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THE STORY OF KARBALA - PART
13
THE TREK FROM KOOFA TO DAMASCUS
After displaying the prisoners in his own
court, Ibn Ziyad ordered that the prisnors should be taken to Damascus.
As the caravan was leaving Koofa, people had gethered on the roof-tops
to watch the prisoners. At every stop Zaynab and other ladies of the
House of the Prophet would address the people and tell them what had
happened. Many people did not know who was actually killed and who the
prisoners were. This way, Husayn's message was being broadcast by his
survivors. There were signs of a revolt. People were outraged at this
blatant oppression and wrongdoing. In many places along the route to
Damascus, villagers would confront the Umayyad soldiers and many
skirmishes took place. Due to this, the commanders decided to take the
caravan on a deserted road and push it hard so that they could end the
journey quickly. Camels were pushed beyond their speed. There were
sixty-four prisoners, of whom there were forty nursing mothers. All of
them lost their babies as the camels would shake violently. Zaynul
Abideen was so sick that he could not stay safely on the back of a
running camel. His feet were tied round the belly of his camel. When he
arrived in Damascus, flesh from his thighs was exposed and he had been
bleeding from his wounds all the way.
THE PRISONERS IN DAMASCUS
A few days later the caravan arrived in Damascus. The prisoners and the
heads of the slain members of the house of Fatima were presented to
Yazeed in a lavish ceremony. It is reported that, the prisoners had to
wait for several hours, outside at the gate while the court was being
decorated. There were 700 seated spectators in the court, including
local lords and foreign ambassadors.
It appears that most of the prisoners were released on the way to
Damascus. Only the close family members of Husayn were kept. There were
twelve people tied in one rope, round their necks. As there were
children among them, the grown ups had to bend down lest the children
would be strangled. In spite of this, the rope had cut through their
skins and it was soaked in their blood around their necks.
The ladies were hiding their faces in their own hair, while Zaynul
Abideen, the only male member of the group, stood in the middle of the
court with his head downcast.
The severed head of Husayn was presented to Yazeed in a golden tray. He
had a cane in his hand. He started hitting Husayn's lips with the cane.
In the court was present Zayd Ibn Arqam, a respected but aging Companion
of the Prophet of Islam. All of a sudden Zayd Ibn Arqam realized what
had happened. He screamed in horror and said: "Take away the cane O
Yazeed ! I have seen the Prophet's lips where your cane is."
Then noticing his own helplessness in the matter, crying and weeping
he walked out of the court.
Yazeed was however, extremely pleased to see all this and said:
'There was neither any prophethood nor did ever descend an angel from
the heavens,
This was just a farce created by Banu Hashim to establish their power.
O how I wish my ancestors were alive and here today and they would see
how I have avenged the battles of Badr and Uhud.'
Yazeed started insulting and ridiculing the prisoners. At last, Zaynab,
Husayn's sister, exclaimed in anger at Yazeed and said:
'O you son of a freed slave ! .......... Conspire as much as you can and
exhaust yourself with your efforts, by God, you will never wipe out our
memory. Disgrace will never leave you.
Is your judgement anything but a blunder ? Are your days anything but a
number? Is your congregation anything but a dispersion ?'
Zaynab had alluded in her address to Yazeed to the time of the 8th year
of Hijra, when victorious Muslims had entered Makkah. The Prophet of
Islam, if he had wanted, could have ordered that Abu Sufyan and his
family would be put to the sword, in view of his relentless persecution
of the Prophet and other Muslims, but he not only let him go but he
declared a general amnesty for all and designated Abu Sufyan's house a
sanctuary. So, Yazeed was the grandson of the man who became the freed
slave of the Prophet of Islam, Zaynab's grandfather.
This altercation between Yazeed and Zaynab shows among other things,
that inspite of all the pain, insults and misery, Yazeed had failed to
break the spirits of Fatima's children.
Every member of this group was confident that whatever had come to pass
over them, was due to the fact that they refused to be cowed down by a
tyrant and fought for theirs as well as other people's basic human
rights.
Yazeed's gleeful verses referring to the bat-tles of Badr and Uhud show
that in his mind, this was basically a conflict between the clans of
Banu Hashim and Banu Umayya, and he, being the prominent member of the
house of Umayya, was succesful in subduing the Banu Hashim, once again,
in the long history of this
Thank you for reading.
sincerely,
Syed-Mohsin Naquvi |