ʿAshura Articles (8): Political Reality and Real History
Political Reality and Real History
Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi
When some scholars answered the objection of those who want to prevent the circulation of history and the revival of its events within society, as the event of ʿAshura is revived every year, by saying that Allah the Exalted has related to us the best of narratives in the Holy Qurʾan, those narratives that recounted to us the struggle of the prophets and the righteous against the tyrants and the corrupt reality, and that those narratives which the Qurʾan revived are indeed the best proof of the necessity of reviving the history of the Prophet (s) and his Household (a) and of recounting the struggle and challenge they lived through, this proof represents a conclusive argument, despite its simplicity and clarity.
Those who want to prevent the circulation, reading and revival of history argue that it stirs up strife and sectarian tendencies. But that is not correct, especially with regard to the history of the political struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. Reading it is not merely important; rather, it is of the utmost importance, because it gives the reader insight into the political reality being lived, into the ways of escaping its pitfalls and rescuing him from the tricks of those who mislead, and it acquaints him with his stance toward injustice and the unjust. Whoever wants to prevent the reading of history is thus preventing a part of the awareness that is important in the formation of the human mind, and is trying to place it under restriction so that it does not become aware of what is going on around it in the arenas of politics.
And we are not surprised to learn that the one who leads the campaign of cutting off from the history that separated Imam al-Husayn (a) and Yazid ibn Muʿawiya (may Allah curse him) methodologically, that is, in thought and in politics, is the one who seeks closeness to Yazid and his policy, and to those who followed his policy and his method of rule, so that people turn a blind eye to their misdeeds and he obtains worldly shares or personal ambition.
We are not surprised by that, because we have lived history with our insight and our feelings, and so it became part of our awareness of reality. Indeed, this reality that we see, from the models we see moving in the political reality, gives us an indubitable conclusion about the reality of history, of its events that are narrated and its stances that are recounted. A person who lives the life story of Imam al-Husayn (a), the story of Karbala and its precursors, cannot overlook those with vested interests who seek to please the oppressors in order to preserve their gains, or the court scholars who legitimize the continuation of injustice with twisted tongues, or the pretenders to culture and the theorists who shed their own concepts and turn matters upside down for people, and other contemporary and lived models.
So we are not surprised by the reality of deviation, fickleness, crookedness and political hypocrisy, because (real history) has informed us of that.
Nor are we surprised by the existence of a history full of deviation, fickleness, crookedness and political hypocrisy, because (political reality) bears witness to that.
The proof of the reality of history, then, is the political reality we live with. Hence the revival of ʿAshura will be a civilizational necessity, and it will have a fundamental task in social awareness and the social mind, to ensure clarity of vision and that one is not deceived by the fatwas of the court, nor by the distortions of the pseudo-intellectuals, nor by the lies of the media people.
