Peace be upon the Imam of guidance and justice, the leader of the Godwary believers, the establisher of the Sharia and the religion; peace be upon the Lamp of Guidance and the Ark of Salvation; peace be upon al-Husayn, the martyr at Karbala; peace be upon the slaughtered one, drenched in blood... .
Every day of our lives has become ʿAshura, because we lament al-Husayn and hold his noble majlises; and in every land we tread, the Karbala that actually took place has become manifest to us—Karbala, which separated truth from falsehood; Karbala, which exposed sham and exploitation...
In our commemoration of the occasion of the martyrdom of our master Imam al-Husayn (a), we sense lofty meanings that have taken root in our hearts: we take up grief as consolation to the Ahl al-Bayt (a) and as condolence to the Imam of the Era and the Age (aj)... and we call to mind the meaning of freedom and self-sacrifice for the sake of the religion and the values of the religion, and we call to mind jihad and enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong...
These, then, are the objectives of the rites... their objectives are that we truly feel them... that we feel them in our hearts, driven by Godwariness...
So if we empty the rites of their content, their substance, and their illuminations upon the soul that travels the path of Allah the Exalted... we will not attain from them what the sincere Godwary attain of luminous Husayni outpourings...
Prayer is worship of Allah, the Lord of all the worlds, yet the infallible Imam says that some may gain nothing from it but fatigue; and likewise fasting, for some of them may gain from it mere hunger and thirst... For worship is weighty and impactful for those who are attentive to it and humble in it with their hearts. Did Allah the Exalted not say: “And take recourse in patience and prayer, and it is indeed hard except for the humble” (Qurʾan 2:45)?
Hence, sincerity in performing the rites ought to be our path to deliverance in this world and the Hereafter. Is Imam al-Husayn not the Ark of Salvation and deliverance?..
Did the Imam (a) not say concerning his ziyarah: “Whoever comes to him as a visitor, knowing the right... Paradise is his... and he shall have a thousand hajj and ʿumrah...”? Is this visitor, who knows and acknowledges the right of the Imam and the Imamate, like one who visits while denying the Imam and the Imamate??
We cannot, then, justify to ourselves that ostentation, conceit, and self-admiration should enter into us while we are on the path of Allah. For reviving the rites is among the great acts of worship, and those diseases of the heart are among the things that corrupt deeds; they bar one from reaching the objectives of acts of worship and of the rites, namely Godwariness.
As He, the Exalted, said: “That. And whoever venerates the sacraments of Allah—indeed that arises from the Godwariness of hearts” (Qurʾan 22:32).
The rites spring from the Godwariness of hearts, not from partisan zealotries and conceit... Displaying a rite may be a challenge to a tyrannical ruler or a bigoted denier, in which case it springs from the Godwariness of the heart, in order to honor the rites of Imam al-Husayn (a) and make them firm; and displaying the rites may be partisan zeal for a person or for a thing, feeding a feeling of conceit... in which case it does not spring from Godwariness... Here the balance is upset...
Allah the Exalted demands of us that we attend to the substance in all our actions and acts of worship—personal acts of worship, or social acts of worship and duties—and He says in His Noble Book with complete clarity:
“Piety is not to turn your faces to the east or the west; rather, piety is [personified by] those who have faith in Allah and the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets, and who give their wealth, for the love of Him, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveller and the beggar, and for [the freeing of] the slaves, and maintain the prayer and give the zakat, and those who fulfill their covenants, when they pledge themselves, and those who are patient in stress and distress, and in the heat of battle. They are the ones who are true [to their covenant], and it is they who are the Godwary” (Qurʾan 2:177).
In reviving the rites, the heart must feel the dew of Godwariness in the vessel of sincerity, and proclaim its intention aloud, saying: “Indeed my prayer and my worship, my life and my death are for the sake of Allah, the Lord of all the worlds” (Qurʾan 6:162).
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This article is the editorial of Dhikra magazine, published by the Ahl al-Kisaʾ (a) Foundation, 1429 AH
