--
POERTY BY SHIA THEOLOGIANS ON THE MASSACRE OF KARBALA
Maqtal al-Husain: Martrydom Epic of Imam al-Husain
by Abd al Razzaq al-Muqarram [d. Muharram 17, 1391/March 15, 1971.]
Published by: Al-Kharsan Foundation for Publications,
Beirut, Lebanon, 1426 A.H./2005 A.D.
--
Maqtal al-Husain, the Book. A poet has said:
Your calamity has made us forget ours that were
And is sure to make the ones to come easy to bear.
--
Arabs eulogize their lost ones with poems. Since the tragedy took place, innumarable poems have been composed eulogizing Imam Husain and innUmarable others will be composed till the Day of Judgment.
The Karbala' epic contains numerous names of men, women, and children in which there is a great deal of confusion with regard to both the names and the ones to whom they were attached. The author removed such confusion. Do you know that those who refer to Umm Kulthum are actually talking about Zainab, the wise lady?! And can you imagine that “Umm al-Baneen” was not living during the time of the tragedy and that the poetry recited by the thakirs has no share of the truth?! Read, for example, this one:
Do not call upon me, O Umm al-Baneen,
You only remind me of the lions in their den.
--
Today's poet Abdul-Baqi Afandi al-’Umari al-Muilli, who said the following after having been asked about cursing Yazid,
More than I curse Yazid should you curse him after:
So heal upon him the worst of cursing now and forever!
--
Yazid was approaching Jayrun's highway when al-Husain's women and children were brought and the severed heads were hoisted atop the spears. A raven croaked, so jubilant Yazid said the following verses of poetry:
When those loads did come in sight,
When the sun upon Jayrun's hills shone bright,
The raven croaked so I did say:
Say or do not say,
For now I have had my way
And made even the Prophet pay!
What Yazid meant is that having killed Prophet's family, he got even with the Messenger of Allah (S) who caused on the Battle of Badr the killing of men such as Yazid's grandfather, ‘Atbah, and his uncle, ‘Atbah's son, and other men.
--
Yazid Ibn Mu’awiyah used to play with a monkey. One day he carried it and put it on a zebra. Then he tied the zebra and set his horses loose to chase it till the horses crushed the zebra to death Yazid Ibn Mu’awiyah thereupon said,
‘Abul-Qays relied on its reins,
So we don't guarantee that it won't perish,
Just as was done to a shaikh before:
Ziyad, a zebra, crushed by the commander of the faithful.'”
--
Al-Khawarizmi says that Yazid said to al-Nu’man Ibn Bashir, “Praise to Allah Who killed al-Husain.”.
They [such “scholars”] kept the lid over his abominable deeds just as they had done to the oppression of his father, Mu’awiyah, who had renounced the laws enacted by the person who carried out the Divine Call. Is he not the one who said the following to his father Sakhr who pretended to have accepted Islam for fear of the Muslim’s swords:
O Sakhr! Do not accept Islam and thus scandalize us
After the corpses of those who fell at Badr have been torn,
Do not submit to something to hand over to us,
While the dancers at al-Nu’man suffer from heavy hearts.
Death is easier than our youths saying to us
That Ibn Hind's cavalry turned away from protecting al-’Uzza,
So if you refuse, we will reject what you accept,
And do not turn people from al-Lat and al-’Uzza if they accept them...?!
Ibn Abul-Hadid says, “Many of our fellows have cast doubt about Mu’awiyah's creed and said that he was an atheist who did not believe in Prophethood. They quote his own statements testifying to this fact”.
His grandfather Sakhr is the one who, upon the conquest of Mecca, said to al-’Abbas, “This is a kingdom.” Al-’Abbas, thereupon, rebuked him by saying, “Woe unto you! This is Prophethood!” About Mu’awiyah, Ahmad Ibn al-Husain al-Bayhaqi says, “Mu’awiyah exited disbelief and entered into hypocrisy, and during the time of the Messenger of Allah (S) and thereafter, he went back to his original disbelief.”
--
They clothed themselves for what they did
With the attire of shame:
Black in color tailored by infamy.
--
Yahya chose his head to be conveyed and displayed,
Finding his solace in the example of Husain.
--
As regarding the Taff event, the suffering undergone during it was much more painful, and the agony was greater. The tides of death clamoured, the war uncovered its fangs, and Banu Umayyah surrounded the grandson of the Prophet (S) [and his tiny band] from all sides.
Oppression spurred it to action,
So it came mounting its tyranny;
Throngs that filled the earth,
Overwhelming every ravine and highway.
He trampled upon the beasts when
He found no route to escape.
The birds did not leave their nests.
--
Had not all sublime merits been grouped in us,
The Battle of Taff would have sufficed,
When we rose like lions while our foes
Like beasts of burden came to throng.
They came in seventy thousand strong;
So ask those among them who did survive:
If they met us though we brought only seventy.
--
Ka’b Ibn Jabir, too, testified for them. Having killed Burayr, he was reprimanded by his wife who said to him, “Did you really assist in killing Fatima's son? Did you kill the master of qaris? You have done something monstrous. By Allah! I shall never speak one word to you.” He then composed the following lines in his answer to her statement:
Never did my eyes see their likes, in their time,
Nor before, among the people, since my youth;
None strikes with the sword in the battle
Better than one defending honour, protecting it.
Steadfast were they when swords and lances worked,
Even as they were defenseless.
They sought duels, had they only had their way.
Which one of them, anyway, was upset to the extent that he shook in fear?! Was it Zuhayr Ibn al-Qayn who put his hand on Husain's shoulder and said the following lines seeking his permission to fight:
Come forth, may you be guided!
For you are the guide who is rightly guided:
Today shall I meet your grandfather the Prophet...?
--
Shu’ara' al-Hilla, Vol. 3, p. 214, excerpted from a poem eulogizing al-Husain (‘a) by Sayyid ‘Abdul-Muttalib al-Hilli.
My father do I sacrifice for countenances that
In Karbala’ shook hands with shields,
Countenances that light up with hope
Whenever the world frowns and drips of liberality.
They glow under the darkness of clamour
Like lanterns bright, stealing the sight.
They regarded their lives as cheap in defending
The son of the Prophet's daughter,
Lives that eagerly anticipate with Allah a union.
So they were spent while from
Their sides dignity forever emits fragrance.
No water did they taste except
From the heart's blood the wounds choked in pain
Of their blood they would have drunk
Only if it could their thirst quench
Stripped were they, so they, instead of the fabric
Of the earth did they weave shrouds of wind.
--
The narratives relevant to the Commander of the Faithful (‘a) receiving the oath of allegiance are all authentic according to the general consensus, and it is in reference to them that Khuzaymah Ibn Thabit delivered these poetic lines as he stood before the pulpit:
If fealty to ‘Ali we swear,
Hasan's father suffices us
Against the dissensions we fear:
The best of people we found him to be,
The most knowledgeable among the Quraish
Of the Book and the Sunnah is he.
None can surpass him among the Quraish
When he does ride and charge,
And all good is in him indeed,
Quraish do not match his word and deed.
--
At Taff:
How could he to a lowly one his submission wield?
Only to Allah did he ever submit and yield:
Mightier than the shield is his will,
Before lances thirsty for blood, eager to kill,
To him will every afi refer at will,
To one big as the world and greater still,
One who insisted to live only in dignity,
To sacrifice and personify such struggle for eternity.
--
Just as the Prophet (S) was the first person to rise to disseminate the divine call, al-Husain was the last to rise to cement its foundations:
The creed did moan, groan and complain
About him; it did complain to none but Husain.
The Prophet's grandson saw that to cure the creed,
At Karbala’ to death he had to defend it and bleed.
Never did we hear that a patient could be cured
Only with the death of the one who cured and endured.
When Husain was martyred, Islam's guidance standard rose high
When Husain is remembered, Islam's fragrance does intensify.
--
How could they find life meaningful while knowing that the man who was so much loved by the Messenger of Allah (S), the heart of Islam, was suffering of bleeding wounds and of a painful agony?
Souls that wanted nothing but the legacy of their father
Are either killed without being avenged,
Or are killing those whom none will avenge.
Their souls were used to the battlefield,
Just as their feet were used to the pulpits.
--
They were forced to ride
Hands to the necks tied
On bare hump she-camels they did ride.
No veil did their faces find:
Behind forearms and hands did they hide.
--
Among what Du’bal al-Khuza’i has said about poetry's perpetuation across the centuries are these lines:
If I compose a line, its composer will die, yet I
Am quoted: one whose verse shall never die.
‘Urwah Ibn Uthaynah has said,
I was told about men who did fear
That I vilify them, and I do not vilify.
If they are innocent, my poetry shall not come near
Them, nor shall they be censured thereby.
But if they are in esteem less than that,
And utter something with an effect to last,
It will mean to these men
Many a book and many a pen.
--
There was a great deal of weeping when he recited the verse saying,
Shooters hit thereby the mark the others are missing:
O last one led to misguidance by the first: Do listen!
It was then that Imam as-Sadiq (‘a) raised his hands and supplicated saying, “O Allah! Forgive al-Kumait's sins, the ones he committed, and the ones he will commit, the ones he hid, and the ones he revealed! And grant him, O Lord, of Your favours till he is pleased!”
--
Ja’far son of ‘Affan is a sincere Shi’a who has earned a great deal of praise and is regarded as a reliable authority by biographers. He is the one who responded to Marwan Ibn Abu afa when the latter said,
Clear the way for people whose customs are
The crushing of flanks whenever throngs jostle,
Accept what the Lord has decreed for you,
And let alone inheriting every protecting knight.
How can it be, and it never will,
That a daughters' son should inherit his uncle?[221]
Ja’far Ibn ‘Affan responded by syaing,
Why not?! And it surely is:
Sons of daughters shall inherit their uncles,
For the girls have his wealth, while the uncle
Is left without a share. Why should a aleeq
Talk about inheritance at all? The aleeq prayed
Only out of his fear of the sword.
A group of men came to see Imam al-Riďa (‘a) once and found him looking out of the ordinary. They asked him why. He said to them, “I have spent my entire night awake thinking about what Marwan Ibn Abu afa said,” then he quoted the lines cited above. The Imam (‘a) went on to say, “I later fell asleep. It was then that someone took hold of the door as he said,
How can it be? And it shall not:
Pillars of Islam do not belong to polytheists.
Grandaughters inherit no grandfathers,
While the uncle is deprived of his share.
Why should a aleeq about inheritance say a word?
The aleeq prayed only out of his fear of the sword.
The Qur’an has already informed you of his worth,
So the judges issued about him and decreed.
Fatima's son to whom reference is made
Earned his inheritance from his cousins,
While the son of the wide shield stands
Hesitant, weeping, only by his kin pleased.”[223]
Marwan stole the theme from verses composed by a slave of Tammam Ibn Ma’bid Ibn al-’Asbbas Ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib who stood to attack with his poetry ‘Ubaydullah Ibn Abu Rafi’, servant of the Messenger of Allah (S). He had come to Imam al-Hasan Ibn ‘Ali (‘a) and said: “I am your servant,” and he used to write down quotations from (the Imam's father) Imam ‘Ali Ibn Abu Talib (‘a). Tammam's slave then said:
Al-’Abbas's offspring denied their father's right
So you in your claim seek no good end;
Since when do the offspring of the Prophet
Behave like an heir who earns, then he,
When opportune, claims linkage to the father?
--
These and their likes are the ones from whom one's conscience is detached. They will never be protected against the Almighty's wrath although the nation benefitted from their eradication of its enemies who belonged to the offspring of Harb and Umayyah
Harb's sons coveted to see
In him submission to force and oppression,
They tried to hunt his valiant heroes
Like birds they shook off humiliation and flew.
They wished to forcibly drag him into disgrace,
Though to dignity he was accustomed and to grace.
How could he swear and submit
To filth only for fear of death?
He refused, hence the event that
Shook the world in awe and in fright.
So he came in an army and marched
Against hosts that filled the plains,
He and lions from ‘Amr, exalted ones
Wearing for the brawl steadfastness.
They dealt blows in a desert where
Death became in the morrow their mark
So they exalted justice and were spent
Pure in honour, clean of filth they went.
They sacrificed souls great and precious
Too dignified to please the lowly ones.
--
The Messenger of Allah (S) has said, “The killing of al-Husain (‘a) has left in the heart of the faithful a fire that will never die down.”
This tradition is recorded on p. 217, Vol. 2, of Mustadrak al-Wasa'il. Numerous poems have been and will be composed eulogizing the greatest epic of heroism in the history of mankind; here are some of them.
Muharram has Come
Muharram has come, so welcome it with takbir,
And scatter your tears on the earth
See in it the crescent as it manifests itself,
See how it is forlorn, contemplating, mourning.
Take off the mantle of patience and place it:
A yellow robe on one who with grief clothed you,
For with the robes of grief do I meet it,
Taking off what cheerful red robes decorated me.
It is a month destiny in it decreed
That the vilest of black dogs would deal
With the Lion of the valiant ones.
Allah! What a calamity he had to behold!
The heavens for it wept crimson blood.
A great misfortune, indeed, afflicted the creed,
For it did the Mother Town drape in black:
Can't you see how the sacred Haram sighs?
How his sighs would light the timber?
From its depths does Abu Qubays yearn
A yearning that reaches ira’.
Al-atim knew of it, so it is grief-crushed,
Al-afa knew of it, so it is serene no more,
And its mash’ars sensed the calamity,
And passion struck its Muassir, so it sighed,
For Husain is killed: what a tragedy!
On its account Islam became defenseless.[233]
The Month of Muharram
Muharram is when joy is taboo,
When grief is a must, weeping is unavoidable.
A month wherein the seat of faith is in ruin.
Its crescent is a bow
That shot the heart of guidance, the creed,
With the arrow of death and destiny.
Infidels and Muslims considered
Fighting in it a great sin.
Yet Harb's family in it fought the Lord of the heavens,
Permitting the spilling of the inviolable blood.
They violated the sanctity of the Haram's masters,
Committing that which caused the sky to rain blood.
O family of Harb! May you never see peace,
May none spare you from his censuring tongue!
On earth and in the heavens are you cursed,
By the mass of the living.
Be forewarned with woes and destruction,
And with torture on the Day the trumpet is blown.
How many free women of the Chosen Prophet
Did you rip apart?
How much blood of his offspring did you spill?
O nation of betrayal and disbelief!
O gang of misguidance, O fiends!
How will you look his grandfather in the eye
Having done what you did after him?
Like butchers you slaughtered his progeny,
Like slaves you herded his family.
You forgot the kindness bestowed upon you
On Mecca's Victory Day, when you were forgiven.
Had it not been for the moon-faced sons of Hashim,
A secret lost in the chest you would have been.
Through them did you ascend the pulpit,
And rose to the heights of eminence.
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Chapter 19
The Epic of Karbala’
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The Messenger of Allah (S) has said, “The killing of al-Husain (‘a) has left in the heart of the faithful a fire that will never die down.”
This tradition is recorded on p. 217, Vol. 2, of Mustadrak al-Wasa'il. Numerous poems have been and will be composed eulogizing the greatest epic of heroism in the history of mankind; here are some of them.
Muharram has Come
Muharram has come, so welcome it with takbir,
And scatter your tears on the earth
See in it the crescent as it manifests itself,
See how it is forlorn, contemplating, mourning.
Take off the mantle of patience and place it:
A yellow robe on one who with grief clothed you,
For with the robes of grief do I meet it,
Taking off what cheerful red robes decorated me.
It is a month destiny in it decreed
That the vilest of black dogs would deal
With the Lion of the valiant ones.
Allah! What a calamity he had to behold!
The heavens for it wept crimson blood.
A great misfortune, indeed, afflicted the creed,
For it did the Mother Town drape in black:
Can't you see how the sacred Haram sighs?
How his sighs would light the timber?
From its depths does Abu Qubays yearn
A yearning that reaches ira’.
Al-atim knew of it, so it is grief-crushed,
Al-afa knew of it, so it is serene no more,
And its mash’ars sensed the calamity,
And passion struck its Muassir, so it sighed,
For Husain is killed: what a tragedy!
On its account Islam became defenseless.[233]
The Month of Muharram
Muharram is when joy is taboo,
When grief is a must, weeping is unavoidable.
A month wherein the seat of faith is in ruin.
Its crescent is a bow
That shot the heart of guidance, the creed,
With the arrow of death and destiny.
Infidels and Muslims considered
Fighting in it a great sin.
Yet Harb's family in it fought the Lord of the heavens,
Permitting the spilling of the inviolable blood.
They violated the sanctity of the Haram's masters,
Committing that which caused the sky to rain blood.
O family of Harb! May you never see peace,
May none spare you from his censuring tongue!
On earth and in the heavens are you cursed,
By the mass of the living.
Be forewarned with woes and destruction,
And with torture on the Day the trumpet is blown.
How many free women of the Chosen Prophet
Did you rip apart?
How much blood of his offspring did you spill?
O nation of betrayal and disbelief!
O gang of misguidance, O fiends!
How will you look his grandfather in the eye
Having done what you did after him?
Like butchers you slaughtered his progeny,
Like slaves you herded his family.
You forgot the kindness bestowed upon you
On Mecca's Victory Day, when you were forgiven.
Had it not been for the moon-faced sons of Hashim,
A secret lost in the chest you would have been.
Through them did you ascend the pulpit,
And rose to the heights of eminence.[234]
Excerpted from a poem in Shihab al-Musawi's diwan (Egypt: 1330/1912).
Excerpted from a poem by Ayatullah Shaikh Hadi Kashif al-Ghiťa’ published on p. 9 of Al-Maqbula al-Husayniyya.
--
When Mu’awiyah died al-Dahhak Ibn Qays and praised Mu’awiyah. He offered the funeral prayers for him then buried him at the cemetery of Bab al-Sagheer (the Small Gate). He sent a letter to Yazid consoling him on the death of his father and advising him to go there as fast as he could in order to secure the renewal of the oath of allegiance to him. He added a note at the bottom of the letter containing the following verses of poetry:
Alone did Abu Sufyan go,
Leaving you behind, so
Consider what you will after him do.
Follow the right order with us for you
Are our resort whenever we fret.
Yazid set out to Damascus, reaching it three days after Mu’awiyah had already been buried. Yazid was in Hawran [Auranitis in Latin]. Having read the poetry, Yazid said the following lines of poetry in response:
A carrier with a letter came trotting,
Casting fear in the heart, frightening,
So we said: Woe unto you! What is the news?
Said he: The caliph became heavy, in pain:
The earth swayed, almost shaken,
As if uprooted were its every foundation.
One whose soul remains in apprehension
Almost brings about that which he does fear.
I found the mansion gate closed when I came near,
Ramla's voice wrecked my heart,
She did, indeed, rend it apart.
-
Other men also recited poerty for Yazid:
Be patient, O Yazid, you have parted with a great man,
And thank the One Who put you in charge.
No calamity has befallen the people, they know,
Your calamity is theirs; no issue is better than you.
You have dawned the custodian of all those
Who do uphold the creed,
So look after them as Allah looks after you.
The surviving Mu’awiyah did to us succeed
As you are consoled, while none is mourning you.
--
The son of Maysun desired to steer the creed,
Played havoc with Allah's religion his every evil deed.
So to succor the Shari’a, the cub of the clement and the grand
Who, with his saber's blood, caused its very foundations to stand.
Surrounded he was once he tested the folks
A group whose virtues aspired to reach the peaks.
Who is more brave than one brought up by Hayder
And brought in the birds' towns by his grandfather?
A group for the religion is always ready to sacrifice
Though few in number, yet in will unflinching.
Till they all fell in defense of the Shari’a
As lions defend their den.
Hind's son wanted, but he did fail
To see Husain's will with oppression bent.
But the father of deeply rooted honour
Refused to wear the robe of humiliation
So long as the sword was his companion.
How could he bend to the evil band
To the sons of Sumayya and Maysun,
While the sword in his hand did stand?
So he charged like an angry lion
At them as he was sought by his foe
Who with his sword wanted to deal a blow.
In their necks did he let his polished sword
Issue without an appeal its judgment and word,
Till he brought the faith anew
With the blood of the Prophet's issue.
His grandson was needed by his creed
To water its thirsty and drying field.
--
Fatima is bound to come on the Judgement Day,
With her shirt stained with Husain's blood.
Woe to one who seeks intercession from his adversaries,
When the Trumpet is blown on the Judgment Day.
--
Imam Husain entered the [Prophet’s] Mosque as he recited these verses:
The eminent ones are not frightened in the morning
By an assailant, nor shall I be called a Yazid[266];
Should I, fearing death, to injustice yield,
While the fates watch over me against deviating?
--
Some of his paternal aunts informed him that they had heard a voice saying:
The one slain at al-Taff from Banu Hashim
Dishonoured necks from Quraish, so they are abased.
--
Hussain Left medina:
With his heart did he raise the flag of guidance,
With his splendour shattered the darkness of the blind.
Through him this Shari’a was corrected,
And its lofty corners towered.
Glories were built through his determination,
The creed grew green only through his blood.
With his life he bought the life of the creed,
What a precious price he paid indeed!
With his soul he brought life to guidance,
With his wounds the creed's wounds he healed.
Gardens of knowledge with simum winds dried,
None watered them but the oppressed one's blood.
So mellow leaves their trees grew,
Fragrant, fresh in taste and in hue.
He raised those for whom they did fight and fall,
Till the creed, after he slipped, stood quite tall.
Through him the pillars of Tawhid stood,
Since they resorted to their mighty support,
Through him they turned into lofty domes,
And they did become comfortable homes
For knowledge, the Sunnah, and the Book.
Like a spring it gushed forth for its seekers,
With the water of life, though he died of thirst,
Killed with thirst, while in his insides
Is Allah's nourishment for those whom He guides.
His insides from thirst burnt like fire,
So sacred clouds rained blood with ire.
--
Hussain prayed at grave of Khadija:
My heart do I present to the noble ones who
To nobility they saddled their mounts
Trailed by fates, troubled with eulogies,
A caravan for whom Paradise is the destination,
Passing through many a trial and tribulation,
The earth shrunk for a man like al-Husain,
Not knowing a haven, an entrance,
Seeking security in the desert while
Being ever apprehensive of Banu Sufyan.
The Sacred House was honoured by him,
After blindness, his line became clear to all.
O perturbed one! None other than the light
Of your will can guide anyone at all.
Vast in munificence, to space confined,
Should anyone else be with calamity strained?
Who would from his trouble free?
O king! You did your own subjects oppress
Your Lord decreed caliphate should you possess.
--
Letters from Kufans:
As many as the seeds were the letters he did receive:
Saying: Come to Iraq, to those who connive and deceive;
Caliphate has no guardian nor anyone worthy of it,
While you are the best of those who deserve it.
So he came with hardened men like lions,
Like the leopards in their forests,
Mounted were those whose faces were
Like the moons shining, glorious, virtuous.
He crossed the sierra, reaching al-Taff and
In their courtyards he did settle.
The horse stopped, so he said: Karbala’ is this,
Why did not your eyes avoid it at all?
Alight, for its flanks
Are cut only for our graves.
Descending, mending his sword
To cut the helmets on their heads,
As he looked around, he saw the flags
Of betrayal, of treachery.
Never for a moment did I believe it could or it might
A shining moon would in the desert be so bright,
And the sons of the blue woman would in its light
And in its halo receive the night.
--
Muslim bin Aqeel in Kufa:
Why do you not Sulma greet?
Greet her and those whom she does greet.
A pure drink is what I desire when thirsty,
Though drinking it brings sends me to eternity.
If you fear Sulma's watchful eyes, for sure
Against her conniving you will never feel secure.
--
Muslim to kufa judge:
I seek his pleasure while he seeks my death,
Now from your fellow you have an excuse
To carry out what you intend to do.
--
Muslim attacked by Ibn Ziyad's soldiers in Kufa:
It is only death; so, do whatever you devise,
For you shall no doubt meet your demise;
So I shall be patient about the Command
Of Allah, His Glory is Grand!
Allah's decree is always done
In His creation; this is well known.
Then they attacked him from the house's rooftop, hurling rocks at him. They kept burning reed bales then throwing them at him. He attacked them in the alley as he quoted the following rajaz verses composed by Hamran Ibn Malik:
I swore not to be killed except as a free man,
Though I found death something repelling;
Every man will one day face evil,
And what is cold will be mingled with what is hot.
The soul's ray returned, so it did settle,
I fear only being charged with lying or being tempted.
--
Muslim bin Aqeel in danger in Kufa:
O cousin of al-Husain! Tearful eyes of your Shi’as may
With blood provide you with water to drink.
Tearful eyes shall never cease
Greeting you as they come and go,
For you were not given to drink,
Not even once, as your fractured teeth
Fell into the drink.
From the mansion did they hurl you,
Having tied you; were you not their prince
Only the day before?
Should you spend without anyone mourning you?
Is there anyone in the land to mourn you?
Is there anyone in the land to cry over you?
Should you die, in Zarud there are
Many a mourner mourning you in the night and the day.
--
Husayn leaves Mecca for Kufa:
I shall proceed, for there is no shame
In death to a man who set his mind
To follow the truth
And to perform jihad as a Muslim.
He consoled the righteous men in person,
Leaving behind the depraved,
Opposing the criminals.
Then he cited the verse saying, “And Allah's Command is a decree already passed.”(33:38)[399]
He loathed peace in humiliation,
Honour loathes a free man being subdued,
So he said: O soul! Refrain from shame:
At the time of death, what is bitter tastes good!
Surrounded he became by his family's best youth
A family to which sublime honour and prominence belong
If it marches in the darkness of the night it shines:
Its shiny faces over-shining the brightest of the stars
By brave knights on wading steeds
In whose walk there is pride and grace.
Swift in the desert, dignified in stature,
Might in his help, subdued for him the conveyance.
Slapping the earth's face, red in hue
Not by slapping reddened but by the enemy's blood.
These are the folks from ‘Ali the conqueror
The darkness through them dissipates
And harm at bay is kept.
Thousands do they meet, courageous and bold
If and when their banners unfold
On a day when the face of death frowned,
When sharp swords did smile,
When the day of death is in black and in woe,
Their faces with delight become bright and mellow
As the faces of startled brave men turn yellow.
They stood on the battlefield only to cross
To death: the bridge is awaiting everyone who walks.
They assault, while heroes out of fear hesitate
And lions are accustomed to assault.
Till they were spent under the clouds of dust
On a battle resembling the Assembly Day!
Nay! Less terrifying is the Assembling Day!
They died in dignity, for them the war testifies
That they were men of honour when faced by what terrifies.
White bandages decorated their every head,
Blood outfitted them with outfits of crimson red.
Again and again the Oppressed One went back to his foes
With his sword and mare helping him to give them blows.
On the day of struggle with dust he covered every face
Of his troops as horizons grew pale shrouding the place.
If his lance composes poetry in one's heart,
His sword writes prose on his foes' necks on its part.
So one is not one when the swords clamour,
Nor two are two when lance clashes with the armour:
Had he wished to finish his foes at hand
He would have shaken existence itself at his command.
But decree had already passed, so he opted to march
To death patiently, for patient are the oppressed.
On the hot desert sands he dawned
A corpse that fell a prey
To every sword and lance in every way.
Between the ends of the lances he was spent
Thirsty, his corpse trampled upon by trained steeds
O son of Hasan! I complain to you for these are
Agonies crowding my heart
Do you know how much trial and tribulation
Your revered offspring faced at the Taff?
Let me console you in their regard,
For they approached death with heart.
Not a drop wetted their thirst,
Buried under the heat, in the desert,
Wind burying them with the dust...
What will you, O bereaved one, assault and be
Turning the blood of your foes into a sea?
Will you close your eyes when revenge can you take
From seeing the blood which, though on the right guidance
Dawned having none to console?
Near the Taff are the youths of Hashim
Buried under the lances' tips, their blood is sought
By everyone! No respite there shall be till you
Raise it so nothing can stand in its way.
A fire you shall light, a war no mighty host can subdue
How many times did Umayyah stir your wounds
No healing of the wound till the Meeting Day,
No healing to babes whom Umayyah nursed with death
Instead of breasts' milk, blood was given instead.
Here they lie dead, here the arrows embrace them,
Here the sands make their every bed.
A free lady who used to be confined
Dawned on the plains hot like timber lit by the heat
And a pure woman not used to mourning
Is now with whips driven, rebuked.
And a startled youth whose heartbeat almost
Sparks with fright... And another confused,
By the sight of steeds not at all amused,
Welcomed the night without a haven, without resort
Her veil, in enemy hands,
Is being passed from this to that,
So with her hands she seeks to hide
What with her veil she used to shield
Walked unveiled before the enemy eyes.
From one country to another she cries...
They grew up confined, they never knew
What slavery was, what’s the plain or the terrain.
Now they were insulted and dismayed,
By their enemy were they now displayed
For all to jeer at and to see:
A war trophy they now came to be...
Taken from land to distant land,
Handled by a filthy hand.
--
Husayn's sister Zainab, peace be upon her, came to him and said, “I heard a voice saying:
O eyes, do exceedingly celebrate!
Who, after me, shall the martyrs mourn?
Who shall mourn folks driven by fate
To their destiny, to fulfill a promise sworn?”
He said, “O sister! Whatever is decreed shall come to pass.”
--
Some sons of Aqeel's came to Husayn and he said to them:
O ‘Aqil's son! May you be sacrificed by every soul
For your calamity is the greatest of all...
Let's mourn it with hearts grieved,
For what values our every salted tear?
How many daughters of yours are bereaved,
With hearts within set on fire not fear?
Consoled by the Prophet's grandfather?
So she may near him be pleased.
Now says she, “An uncle of mine is now gone,
“Now who shall his own orphan console?
“Bereaved, spending the night stung by pain,
“Expelled, from her home exiled?”
And how many a courageous warrior
In whose heart did she the fire of grief ignite?
Your cousin, on the Taff, did you support,
With his counselling family did he mourn you.
Surrounded by youths like the morning shone,
Youths whose lineage to everyone is known.
We mourned your youth and tragedy
Marked with death and sad destiny.
A ma'tam he held for you despite his condition
And even white deer wailed for you.
He called upon his near in kin:
“Avenge his death, O family of the Fatia!”
Into the mire of death did he lead them,
But now the deer are the ones mired.
Says he, “O folks stingy with their souls!
“Your battle, though serious, is mocked,” he calls.
--
Husayn on hearing treatury of Kufans:
If this abode is held as dear,
In the abode of Allah, the rewards
Are more sublime and noble.
If wealth is hoarded to be left behind,
Why should one be miser with what is left?
If sustenance is destined in proportion,
To be less concerned about it is more beautiful.
And if the bodies are for death made,
One killed for the sake of Allah is surely better.
So peace of Allah be upon you,
O family of Muhammad!
For I see myself from you soon departing.
--
Some men repented and jpoined Husayn:
O son of al-Zahra’, heart of ‘Ali the valiant,
O soul of the guiding Prophet!
Strange how these people did not
Come to you to sacrifice themselves for you;
But they did not value your precious soul:
How can dust be compared with the mountain?
How wondrous to see Allah's Clemency
When they, as He watched, violated your sanctity!
How strange, the favourites of Allah became
For Yazid and for Ziyad a booty to claim!
Then al-Husain (‘a) welcomed them.
--
Husayn to Hurr:
I shall proceed: There is no shame
A man to his death goes.
If he truly intends so and
As a Muslim struggles,
And if he the righteous with his life consoles,
Leaving a depraved one, opposing a criminal.
So if I live, I shall not regret or be shamed
But if I die, surely I shall not be blamed
Humiliation suffices you if you accept to be oppressed.”
--
At ‘Uthayb al-Hajanat[449], al-Husain (‘a) met four men who were leaving Kufa on camel-back, taking with them “al-Kamil,” a horse belonging to a man called Nafi’ Ibn Hilal. They were: ‘Amr Ibn Khalid al-Saydawi, his slave Sa’d, Majma’ Ibn ‘Abdullah al-Mathaji, and Nafi’ Ibn Hilal. Their guide, al-Tarmah Ibn ‘Adiyy al-Ta’i, was chanting the following verses:
O my she-camel! Do not complain of my impatience,
And set out just before the sun rises,
So we may join the best of riders and embark
Upon the best journey till we reach
One beautified with the best of descent,
The munificent, the free, the open-hearted one
Whom Allah brought for the best of affair:
May He preserve him as He preserves time!
--
Ibn al-Hurr regretted having lost the opportunity to support al-Husain (‘a), so he composed the following poetic lines:
So long as I live, so shall my sigh
Reverberating between my chest and my choke
When he did say to me at the mansion:
“Should you really leave us and from us depart?”
Husain in humility seeks my support
Against the people of enmity and dissension.
Should sighing cleave a freeman's chest,
My heart would now be cleft.
Had I defended him with my life
I would have earned mercy on the Day of Meeting.
Had I fought beside Muhammad's son, may I
For him sacrifice my life;
So bid farewell and hurry to set out,
Surely winners are those who support Husain,
While deeds of others, the hypocrites, will be in vain.
--
This land is called al-Taff.” He, peace be upon him, asked him whether it had any other name, so he told him that it was also called “Karbala’”. It was then that the Imam (‘a) started weeping...
By Allah! Never shall I forget, even if all do,
How his charging mare stood at al-Taff,
O mare of his! Did the hand of fate tie you
So you stood and refused to budge?
You used to be faster than a cloud's lightning;
Calamity descends whether you speed or not.
Should you not have avoided the road and strayed
From that valley to the wide expanse?
How did you take him to perdition, may you
Lose your father, how dared you?
Why did you not refuse, why?
O what a great stand when
Those throngs did gather and stand!
A great stand that shook the foundations
Of Allah's ‘Arsh a great shaking,
So shall Yazid stand One Day
When it will be said to Ahmad:
“Stand up and intercede!”
A stand, it was, followed by a fall
That gave us a drink hard to take
A stand, it was, that caused Muhammad's progeny
To always grieve till the Pretender, for eternity.
--
With my father's life do I sacrifice
Those who, with their own demise,
Opted to meet and support al-Husain.
They stood to thwart the lances,
And the arrows, like solid statues.
With white necks did they shield him against the swords,
With their glorious faces they kept arrows from him.
A band, they were, that
In a night battle, their lances would sparkle
And if the swords sing, and the cups of death go round,
And everyone sober is elated with joy,
They distanced themselves from the swords,
They separated the foes' souls from their bodies.
Their greatest feast was when they joined al-Husain
So they became his sacrifice at the Taff.
Never shall I forget, though distant from them,
How lofty their glory was though their foe
Numbered as much as the valley's water flow.
Defending the Prophet's creed he was
With a spark that removes the darkness of shirk.
So hearts would fly away in terror at his sight,
Whenever he mounted his steed as though on wings;
Then when thirst, and the sun, and the bleeding,
When his arms weighed heavily on him,
He stood for a short respite; it was then when
Fate shot him with an easy arrow,
And the throne fell on the ground,
And with the ashes of the calamity
All was covered with the dark.
My heart was on fire for Zainab when she
Saw how in the dust, heavy with wounds, was his body.
Stole her tongue away was the calamity,
So she addressed him with her tears that were
More eloquent than words could ever be:
O one who shatters misguidance, who brightens the night,
O shade from the heat, O bright light of the day!
You were for me a fortified haven, a cool shade,
When life was still within you,
Can you see how the people
Whenever we pass by you, prohibit us
From mourning you, from weeping, from wailing?
If my humiliation rests easily with you,
If my estrangement with the foes, if my exile,
And if my being a captive in the hands of the foes
Riding on bare she-camels,
Is against my wish to see you
Lingering among dark lances and white swords,
Your corpse on the sands, your head raised on lance's tips.
How I lament those who drank of the pool of death,
How they were kept away from accessible Euphrates...
How I lament those who wore reddened attires
Decorated by wanton winds...
--
She saw him riding one of two,
As the war gnawed its teeth:
Either he surrenders or
Death is to be faced
By a soul whose surrender honours refused;
So he said to her: Seek refuge with destiny,
For honour is a dignified man's decoration.
If you find no attire other than humiliation,
Then through death will the body be dismantled.
He saw firmness till death as the mark of honourable men,
A cause of pride, an ornament;
He got ready for the battle
Wherein knights were subdued by death,
To the depth of the heavens did he ignite it,
Red in blaze, burning in heat.
He stood though the ground beneath him did shake
Under the warriors' feet like an earthquake...
--
Ibn Sa’d knew he had two choices: world or hereafter.
Should I abandon the domains of Rey
Though it is my ultimate desire?
Or should I return in ignominy,
Shamed for killing al-Husain?
For killing him there is nothing but the fire
One from which there is no shield though I
See the domains of Rey as the apple of my eye!
--
Ibn Ziyad wrote Ibn Sa’d saying, “I have not left you any excuse with regard to providing you with plenty of horses and men; so, you should not receive the evening nor the day thereafter before I hear good news about you.” He urged him on the sixth day of Muharram to start the war.
They assembled their hosts against Muhammad's son,
At Taff, when they remembered their ancestors...
Allahu Akbar! O pillars of this earth! Dissolve!
The son of piety has to face the hosts
Whose banner the son of the blood-shedder tied,
How insolent they were when they met
His forehead with their very swords...!
The Watering Place
Modesty never wetted their faces
Even if they had walked through the afa,
Even its stones would have felt modest.
How can such Umayyad faces know modesty,
Having shed, by sinning pleasures, their modesty?
They subdued, through their might,
The offspring of al-Zahra’, and they,
Through their swords, dethroned their princes.
They overpowered them till they
Deprived their corpses of being buried.
The world became too small for it so
Wherever it went, death was before and behind.
The back of death they rode, riding dignity even from
The back of the humiliation they rode.
The fangs of death were shown to a band
For which the swords were fates and destiny
Whose hearts were tested by the Almighty...
At a stand where patience and endeavour were put to test.
The might and swords of Muhammad's family used to be
Against those who cried for help and against the enemy.
Even death hated to meet them in such a way,
Yet Allah loved that they should thus meet Him,
So they leaped with thirsty hearts that
Found nothing to drink except the taste of death
Yet I find you, O cloud, spreading your wings
On people to shade, satisfying those who thirst,
Though the hearts of the Prophet's sons were cracked
With thirst in a desolate land, burning their insides.
The worst cup they drank of all the calamity
Was the oppressors' unveiling of Muhammad's daughters:
The veils of Prophethood and the curtains were violated,
So their insides were further burnt even as
The hands of the foes vied to grab their garments...
How Clement Allah is as He did see
How long they kept their wailing and their cries!
How Clement Allah is as He did see
How in agony they sighed and in grief cried:
With one hand each tried to stay alive,
With the other she tried to shun the foes.
How painful to Muhammad's heart it must be,
How heavy with al-Batool the calamity![497]
--
Water is blokced to Husayn on the 7th day of Moharram:
Should the daughters of Fatima ever be in pain
And against the pain of thirst to him complain
With sighs high as the current of the Euphrates?
Had he sought al-Majarra river to quench his thirst,
It would surely have raised itself and done so first,
It would have turned its current into a ladder to reach
Had Double-Horns closed it against him,
His determination would have surely undermined it.
In his left hand is a watering bag,
In his right hand a trained sword,
Like a cloud he aimed to reach Fatima's offspring,
But the foe was certain to stone him with everything...
--
If the Pool's Waterer on the Day of Gathering be Hayder,
Then the Waterer of the thirsty at Karbala’ is Abul-Fal.
Yet the heart of people's waterer on the Day of Gathering
Is cooled, whereas this one's heart with the heat boils.
I stood by the water of the Euphrates and I still have been
Telling it, though others are better in speech than I:
“Why do you flow - may you not - and tended one day
“To wash your own shame!
“Have not the livers of Muhammad's Progeny flame-dried?
“They were not cooled by water or by rain.
“You ought to fold your branches and cause them to wither
“Out of grief and shame of their withered lips.”
Said the Euphrates: “Listen, if you will, to what I say,
“Accept my excuse, and do not increase your blame.
“What you see are my tears when
“Wailing after them became my affair.”
May Allah reward on their behalf their uncle Abul-Fal,
O should only you have seen Abul-Fal!
He was a sword crafted by ‘Ali in his right hand,
So his cub needed no polishing at all.
When Prophet Muhammad's sons are counted,
Among their brothers he will surely be numbered.
Never have I seen one thirsty around the water,
Without drinking of it though his heart is on fire.
His concern was only loyalty; few can be seen like that,
Few can be so loyal to their loved ones.
By your severed right hand do I swear,
And by your left one, the gatherer of all,
By your perseverance in defending the Prophet's son
At Karbala’, though terrifying,
Something my mind cannot comprehend:
He proved loyal to you not knowing
Whether losing you terrified him
Or whether the ‘Arsh was by fates subverted.
Brother! You were both my shield and my sword
Yet I lost both: No shield do I now hold
Nor even my own sword...
--
Abbas the brother of Husayn and son of Ali:
He plays al-Karrar as he charges,
He echoes his pristine words in his qualities
The hand of Allah is but his father,
And the Might of Allah is manifested in him.
So he is the hand of Allah and this is his arm
His stands suffice you for a proof.
His valour is like that of his
Lest I should exaggerate, I would have said:
Exalted is his might!
--
Ibn Sa’d said, “By Allah! If I am sure that he will do so tomorrow, I will not then postpone the fighting till tomorrow!” Then he sent the following message to al-Husain (‘a): “We have postponed fighting you till tomorrow. If you surrender, we shall send you to the governor [‘Ubaydullah] Ibn Ziyad, but if you refuse, we shall not leave you alone.”
Umayyah strayed from the goal
When swords met to do battle.
They wanted to drive an unyoked horse
Like one subjugated in yoke.
And in their hand they wanted him to be
Servile, though the father of lions he may be.
Unattainable, it seems, to ‘Umar to subdue
The Prophet's son, the pure, the sublime.
Umayyah aimed to attain what they could
So they paid no heed to what they ought and should.
They eyed the mirage with an eye,
Towards glory surely sly,
And slanted, and was seduced,
Ignorance its soul induced.
The ignorant only temptation produced.
--
Al-Husain (‘a) turned to ‘Aqil's sons and said, “Suffices you of the loss the killing of Muslim. Go, for I have permitted you to leave.”
Souls insisted on upholding their father's legacy
So they are either shot or are shooting.
Their souls are to the battlefield accustomed
Just as their feet are to the pulpits used.
--
Al-Husain (‘a) said to Muhammad Ibn Bashir al-Hadrami, “You are relieved from your oath of allegiance to me; so, go and secure the release of your son.” “No, by Allah,” said he, “I shall never do so; may the wild beasts devour me should I ever part with you!”
A band raced to defend him, one that
Inherited glories, young and aged.
Whoever solicits them for what he dislikes
Will find them lions enraged.
They rushed when a war caller called
Trampling in Karbala’ the plains.
Lions whose ornaments are the swords
Whose clothes are the shields.
They took water-bags as their eyes' decoration,
They dyed their hands with ponds,
Leaning as though the deer sang for them
And as though they served them their cups.
Their swords shone, so they rained
With their blood as the ground turned into clouds,
As though they were welcoming the huris:
Thus did they welcome the lances and the swords.
They found death in defending Muhammad's offspring
Sweet in taste, yet life after them is pain, unpleasing.
--
9th of Moharram:
Since at Nineva they opted for death
Seeing some marks for treachery
This one smiled, that laughed
In happiness and in ecstasy
Though death never wears a smile.
--
Glory leaves on their faces its marks
In contentment, though the faces of the valiant
Are in fright constrained.
Like moons shining in the darkest of night
As they appear on their steeds riding,
So they raced like bleeding to meet their death,
As if in death lies their very ecstasy
Their souls embraced their swords
Then the embracing was in the Garden for the huris.
--
Zainalabidin son of Husain (‘a) has said, “I heard my father on the night preceding the day on which he was killed saying, as he was mending his swor.
O Time! Fie upon you for a friend!
How many do you have, at dawn and at dusk
Of friends and of vengeance seekers,
While Time with a substitute is never pleased?
But the affair is with the Mighty One
And every living being will go his way.
--
Subdued by thirst became the defender of the Shari’a
Never could he wet his palate with the Euphrates water,
Becoming a target for Banu Umayyah's arrows,
Till he was spent thirsty on the battlefield,
As he was sought by every spear.
The steeds of the people of shirk on his ribs trampled
In haste, turning, making around him circles,
Just as wise ladies of Ahmad who
Never left their chambers became
Assaulted by the steeds even in their own homes.
How many hearts were frightened,
The hearts of those about whose veils
The foes disputed with one another?
How many were the orphans who were terrified to see
How their protector to the ground did fall,
How they lost their head-covering in their fright,
How they fell upon al-Husain's corpse
With broken hearts,
About to melt by their very sighs,
Falling upon his body and his neck with cries,
To their tears responded their eyes,
Tasting the pain of the whips...?
So they call upon their people's defenders...
But where are the defenders since at Taff
Their blood spilled by Umayyah's swords and spears?
Where are the protectors? Here are their sons
Slaughtered, thirsty, lying on the sands.
Where are the protectors and here are your girls
Carried on the humps by their own foes?
Despite their creed were they carried away
Having lost those who would protect them.
Tearful, repeating in agony their sighs
So who, after Ahmad, shall console Fatima
About her sons being killed
And about her daughters taken captive?
--
Ashurah 10th:
I see death as nothing but happiness, while living with the oppressors is nothing but annoyance.” - Abu ‘Abdullah, al-Husain (‘a)
Had ‘Ashura Day only known
What calamity in it went on.
Its aura would not have dawned,
Its light would not have shown,
Its sun would not have been bright,
Its grief stole from the days their light.
And so every month, and so every day.
O Allah! What a momentous day!
It removed my patience, out did it my sleep wear,
Everyone from the family of Ayat al-Tathir
Was either slain or in the dust rubbed;
That Day the life of every afi was robbed,
And the creed in grief almost passed way.
That very Day...
The foes' eyes slept
As the faithful's eyes wept.
Woe upon me and many a woe
How under the hooves the ribs were low,
And atop every spear
A severed head did appear.
And on the plains the corpses did scatter:
Grieving women coming out of the chamber
Wailing, crying, frightened by the danger,
And a suckling woman lolling at her babe, crying:
On the sands lying, moaning, panting, dying,
And women taken captive on she-camels bare
Their veils taken away, agonized, wearing a stare;
Their protectors from them did depart,
Killed by every fiend having no heart.
The concern of the people whom Allah did hail
Was only to mourn, to weep, and to wail,
On a day deep grief is to be upheld at least,
Whereas the Turks eat, drink, laugh and feast...
--
The greatest calamity is that
Upon the chest of the Prophet's son al-Shimr sat.
May his hands be paralyzed:
How he with his sword severed his head!
What a youth Umayyah's steeds trampled upon
His corpse charging, racing, crushing, on and on!
So my heart for him does go
How the steeds' hooves drenched in his blood.
--
Today the foundations of the creed,
Of guidance, crumbled down
And the religion of the truth is now worn out.
Today whoever seeks guidance is misled
And whoever seeks hope is shunned.
Today those who seek their hopes
Are rubbed in the dust.
Today calamity has marked their every face
Today glory on him threw the attire.
Today honours for him lowered their heights.
Today glory's necklace refused its pearls.
Today their sublimity is idled.
Today Mudar's glory is in the dark.
Today death descended upon its valley.
Today al-Zahra’ stood to wail.
Today Asiya joined her to console.
Today apostasy returned to the creed.
Today Banu Hind achieved their desire.
What apology will Hind's sinners on the Judgment Day have
When their opponent is the Chosen One and their Judge is Allah?
What is their excuse when his sons' blood
Became on their feast the dye for their hands?
--
The voice of Allah stood to speak and to admonish
But they turned deaf against his lights' sanctity
And they did become blind.
Said he: Identify me now then behold:
Is it permissible for you to shed my blood?
But they found none but arrows at his neck shot
For their answer, and deeds are always weighed.
As soon as the Prophet's grandson realized
That his grandfather's creed was no more
And no more among the people remained a Muslim on earth
He sacrificed himself in supporting the creed
Riding perils so the Muslims would be saved.
Said he: Take me, O fates, take me!
Here I am, O swords, take me!
My limbs for you now are booty
Far it is from me to yield to what is wrong
Even if on the very lances is my seat.
So he charged and the world shrunk,
And fate was effected, and a torrent
Filled the valley of apostasy.
Since he to Allah prostrated to glorify,
Magnified Allah between the swords and did sanctify,
Al-Shimr came to him to lift his head
With the sword he struck him so
Allah's ‘Arsh shook and His light was dimmed,
The face of earth shone, the cosmos dim,
And when the pillar of the universe leaned
And almost with everything overturned,
And when he fell to the ground it remained still
And turned greater even than the heavens,
So my heart burns for him when he was left alone
Surrounded by his foes' throngs.
They increased in ignorance as he in clemency increased.
My heart burns how he, thirsty, his last breathed,
Even as the Euphrates near him flowed
Free for all, but from him banned.
My heart burns for him how his corpse was lying
On the sands as the steeds his ribs kept smashing,
Grinding, stampeding, trampling...
And my heart goes for you, O son of Muhammad!
Your body is grabbed by their swords and arrows,
And your belongings became among them a booty,
So my heart burns for the pure one how he
A stoning post for them came to be...
--
Then the Imam (‘a) cited the following poetry verses by Farwah Ibn Musayk al-Muradi[579]:
So if we chase, we do so headlong,
But if we flee, none chases us away,
Not out of cowardice at all,
But it is only our fate that we should be
Thus, and because of others' authority;
So tell those pleased with our calamity:
They shall meet what we have just met;
If Death spares some people his throes,
It is only because to others he goes.
--
Battle begins:
It oppressed even as the desert crushed its valiant ones
And the face of the morning its battle curiously examines.
Their faces were with the battle elated.
How many faces of valiant men then turned grim?
Pleased they are when the lances come to them
And music it is to their ears to hear swords' clamour.
Dignified, they are, yielding in hardship to none,
Nor do they fear any calamity,
Only to glory their souls yearn
Only glory do their souls earn,
So if glory in a star does reside,
They would have gone to that side,
And the men of honour always seek
What is honourable and what glorifies.
So their swords on the battle day drip of blood,
And their hands are with glory always dyed.
Their flesh is always with the swords' brink,
And from its blood do the spears always drink,
Till they, like stars, to the ground did fall,
Though after them I wish no star remains at all.
They fell, so say that the brightest stars are no more
They fell, so say the mountains were crushed to the core.
--
The horse on which al-Hurr was riding received hits on its ears and eyebrows, and it was bleeding as its rider was quoting the following verse by Antar Ibn Shaddad al-’Abasi:
I kept shooting them at its very mouth,
At its chest, till blood drenched it all.
--
Zainalabideen eulogized Hurr with the following verses which some people claim the Husayn himself had composed:
How good al-Hurr of Banu Riya!
How patient when the lances intertwined!
How good al-Hurr when he defended Husain!
And in the morning his life he sacrificed!
--
Far away it was from being a prayer in fear,
For it was not of death frightened,
Though death was from it quite near.
But the bloody stand did not cause it to bend,
Nor did the army stop it from near nor from far.
It charged, though thirsty,
And the sun was burning,
From it the ground was as though on fire.
It shook the hosts so it was as though
Al-Taff's plains and valleys were not vast at all.
Ask the battlefield about it and you will see
How it stamped it with stabs and with blows,
How it defended Allah's every sanctity
So it did not harm any glory at all
Nor did it in fear flee.
How it defended Allah's creed,
The guided ones were few.
Their enemies filled the place
They had arrows and swords but no grace,
About them wrote history:
Their mischief filled the valley.
--
Salman Ibn Muarib al-Bijli, a cousin of Zuhayr Ibn al-Qayn al-Bijli, came out and fought till he was killed. He was followed by Zuhayr Ibn al-Qayn who put his hand on al-Husain's shoulder and sought permission to fight with these verses:
Advance, may you guide, O guided one!
For today shall I your grandfather the Prophet meet!
And I shall meet al-Hasan and ‘Ali the pleased one!
And the one with Two Wings, the valiant youth greet,
The lion of Allah, the living martyr!
Zuhayr am I and the son of al-Qayn
With the sword do I defend Husain!
Al-Husain (‘a) responded by saying, “And I, too, shall follow.” As he fought, Zuhayr kept reciting this verse:
Zuhayr am I and the son of al-Qayn
With my sword do I defend Husain!
--
Using poisoned arrows, Nafi’ Ibn Hilal al-Jamali al-Mathaji shot arrows on which he had written his name[638] as he recited these verses:[639]
I shoot it, and its tips trained
In poison, on the wind borne,
To fill the earth with shots, and the soul
Is not benefitted by fear at all.
--
Ka’b Ibn Jabir returned to his family, his wife, al-Nuwar, rebuked him saying, “You have sided with the enemies of Fatima's son and killed the master of [Kufa's] qaris...; you have done something monstrous... By Allah! I shall never speak to you a word.” He said in his answer the following verses:
Ask about me and you will be told,
Even if you may be held in low esteem,
How al-Husain fared when the lances were bold
Did I not do the most of what I did seem?
Hate and no fear did I feel from what I did.
With me was my sword never disappointed,
White, sharp edged, cutting,
So I unsheathed it against a gang
Whose creed is not mine at all.
And I know who the son of Harb and call
Him what he really is. Never have eyes
Seen anyone like them in their time
Nor before their time even in my youth
More striking with the sword on the battlefield,
Except one who protects his honour to the extreme.
They for the blows and the stabs persevered
Though they had none to protect,
And they would have dueled, had it been of any use.
So tell ‘Ubaydullah if him you meet
That I obey the caliph, that I hear and obey.
Burayr did I kill: a bliss I carried, became excited,
Of Abu Munqith when he to duel invited.
Radi son of Munqith al-’Abdi responded to him with these verses:
If my Lord willed, I would not have fought them at all,
Nor Jabir's son would have sought my bliss.
That day was nothing but a curse and a shame
Sons after friends will call it by its name;
So how I wish before killing him I better knew
And on Husain's Day was in the grave, too.
--
Amr Ibn Junadah al-Ansari came out after his father had been killed. He was only eleven years old. He sought al-Husain's permission to fight, but al-Husain (‘a) refused saying, “This is a young boy whose father was killed in the first campaign, and perhaps his mother hates to see him go, too.” But the boy said, “It was my mother who ordered me to do so!” It was then that the Imam (‘a) permitted him to fight. It was not long before he was killed and his head was thrown in the direction of Husain's camp. It was taken by his mother who wiped the blood from it and used it as a weapon to hit a man nearby, killing him instantly. She went back to the camp and took a rod or, according to other accounts, a sword, and recited these verses:
An old women and a weakling am I
Crumbling, skinny, and old;
Yet I with force strike you and try
To defend Fatima's son, the honourable and bold.
--
Al-Hajjaj Ibn Masruq al-Ju’fi fought till his body became soaked with blood. He went to al-Husain (‘a) reciting:
Today shall I meet your Grandfather, the Nabi,
Then your father, the generous one, ‘Ali,
The one we know as the wali.
--
Suwid Ibn ‘Amr Ibn Abul-Muta’ was the last of the companions to die after al-Husain's martyrdom.
The refuge of the asylum seeker they are
When in fright, and the hope of the hopeful.
If the fire of the battle dies down,
With their swords they would light and say:
Ignite! Heavy in steps but for the battle light,
With swift steps, sure of their march
If they raise their lances you would think
They are stars in the light of the pitched dark,
Or if under the dust clouds the regiments collide,
One after another they would seek death
They charged even when the steps of the valiant stray
And the person of death under the dust makes its way.
They turned away from injustice so they
On the ground they did fall:
A master after a master, each and all.
They fell to the ground and the swords on them feasted.
Their bodies bare, by their virtues attired,
The Grandson kept turning his eyes
Seeing only their corpses on the ground lying
Seventy thousand surrounded him so he
Kept them at bay: like ostriches did they flee,
And the unsupported one stood among their crowds
Alone defending Muhammad's law,
Till he fell on the ground, may they first be paralyzed
And his heart could not quench the fire of thirst.
He fell, so Tawhid did fall down
And guidance was obliterated, losing its crown,
And the pillars of the creed crumbled and fell
Though before they had stood very well.
Allah support him, how his heart yearned for water
But was spent on the ground that burnt like fire.
He fell in the burning heat of the sun
With his face dusted, shaded by the spears
And the steeds kept on his chest going back and forth
Going to battle and returning therefrom,
And a woman cried from the side of her tent
She lost her protector, beating her cheek she kept.
The whips hurt her, so she under them bends;
She cries, and her voice oft
Causes even the stones to get soft.
She was carried on lean beasts in captivity
From a place to place displayed as booty.
She went away led by asses: Umayyad,
From one apostate to another she was led.
--
Ali Akbar son of Husayn aged 18:
Never have any eyes seen better than you
Never have women begotten more beautiful than you
Fault-free you have been made
As if you as you wished were made.
Al-Madi al-Akbar says[665]:
No eyes saw him have ever seen
Anyone walking, bare-footed or not.
Flesh boils till when it is ripe,
The eater finds it not expensive at all,
Whenever fire for it was lighted,
He with lofty honour ignited.
Just as a poor person sees it in hope,
Or a lone man with no family.
Never did he prefer his life over his creed,
Nor did he sell what is right for a misdeed.
I mean the son of Layla, the one of the dew,
I am describing the son of high lineage to you.
-
He inherited the merits his legacy
From every valiant warrior and brave
In Hamzah's might, in Hayder's bravery
In al-Husain's loftiness, in Ahmad's dignity
Good in make and in conduct,
Wise in speech like the Prophet Ahmad.
--
I am ‘Ali son of al-Husain son of ‘Ali
We, by the House's Lord, are more worthy of the Nabi.
By Allah! We shall never be ruled by the da’i
With the sword shall I defend my family
And strike like a young Hashemi, Qarashi.
--
He assaults the regiments as the ground closes in on them
All because of his fiery might,
So he forcibly sends them back on their tails
In his might he resembles the angry lion.
--
Thirst took its toll on him, so he returned to his father to rest and to complain about suffering from thirst.[675] Al-Husain (‘a) wept and said, “O help! How quickly shall you meet your grandfather who will give you a drink after which you shall never suffer of thirst.” He gave him his tongue to suck then his ring to put in his mouth.
He returns to bid farewell, and he is heavy-hearted,
His heart is thirsty, his iron is heavy,
His insides burn, his sword's thirst is quenched with dew,
But his own thirst was not, mind you.
Yet he with his saliva preferred him over his own self
Had only his saliva not dried yet.
As soon as he was bent to meet his death with a smile,
Death, from his ears and sight, stayed only for a while.
He turned the battle around and moved its grinding stone,
With his sword he struck their flesh and their bone,
With his withered shoulders he meets their braves
And places his sword in the necks of their knaves,
While on his body it leaves its mark
From their midst he disappeared and did not come back,
Mounting his steed though almost bear.
Time stumbled on him, so his body now
Is food for every sword and every bow.
--
He became the target of their swords, so they cut his body into bits and pieces.
He wiped out shame, Allah fight the shame
A crescent in the dark, a shining one
The one sought by both houses of Hashim
The haven of both honour and loftiness
How could death to you reach?
You have not hesitated nor tarried.
May my life be for him a sacrifice
Like a fresh flower that dried
In the ocean of thirst and the heat of the sword.
Early did witherness visit his fresh flower,
Withering is the foe of a fresh flower.
By Allah! What a moon on them did he shine!
The sword mixed his substance with its gold,
The water of youth and the blood both flew
Within him, and his heart was still on fire.
Never shall I him forget
How he was turbaned with the youth of the deer
Among the warriors, wearing only their every spear,
Drenched in blood was he yet the Euphrates was
Turning green what was still black.
--
Husayn took a handful of his pure blood and threw it towards the heavens. Not a drop of it fell.
He ordered his servants to carry him to the tent. His corpse was brought to the tent in front of which they were fighting.
Ladies looked at the body of Ali Abkar. Stabs and wounds had spared no place in his body. They welcomed him with very heavy hearts, their hair uncovered, their wailing defeaning the world. Before them stood the wise lady of Banu Hashim, namely Zainab, the great one, daughter of Fatima daughter of the Messenger of Allah (S), crying and wailing.[688] She threw herself on the corpse of her nephew, hugging it, grief-stricken, for he was the guardian of her home and its pillar.
My heart goes for the ladies of the Prophet
When thus they saw him in that condition.
Their wailing and their cries did intensify
So the minds and the souls were baffled by their cry.
The wise ladies mourned their protector
And so did virtues and merits.
My heart goes for her when she seeks
The Messenger's help,
The mountains were almost to disappear.
My heart goes for her since she lost
The one she could depend on,
And how can anyone equal the one she lost?
Who can in honour equal the one who was
Like in manners Yasin, like in form Taha?
O Allah help his father when
The light of al-Akbar went out.
He at the Taff saw the Friend of Allah from Mina,
The one whom he sacrificed was now
Sought by the swords.
He was mourned by what can be seen and what cannot
From the zenith of the ‘Arsh
To the deepest of the earth
He was mourned by the master of all creation.
For his calamity was indeed the greatest of all.
He was mourned by the eyes of guidance and uprightness
And by the one appointed as the wali.[690]
His father's condition could best be described thus:
Son! From my heart did I make you, so why
From me you now severed your tie?
Son! Your ties eclipse the hue of death
And the eclipse precedes perfection.
Son! Never shall I ever sleep
While your body on the burning sands lies.
Son! You insisted on reaching the heights,
Leaving for me only the dark nights.
Son! Men's eyes mourn you till the Day
Of Gathering and of Accounting.
Son! The attributes of perfection do you mourn,
And the tenderness of youth and the angels.
You rushed to meet your father the Prophet at the Pool
Having arranged the hearts of men's eyes.
--
Abdullah Ibn Muslim Ibn Aqil charged as he recited this verse:
Today Muslim, my father, shall I meet
With a band sacrificed for the Prophet's creed.
--
Arabs are not only names for glory
The sons of ‘Amr are only offspring,
For there is for Prophethood a crown
And for the Imamate a necklace worn.
Two ornaments none but they can wear
How can you a wearer with a bare one compare?
From Shaybat al-Hamd descended youths who
Happily marched to support the creed
Neither arrogantly nor for a show.
They smile as the heroes frown
Showing pearls their front ones.
Like ships they sailed to the war
And ships are only their vanguards.
Had happiness not been their goal
I would not have left any of their foes at all.
They do not mind as the swords clamour
With warriors covering the plain like an armour.
And the lances collide and sound
And the arrows vary in their round,
And heads get severed from their shoulders
And chests are arranged in their insolence.
--
Qasim son of Hasan:
He leaned to mend his shoe
As the war near him drew
Their war, they knew,
Was no more precious than his shoe,
Carrying his sword, by its sheath shaded,
Do not worry about what he did,
For a branch is rendered to its root.
After the clouds comes the rain
And a cub is but a lions' son.
--
Husayn carried Qasim away. Al-Qasim was on al-Husain's chest; his legs were dragging on the ground. Al-Husain (‘a) put the corpse beside that of ‘Ali al-Akbar and of those of his family who had been killed.
Then he raised his eyes to the heavens and supplicated thus:
“O Allah! Count their numbers, and do not leave any of them alone, and do not forgive a single one of them! Be patient, O cousins! Be patient, O my Ahl al-Bayt! You shall never meet any hardship after today at all.”
Never can I tell you enough about al-Qasim
Son of the chosen one al-Hasan,
Engaged in the war paying no heed
To what in it went on,
As if its swords to him spoke,
As if they were beauties with him flirting,
As if their lances were cups
Served to him by their waiter to drink.
Had he minded any danger or had he
Feared death, he would not have mended a shoe
In its midst before him stood his foe,
As many as the sands in count.
From beneath comes the assault and from high
He would not have worn on his head a shield.
So with his white sword he was painted red,
Except when you did see him being distracted
From the struggle, and souls do slacken,
And that was only a lion's slumber,
One who paid no heed to the number
Of his foes, of what their sword could do,
So he fell down and for help cried,
And the Prophet's grandson did to him respond,
And it was what it was from its da’i.
The falcon took him and with his peers joined.
Their first were killed and so was their last.
Oppressed was he, yet the sun's heads were ripe,
And only his sharp sword was the harvester,
Till became fed-up was the sword,
And from the sword the valley overflowed.
The dark clouds by the steeds raised
Were uncovered showing their riders
And what was hidden was revealed.
He was seen hugging on his chest a moon
Decorated by the blood on his forehead.
He took him carrying him to the camp
And his eyes were reddened by their tears.
On the page of the ground did his feet leave marks
Dotted by his tears, followed by his heart.
O what a shining moon that removed
With his eclipse how he wiped it out!
--
Brothers of Abbas son of Ali.
How good the Lord's many sacrifices
Offered on the banks of the Euphrates!
The best of guidance is that
Sacrifices come from those who guide,
After having said their prayers
Spent to be for the prayers sacrifices.
--
Brave Abbas in search of water for his family:
The one whose light enables all to see
At Karbla’ is killed and none to bury,
O Grandson of the Prophet! May He
Reward you with goodness for us and for me,
May your balance of Good Deeds never fall short.
To me you were a mountain where I seek resort.
To be kind to kinsfolk you used to always exhort.
Who now shall to the orphans and the destitute import
And to whom shall the helpless go when in need?
By Allah! Never shall I fall short of my every deed
By trading you for anyone else's worth
Till I am buried between the sands and the earth
--
The mighty lions mourn their youths
And their saviours when calamity overwhelms,
Mourning them with blood. So tell the burning heart
How the red sigh does ascend;
It yearns, but its yearning is crying,
It mourns, but its mourning is only by sign.
--
O soul! After al-Husain nobody does count!
After him, you should to nothing amount,
Here is al-Husain nearing his end
While you drink of cool water?!
By Allah! Such is not a deed
At all enjoined by my creed!
--
I do not fear dead when it calls upon me,
Till among the swords you bury me.
My soul protects the one
Who is the Prophet's grandson,
Al-’Abbas am I, the water bag do I bear
When I meet evil, I know no fear!
--
Zayd Ibn al-Ruqad al-Jahni ambushed him from behind a palm tree assisted by akim Ibn al-Tufayl al-Sanbasi, dealing a sword blow to his right arm, completely severing it. He (‘a), said,
By Allah! If you cut off my right hand,
I shall not cease defending my creed,
And an Imam true to his conviction do I defend,
A son of the trustworthy Prophet whom Allah did send.
--
Abbas hand is cut. An arrow pierced his chest. A man hit him with a pole on his head, severely injuring him.
Beside al-’Alqami he fell, how I wish to witness
Those who subdued him drinking of bitterness.
--
Husayn wept "now my spine has been split and my endeavour is further weakened.”
Disappointment marked his forehead,
So the mountains crumbled for his pain.
Why not since it was the beauty of his face
And on his forehead the pleasure of his heart?
O supporter of his family, waterer of his children,
Bearer of the standard with all his determination!
--
Zainab and ladies wailed in their tents.
He called, filling the valleys with his cries
Even solid stones from their horrors are in pain
O Brother! Who after you shall guard Muhammad's daughters
When they seek mercy from the merciless?
My hands after you are paralyzed,
My eyes blinded, and split is my spine,
For others, cheeks are beaten,
But these white deer before my eyes
Are now beating their cheeks.
Between your terrible death and my own
Is like I call you before and you are pleased,
Here is your sword: Who after you
Shall with it subdue the foes?
And here is your standard: Who shall with it advance?
O son of my father! You have dwarfed in my eyes
The death of all my offspring,
And the wound is healed only by
What is more painful, so
He knelt over and his tears
Painted the ground like gold,
He wished to kiss his lips but he found
No place spared from a weapon's kiss.
--
Husayn infant son is thirsty. He is killed in his father's arms.
Hard it is for me how you carried your thirsty babe
And the fire of his thirst could not be quenched.
From the parching of the sun his voice changed,
In a tribulation from which what is solid melts.
You came to the people asking for water,
But how could you reach the watering place?
For the bow surrounded his neck as if
It was a string of the crescent wherein the star rests.
And on the prairie, in the tents, are mourners
Pointing to your babe with agony and repeat;
How many an infant did their arrows suckle
One Fatima would have rather nursed?
So my soul weeps for him since the arrow surrounded him
Just as it was decorated before by amulets.
He yearned smiling for the Prophet's grandson to plant his kiss
To bid him farewell, and what else other than
Such kissing suits him?
My heart goes for the infant's mother when the night descends
Upon her, and when the doves mourn.
In the dark does she come to see her babe
As his mark showed among the victims;
So once she saw the arrow in his neck planted,
She wished she shared his arrow of death
In her hands she places him as she kisses his lips
And kisses a neck before her the arrow had kissed.
She brought him closer to her chest in earnest
So once she sings lullabies for him and once she to him talks:
Son! Wake up from the slumber of death!
My breast should you suck.
Maybe my heart will then calm down...
Son! I have milk for you, and I know your thirst
So maybe I thereby quench your burning thirst.
Son! You used to entertain me in my loneliness
And my solace whenever the oppressors oppress
--
My heart burns for his father when he saw
How, because of the thirst, his eyes deeply sank.
He could find no water for his babe,
So he found no choice except to beg
Though begging for a father is the greatest calamity.
So how when deprivation follows begging?
Of his pure blood he towards the heavens flung,
How great his kindness, how magnanimous!
Had he not thrown it to the heavens,
The earth would have swallowed everyone.
The heavens was painted red from his blood
Woe upon them from Allah's curse!
And how was his mother's condition when she did see
Her infant going through what had to be?
He left her like a white pearl
And returned like a red sapphire.
She yearned to him as she would her babe,
She mourned him in the morning and at sunset.
My heart goes for her how she mourned her infant,
A mourning that echoed her painful heart:
Says she: O son! O my ultimate hope!
O my desire and my joy!
My milk when no water was there did dry,
No water to drink, nothing to sustain you by;
So your thirst took you to drink of death,
As if your quenching rested in the foe's arrows.
O tears of mine, the life of my heart!
My greatest calamity that you had to depart.
I wished you would be the best to succeed
And a solace for me from their every vile deed.
Never did I think an arrow would wean,
Till my days showed him how one could be so mean.
--
Husayn charges the enemy soldiers:
Death is better than accepting ignominy,
While ignominy is better than the Fire![752]
and on the left flank as he recited:
I am al-Husain son of ‘Ali
I decided never to bow nor bend,
Protecting my father's family,
Remaining on the Prophet's creed.
--
Shimr tries to kill Husayn:
Said he: “Face me, not my women,
“My time is come, destiny is done.”
Al-Shimr said, “We shall grant you that.”
--
Their blood quenches the earth's thirst
As his insides from thirst were burning.
Had the burning of his heart been made manifest,
The most solid of objects would be melting.
The heavens mourns him with blood.
Had it only wept water for his thirsty heart!
O how my heart burns for you,
O son of Muhammad's daughter!
O how the foes were able to achieve their goals!
They prohibited you from reaching
The Euphrates river all the while,
So, may people after you never enjoy
The Euphrates or the Nile.
--
Had Job suffered as he did for one day
He would surely have stood to say:
“This one is he whose calamity
“Is greater than what happened to me.”
--
The mighty lions mourn their young,
And their saviour when calamity overwhelms
Mourning them with blood, so tell the burning heart
How the red sigh does ascend.
It yearned but its yearning is crying,
And it mourns, but its mourning is only by sign.
--
Husayn says final goodbyes to his daughter Sukina:
This is my farewell, my dear one, and we shall meet
On the Day of Judgment at the Pool of Kawthar
So bid your tears good-bye and come to greet
And enjoy the fruits of your patience forever.
And when you do see me lying on the ground
Bleeding, bear it and do not be by tears bound.
--
In the al-Hajeer he fell on the ground,
Under the swords and their every sharp edge.
The stars stood motionless when he fell,
And their motions turned still.
In them the Spirit mourned him as he said.
Sadly echoing the bereaved one's heart:
O conscience of Allah's ghayb, how could you
Be the victims of their very spears?
They pierced from behind His preserved veil,
And swords struck your forehead and they
Without your right hand would have had no right.
You were not, when you were killed, weak in might,
But no help came to your rescue
O by your blood-stained beard, gray in hue,
It is the most glorious of every right hand,
Had you preferred at all in your stand,
The fates would have made everything
Precious for you as though it were nothing,
Or if you had wished your foes to be wiped out,
None of them would have remained on the ground.
You would have removed them from every land,
And you would have raised death-conquering hosts,
So none would remain to light a fire
Nor to build a fort nor a highway,
But a band invited you to spend your all
When their misguidance spread what was buried before.
So you saw that meeting with your Lord
Sacrificing for Him would surely be
Better than to live in misery.
You took to patience even as the deer from thirst on fire
Striking every valiant in a way melting every heart,
And the lances, like ribs, over you bend,
And the white swords over you like lids descend.
So your life did you spend among folks
Who tried to subject you to their yokes,
Folks who are your enemy and mine,
Born in the vilest of womb and of loin.
--
A planting field for the lances he became
A practice target for every blood-shedder,
Dusted whenever eyed by a valiant warrior,
Stealing, of fright, their very color,
Greater than him no war has shown,
As he was slain, turning each valiant a villain.
His forehead dusted, the heavens did think
That on the earth was its own Saturn.
Strange how I see, O stranger in the Taff,
How your cheeks use its heaps for a pillow.
Strange how unfairly you were slain by those
Whose fathers yours had bent, whose idols he broke.
Should you, may the world be your sacrifice,
Be starved, left scorched by thirst?
--
Al-Shimr shouted, “What are you standing like that for?! What do you expect the man to do since your arrows and spears have wounded him so heavily? Attack him!”
O sorrow how they charged from every side at him,
Hitting his sacred shoulders with blows,
That left him on the ground lying.
--
Had only Ahmad seen you on the ground lying,
He would have spread for you his very insides,
Or had your mother, al-Zahra’, seen your thirst at al-Taff,
She would have from her tears given you to drink.
How I wish none tastes of the Euphrates at all
So long as the Prophet's sons its waters desire
How many free ladies whose homes the foes did plunder!
How their insides shared the shame, I wonder!
They flee, yet they are by the foes pursued,
Like wild beasts the foes ensued,
She called upon her supporter and defender,
Who remained on a burning ground: to death did he surrender.
--
Had Isma’yl to slaughter surrendered,
In the lap of the one who would to him have mercy,
Becoming Allah's sacrifice and was not greeted by
White deer, nor did they shake his hands peacefully,
Husain patiently surrendered his soul
To be slain by the sword of his own oppressor,
And to defend Allah's creed he surrendered his soul
And every precious one so its pillars would stand tall.
His ribs and body were by the steeds trampled upon
As his ladies on bare beasts to captivity borne.
--
The Horse
His horse came circling around him, rubbing his head on his blood.[790] It was then that Ibn Sa’d shouted, “The horse! Get the horse, for it is one of the horses of the Messenger of Allah (S)!” Horsemen surrounded that horse which kept kicking with its front legs, killing forty riders and ten horses. Ibn Sa’d then said, “Leave him and let us see what he does.” Once he felt secure, the horse went back to al-Husain (‘a) to rub his head on the Imam's blood as he sniffed him. He was neighing very loudly.[791]
Imam Abu Ja’far al-Baqir (‘a) used to say that that horse was repeating these words: “Retribution! Retribution against a nation that killed the son of its Prophet's daughter!” The horse then went to the camp neighing likewise.[792] When the women saw the horse without its rider and its saddle twisted, they went out, their hair spread out, beating their cheeks, their faces uncovered, screaming and wailing, feeling the humiliation after enjoying prestige, going in the direction of the place where al-Husain (‘a) had been killed.[793]
One kneels in earnest at him to hug
While another covers him with a robe,
Another with the flow of his bleeding neck
Her faces does she for glory paint,
And another wishes she was his own sacrifice,
And another does not help kissing him.
Yet another out of fear seeks with his corpse refuge,
And another because of her calamity knows not what to do.
--
Husayn is killed:
O slain one snatched by death away,
Without being helped, without being supported,
They washed him with the blood of his every wound,
They shrouded him with the earth of the ground,
They killed him though they knew,
That he was the fifth of Ashab al-Kisa’.
O Messenger of Allah! O Fatima!
O Commander of the Faithful al-Murtada!
May Allah's rewards for you be great,
For the one whose insides were killed
By thirst till he spent,
At Karbala’ he struck his tent,
Hardly he erected it before it was no more,
Dead mourned by Fatima, by her father and by ‘Ali
The man for him testifies sublimity.
Had the Messenger of Allah been after him raised,
He would have now been mourning him.
They carried a head whose grandfather they greet,
Be it is out of their free will, involuntarily,
Being handled by them as they pleased.
They neither honoured him nor sanctified...
O Messenger of Allah! If you only eyed
How they kept killing and taking captive,
How they were prohibited from enjoying any shade,
How their thirsty ones were met with the spears
How they were driven, stumbling, one following behind,
Another transported on a bare conveyance, how unkind!
Your eyes would have seen a sight
That would surely have grieved your insides
And would surely have been for your eyes a sore.
Such should not be how the Messenger of Allah,
O nation of oppression and corruption, be treated
They slaughtered like sacrifices his offspring that day,
Then they drove his family like slaves away.
They kept calling upon the Messenger of Allah
Whenever marching was hard, whenever they stumbled.
--
11 Moharram
The next day Zainab nursed Zainalabidin who was very ill.
None other than the ailing Imam (‘a) could defend them, had he only been able to defend himself against the danger of being killed.
A nurse set out to suckle her infant
With feelings that caused her infant to die of patience.
She saw his cradle, with grief after him overflowing,
And it used to overflow with happiness.
And her breast with her pure milk is weighed
For her infant used to overflow.
Swiftly to the infant's resting place did she go,
Perhaps she would find in him some life so he would suckle,
But she only saw a corpse at a slaughter place,
In it an arrow rested that killed the neck,
So she yearned and over him knelt
With her ribs to shade him from the heat.
She hugged him, though dead,
And from his spilled blood she dyed her chest.
And she wished, having seen his cheeks covered with blood
That with his arrow her own cheeks were split.
Over his grave she poured her heart
With feelings overflowing.
She now eulogizes him with the best of verse.
She sings lullabies once and once she
Hugs his corpse that decorated the pearls.
And she often kneels down and sniffs
Where his neck was slit and then kisses him again,
So how miserable you are and how bereaved
With the like of your tears did al-Khansa’ mourn Sakhr!
Of her emotions and yearnings she had that day
A cage for eternity from which the bird had flown away...
--
This is not how to reward Allah's Messenger
O nation of oppression and corruption!
Had the Messenger of Allah lived after him,
He would have today mourned him exceedingly.
--
Umm Salamah saw the Messenger of Allah (S) in a vision[809] with his hair looking quite untidy, dusty, with earth soil on his head. She asked him, “O Messenger of Allah! Why do I see your hair looking so untidy and dusty?” “My son,” he (S) said, “has been killed, and I have not yet finished digging his grave and those of his companions.”[810]
She woke up terrified and looked at the bottle containing a specimen of the soil of Karbala'. She found it boiling in blood.[811] It was the bottle given to her by the Prophet (S) who ordered her to keep it. Moreover, she heard in the depth of the night a caller mourning al-Husain (‘a) saying
O killers of al-Husain out of ignorance
Receive the news of your torture and annihilation.
The son of David had cursed you
And so did Moses and the man of the Gospel.
All the people of the heavens condemn you
Every prophet, every messenger, and every martyr.
-
She heard in the depth of the night other voices mourning al-Husain (‘a) but could not see them. Among the poetry she had heard was the following:
O eyes! This is a day for your tears
So cry hard and spare not.
Who after me shall the martyrs mourn
Over folks led by their fates
To a tyrant in the reign of slaves?
--
Why did not the heavens when he was killed not collide?
Why did the earth when he fell not crack?
I after him excuse the moon of the morn
If it does not appear, and if the sun does not shine.
And the comet if let loose and their clouds, too,
If they departed, and if the beasts do not graze,
And the water if not pure and the trees
If they do not blossom, and the birds
If they do not sing at all,
And the wind if it does not blow
Except becoming storms and gales
And water shall I never drink near him
But stay grieved, heart-rent.
May the foes shoot my heart with a fateful blow
If what the most Exalted Glory did would not let me grieve so.
Borne on a bare and lean hump stayed,
If I ever forget how his offspring were conveyed.
--
O martyr, and martyr is his uncle, too
The best of uncles, Ja’far at-Tayyar
Strange how a polished one dared to hit you
On the face, and dust had covered you.
--
Du’bal al-Khuza’i read for Husayn:
Visit the best of graves in Iraq
And disobey the ass, for whoever forbade you is an ass
Why should I not visit you, O Husain?
May my life be sacrificed for you,
And may my people and everyone to me dear.
All do not at all with you compare,
For you there is love in the hearts of the wise
Your foe is annihilated; him do we despise.
--
The meaning of the second line was borrowed by a Shi’a poet of old and reworded in three lines [the rough translation of which runs thus]:
How strange should a sword blow be dealt to you
On the day when dust high and wide flew!
And strange how arrows snatched you from the ladies
Who called upon your grandfather with tears abundant.
Why did not someone the arrows break?
Should your holy and exalted body them overtake?
---
Suppose John's blood on the ground did boil,
Husain's blood in the hearts did indeed boil.
Should Bucht-Nuzzar of old seek for John revenge?
His justice was indeed fully redressed,
But the blood of the Prophet's grandson shell not
Calm down before al-Qa’im,
By Allah's leave, seeks his revenge.
--
Shaikh al-Baha'i has narrated saying that his father, Shaikh Husain Ibn ‘Abd al-amad al-Harithi, entered Kufa's mosque once and found a carnelian stone upon which these lines were written:
I am jewel from the heavens, so scatter me
When the parents of the Prophet's grandson betrothed;
More clear than silver I once used to be
Now my color is that of al-Husain's blood.
--
Tharra, the mourner, saw Fatima once in a vision standing at al-Husain's grave weeping, and she ordered Tharra to eulogize her son (‘a) with these lines:
O eyes! Overflow and do not dry
And do over the one killed at Taff cry.
They left his body in every place hit,
But I could not, alas, tend to it.
No, nor was he sick at all...
--
I am Fatima daughter of the Messenger of Allah (S), and this is the head of my son al-Husain (‘a). On my behalf to euologize him with this verse:
I did not dress his wound,
No, nor was he sick at all.'
---
O eyes! Overflow and do not dry
And do over the one killed at Taff cry.
--
The Looting
O father of al-Hasan! The one best to protect his neighbour,
To you do I complain with overflowing tears,
Let alone a great shame that overspread
Wherein tears are part of my address.
Should you overlook as you today see
How Umayyah's offspring sought and achieved
All their mischievous revenge?
How many for you at the Taff, where
A mourner bitterly mourned,
Were wailing like pigeons in their necks
Iron collars they had to wear?
And how many a child did they scare?
Mourning one who never knew but kindness.
And how many a child decorated with gold
Did they shackle and did they scold?
And with arrows was he shot.
How many a free lady with hair
Uncovered came out of the tent
Having nothing to veil her except her hands?
Should you have witnessed how she
With a heavy heart sighed as her heart burned.
It would have been hard for the Commander of the Faithful
That she should thus come out at all,
In a condition that grieved everyone with a heart.
Who then should tell al-Zahra’ about Zainab
Being taken into captivity
And being driven among the foes to Damascus?
She has none from the foe to protect
Except one in the robes heavily tied up,
For those who came to Karbala’
All fell on its ground, one glorious martyr after another.
They spent and the greatness of their glory covered their faces
And died in dignity without kneeling before a tyrant.
No excuse shall be for my heart if I say so,
Should my eyes with tears forever overflow.
--
Fatima daughter of Husayn saw her aunt Umm Kulthum, sitting at her head crying.
She was from her sleep disturbed
Like doves startled after their slumber
Deploring the protection she now lost
By losing the best a woman could lose.
She lost the best pillar,
So she invoked the “manliness” of Banu ‘Amr.
For moons she mourned and cried
For the one whose spilled blood she sighed.
And through whom everything with light shone,
Now they are slaughtered and their corpses strewn.
Some had their parts scattered and some lost their arms
One after another on the plain they did fall
Did one with his feet to a lion's den walk?
They shattered the pitched darkness,
Now on the ground they lie motionless.
--
His remedy from them was their whips as they
Hit them then did they say, “May you stay!”
They dragged him and prepared for him the leather mat
After having filled his body with thistles and with thorns.
--
Perplexed the ladies were
From their sleep deprived,
Startled when their chambers were assaulted.
In pavilions they lived and thrived.
They camped in honour, from hardship exempt,
From awe almost none comes near them except
The angels that were there to serve,
Now people's hands from mischief do not swerve,
Now the people's hands are free to steal, to plunder
For none is there to stop them, none to hinder.
Yes, she bent her body to chide
Her people, and fire filled her inside.
She rebuked them for fighting over what she had to wear,
For what the foe's snatched, but who will hear or care?
--
They rode their horses and trampled upon the body of the fragrant flower of the Messenger of Allah. Then the ten “men” went back to Ibn Ziyad with Asid Ibn Malik in their vanguard reciting this rajaz verse of poetry:
We did crush the chest and the back:
Mighty steeds made it like a river track.
Ibn Ziyad ordered generous awards to be given to them.[869]
What a martyr whose body the sun baked,
And its rising from his origin is born!
And what a slaughtered one trampled upon
By the steeds from whose names the cavaliers freeze.
Did they not know that Muhammad's soul,
Like his Qur’an, in his grandfather personified?
Had those steeds, like their riders, only knew
That the one under their hooves was but Ahmad,
They against their riders would mutiny declare,
Just as they against him rebellious they were.
--
May hands that fought you be to pieces chopped,
May feet that oppressed you be forever paralyzed,
May the steeds over your body charged be hamstrung,
Crushing your ribs, having lost to your swords their riders.
You became their victim, so no pleasure shall today be
Nor a moon in the night shall ever be shiny.
--
Khawli put the head in front of Ibn Ziyad as he recited these poetic verses:
Fill my stirrup with silver or with gold:
I killed the master of every honour told,
Their best when they mention descent.
I killed the best of people, son of the best parent.
--
Departing from Karbala’
On the dust, bare, should he remain?
None to mourn him except his women?
Which folks were not touched by his corpse?
Which hearts did not mourn him?
--
How did the modest ladies receive the night
After being “vanquished,” and in defense of the camp died?
Do you see them to captivity surrendering
Or against their wish did their protectors depart?
They departed after their strength was crushed
And after the blows took their toll.
In the blood of martyrdom did they build a throne
One none before them ever built.
Stunned after that by the steeds assaulting,
Where are the men of honour to defend?
The ladies screamed and sought help
From their slain men in slumber,
And from the captives besides every valiant one
A free lady fell pleading for help,
And so did every girl...
They complained from the whips giving them pain.
Have ever suiters sought the help from the slain?
They feebly fall down from the animals' backs, perturbed,
Whenever the she-camels are by the hadis disturbed.
--
Zainab
She and al-Husain share their complain
Fate decided that they should.
One fell to the swords and to their pain
And the other by life's agonies taken captive.[895]
Sukayna[896] hugged the body of her father al-Husain (‘a) and kept telling him how she had heard him saying:
O my Shi’as! Whenever of water you drink
Never from mentioning my name should you shrink.
And whenever you are a stranger on a sojourn,
Or see a martyr, me should you remember and mourn.
Only a number of them could collectively remove her from his corpse, forcefully dragging her away.[898]
An orphan girl with being orphaned startled
Her heart is filled with pain,
Like a bird by an eagle chased,
One whose nest is assaulted.
A cry she let out when the horsemen assaulted
Her, though orphaned, so she now is more startled,
And to the one lying on the burning sands she went
Pouring over him from her eyes a river she wept.
She fell upon al-Husain's body so he kept
To his chest taking her between a right and a left.
She seeks refuge with him, having lost her headscarf,
And it was hard for him to see her without it;
He would not have left their whips cause her to seek help
With her father's body when, from him,
She was forcibly removed.
--
To Allah do I complain about the patience of Zainab the pure
How many a tribulation did she have to endure?
From the calamities and from the pain
From pains, from which death is welcome, she did suffer.
She witnessed the men of dignity from her people of honour
On the ground slaughtered in a row without cover:
The winds on their corpses freely blow,
The beasts over their bodies come and go.
Her people's chief lying slain she saw,
To them did the folks’ swords deal many a blow.
She saw heads on the lances carried
And corpses with only sands shrouded.
She saw an infant with an arrow waned
And children after their father orphaned.
She saw the enemies gleeful, with their misery pleased,
She saw how with her brother they dealt every foul deed.
--
None like her prestige in the morning was
Nor like her condition on the after-noon.
Where is she going? To what fate?
What is her refuge and what is her aim?
On whose shoulder should she lean
When she was conveyed, and her cameleer rebukes,
And Shimr is her cameleer?
O Muhammad! Light the house for Zainab so
Even in the night none can see her shadow.
How I wish on the Taff your eyes saw
Your daughters' ornaments to looters did go.
Their ears torn, either slain or widowed,
Moaning like camels that lost their young.
To Allah do I complain and say:
Allah help him how he was bereaved,
And suddenly both prestige and men deceased.
No loss by death is to them a cause of complain
Except it was done by those who were not humane,
And with humiliation they were treated,
They received the night in a condition that
Before it you would stand and feel awfully,
If only you stand to think about it carefully.
--
Zainab at Kufa
O father of Hasan!
She overlooks and in the slumber she delights
Now only with her hand can Zainab cover her face
O father of Hasan!
Are you pleased with your women in captivity,
As Banu Harb's women in their chambers veiled with grace?
Does your side on the bed find comfort and ease,
While your daughters on the camels to Syria are brought?
Do you find life pleasing when your wise ladies are uncovered?
Whenever they cry, with lashes they are whipped.
To the east they are once taken by the mean gangs,
And once towards the land of shame are taken, to the west.
None to protect them as they cross every plain,
None heeds their complaints when they complain.
Their voices were lost and their hearts melted,
Their breath by grief is almost snatched away.
Amazed am I about one who thinks of fate
And contemplates upon it and wonders alone:
A fornicator turns about on his throne,
As Husain on the ground is left unburied,
And his head is on a lance openly carried,
And with the crown is crowned the son of a whore.
For three days did Husain stay unburied or more.
One's body is to cruel elements left exposed
As the other covers his with silk and with gold...
--
From the wali did she inherit wisdom
Particularly hers in its beauty and oratory.
Whenever she expounds you would believe
From oratory she derives her treasures.
Or like a sword in the hand of a valiant she may be
With it he defended and won victory.
Or that she leads a whole regiment of hosts
And drives from facts' hosts a crowd.
Or in the Imamate's woods a lioness
For her roaring even heads bow down.
Or she is the tumultuous ocean whose waves
Crushed one another in knowledge, might and dignity.
Or from the Lord's Wrath lightning ensues
From which Harb's clan could not escape.
Or that Hayder on his steed wipes out
The hosts of misguidance one after another.
Or the summit of the pulpit embraced him,
So for the Shari’a did he ignite a light.
Or in wisdom has the wise lady
of Hashim shattered blindness greatly.
--
Fatima daughter of Husayn said to Kufans you brag about it saying:
We killed ‘Ali and the sons of ‘Ali,
With Indian swords and spears,
And we placed their women in captivity
Like the Turks! We crushed them with severity.
--
Ali Ibn al-Husain (‘a) was brought on a lean camel. Chains were placed on his neck, and he was handcuffed. Both sides of his neck were bleeding. He was repeating these verses:
O nation of evil, may your quarter never tastes of water!
O nation that never honoured in our regard our Grandfather!
Should we and the Messenger of Allah meet
On the Judgment Day, how would you then plead?
On bare beasts of burden have you
Transported us, as if we never put up a creed for you!
--
Wait, O Banu Harb, for what we have gone through
Is seen by the Lord of Heavens who well knows all.
It is as if on Judgment Day I see Ahmad
Before the messengers comes rolling up his sleeves
And to you shall he say: Woe unto you!
My sanctity did you violate
And your swords drank of my blood,
Do you know what blood you on the ground spilled?
Or which ladies you took to captivity?
Is it just that you safeguard your girls
And leave my free ladies taken captive like the Daylams?
And should you make water for the wild beasts permissible
While my children because of thirst are on fire?
O by Allah! If the hosts of unbelievers
Had ever vanquished my offspring,
They would never have committed such great injustice.
O how Muhammad will feel when you have
Stabbed the necks and slit the throats?
Such is your reward for me so
How soon you were untrue
To the trust with regard to my daughter
And with regard to my brother?
--
Burials
Stabbing changed every sense of theirs
Except virtues, from all they are secure.
--
A wounded one whose beauty the swords could not change,
Nor did they make of him something new
He was a moon and now he is the morning sun,
Since the hand of blood outfitted him with its garment.
His rays protect the eyes so
Whenever they try a path, I fancy it blocked,
And trees of lances give him shade,
So the heat refused to send him missive.
--
Today fell the one who
Most protects honour,
The most true teller,
The one who most feeds the beasts
With his foe's corpses,
The one who most stains
The bird and the vulture.
He is spent, having returned the swords
To the lances. He left his impact
On them and on death itself.
The man of glory passed away
Under the swords, and what was
Broken on him buries him.
So if he does receive
The time of the eve
With a dusted forehead,
The war's morning did turn
The regiment dusted.
And if he is spent thirsty, heart-broken
He had terrified the heart of death
Till the heart is split.
And he crushed the foes
And he did annihilate
What fates give birth to suckle on death
From between two shields he emerged:
Battle and patience, and patience is
The strongest of all.
He showed his might,
The most mighty protector of all
A protector of honour he was,
And the most courageous to lead the hosts.
His support in the heat of blows was keen:
Though his supporters were a few,
They were still many.
It stumbled till it died
The edge of his sword
But his grip did not.
As if the sword granted him patience,
So he did not leave the battle
Till his sword was broken to pieces.
Allah is his Supporter, how his heart
From patience was split then did depart.
Had patience been stone, it would have cracked.
He bent to kiss his son
But the arrow before him kissed his neck.
Both he and death were born in an hour
And before him the arrow in his neck make Takbir,
And in captivity there were elite ones of chambers,
Hard for their men to see them thus driven.
They had, before, protected their chambers
And in protecting their honours
They remained ever vigilant.
On the Day of Taff fate walked blindly
Not leaving any support for them
Without taking him away.
He forced them to traverse the desert at night,
Never before the Taff did they know
What the desert was, nor did they know
How to traverse at night,
Not even their eyes
Had seen their shadows.
Till they appeared and wailed
At the Ghadiriyya, unveiled...
--
The Governors Mansion
She was brought with nothing to cover her head
In a condition that left no patience for the skin.
With nothing to cover her face;
Did they keep any cover for the ladies of guidance?
No, by the One Who outfitted her with His Light,
They robbed her even of her cover.
May those hands be forever
Paralyzed; they left no veil for them at all.
--
Al-Rubab, wife of Imam Husain (‘a), took the head and put it in her lap. She kissed it and said,
O Husain! Never shall I ever forget Husain!
Did the foes' lances really seek him?
They left him in Karbala’ slain,
May Allah never water Karbala's sides.
--
Rubab:
The one that was in Karbala’ a luminary
Is now slain but not buried at all
O grandson of the Prophet! May Allah reward you
On our behalf with goodness and may you
Be spared the shorting of the scales.
To me you were a mountain, a refuge
And you used to be our companion in lineage and in creed
Who will now help the orphans and those in need?
To whom shall the needy go for help?
By Allah! I shall never exchange your kinship with anyone else
Till I am lost between water and mud.
--
Ibn ‘Afif was attacked and he recited:
The son of the honoured, the clement, and the pure am I
Clement is my mentor and the son of Umm ‘Amir
How many of you shielded or did not shield,
How many a hero left slain on the battlefield?
-
I swear, should I am permitted to see,
Unable to face my might shall you be.
By Allah do I swear! Had I been able to see
You wouldn't know whence and how I attack thee!
-
Ibn ‘Afif to Ibn Ziyad:
By Allah do I swear! Had I only been able to see
You wouldn't know whence and how I attack thee!
--
The Sacred Head Speaks
My heart goes for your head atop a spear
Outfitted with its own lights with an attire,
Reciting the Book from the top of the spear,
Through him did they raise the Book even higher.
--
Head of Husayn was placed before Yazid.
Is it your soul or the soul of Prophethood that does ascend
From the earth to Paradise as the huris prostrate?
Is it your head or the head of the Messenger atop the spear
Repeating the ayat of the fellows of the cave?
Is it your chest or the reservoir of knowledge and wisdom
That crushed a host of the ignorant attempts?
Is it your mother or the Mother of the Book that did sigh
So her sighing heart did indeed melt,
And the earth echoes the heavens in its sighs
So while one wails, the other cries?
The Wali held a mourning of its own
At his house, and the one solaced is Muhammad,
Seeing the Two Weighty Things: One to pieces torn
With arrows, and the other with the sword to pieces sawn,
So his ‘Itrat some killed by the sword and some by the arrows,
Some martyred and some expelled in the plains full of sorrows.
What a martyr whose body did the sun bake?
Though from its very origin did its own rays take?
And what a slain save one whose body the horses crushed
Though from his mention their riders freeze and are hushed.
Did you know that Muhammad's very soul,
Like his Qur’an, is in his grandson personified?
Had those horses, like their riders, only come to know
That the one under the hooves was in fact Ahmad,
They would have against their riders declared a mutiny
Just as they against him revolted and declared.
Injustice slit a throat the moon's light does envy
And in each of his veins for the truth there is a star
And crushed ribs wherein compassion does reside
And stopped breathing wherein the Truth is Glorified.
Yet the greatest calamity of all
Is the suffering of his free ladies' every soul.
Oppressed they were as their only protector is tied
Some were handcuffed complaining from their pain,
While other ladies were being slapped and in chain,
As if said to his people the Messenger of Oneness:
Seek revenge against my ‘Itrat and with cruelty oppress.
--
When Ibn Sa’id was informed of al-Husain (‘a) having been killed, he was very happily excited and was subdued with elation. He ordered a caller to announce it in the city's alleys, and before long, the cries and the wailing coming from the Hashemite ladies mourning the Master of the Youths of Paradise (‘a) were heard like never before. Those cries reached all the way to the house of al-Ashdaq who laughed and quoted a verse of poetry composed by ‘Amr Ibn Ma’di-Karb saying,
Noisy with grief were the women of Banu Ziyad
As noisy as our women on the Rabbit Day.
--
Escorted by a number of women from her kinsfolk, the daughter of ‘Aqil Ibn Abu Talib went out to visit the grave of the Prophet (S) where she threw herself on it, burst in tears then turned to the Muhajirun and the Anar and came forth instantaneously with these verses:
What will you on the Judgment Day
To the Prophet stand and say?
Surely what you will hear will be true:
Those who betrayed his Progeny were you.
Were you present, or were you not there at all
And justice is combined in the Lord of all...?
You handed it over to those who are never fair
So your intercession with Allah will go nowhere.
Though on the Taff Day absent was he,
Yet all the dead did your very eyes see.
You saw all those who did die
So to Allah you shall never come nigh
--
Zainab, kept mourning al-Husain (‘a) in the most somber manner while repeating these verses:
What will you say when the Prophet to you will say:
How did you fare, since you are the last of nations,
With my Progeny and family after my demise?
Some of them were taken captives and some in blood stained.
That was not my reward for having advised you
That you should succeed me in faring ill with my family.
--
Marwan Ibn al-Ahkam was the one who rejoiced at the killing of al-Husain (‘a), and he demonstrated his elation and happiness about such a calamity when he looked at al-Husain's head then instantly came forth with these verses:
How I wish your garment were on your arms
And redness were on your cheeks,
Looking like pieces of gold twain,
How happy I am today having killed Husain!
--
Yazid had said this line:
The cream of their crop have we killed
Then did we turn and set the record for Badr straight.
He denied the Islamic Message altogether saying:
Banu Hashim with authority played,
No message came, nor any revelation revealed.
--
Syria
Does a nation that killed Husain really hope for a way
His grandfather will intercede for them on the Judgment Day?!
--
“And those who oppressed shall come to find how evil their end shall be” (Qur’an, 26:227).
Is the head of Fatima's son really gifted to the Syrians?
And is it with a rod hit by its killer?
Are the Prophet's virtuous daughters really taken captive
With their heads left without a cover,
Struggling with the pain of loss,
Seeing al-Husain's head from a distance atop a spear?
They weep, and its sight prohibits patience from coming near,
And his beard with his own blood drenched:
Whatever wind comes teases it and whatever goes.
--
Yazid was sitting at a surveillance outpost overlooking the mountain of Jayrun. When he saw the captives with the heads planted atop the spears as their throng came close, a crow croaked, whereupon he composed these verses:
When those conveyances drew nigh
And the heads on the edge of Jayrun,
The crow croaked so said I:
Say whatever you wish to say
Or say nothing at all,
The Messenger this very day
What he owed me he did repay.
--
What miracle will Yazid bring
On the Day the Books of deeds are read
When the Lord of ‘Arsh will recite
And in denial stunned will be every being?
--
Yazid who kept looking at the captives and reciting these verses:
We took to patience, and on patience we set our minds,
While our swords chopped off heads and hands.
We were splitting heads of men held by us as dear
But they to unkindness and injustice were more near.
--
May the heavens crush the earth
And may annihilation or resurrection overwhelm the world.
The veils of ‘Ali 's daughters, the best of all women,
Are made freely accessible to the da’is.
Captives on lean beasts of burdens were they conveyed,
With heads uncovered, a country bids them farewell
As another, bemused, eyes them.
So should their eyes be tearful,
Or should they of exhaustion be unable to walk,
The chambered lady that she is,
With cruelty the Shimr of prostitution would whip her,
And with his cruelty agonize her as he
In his grudge would rebuke her.
She has none to protect her except a haggard
Ailing, with sickness afflicted and in pain,
A sick man suffering nightly from cuffs and chain,
Conveyed on a conveyance of hardship and cruelty.
They took him at night, handcuffed, into the depths
Of a plain he never before traversed.
Iron consumed his flesh
And affected him so his blood in his neck overflowed.
He sees children cry and women wail,
And livers from fear almost soar.
As the head of his father, Muhammad's grandson
Is hoisted before the captives on a spear.
They took him to Syria unwelcome
As its people celebrated their “victory”.
They took him to the court of Hind's son
Pleased with his “victory”.
And Marwan with pleasure is elated
And the head of his father, the grandson of the nabi,
Is presented in a gold washbowl before a da’i
Overtaken by pleasure and arrogance,
One who used to hide his apostasy.
But when he to his fathers at Badr referred
Exposed his apostasy most manifestly.
--
Sajjad was brought before Yazid who cited the following verse by al-Fal Ibn al-’Asbbas Ibn ‘Utbah:
Wait, O cousins, wait, O masters, do not hurry!
Do not bring to surface what we did bury.
--
Should you on the pulpits publicly taunt him on demand,
While through his sword did these very pulpits stand?!
--
Yazid took a rod and kept hitting al-Husain's lips with itsaying, “A day for a day: this day is [in revenge] for Badr”. Then he cited these verses by al-Hasin Ibn al-Hamam:
Our folks refused to be to us fair
So swords dripping with blood were to them fair;
We were splitting heads of men held by us as dear
But they to unkindness and injustice were more near.
Yaya Ibn al-Ahkam Ibn Abul-’A, brother of Marwan Ibn al-Ahkam, who was sitting near him, recited these verses:
A head at the Taff is closer in kinship
Than Ibn Ziyad, slave of a mean and lowly descent;
Sumayya's offspring count as many as the stones
But the Progeny of the Chosen One now have no offspring.
--
Yazid ordered the heads to be hung on the land's gates and on the Umayyad Mosque, and his order was carried out.
Marwan [Ibn al-Ahkam] was very happy about al-Husain (‘a) being killed, so he composed this poetry:
Dawser hit them with such a blow
That firmed authority's foundations,
So authority now is stable.
Then he kept hitting al-Husain's face with a rod as he was repeating these poetry lines:
How I wish your garment were on your arms
And redness were on your cheeks,
Looking like pieces of gold twain,
How happy I am today having killed Husain!
--
Zainab daughter of ‘Ali Ibn Abu Talib (‘a) heard Yazid quoting the following verses by Ibn al-Zub’ari:
I wish my forefathers at Badr had witnessed
How the Khazraj are by the thorns annoyed,
They would have Glorified and Unified Allah
Then they would make tahlil and say in elation:
May your hands, O Yazid, never be paralyzed!
We have killed the masters of their chiefs
And equated it with Badr, and it was so, indeed;
Hashim played with the dominion so
No news came, nor a revelation descended.
I do not belong to Khandaf if I do not
Seek revenge from Ahmad's offspring
For what he had done.
--
Zainab gave speech in Yazid's palace, then said:
Then they would make tahlil and say in elation:
May your hands, O Yazid, never be paralyzed!
--
Yazid responded to her speech by first quoting this poetic verse:
O cry, a praiseworthy one,
How easy it is for the mourners to mourn!
--
In Medina
Abu Bakr al-'Alusi, who was asked once where the head of al-Husain (‘a) was, composed the following verses:
Seek not al-Husain's head in the east or in the west,
Leave all and come to me: in my heart does it rest.
--
Shi’as are not harmed when al-'Alusi and others assault them especially since their feet are firm on the path of loyalty for the Master of wais to whom the Messenger of Allah says, “O ‘Ali ! Nobody knows Allah, the most Exalted One, (fully well) except I and you, and nobody knows me (full welly) except Allah and you, and nobody knows you (fully well) except Allah and I.”
If you, woe unto you, never heard of his merits and feats,
Then hear them from “Hal Ata,” O fool,
For it should suffice you!
--
Sayyid Bahr al-’Ulum, may Allah sanctify him, refers in a poem wherein he says this line about sajdat al-shukr:
The cheek is more worthy of being rubbed,
The hadith clearly says so
Whereas in reference to the forehead,
It states it can be done, too.
--
Arbain
Hosts reached you in earnest roaring,
Rare among the hosts, to defend you.
Do not grant any respite to the lowly one;
How humiliated was lowliness by Hayder!
And revive the life of uprising anew,
Wherein dignity is supported and aided,
And draw for the victors a scheme
Wherein the thrones of the reckless are annihilated.
If a charged hour did not to your call respond
It is shamed, and in more times opportune
Did it indeed to you respond.
Rise and eye the Sacred House,
Then cast another look at your shrine:
That surely is the greatest pilgrimage:
It has become the pride of life and it is rightly so.
Proud of him: the blood of martyrdom is a cause of pride.
Whatever elevated your status they sanctified,
I hide it as do the oppressed,
Yet it surely manifests itself:
Authority complained about its luck and missed
Its pillars, from abusers who took charge,
Blackened, its forehead charred, its pillars
Resent those who with it play havoc and conspire,
And caliphate no longer knows the Muslims,
Abomination therein assails righteousness.
Blackened with a forehead charred
In it apes flourished, tigers filled with filth,
Its cups on the ears poured its tones,
And even during the prayers are cups circulated around!
Such farce is renounced by each and every mosque
That lost its glory, and it causes every pulpit to cry.
So it complains to you, for it then to a hero complains,
One who is mindful and vengeful for the sake of reform.
Virtues are folded up, how great!
This is the mother of virtues every year unfolded!
Leafless, its branches withered, with your blood watered,
So how good and fruitful what you had cultivated!
Against abominations are you called upon.
By a call for help, red, bloody, on a bloody day
The Shari’a did complain about limits changed
And about injunctions there altered.
Their beauty did Umayyah rob so they became
Images formed as misguidance pleases;
Desires blew on them so they are captives complaining:
Who other than Husain can emancipate?
He met his youths in the morning and led to be
For the Lord's creed sacrifices,
So they were slaughtered.
He conveyed the message as much as he could
Its conveyance was through blood spilled and shed.
In care of reform is the forehead of a man of honour
Bloodied, while the forehead is rubbed with dust.
Labbayk! A lonely man surrounded by large hordes
Counting as many as the pebbles in number, none can count.
Labbayk! A thirsty man whose thirst was never quenched
While in his palms seas of virtues flowed.
These are the tears of those loyal to you,
So quench from them a head almost split
And be kind to these hearts for they wish
You had been in the ribs entombed.
They stampede to uphold the rites
Less magnificent are the Safa and the Mash’ar.
They rode for their sake every sort of danger
Hands almost cut off, skulls almost sawed.
They came to you on the Arba’yin and how I wish they
Were with you on the Taff Day when you solicited help!
They found your path to be one for safety
To which they erected the bridge of loyalty
And they hold you as their hope in a fearful Hour
Either to Hell, or to the Pool of Kawthar.
And both opponents when they meet you shall know
Who will drink of it, and who will not a drop draw.
--
She complains about her foes
And his folks does she mourn,
What a condition wherein patience unfolded
And patience did depart.
So we mourn her and complain
With the blood of the insides tears are mixed.
And agony penetrates even a solid stone
So the heart is into bits and pieces torn.
--
Bashir Ibn Hathlam has said, “When we came close to Medina, ‘Ali Ibn al-Husain (‘a) alighted and tied his she-camel then set up a tent where he lodged the women. He said to me, ‘O Bashir! May Allah have mercy on your father! He was a poet. Can you compose any of it at all?' I said, ‘Yes, O son of the Messenger of Allah! I, too, am a poet.' He (‘a) said, ‘Then enter Medina and mourn the martyrdom of Abu ‘Abdullah (‘a).' So I rode my horse and entered Medina. When I came near the Mosque of the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his progeny, I cried loudly and recited these verses:
O people of Yathrib! May you never stay therein!
Al-Husain is killed, so my tears now rain,
His body is in Karbala’ covered with blood
While his head is on a spear displayed.
--
As for Zainab, that is, Umm Kulthum, she recited the following verses of poetry:
O city of our Grandfather! Accept us not
For with sighs and griefs we come;
We left you surrounded by kith and kin
And returned with neither sons nor men.
--
As regarding al-Rubab, she mourned Husayn till her eyes were no longer capable of producing tears. She composed in eulogizing her husband,
The one that used to be a lantern
Is now at Karbala’, killed, unburied.
O grandson of the Prophet! May Allah
Reward you on our behalf and may you
Never fall short of the Scales.
A great mountain you used to be
A shelter, secure, for me,
And a companion in family
And in faith a surety.
Now who shall for the orphans be
Of help, and who shall be for the needy?
Who shall be the resort of the destitute?
By Allah! Never shall I seek
For you at all any substitute,
Till between the sands and the mud is my abode
Wherein I will be hidden from the world.
--
The fire burning in the tent did he see
While he was the tent of honour and dignity.
He saw how apostasy and misguidance assailed
The daughters of the wali and the creed.
He saw about the ladies of Prophethood
What the norms of manliness hold as abhorred:
Their looting and their beating
While none to help them besides their Lord.
He saw shy and pure ladies' faces uncovered
To the son of the prostitute driven.
He saw how the pure and virtuous ladies stood
Before ignominy: Yazid, the tyrant, how they cried.
And they were in the ropes tied
Before the assembly of every villain and dastard displayed.
--
Author Abd al Razzaq al-Muqarram died on Muharram 17, 1391, March 15, 1971; so, may Allah grant him His riwan and generous rewards. One of the most interesting eulogies written about him is a poem composed by Shaikh Ahmad al-Wa’ili in which he recorded his year of death as follows:
Oh, ‘Abdul-Razzaq, the brilliant mind,
The spirit of Iman and of conduct!
A grave in which you reside
Is a garden where you will lodge
Till the Day of Meeting.
So when you are brought back to life,
Your good deeds shall surround you:
White, sweet in their shine
And spread like the field of the Taff
For which you recorded for Husain
And for his family and the companions
Pages of depth and scrutiny that revile
The souls of those who aspire
To acquire every precious thing.
About Husain you wrote, and him you shall meet
And see the over-brimming Pool and the Waiter!
These shall intercede for you for sure,
And what the Lord has for you is even more.
Hopeful of your Lord's rewards, record:
O servant of al-Razzaq you went away,
O to al-Razzaq did you go!
(1391 A.H/1971 A.D.)
--
Author Abd al Razzaq al-Muqarram cries:
O father of al-Fal! O eyesight of al-Husain!
O caretaker of the caravan on its march!
Do you shun me, the gracious that you are,
And the refuge for whoever seeks protection?!
Also:
We praise You, Lord, Who honoured
This whole existence with the Chosen one:
Muhammad and his good Progeny,
The path of guidance, who suffice the seeker,
Who guide whoever strays from the right way
To the path of righteousness and wilaya.
And also:
In their hadith, Ahl al-Bayt said:
Whoever praises us in a verse of poetry
Allah will assist him through His Holy Spirit
And all doubt from him will He remove;
So I liked to rhyme what the scholars
Of authentic traditions did record
Of merits of the Prophet's Purified Progeny
Those put in charge by the Lord.
[ THE END ]
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