AlMujtaba Islamic Articles > Muharram
 

MUHARRAM AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE (5)

 
By:Syed-Mohsin Naquvi                                                                                                                             21 January 2006
 
        This is the fifth article in the series on Muharram and its significance.
We began this series with an introduction to the concept of Imamat in Islam. The first article in this series introduced that concept from the holy Qur’an. The second article presented a view of the same concept from Hadeeth by way of a book review.
            In the third of the series we looked at the historical background of the ceremony of Hajj and its connection to the event of Karbala.
            In the fourth article of the series we came back to the direct historical background of the Karbala story itself. We quoted a passage from a Ph.D. thesis on Islamic history and presented to our readers the background of how Yazeed came to power in the month of Rajab of the 60th year of Hijra and he commanded the governor of Madinah to send for Husayn and insist on his Ba’yat. Husayn left Madinah on the 28th of Rajab for Makkah after having refused to that demand.
            Husayn stays in Makkah until the month of Zil-Q’adah. During that stay he receives a number of letters from the people of Iraq who were asking him to come to Iraq and free them from the oppressive rule of the Umayyads. Husayn does not respond to those letters for a while. His friends exhort him not to go to Iraq.
            I had only published the first two articles in the series that I began receiving negative comments from some of the readers. One reader expressed the view that Karbala was just a power struggle between two parties. Another view was that my writings were nothing but one-sided propaganda. Another forum threatened to ban me from their group if did not stop writing on that subject. I finally un-subscribed from that Group. However, it prompted me to change my line of thinking and write on the subject of why people have such diverse views about Karbala.
            It is obvious that when a writer writes about any topic, he/she has a specific point-of-view about that. I, too, have a specific point-of-view about Karbala, Imam Husayn and the month of Muharram. My view is that those three things are closely related. When Husayn refused the original demand of the B’ayat from the government, he considered himself as a pious Muslim and a person deserving of leadership or Imamat. When the people of Iraq wrote to him they addressed him as their Imam. Those people who commemorate the martyrdom of Husayn every year in the month of Muharram, consider him as an Imam – a person truly worthy of Allah’s favours due to his personal piety (TAQWA) and devotion, and one who gave his life trying to protect the basic human rights of an individual as well as trying to protect the law of Allah.
            That is why, my discussion on this topic would revolve around the concept of Imamat and I will make efforts to explain my specific point-of-view on those lines However, I support all my points by rational arguments. 
 
           
How Karbala Has been Viewed in History
 
Let us first list the diverse views on the event of Karbala:
 
  1. Karbala is the epitome of one man’s selfless sacrifice to preserve individual freedom and human rights against all kinds of oppression and tyranny.
  2. Karbala is the epitome of Islamic concept of martyrdom, as preserved in the holy Qur’an
  3. Karbala is a symbol of peaceful opposition to oppressive and tyrannical rulers
  4. Karbala stands for rejection of any unjust dispensation, irrespective of the price for opposing or seeking to change it. In the words of Hazrat Ali (A.S), while an order based on Kufr may last for a while, tyranny will not endure.
  5. Karbala was the result of two parties struggling for power.
 
            We will now list some of the famous historians and writers who have commented on Karbala in their own way:
 
  1. “It is from Hussain (A.S) that we have learnt the message of the Holy Quran.”   -- Dr. Anne Marie Schimmel
  2. "In a distant age and clime, the scene of the death of Hussain would evoke the sympathy of the coldest reader" ---  Edward Gibbon
  3. "The tragedy of Karbala decided not only the fate of the caliphate, but of the Mohammedan kingdoms long after the Caliphate had waned and disappeared." --- Sir William Muir in his [Annals of the Early Caliphate, London, 1883]
  4. "The fall of Husain, a quite mediocre person, excites the Shi'as to the point of delirium" --- Lammens, Islam: Beliefs and Institutions, p.144
  5. “In commemoration  of al-Husayn’s martyrdom the Shi’ah Moslems have established first ten days of Muharram as days of lamentation, and have developed a passion play stressing his heroic struggle and suffering. This annual passion play is enacted in two parts, one called Ashura (the tenth day) in al-Kazimayn (close to Baghdad) in memory of the Battle, and the other forty days after the tenth of Muharram is Karbala entitled ‘the Return of the Head.’  The blood of Husayn, even more than that of his father, proved to be the seed of the Shi’ite church.” --  P.K. Hitti, History of the Arabs.
  6. “Husayn drew up his comrades --- a handful of men and boys --- for battle against the host which surrounded him. All the harrowing details invented by grief and passion can scarcely heighten the tragedy of the closing scene. It would appear that the Umayyad officers themselves shrank from the odium of a general massacre, and hoped to take the Prophet’s grandson alive. Shamir, however, had no such scruples. Chafing at delay, he urged his soldiers to assault. The unequal struggle was soon over. Husayn fell, pierced by an arrow, and his brave followers were cut down beside him to the last man.  Muhammadan tradition, which with rare exceptions is uniformly hostile to the Umayyad dynasty, regards Husayn as a martyr and Yazid as his murderer; while modern historians, for the most part, agree with Sir W. Muir, who points out that Husayn, ‘having yielded himself to a treasonable, though impotent design upon the throne, was committing an offence that endangered society and demanded swift suppression.’  This was naturally the view of the party in power, and the reader must form his own conclusion as to how far it justifies the action which they took. For Muslims the question is decided by the relation  of the Umayyads to Islam……………  Yazid was a bad Churchman, therefore he was a wicked tyrant; the one thing involves the other. From our unprejudiced standpoint, he was an amiable prince who inherited his mother’s poetic talent, and infinitely preferred wine, music, and sport to the drudgery of public affairs.” --- R.A. Nicholson, A Literary History of The Arabs
  7. Ibn Taymiyyah, a Hnabali scholar who lived during the 7th-8th century, is full of contempt for those who have made Muharram a time of mourning and commemoration for the martyrdom on Imam Husayn.
  8. Mawlana Abul A’ala Mawdi (a 20th century scholar of Pakistan) has given an elaborate thesis on how a conflict between two warring Muslim parties has to be resolved. This, he has discussed in his work TAFHEEM-UL-QUR’AN in the commentary to chapter 49, Sura Hujrat. IN that he has mentioned the martyrdom of Imam Husayn as a precedent set in history for later jurisprudential scholars to use as a paradigm in conflict-resolution. In his opinion, Imam Husayn was right in standing up to Yazid’s oppressive policies and un-Islamic behaviour. He actually implies that it was Imam Husayn’s duty as the grandson of the Prophet and as an elder of the Muslim  community to take that stand. 
  9. Someone wrote to Imam Ghazali (6th century Hijra) and asked him whether it was OK to denounce Yazid for what he did with Imam Husayn and his family. Imam Ghazali wrote a long reply in which he conceded that Yazid was definitely wrong in killing Imam Husayn and oppressing his family but it was advisable not to say La’anat on Yazid. Because that creates a hatred in the heart of the Muslims for the senior companions of the Prophet.
 
            Having said all that, let me look at our own present times. Iraq has suddenly become the center stage for a great global political activity ever since President Bush decided to attack the country in 2002.
            The city of Karbala lies in Iraq, where Imam Husayn’s glorious mausoleum is a very central object of devotion and pilgrimage for the devotees.
            That mausoleum has been attacked by various rulers as well as rogue enemies over the last one thousand years and has been rebuilt.
 
            IN later articles in this series, we would discuss why and how an inert object made of mortar and steel can become  an object of discomfort and displeasure for some powerful people; so much so, they would resort to destroy the buildings. At the same time, how is it that for some people that same object  could be a symbol of veneration and consolation in times of trials and grief.
            Obviously, it all has something to do with the person who is buried there, the Imam Husayn.
 
            We will discuss the various statements made by scholars as above and the views held by various people and groups about Muharram and Karbala in view of that in the coming numbers in this series.
 
Thank you for reading.
 
Sincerely,
 
Syed-Mohsin Naquvi

Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ahlilbait5