Ahmad ʿAbd al-Rahim *
Al-Husayn (a) triumphed, as he departed from this world a martyr, pure and immaculate; so why do we commemorate his memory every year with grief and weeping?
Why these tears and sighs?
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Why all these fervent slogans and million-strong marches, even though more than 1300 years have passed since his killing?
In addition to the sanctity of the station of al-Husayn (a) and the enormity of the tragedy from the human standpoint, we renew the grief every year because “an Umma fell,” and we must work to rescue it.
The pulpits, processions and ziyārah (visitation) of al-Husayn (a), and the words, slogans and rites of ʿAshura, are nothing but messages of rescue to the world that is aware of their essence. More than 13 centuries ago, the Umma reached the utmost point of its fall, as al-Husayn (a) was killed by its hand and in its midst, and it kept silent about that despite the station he holds, which it did not know as it truly deserves to be known; and its today is no better than its yesterday, and nothing will rescue it from its fall and wake it from its slumber except its interaction with the pure blood of al-Husayn (a) and its perception of the values of his reformist uprising.
Today, while the culture of awareness of life is absent in our Umma, and the rate of illiteracy reaches—at the very least—40% of the total population, the pulpits of al-Husayn (a) and the slogans of ʿAshura remind us that he (a) gave up his lifeblood to rescue the servants from “ignorance” and the bewilderment of “misguidance”(1)—that misguidance arising from ignorance in religion and from falling into the pits of deviant ideas and currents, the most prominent manifestations of which today are the active terrorist cells in our Arab and Islamic countries; whereas the movement of al-Husayn (a) guided non-Muslims, let alone the deviant within the Islamic sphere, except whoever turned away and transgressed.
In countries most of which are in the grip of unjust and despotic dictatorial regimes holding the seat of power.. countries whose peoples are enslaved by local tyrants and extorted by greedy foreigners, and in the darkness of whose detention centers the innocent are tortured with the most hideous kinds of terrible torture, of which driving nails into ears and tongues is not the harshest—and a simple example of whose hideous chapters was the videotape that the ABC News channel broadcast last April (2010 CE), exposing the torture of an Afghan man by the ruler of Dubai.. in these countries and others, million-strong processions go out raising the banners of freedom and justice, defying gunshots and the explosions of shells and car bombs, to repeat the cry of al-Husayn (a): “Far be humiliation from us,” and the visitors cross their deserts, seas and skies repeating the call of al-Husayn (a): “Be free in your worldly life.”
And while we still suffer from discrimination among people on the basis of the wealth or positions they possess, or on account of their lineages, their ancestral merits and their races—such as the court rulings, which provoke ridicule, ordering the separation of spouses for “incompatibility of lineage”—the commemoration of al-Husayn (a) inspires us with lessons of equality among human beings, when the grandson of the Messenger of Allah (s), the son of the Commander of the Faithful (a), the son of the Mistress of the Women of the Worlds (a), the Master of the Youth of the People of Paradise (a), placed his cheek upon the cheek of the slave Jawn, exactly as he placed his cheek upon the cheek of his son ʿAli al-Akbar (a), when the two fell to the ground, struck down!
In a world that marginalizes the role of women and cancels the role of the child, we do not need to exert further effort to know the great role that women played, and that children played, in making the Husayni revolution succeed, in conveying its goals and in immortalizing its memory until this very day.
And in societies eaten away by crimes and moral deviations, contrary to their glittering angelic exterior, we see the summit of purity, scrupulous piety and good manners in the youngest child among the children of that sacred uprising.
So, gentlemen, do you now know why we commemorate the memory of al-Husayn (a) with grief every year?
And do you possess another alternative that moves millions and stirs the masses every year to confront these dilemmas and tragedies that kill the will of the Umma?
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(1) As has come in Ziyarat al-Arbaʿin: “And he gave up his lifeblood for You to rescue Your servants from ignorance and the bewilderment of misguidance.”
* A writer from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
