars, the original people of Madinah, met and started discussing as to who should be the new amÃr,‘the commander.’ They discussed names only from among themselves. When the word reached the Mosque of the Prophet, Umar and Abu Bakr rushed over to the meeting place, and presented a counter-claim as exclusive in nature. They privileged the people from Mecca as those who had been the longest in Islam, and thus closest to the Prophet. Their argument won the day when Umar offered his hand in allegiance to Abu Bakr, and the leader of one of the Ansar factions followed suit. The small ad hoc gathering of a few prominent figures in Madinah ended with Abu Bakr’s elevation as the first Caliph and ‘Commander’ of all Muslims. Notably absent at the meeting was Ali, the Prophet’s nephew and son-in-law, who claimed to have been the first male to accept Islam. Soon, most of the people then present in Madinah offered Abu Bakr their allegiance. Ali, however, did not do so, nor did a number of other people, including a prominent Ansar. The important thing for us to note is that those who refused to sign up in Madinah—the first ‘refuseniks’ in Islam—were left alone. Any dissenter elsewhere met a different fate. Two simultaneously-waged processes marked the first caliph’s brief rule of two years: a highly centralized consolidation of Muslim temporal authority, and the suppression of an assortment of political and religious breakaways in other places. Abu Bakr, on his deathbed, obtained oaths of allegiance and loyalty—from only a select cohort of prominent people in Madinah—in favour of the person of his choice, who subsequently turned out to be Umar. During the second caliph’s rule, the temporal authority of Madinah spread far into what earlier had been two powerful empires, the Byzantine and the Persian, bringing under the rule of the Arabs a variety of other people, who had political and social traditions quite different from the Arabs. Umar was assassinated. Before he died he nominated six select ‘Companions of the Prophet,’ including Ali and Usman, to choose a person from among themselves. This time Ali made his claim known, but the person appointed by the group to make the decisive choice named Usman as the third caliph. During Usman’s rule, Arab/Muslim armies further extended the borders of the Madinan state, but there also occurred (1) the rise to prominence of several members of Usman’s own clan, and (2) an increasing rift between Damascus and Kufa, the eastern and western regional centers of political power. Usman was killed in his house by his political opponents, many of whom then swore allegiance to Ali, who eventually also obtained the support of some other factions. The barely five years of Ali’s rule were filled with turmoil. He had to do battle with those who felt he had failed to seek sufficient revenge from the assassins of the third caliph, and then also with those who felt he had not been resolute enough against his opponents’ demands. While Ali moved from Madinah to Kufa in Iraq, where lay most of his support, Mu’awiyah, the governor in Damascus, not only expanded his power into Egypt but also set himself up as a rival caliph. Thus for some months, there were two Muslim caliphs, each separately acknowledged by factions within the Faithfuls. Ali too died at an assassin’s hands. Some of Ali’s supporters wanted his eldest son Hasan to make a claim, but Hasan withdrew in favour of Mu’awiyah, received a generous annuity in return, and retired to live in luxury in Madinah, where he died of poisoning. That brings us to the year 661 AD, barely thirty years since the Prophet’s death. And a pause for some retrospection would be useful. During those years, three Muslim caliphs were assassinated—two by Muslims themselves, and one by a Christian slave—and countless other Muslims had died violent deaths at the hands of other Muslims. Meanwhile the Muslim/Arab state had ceaselessly spread over the entire Arabian Peninsula, across the Nile delta in the west, to the borders of Anatolia and Armenia in the north, and all the way to the eastern borders of present day Iran in the east. In merely three decades it had become an imperial power of a size that dwarfed all previous imperial powers in human history. The preceding narrative was not to cast aspersion on extraordinary individuals. They had acted in the spirit of their times, and quite often for what they saw as a selfless cause. What I wished to bring to your attention is the trajectory—as I see it—taken by the consequence of their actions: the emergence of a despotic polity, in which no systemic allowance was made to accommodate political dissension or opposition. It was a polity wherein a litany—‘Obey God, obey the Prophet, and obey those who hold command over you’—became the governing principle. Later, a vast majority of Muslims down the centuries began to refer to the reign of the first four caliphs as the period of the rashidun, the 'rightly-guided' caliphs. That descriptive phrase, to my mind, was a useful device. It saved Muslims from making rigidly factional decisions about the four elder statesmen, about one being exclusively right compared to another. And as such, it also served them as a psychological crutch, a way for their collective self to protect itself from being overwhelmed by a specific past that should have been anything but so bloodstained. That so many of the elders, all ‘Companions of the Prophet,’ disagreed, fought, and killed each other over issues related to temporal power had to be somehow reconciled with the natural urge of the larger community to get on with life more peaceably. And so the first four caliphs and their actions were declared to be ‘rightly guided’ by God, who alone judged what they did and who alone knew why they did it. It was not for the posterity to say who was right and who was wrong. That they were declared to be ‘rightly guided’ also implied, I would assert, that they were not necessarily always ‘rightly guiding.’ In other words, the Muslims’ natural desire to honor those elders did not inevitably require regarding the time of those elders as ‘the best of days,’ and a model for all times. Perniciously, that exactly is what happened, and only because it was also the time when an Arab imperium emerged. The period of the temporal rise of the Arabs—a people—came to be known as the exemplary years of Islam—a faith. Returning to our historical narrative, Mu’awiyah, the parallel caliph, not only further expanded the Arab empire, but by nominating his son Yazid as his rightful successor he also set the precedent for hereditary rule in Islam. The caliphate that began as the exclusive privilege of the people of a particular place and tribe now became more narrowly confined to just one family. Mu’awiyah, during his life, made sure of Yazid’s succession by obtaining declarations of allegiance to Yazid from various parts of the empire. However, at his death, some resistance to Yazid’s claim appeared in both Madinah and Kufa. The resistance eventually consolidated itself around the person of Husain, son of Ali, who left Madinah for Kufa, expecting support from the former allies of his father. Yazid’s forces, however, easily put an end to Husain’s Kufan support while the latter was still on the way. Thus it was that with only a small number of supporters Husain had to face a far larger imperial force at Karbala. When his opponents demanded that he should immediately surrender, and formally swear allegiance to Yazid, Husain countered with three options. He asked that they should allow him to return to Madinah and a life of quietude, let him proceed to some frontier of the Islamic/Arab Empire and fight there for Islam’s cause, or, as the last resort, take him to Yazid so that he could put the matter directly before him. Some say that Husain’s opponents refused to budge from their position and launched an attack, while other traditions claim that some members of his own party, seeking to avenge the murder at Kufa of one of their kinsmen, precipitated the battle. In any case, the end was swift. Husain and those of his companions who took part in the battle were killed; the surviving women and children, and the sick were first taken to Damascus, and then sent back to Madinah. The dynastic rule launched by Mu’awiyah and Yazid continued for several decades, only to be replaced by an endless series of dynastic rules and a more imperious caliphate—all now forgotten except by the specialists. On the other hand, the deaths of Husain and his companions are mourned every year by millions of people worldwide, and their lives are still regarded exemplary by many more. * * * What is there in that brief and tragic stand taken by Husain at Karbala that has so gripped the hearts and minds of countless generations of Muslims? There are of course those who are known as the Shi’ahs, the partisans of Ali, who believe that Ali had been the Prophet’s chosen successor, and who also believe in the concept of Imamate, which they consider to be exclusive to the male descendents of Ali through Husain. For them, of course, Husain is and should be a luminescent figure. But why should it be true also for the non-Shi’ahs, particularly after so many centuries, and even after so much sectarian accretion around the events? I find some answers in the imaginative literature I know most about, for literature arises out of the power of the metaphor, and its simple words often stand for complexities of thoughts and actions that most of us may find almost ineffable. Muhammad Ali (d. 1931), a prominent leader of the anti-colonial movement in India and the most important leader of the so-called Khilafat Movement in the Twenties, is also famous for a couplet which he wrote while he was a political prisoner. It has since become proverbial in Urdu. qatl-i husain asl meñ marg-i yazÃd haiislám zinda hotá hai har karbalá ke bád Husain’s murder is in fact Yazid’s [own] death;[For] Islam comes alive again after every Karbala. For Muhammad Ali and millions of his compatriots, Husain stood for Truth and Freedom, and Yazid for everything opposite. In their view, every Yazid was bound to lose finally, even if he appeared to succeed for the moment. And Husain’s name invoked a sense of hope among those who were confident only in the righteousness of their cause. But we should not ignore the words that the poet used: it is Islam that comes to life again after every Karbala. What was the Islam that Husain symbolized for the Indian poet/politician? Here we can do no better than to seek guidance from a greater poet, Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938), from a section in his poem, Rumúz-i BekhudÃ, ‘The Mysteries of Selflessness.’ The section is titled, ‘Concerning Muslim Freedom [hurriya], and the Secret of the Tragedy of Karbala.’ After briefly setting up an opposition between Passion and Reason—one bold, the other crafty, one empyrean in flight, the other earthbound—the poet goes on to declare: ‘I would speakOf that great leader of all men who loveTruly the Lord, that upright cypress-treeOf the Apostle’s garden, Ali’s son,Whose father led the sacrificial feastThat he might prove a mighty offering;And for that prince of the best race of menThe Last of the Apostles gave his backTo ride upon, a camel passing fair. ......... Moses and Pharaoh, Shabbir and Yazid—From Life [hayát] spring these conflicting potencies;Truth lives in Shabbir’s strength; Untruth is thatFierce, final anguish of regretful death.And when Caliphate first snapped its threadFrom the Koran, in Freedom’s throat was pouredA fatal poison; like a rain-charged cloudThe effulgence of the best of peoples roseOut of the West, to spill on Karbala,And in that soil, that desert was before,Sowed, as he died, a field of tulip blood.There, till the Resurrection, tyrannyWas evermore cut off; a garden fair immortalizes where his lifeblood surged.’ Iqbal then goes on to call Husain ‘the edifice of La Ilaha, of faith in God’s pure Unity,’ echoing a quatrain ascribed to Mu’inuddin Chishti of Ajmer (d. 1325), the pivotal sufi saint of South Asia. Had Husain been pursuing a selfish goal, Iqbal continues, he would not have provisioned himself the way he did—his sword was for the glory of the Faith, and he unsheathed it only to defend the Law. The poet concludes by saying: ‘Though Damascus’ might, Baghdad’s splendourand Granada’s majesty have all vanished, all lost to mind,Yet still vibrate the strings Husain struck within our soul,for still ever new our faith abides in his cry: Allahu Akbar.’ For Iqbal, Husain epitomizes the original mission of Islam, which, as he puts it, was ‘to found Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood among all Mankind.’ Those who oppose these goals belong to Yazid’s ranks, while those who strive to bring them about stand tall beside Husain. Munshi Prem Chand (d. 1936), a Hindu, is considered one of the foremost writers of prose fiction in both Hindi and Urdu. His only play, Karbala, was written during the time when after the collapse of the Khilafat Movement in India much communal enmity had erupted between Hindus and Muslims. Using the lore and legend of a very small Hindu community known as the Mohyals (also often called the ‘Husaini Brahmins’), he placed a group of Hindu warriors in southern Hejaz, who, upon hearing the news of Husain’s opposition to the despotic rule of Yazid, rush to Karbala and die fighting on Husain’s behalf. The Hindu party, led by Raja Sahas Rai, arrives at the battlefield just when Husain and his few remaining companions begin their obligatory afternoon prayers. The Hindus immediately take up defensive positions, and shield the praying Muslims from their enemy’s arrows. After the prayers, Husain speaks: Husain: ‘My dear friends who share my grief, these prayers will ever be remembered in Islam’s history. We couldn’t have completed them without these brave servants of God standing behind us to protect us from the arrows of the enemy. O Worshippers of Truth, we greet you. Though you’re not of the Believers [momin], your religion must be true and God-given if its followers are such defenders of Truth and Justice, and if they think so little of their own lives in order to support the persecuted. Such a religion will always remain in this world, and its light will spread worldwide together with the glory of Islam.’ Sahas Rai: ‘Hazrat, we thank you for the blessings you have just cast upon us. I too pray to Almighty God that whenever Islam needs our blood there should be plenty of my people to bare their breasts for its cause. Please give us now your permission to go into the battlefield, and lay down our lives for the cause of Truth.’ Husain: ‘No, my friends.
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