A Reading of the Book
The Husayni Revolution: A Lamp of Guidance and an Ark of Salvation
*Prepared by / Zaki al-Nasir
Al-Husayn (a).. a revolutionary call for change, for reform, and for revolution against the self and against the corrupt reality..
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This Husayni vision is presented in a new framework by His Eminence Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi in his latest work, recently published under the title: “The Husayni Revolution: A Lamp of Guidance and an Ark of Salvation”. He invites the reader to read his reality, in his contemporary revolutionary and political movement, through the blessed Husayni revolution, as a correction of reality by the guidance of Imam al-Husayn (a), because he is “a lamp of guidance and an ark of salvation”.
The book is divided into three main headings: “The Husayni Revolution.. A Continuing Ray”, “The Right of Revolution against the Oppressors”, and “Awareness of the Political Movement from the Inspiration of ʿAshura”. Under these headings branch out subheadings in which the author discusses numerous topics concerning the Husayni uprising, reading it in the correct way, and the ways of being guided by it.
Under the heading “By Way of a Preface”, the Sayed author seeks to place the reality of the movement and the process of change that Muslims are living in the light and on the path of Imam al-Husayn (a). He pointed to two mentalities that read reality and try to nourish society with their ideas. The first: the mentality influenced by the event itself and by the transformations themselves, so it works to formulate its thought and its culture on the basis of the data that touch it; this mentality merely submits to reality and tries to reconcile it with the thought and creed it believes in, in an approximating attempt. It is the very pragmatic or instrumentalist mentality that adopts the political-philosophical doctrine which is not based on any ideological interpretation of the movement of society and history, but rather looks at immediate results; and we see that some from within the Islamic sphere adopt this theory without being aware of its reality.
As for the second mentality, it is the one that reads reality through the divine laws (sunan) and the fixed laws of history, in order to discover the secrets of change and to build movement through it, reinforcing all that with what is fixed in its visions and its creed, which accept neither change nor alteration, since they are divine (historical) laws.
That is, the revolutionary person and the one who has a cause must also possess Qurʾanic insight. Sayed Al-Mosawi says about him: he does not surrender to reality in his visions and does not give up the ambition of change; he works and calls out constantly: “O you who have faith! If you help Allah, He will help you and make your feet steady.” (Qurʾan 47:7), so that people take up the means that lead them to a life of dignity.
The problem here, as His Eminence expresses it, lies in those mentalities that are influenced by reality, so that reality is what shapes their culture and their visions. You see them spreading out, rising up and calling for the possibility of change when they live through the victories of others—and those victories that human beings live through undoubtedly send messages to the mind, that it might shake off the dust of defeat, as happened with the victory of the resistance in Lebanon over the Israeli enemy, as happened in Tunisia with the flight of the dictator, and the storms of change in Egypt. However, this mentality, which builds its convictions on transformations and whose mechanisms of thinking are formed through the victories of others, cannot be trusted in a reality of oppression and a life of repression—that time in which a person needs to move to change his reality more than anything else.
Does the Uprising of Imam al-Husayn (a) Count as a Revolution?
His Eminence Mahmoud Al-Mosawi affirms in his new work that what took place on the day of ʿAshura was a true revolution against the self and against the corrupt reality, within the framework of reform, correction and change, explaining that a revolution need not necessarily bring about violent clashes, street warfare and the like. He has discussed those who reject applying the word “revolution” to the uprising of Imam al-Husayn (a). His Eminence Sayed Al-Mosawi says:
It is said: Why did the Noble Qurʾan not use the word “revolution” in calling to change and reform..? And we find no use of it in the hadiths of the Trustworthy Prophet and the Pure Imams?! This is sheer confusion. The word revolution serves to denote a state of political movement or one of its stages; it is a descriptive word for this state of movement. Therefore it is not methodologically correct for us to reject it or accept it on the basis of its being used in the religious texts in this sense or its not being used; because, simply, it is one of the descriptive words..
On the other hand, in bringing the concept of “revolution” closer to reality, the author cited a talk by His Eminence Ayatollah Sayed Hadi al-Modarresi on “the revolutionary spirit”, in which His Eminence says: ..The revolutionary spirit is the spirit of transcending, which aspires to create a new reality on the ruins of an old reality; it is the spirit of making light of obstacles and setbacks in the course of achieving goals; and in addition to that, it pays great attention to its own means, laws and tactics)[1].
The Right of Revolution against the Oppressors
In our Islamic countries there has been long talk, for decades, about the question of moving against the oppressive ruler, revolting against him and toppling him, seeking light from the guidance of Imam al-Husayn (a). The author asks: Was Imam al-Husayn (a) an exception in his rising? Or is he a model whose path is followed in confronting the oppressors, repelling oppression and establishing justice?
The author answers: “Imam al-Husayn (a) is the lamp of guidance and the ark of salvation” in everything and in every age, in his word and in his rising; and he, with his brother al-Hasan (a), are two Imams, whether they rose for jihad and revolution or sat.
This is a clear truth; however, the onslaught of time and the assault of afflictions on the loyal followers caused some to be afflicted with a psychological defeatism, which afterward turns into an idea and then into a philosophy of life—as one of the scholars says—by leaning on some narrations reported in the books of hadith from which there might be understood an indication of the impermissibility of rising against the oppressors, of not repelling oppression and tyranny, and of not denouncing wrongdoing.
However, Sayed Al-Mosawi, through an investigative view, affirms: The idea of surrender, of the impermissibility of rising against the oppressor and of not repelling oppression, and of accepting the oppressors over the heads of the servants and the lands even if they work corruption, was not present in the school of the Ahl al-Bayt (a); rather, it is a controversy with which the followers of the school of the Caliphate were afflicted, because of the efforts of the Umayyads in distorting the narrations, so that people would accept them on a religious basis.
As for the school of the Ahl al-Bayt, His Eminence Sayed Al-Mosawi points to the tendency of some to adopt certain narrations from which a rejection of rising up against the oppressor is understood, such as the hadith narrated from Imam al-Sadiq (a), who said: “...O Sudayr, keep to your house and be one of its mats, and be still as long as the night and the day are still; and when it reaches you that al-Sufyani has come out, then set out to us, even on foot[2]. And in another hadith in this direction, also from al-Sadiq (a), he said: “Every banner raised before the rising of the Qaʾim, its bearer is a ṭāghūt worshipped besides Allah, Almighty[3].
The Husayni Spring and the Political Movement
The Sayed author firmly establishes the connection between the uprising of Imam al-Husayn (a) against the Umayyad deviation and the uprising of the Arab peoples against the deviations and tyranny of the rulers during the past two years, and he explains that ʿAshura is a season for activating human values such as freedom, dignity, refusal of humiliation, self-sacrifice, defiance, change and confronting oppression. As for the arena and the spring of this season, it is every land—His Eminence says—that receives the seeds of the values of ʿAshura and is watered by the sweetness of its principles, so that they are activated and empowered; thus every land in which those values are revived is the land of Karbala, and every day on which those values are raised is the day of ʿAshura.
The author adds: The successive political events and demands for change, and the confronting of oppression and tyranny, that the Arab reality is living today are classified, in one of their aspects, within the Husayni spring, since the effects of the Husayni approach were clear, and the spirit of change, the spirit of dignity and a set of Husayni values were the basic formula in these movements. Some may find that strange—the Sayed author says—and say: A number of the arenas that were the sites of the current revolutions had no mention of Imam al-Husayn (a) and no reviving of the Husayni rites (shaʿāʾir), so how are these arenas classified within the Husayni spring!
To answer that, we say: The influence of any act is not necessarily a direct influence; the influence may be indirect, that is, through a multiplicity of intermediaries of influence, through the atmospheres it creates that affect the general orientations, or through the historically accumulated influences on the root of the culture and the type of visions and methods.
This matter can also be viewed from another side, namely that history has informed us that there were two divergent approaches: an approach that rules with iron and fire, dominates the necks of the Umma, lords it over people and exploits religion for its personal benefits; and there was an approach that faced it, challenged it and fought it, namely the approach of justice, dignity and liberation from servitude to money and servitude to people to servitude to Allah, and of return to innate nature (fiṭra). That appeared clearly in the battle of Karbala: Yazid ibn Muʿawiya led the approach of enslavement and exploitation, and Imam al-Husayn (a) led the approach of liberation, justice and dignity. From here the two approaches continued historically: among what emerged from Yazid's approach was the theory of loyalty to those in authority even if they are the most dissolute and the most corrupt of people, and there emerged from the Husayni approach loyalty to the values themselves, and to persons to the extent that they embody those values.
The Slogan of Peacefulness.. A Husayni Approach
His Eminence Sayed Al-Mosawi, in his book, addresses an extremely important question in the project of political change, namely the means and the tool for carrying out this project and achieving political change. He points to the followers of the peaceful option and of “peacefulness”, with their argument from the Noble Qurʾan, and he also points to the followers of the option of violence and their argument from the Qurʾan as well. But before discussing the two ideas, the author warns, in an astute observation, of the ill consequence of dealing with them on the basis that there is a separation between the two approaches. He affirms, saying: The truth is not so; there is an overlap between them, there is what is root and what is branch, and there is the question of initiating and the question of defending; so one cannot speak about the two approaches with a kind of superficiality and willful neglect. This blessed Husayni march clarifies for us the differences and dividing lines between the two approaches: Imam al-Husayn (a), together with his brother Imam al-Hasan (a), was in a peaceful political and civilizational movement; and when the Imam found that the matter required raising the level of confrontation for the sake of religion, he rose up, mobilized his men for that and summoned them to stand by his side; and with all that, he did not initiate fighting against the people; but when he was attacked, he rose and drew his sword and the swords of those with him to support the religion and defend the sanctities.
The fallacious discourse that describes mass movement as violent when the masses defend themselves, or even when they undertake protests that are peaceful by political understanding, comes—that discourse—from sources that want to bury alive any movement of peoples against oppression and aggression, so that people remain in slumber while the likes of Yazid toy with the resources of the Umma and enslave a group of them. You see the depth of the fallacy clearly when states and governments need to repel movements with violence: they justify it to themselves with a thousand justifications in order to kindle wars and to suppress peoples.
