What do you say about the words of Imam al-Husayn (a), “Death is traced upon the children of Adam…”?

In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful

And blessings and peace be upon the noblest of His creation, Muhammad, and his pure family

This saying came from Imam al-Husayn (a) after he had come out of his state of iḥram and resolved to head toward Karbala. Shortly before his departure from Mecca, he gathered the people, stood among them delivering a sermon, and said:

“Praise be to Allah; [it is] what Allah wills; and there is no power except by Allah. Death is traced upon the children of Adam like the tracing of a necklace on the neck of a young woman. How intensely I long for my forebears—the longing of Jacob for Joseph! A place of falling has been chosen for me, which I shall meet. It is as though my limbs are being cut apart by the wolves (ʿusalan) of the wastelands between al-Nawawis and Karbala, filling with me empty stomachs and hungry sacks. There is no escape from a day inscribed by the Pen…”.

We must emphasize that among the most important fixed strategies in the movement of Imam al-Husayn (a) is the commitment to public address accompanying every one of his steps, in order to instill in the public awareness of the aims of the movement, and awareness of the movement's foundations and its end. Among the important addresses, and those considered shocking to society, is this sermon which he delivered to the society of Mecca, or to the gathering of pilgrims. It is considered shocking because of what it carried within it: the disclosure of the inevitable fate awaiting the Imam (a) on his journey to Karbala.

This represents an aspect of the highest instances of truthfulness with the masses: he did not follow a policy of enticements with gains, positions and the like; rather, he made them stand before the inevitable truth in which every believer should believe, namely death. But here he disclosed the manner of that death, its time, and even its geographical location.

His (a) words “Death is traced”—that is, it is written—“upon the children of Adam” are an allusion to his own pure self. Then he likened that to the tracing of the necklace that encircles the jid of a young woman, that is, her neck. This expression bears several possible meanings:

1- Among them: that death is inevitable and encompasses the human being; he cannot flee from it.

2- And among them: that although death is inevitable, the Imam's likening [it] to the necklace that adorns a young woman's neck indicates that death is the meeting with Allah the Exalted; the believer is made happy by meeting Allah, and is adorned by martyrdom in His way, just as a young woman adorns herself with her jewelry.

3- And among them: that his choice of the necklace, which is placed on a young woman's neck, is an allusion to the method of killing that the enemies would follow, by slaughtering and cutting off the head.

He is not afraid of that death, because it represents meeting Allah and meeting His friends. He (a) longs for his forebears, namely his forefathers who preceded him: his grandfather (s), his mother (a) and his father (a)—likening that longing to the yearning that history and the Noble Qurʾan have immortalized, namely the longing of the Prophet Jacob for his son Joseph (a), for whom his eyes turned white with grief at his separation.

Then the Imam affirms that this fate is written with Allah the Exalted, and that reports and confirmations of the reality of its occurrence had come in succession, as he said: “A place of falling has been chosen for me, which I shall meet.”

The Imam (a) continues describing the scene of Karbala that awaits him, and the greatest event the world would witness—that scene for which history was waiting so as to change its courses forever—saying: “It is as though my limbs are being cut apart by the wolves (ʿusalan) of the wastelands.” Al-ʿusalan are the wolves that race swiftly toward their prey—a metaphor for the killers' thirst for blood and the extent of their excess in shedding it. Lady Zaynab (a) used the same image in her address in the court of Yazid, where she said: “These hands drip with our blood, these mouths drool from our flesh, and those pure bodies are picked over by the wolves (ʿusalan) of the wastelands.”

Then the Imam points to the geographical location of the event: that it would take place “between al-Nawawis and Karbala”; al-Nawawis is a place near Karbala. Then he describes their heinous deed, that they “fill with me empty stomachs and hungry sacks”: they are like wolves that devour their prey in order to fill their hollow, empty stomachs that writhe with hunger, and he likens those bellies to hungry sacks.

This is an allusion to the hideous manner in which the Master of the Martyrs (a) would be killed, namely wounding and the cutting apart of the limbs.

As for why the Imam chose this frankness in this address: it can be attributed to its being an address to a diverse society that had been brought together by the worship of hajj, to which all groups come from every distant ravine, with their differing cultures and psychological traits. The Imam did not need a quantity in numbers so much as he needed a qualitative elite fit to plunge into the great battlefield of Karbala. So frankness to this degree was a wise point, so that the Imam would not bear, on his journey, the burden of those in whom there would be no benefit. And although a group of them joined despite having heard this address, the Imam did not content himself with that; rather, he continued delivering sermons and purifying the caravan of those given to doubts and weakness, until on the night of the tenth those of them who withdrew withdrew, and those who stood firm stood firm.

Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi