AhlulBayt (AS) International News Agency — ABNA: The Holy Prophet (s) said: «إِنَّ لِقَتْلِ الْحُسَيْنِ حَرَارَةً فِي قُلُوبِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ لَا تَبْرُدُ أَبَدًا» — that is, "For the martyrdom of Hussein (a), there is a warmth in the hearts of the faithful that will never cool." This prophetic hadith is no simple prediction; it is a truth that has proven itself over centuries against the most brutal of trials. What happened at Karbala was not merely a historical event — it was a fire of faith whose pulse has continued from that day into eternity.
History remembers well the relentless efforts of the enemies of the AhlulBayt to snuff out this fire. Seventy years after Ashura, the Umayyad caliphs sealed off the roads to Karbala with heavy military blockades so that no pilgrim could reach the grave of Imam Hussein (a). Through torture, imprisonment, mutilation, and outright killing, they sought to sever this bond — yet they never succeeded. Pilgrims would steal their way to the shrine under cover of darkness, through untrodden paths, and there, in the black of night, weep at the grave of that martyred Imam.
But the Abbasids surpassed the Umayyads in this crime. Mutawakkil, the most notorious enemy of the Prophet's household, ordered the sacred grave of Imam Hussein (a) destroyed four times over. He commanded that the ground of the shrine be plowed and sown with wheat, so that no trace of the grave would remain and its memory would be wiped from hearts. But the soil of Karbala, watered by the blood of the Master of Martyrs, refused to grow wheat. It grew love.
Mutawakkil's crime did not stop at destruction. He issued a decree that visiting the grave of Imam Hussein (a) was permitted — on one condition: that the pilgrim's right hand be cut off. The lovers of Hussein passed through this gate one after another. Historians have recorded that a woman, intending to make the pilgrimage, showed the official her right hand, severed the year before, and said: "You cut off my right hand last year. This year it is my left hand's turn." Here, love for Hussein (a) spoke not of severed hands, but of the God for whom she had chosen this path.
This enmity was not confined to the era of tyrannical caliphs. A thousand years later, under the Baath regime in Iraq, when Saddam Hussein ruled the country, the same restrictions prevailed. The Baath Party had banned the Arbaeen walk. Iranians were forbidden from entering Iraq to visit the Master of Martyrs. Yet despite all that hardship, Iraqis kept this ritual alive by night and along harsh, rugged routes — and it was never discontinued.
So what is the reason for the oppressors' inability to dim this passion? The secret of this historical failure lies in that very "passion and heat" the hadith speaks of. This passion is no fleeting emotional sentiment. On the day of Ashura, Imam Sajjad (a) told Lady Zainab (s) that God had taken a covenant from a group of people to bury the torn bodies of the martyrs and to raise over Hussein's grave a banner whose mark would never fade. This is a divine covenant, and human will has never prevailed against it — nor ever will.
The infallible Imams (a) themselves, despite all these dangers, urged this pilgrimage. Mu'awiya ibn Wahb relates that Imam Sadiq (a) told him: «... لَا تَدَعْهُ لِخَوْفٍ مِنْ أَحَدٍ، فَمَنْ تَرَكَهُ لِخَوْفٍ، رَأَى مِنَ الْحَسْرَةِ مَا يَتَمَنَّى أَنَّ قَبْرَهُ كَانَ بِيَدِهِ [عِنْدَهُ] أَمَا تُحِبُّ أَنْ يَرَى اللَّهُ شَخْصَكَ وَ سَوَادَكَ مِمَّنْ يَدْعُو لَهُ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ(ص) وَ عَلِيٌّ وَ فَاطِمَةُ وَ الْأَئِمَّةُ(ع)؟! ...» — meaning, O Mu'awiya, do not abandon visiting the grave of Imam Hussein (a) out of fear of anyone; for whoever abandons it out of fear will be struck by such regret that he will wish the grave of that Imam were near him, so he could visit it again and again. Would you not love for God to see you among those for whom the Messenger of God, Ali, Fatima, and the Imams (a) pray?
Never abandon visiting Hussein (a) out of fear, for it leaves behind a great regret. And this is the Ashura consciousness that understands the price of reaching Hussein is sometimes greater than life and wealth itself.
Each time, the enemies believed that with destruction, with severed hands, with bombardment, or with forced forgetting, they could extinguish this passion. Each time, it was love that overcame every obstacle. Today, tens of millions of pilgrims from across the globe reach Karbala on foot, in the midst of the greatest hardships. They walk the very road where once, in the dead of night, they fled from the enemy's spears. And this is the living embodiment of that "secret of the Quran" we learned from Hussein (a) — the tangible interpretation of the verse «وَلَا تَهِنُوا وَلَا تَحْزَنُوا» — "And do not weaken, and do not grieve" — which flowed in his blood.
Zahra Salehi Far, Master's graduate in Quran and Hadith, Master's student in Media Management at Baqir al-Olum University.
Sources
1. Jami' Ahadith al-Shia, vol. 12, p. 556
2. Kamil al-Ziyarat — Bab al-Arba'in, vol. 1; and al-Kafi, vol. 4, p. 582; and Thawab al-A'mal, p. 95
3. Surah Al Imran, verse 139
Your Comment