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Imam Husayn ('a)
Husayn ('a) inherits the Islamic movement. He is the inheritor of a movement which Mohammad has launched, Ali has continued and in whose defense Hasan makes the last defense. Now there is nothing left for Husayn ('a) to inherit, no army, no weapons, no wealth, no power, no force, not even an organized following. Nothing at all.
It is now around the year 60 A.H. (680 A.D.), fifty years after the death of the Prophet. Each Imam chooses the form his struggle will take. (Please pay special attention from here on to what I am trying to express. This is where I am getting to my main point.)
The form of the struggle of each Imam and each leader is not based upon his own personal tastes, but it has to take shape to fit the circumstances, and evaluate the factions, and the nature of the enemy's strength and formation.
Thus the shape of the struggle which Husayn ('a) chooses cannot be understood without taking into account the nature of the circumstances in which Husayn ('a) launchs his particular revolt. Now, when Husayn ('a)'s turn comes, the times and the people are looking for a man. How difficult it is when such a situation arises - sometimes the fate of a nation, the fate of a faith, an idea, a society, a generation is looking to an individual or several individuals in anticipation of how they will act.
Now the responsibility of safe-guarding the revolution has fallen upon Husayn ('a)'s shoulders at a time when the last bastions of resistance have been lost. Nothing has remained for him from the power of his grandfather, his father, his brother, the Islamic government or the party of Truth and justice, not a sword, not a single soldier.
The Ummayyids have occupied every base of society. For years, the Qoraish, in their neo-ignorance, dominated the values and mis-appropriated the fruits of the Islamic Revolution. It is years since the convergence of the Islamic Revolution has been pulled apart and the companions and the early strugglers of the Revolution, the disciples of the school of Mohammad, have fallen into three groups.
The first group, the one which refuses to tolerate the perversion of the movement and stands up and dies for their cause, by the year 60 A.H., have all disappeared. Abu Dharr is no more. Ammar, Abdollah ibn Mas'oud, Meitham, Hoir ibn Adi have all passed away.
The second group are those who have retreated into a quiet corner. They busy themselves with prayer and ascetic devotion in difficult times which ask for worship in the form of self-sacrifice in which true Moslems have neither conquered nor been blessed with martyrdom but have been tortured in prison. They have found another way. Instead of seeking heaven on the battlefields through the ranks of jihad, they strive for it in retreat through ascetic disciplines and retiring in the meditations of divine love, long fasting and mortification, self-abnegation and supererogatory prayers. The prime example of this group is Abdollah ibn Omar.
These great figures are those who, during the age, the very moments in which the masses of Moslems are being lashed by the whips and slain by the swords of the agents of the Ummayyids, who are looking towards their rising up and resisting - those who are .fostered in the Islamic Revolution and had struggled shoulder to shoulder with the Prophet - at the moment when they should have taken a stand on the field of spiritual combat, they retreat to the corners of the mosques in the silence of mortification.
Who are the best Moslem figures who are sacrificed while the devout retreat from the agents of oppression and disbelief? Yes, those who at such times have left the field of combat and have crawled off into the niche of the mosque, away from society? Their hands are polluted with crime, polluted with the blood of the pure hearted heroes and even with their very own blood.
The conscious person feels his responsibility and recognizes the difference between right and wrong; if he retires into solitary devotion, it is as if he had directly sacrificed a free and conscious mujahid [one engaged in religious and spiritual struggle] to the advantage of the oppressor. This sacrifice may even be himself. He is a criminal who commits a crime even if it be without pay or through blackmail. He sacrifices the best elements of faith in favor of disbelief. These are the worst elements. They commit suicide at the feet of the oppressor.
The third group are those Companions who had abandoned the battlefield in full awareness. They are from the contingent that fought at Badr, Ohod and Husayn ('a), and the Medina of the jihad and the Prophet's migration and side by side with the Prophet of Islam, sold off the honors they had gathered directly to Mu'awiyyah in his Green Palace. They collected their money by selling their accounts of what the Prophet said and did at the rate of a dinar per tradition. These people included Abu Darda, Abu Hurairah and Abu Mosa. Abu Hurairah, being a companion who was always beside the Prophet of Islam, was known as the companion who specialized in the science of hadith (relating the Traditions of the Prophet). He had attained such eminence in the Ummayyid court that Yazid (the son and successor of Mu'awiyyah to the Caliphate) employed him as a go-between to seek the favors of Oreinab, the wife of Abdollah ibn Salam.
Now what do you suppose the young people think when presented with such a situation? Here it is the time of Husayn ('a). It is only the second generation after the Revolution: a generation has grown up who did not experience that glorious time, those precious victories, the zeal and love as the Companions had. To hear such things from the tongue of one of these Companions drew love away from the hearts of the youth. All of their hopes, faith, thoughts had rested in the Companions who had been trained in the Revolution.
When everyday they see one of their heroes fall, what disappointment, what loss of faith must be their experience in that thing that they call Islam. This is the fate of the Companions, yesterday's generation, the generation of the age of the Prophet, the age of the revolution.
But the second generation, which comes to the fore, full of excitement, zeal and spirit - whether experienced or not - ready for the struggle against the order of the neo-ignorance, are nevertheless aware of what is going on. The manifestation and leader of the second generation of the Revolution is Hujr ibn Adi. Hujr had been a youngster at the time of the Prophet. He had grown to be a youth at the time of Ali and then entered the arena at the time of Hasan. He has statesman-like qualities. He is responsible and an aware mujahid. At the time of the peace treaty between Imam Hasan and Mu'awiyyah, he had been one of the most vigorous and radical opponents of Imam Hasan's signing of the treaty. He had even gone so far as to chide the Imam, saying, 'You have really humiliated the people by doing this!'
He is a zealous and fiery revolutionary but Imam Hasan takes him aside at Medina and quietly convinces him and even makes him hopeful of the future of the truggle. There is no clear account of this conversation in history. All we know is that Hujr comes away reassured. Hujr is not a credulous person nor is he somebody to accept a conservative approach involving compromise or the logic of dissumulation, passive endurance or a non-dangerous approach to struggle. Nor is he such an idolizer of leadership that he simply accepts Imam Hasan's opinion without question.
Taha Husayn ('a) (the famous Egyption writer) writes about this meeting of Hujr and Imam Hasan as well as another encounter with Soleiman ibn Sorad-i-Khaza'i and the Imam. As he states, Soleiman is also very critical of a kind and peaceful compromise, yet like Hujr, comes away satisfied with Imam Hasan's reasoning. Taha Husayn ('a) says that Imam Hasan's argument must have run like this: Any kind of open military struggle such as mounting an army in the field would serve no purpose except to annihilate whatever forces they had left. He had talked about establishing the foundation for a secret organization effectively continuing the struggle underground. The resistance movement or revolutionary operation against the regime took shape. It is this organization which during the two Caliphates of the Ummayyids and the Abbasids up to the last Shi'ite Imam ('a) formed networks which expanded throughout the lands of Islam, providing the basis for the Shiite Resistance Movement.
Hujr, and his companions, who are zealous young men, like Ali ibn Hatam, can not tolerate an age of suppression and black dictatorship of ever-increasing oppression, autocracy, exploitation of the people and their rights and the dispersion of the human aims of the Islamic Movement. They insist on defying this perverted rule over the people which is growing stronger day by day at the expense of right, justice and Islam.
The struggles, under the leadership of Hujr, increased and became ever more vigorous until the Ummayyids, through a nefarious plot, issued a decree against Hujr condemning him as an atheist (and this coming from the likes of the Ummayyids!). Then these young paragons of resistance of the second generation of the movement are seized and executed in Syria for their revolt against the establishment of Damascus, these disciples of the school and way of Ali who loyally persevered in their resistance.
Now Husayn ('a) appears but the central base of the power of the Revolution has been lost. The companions of the Resistance struggle have either been killed off or silenced. The faithful Companions who had not sold themselves, sought the security of devotion in out-of-the way corners rather than be bothered with the battling for that which is right and the risks involved in social and political struggle, to liberate the people and free them from their oppressive lot. They have slipped into the shell of respectability, piousness, self-centeredness and remaining silent. A group of the most notable Companions of the Prophet, have been passing their time in the Green Palace of Mu'awiyyah helping themselves to the public treasury while the second generation had been defeated in their striving and struggling against the Ummayyids. The power of the tyrant, enforced with sword or with money or with position or with deception, brings a pall of stifled silence upon everyone.
The mechanism of neo-mystification goes into operation along with the pressure of fear, money and fraud and the freedom of license and corruption along with the repression of ideas and faith and a sense of responsibility - we might say 'the freedom of repression' and 'the repression of freedom'. In this way the regime brings about a decay of the moral fiber of society. They bombard and obliterate the real fundamentals, the truth of faith, the Revolution, the bases of the movement and Islam: They paralyze hearts and minds by making sly appeals to quietism.
The regime of neo-ignorance knows well that the danger of revolution will not come about by destroying the House of Mohammad or murdering Ali or defeating the army of Hasan or the secret and unmanly destruction of Hasan himself. It knows that the uprooting of every base of resistance or the scattering of all uncertain forces, the ruthless massacre of the fiery figures of the revolt of the younger generation in Kufa such as Hujr; the exile, murder or condemnation to poverty and cutting off from the rights for which the Companions such as Abu Dharr, struggled through the glorious power of faith, is pointless. It senses that the breadth, the fine sensitivity of awareness, the keen edge of faith in the Truth, the profound understanding of the spirit of Islam, the true knowledge of the path of the call, the real meaning of the mission of the Prophet could not be repressed by the brute force, aggression, underhandedness and the travesty of justice which the Ummayyid establishment stood for. Even the killing of brave souls like Abdollah ibn Masoud, who stood up in protest against injustice and was tortured, is useless along with the leveling of every barricade in the fight for justice, the eradication of every potential of resistance against the system of the ruler, and, altogether, the martyring of the true leaders of the Movement and the forcing aside of the deserving participants in. the struggle. They takethe most important men into their service and the greatest talents, crushing all of the strivings, winning on all the fronts and establishing total hegemony of the Ummayyid Monarchy in all the lands of Islam extending from Syria to Khorassan. With all this, there is no way of rooting out the Resistance. However much they want to guarantee the stability of their regime and allow them to rule with a free hand, the fact is that all of these efforts - conquest, gaining domination, seizing the reins of leadership, smashing the people's liberation front, scattering and crushing all the defenders of faith, lovers of freedom, seekers of rights, disarming justice and finally, inheriting the arms, shields, armour and steeds of Islam and bringing people under the lashes of their dominance - all these efforts come to nothing.
The intelligent, aware, politicians of the Ummayyids know themselves well. They know their people and the spirit of the times. This society is only one generation away from the birth of the great intellectual, social, political, spiritual Revolution which is Islam. From one point of view this regime is one generation away from ignorance and polytheism and the battles of Badr, Ohod and Khandaq, the age of all these leaders of the atheistic, idolatrous, slave-dealing and capitalistic faction who fought the Prophet.
The Ummayyids know that under the black ashes of defeat smolders the red threat of a potential explosion. The army may have been defeated but Islam is still very much alive. The party of faith has been dispersed but faith itself is very much alive. The leaders of justice and supporters of Truth, the arms and shields of freedom and humanity all have been destroyed. The barricade of liberty has been razed and the base of resistance has been destroyed.
But what about the cause of justice, the worship of the Truth, the taste for freedom and the love of humanity? Ali is slain at prayer but what of the fire of Ali? Abu Dharr is exiled, then silenced by death at Rabazah, but what about the rallying cry of Abu Dharr? Hujr is executed in Syria, yet what of the rebellion of Hujr?
The true heart of these dangers, the well-spring of these revolts is not in Medina where people are massacred, nor at the Ka`ba where people are stoned, nor at Kufa which is controlled by a coup d'etat, nor at the Mosque of the Prophet where people are trampled under the feet of horses and chopped down by their riders, nor even in the house of the Prophet which lies in ruins, nor in the house of Fatima which is now ashes, nor in the Quran which they pierce with spears. . . Then where, indeed, is the heart of the fire, where is the constant well-spring of danger?
It is in the hearts and minds! If these two sources are not destroyed, all the victories remain without effect and all forces are endangered. If these two remain alive, all the people like Abu Dharr, Hujr, Omar and Malek, will also remain alive in their martyrdom and will send new people to the battlefield. All the Alis will reach martyrdom before death and will die in life. But if the fire of his school of thought is not destroyed, no immunity, either black or red - can be maintained by mass executioners. They will not remain immune for a moment in the sea of blood and the cemetery of death.
The mission of divine Revolution is not in the Quran, it is here. Although Ali is murdered in the Kufa Mosque, he still exists. All of those who are killed, all of the places which are conquered, all of the fronts which are defeated, all of the arms and fortresses which are taken and occupied belonged to truth, freedom and justice. The struggle for securing truth, freedom (liberty) and justice still exist and they are busy working on these two main principles. Therefore, these two centers should be destroyed. If these two fire-giving, luminous powers and the movement creating centers are destroyed, this can remain and make a nest.
Attacks begin. Arms are gathered to destroy the two sources of danger, the two real sources of explosion and fire - hearts and minds.
But this battle needs another type of arms, shields, bows and arrows and another type of army, policy, design, plan, rulers and conquerors. In the leading of this army and attack, neither gold is effective nor the giving of rights to Rey or Iraq to rule nor tricks nor the genius of Amr nor the works and murders of Barnar ibn Artat, Yazid ibn Mohlab and Hadjadj ibn Yusef.
In this surprise attack, the Quran is the arms, the customs of the Prophet (sunnah) are the shields. Thought and science are the equipment, faith is the fortification, Islam is the flag and the army consists of commentators, exploiters, lecturers, religious theologians, scholars, judges and the leader. The leaders are the great Companions of the Prophet, the important clergymen and the great Moftis.
The attack begins. The army of religion progresses smoothly and successfully in the land where a worldly, earthly army had already progressed and had eliminated any obstacles and resistance. Thus, they enter, develop and progress in the two main centers of fire, gradually conquer them, and without any noticeable resistance, they ruin them from the inside with a terrible compound. They use an elixir, the making of which formal clergymen of all religions know well. They transfer its recipe to each other throughout history. It is this same inauspicious elixir from which Moses is given the power to destroy the Pharaoh, Qarun and made the Jews, who are more murderous than the Pharaoh, greater worshippers of wealth than Qarun and more deceitful than Balaam and from the lover and founder of peace, Jesus Christ, it made a Caesar with satanic actions and disdain for religion.
The intellectual is sold and the clergy relate to the powerful. In Islam the subject begins which changes the fate of everything. All of the values are annihilated. They kill the spirit, change the direction of the Islamic Revolution and finally, sacrifice the people in the name of religion.
It is the first time that Islam, with the assistance of religious scholars, testifies to the elements and actions of the regime. The religious authorities compulsively believe that everything should be related to God. Two horrible cancers fall upon the people - 'in the Name of God' and 'the religion of God'.
The first one is the cancer of the religious authorities. They are the pseudo-Islamic scholars and clergymen. They are the speakers of Islam, religious scholars and leaders of the community. They have no official position or situation. They are not murderers. They study in the corners of schools, learn, and teach. Who are the religious authorities (marj'a)? What does religious authority mean?
Their thesis is that anyone, sinful or pure, anyone who has done a wrong, a deceitful thing, created a conspiracy or committed a crime must have hope for the mercy and forgiveness of God. He must have hope because God has said, 'There are people who are hopeful to God's command.' It is having hope that allows God's forgiveness, mercy and compassion. God forgives and there is the hope that he will forgive any crime. Therefore, it is forbidden for any normal man who may himself be sinful to call such criminals bad names. You cannot call them bad names and fight against them.
On the other hand, when you call a criminal, an oppressor and conspirator and condemn him and on the other hand, call someone oppressed, or slave, it is as if you claim to be God because God is the chief commander and it is on this basis that God takes everyone's actions into account and judges the procedure and behavior of anyone who is against the balance of justice. So, you do not have the right to judge the oppressor and conspirator. You want to establish the balance of the scales of justice here. Are you God? Do you want to accuse people and clear their accounts before God does so? No. It is not our duty to judge between a conspirator and a server. We are not allowed to condemn the criminal. We are not permitted to stand against this or that group. We should accept all of them. We must be patient and leave the punishment of everyone to God. It is the problem which arises from religious authorities in that they say, 'Leave everything to God.'
This disease of hope or cancer of the religious authorities paralyzes the second generation of Islam, who have not had sufficient training in the school of Islam and who have not received the language of the Quran and Islam from the tongue of the Prophet, Ali, the Emigrants and the Helpers. Thus, they are obliged to receive their Islamic. teachings second-hand from those who have sold their thoughts and ideas. It is for this reason that their awareness, findings and religious spirits are permanently poisoned with the propaganda of the religious authorities who are backed by the ruling regime. It is the strict, responsible fundamentalist Moslems, sensing their responsibility every moment 'to enjoin the good and forbid the evil' (amr bi'l maruf wa nahiy anil munkar) thick-headed people who extend themselves by imbibing in both God and the devil who existed side by side, one having nothing to do with the other one.
The second cancer is the cancer of fatalism which also grows in this period. The first religious school of thought which is created during the time of the Ummayyids is the school of the religious authorities. They use the Quran as a means to paralyze and destroy all ideas and beliefs, much less jihad. The other one is the school of fatalism which is the first school of philosophy that comes into being during the Ummayyid times as a divine philosophy.
We are going to see what corruption is hidden behind saintly and sacred faces. Divine Fate means, as the Quran tells us, 'God is the Absolute Commander'. They extend this to mean that whatever suffering occurs in the universe is according to His wishes. Whatever one does is done according to the wishes of God. Whatever position one has, in whatever situation one be in, whatever choice one makes, in whatever action one takes - whether corrupt or pure, murderer or non-murderer, executed or executioner, reactions to God's Will and Determinism. Whether one is a slave or a master, are all ruled or ruler belong to God. It is God that gives power and takes it away. It is God that kills and brings into being. It is God that gives honor or abasement. No one has any right whatsoever.
The correctness or attractiveness of this explanation of fatalism had a powerful effect upon the faithful Moslems who took the Quranic words into consideration together with the Traditions of the Prophet - Traditions automatically produced by people like Abu Hurairah in 'Tradition-making-machines' until they reached 40,000 different Traditions in the name of the Prophet. The Prophet-would have had to have lived 1000 years to have said all of them.
These teachings of the scholars have a paralyzing effect upon the thoughts of Moslems who live in obeyance of God's Will. It is explained to them that the Ummayyids ruled because God gave them this power. If Ali is defeated it is because God willed him to be defeated. Whether or not one is bad or good, if the good are destroyed and the bad, rule, it is all based on a higher wisdom that is not clear to u5 but depends upon God's Will. It is out of our hands. Therefore, any rudeness, crime or plunder of any position or person is considered to be a protest and criticism of God's Will, Power and Determination.
Sixty years have passed since the migration of the Prophet. Everything earned by the Revolution has been destroyed. All of the successes earned half a century before have been abolished. The Book brought by the Prophet is placed on the spears of the Bani Ummayyid. The cullure and ideas which Islam had developed through jihad, struggles and efforts in the hearts and thoughts of the people became a means for explaining the Ummayyids rule. All of the mosques are turned into support systems for polytheism, oppression, deceit and making fools out of the people. All of the swords of the mujahids are put to use for the executioners. All of the income from zakat and other religious taxes is used to run the Green Palace of Mu'awiyyah. All of the words relating to reality, unity, the Prophet, the sunnah, the Quran and Revelation are in the possession of Mu'awiyyah and his regime. All of the leaders of the community, judges, interpreters of the Quran, reciters of the Quran, scholars and speakers at the mosques have either been killed or pray in silence in the corners of the mosques or are propagators for the regime in Damascus (i.e. the Bani Ummayyiah).
The foundations of Mohammad no longer have a spokesman nor an altar nor a pulpit. Throughout the whole of this wide territory which included Rome, Iran and the Arabs, no one remains who relates to the Prophet's family or who was of the generation of those faithful to the Revolution. The results of all of the sufferings of the Emigrants and the Companions went with the wind. The palace of Mu'awiyyah gained a treasure, easily earned.
The revolutionaries of the past have either died in the remote desert of Rabazeh or have been killed in the fields of Marjal-Azar. The second generation of the Revolution who have created a movement and fought a struggle are mass-executed. The others are either engaged in a:pessimistic philosophy of fatalism or surrender to the side of the religious leaders. They realize that any effort to change the present situation is useless. Through experience they have learned that any struggle to guard Islam and to establish truth and justice and any fight against the everincreasing neo-ignorance, had been defeated.
So, now, sixty years after the migration, all of the powers are in the possession of the oppressive ruler. The values are determined solely by the ruling regime. Ideas and thoughts are developed by idea-making and thought making agents. Brains are washed, filled and poisoned with material presented in the name of religion. Faiths are altered, bought, paralyzed. If none of these efforts prove successful, faith is cut off with the sword. Now, Husayn ('a) has come up against this power, the power which possesses the thoughts, religion, Quran, wealth, sword, propagation, public arms and heredity of the Prophet. Husayn ('a) appears with empty hands. He has nothing. What can he do? Can he become an ascetic and run away to a corner to worship? Should he keep quiet rationalizing that since he is the grandson of the Prophet, the son of Ali and Fatima, therefore Paradise has been guaranteed to him?
This argument does-not hold with him. The other believers believe it but he is responsible, committed. Can he change his responsibility to perform the jihad into reaching nearness to God through reading and reciting prayers which is certainly easier? He cannot choose this solution because it is just 60 years after the migration and no prayer books have as yet been printed.
He has two ways open to him - either to say 'No.
I cannot start a political fight against the Ummayyid tribe because a combat like that needs an army and 1 have no power so I have to just sit down and perform an intellectual, a mental jihad.' But Imam Husayn ('a) cannot choose this solution.
If we see that later on, Imam Ja'far Sadiq, the sixth Imam, in the ninth generation after the Prophet (742 -752 A.D.), establishes an intellectual school, it is because of two facts. During the last days of the Ummayyid government and early stages of the Abbasid Caliphate, on the one hand, Greek philosophy enters the thoughts of Moslems and on the other hand, Indian and Iranian Sufism as well as Christianity have become very dear to the hearts of Moslems.
Because of these, the Moslem intellectuals at the time of the Abbasids intend to become sensible about politics. They begin thinking about right and wrong, truth and falsehood. They begin to wonder why Ali went and Mu'awiyyah came. They began to wonder who should rule the community and who should not. They are concerned with the 'Seven Cities of Love'. They are occupied with the relationship of the first chaos to the other chaos' which came about seemingly by themselves. They are concerned with the identity of the original or basic material from which God had created the world. It is these philosophical questions of the Quran which concerned them or the discovery of some particular gnostic questions in the Quran. But even if they have succeeded in answering these, their answers are not worth a penny.
Gradually questions concerning the soul, the body, chaos, essence, attribution, love, the first era, the last era, ecstasy, embezzlement, etc., develop among them but the problems of responsibility, commitment to society, the community, justice, equality, leadership, etc., have been entirely forgotten.
The regime has begun to create its own schools of thought and supplies them with theologians, rationalizations, philosophies and ideologies so that the roots of Islam can be changed and the regime can then justify its competence.
In such a situation, an intellectual struggle is obligatory especially for a person like Imam Sadiq who has no possibility of engaging in a political struggle, who has said, 'if I only had seven faithful soldiers, I would rebel.'
But in the time of Imam Husayn ('a), the situation is different. Sixty years after the migration there is still no sign of Western philosophy. The sciences which convert the reality and truth of Islam have not as yet entered into it. Islam still has its original roots, its memories and the people still have a clear recollection of it.
Mu'awiyyah wants Imam Husayn ('a) to sit in the Demascus mosque and teach theology, explain the verses of the Quran, Islamic culture, monotheism, the history of Islam or the customs and behavior of the Prophet or anything else that he wishes. He is even prepared to provide a budget for him providing that Imam Husayn ('a) does not engage in political activity which Mu'awiyyah considers to be an inferior activity for an Imam! But the Imam knows that 'the value of any action in society is equal to how much it hurts the enemy!' What must he do? He must rebel. Armed Revolution? An armed Revolution needs power and Imam Husayn ('a) has no power.
A book has recently been published which has become very popular - and has been very much attacked.
Its contents inadvertently show it to be a worthwhile book. I noted in studying it that it is the only book among the books written by our scholars which is written based upon studies by the author himself. All the documents have been gathered and both views, pro and con, have been presented, analyzed, explained and criticized. The author has even shown great courage by not rejecting or approving them. In other words, he undertakes an extensive study with a wide-range of references to perform scientific research in order to be able to announce a new scientific theory. These are the values of this book and I admire the author although I do not know him personally. I respect him as a scientist who has undertaken serious research, explanation and analysis, as an independent thinker in which he announces a new thesis: 'Imam Husayn ('a) left Medina in order to undertake a political or military revolt against the ruling government and regime by destroying an oppressive regime to obtain his own rights and the rights of the people.'
I am not in agreement with this theory, although it is an ideal one, but it does not comply with the particular realities of the situation. One person, in rejecting this theory, said, 'Imam Husayn ('a) was not a politician in order to be able to revolt against the ruling power.'
It is surprising! For what purpose then, were the Prophet and Ali fighting? For what purpose was Imam Husayn ('a) fighting? Is it not the question of politics? Is it not the fact that criminals are ruling over the people? Therefore, a person who is responsible should abolish the oppression and by taking possession of the rulership, give the people their rights. It is not only the right of the leader to do so, but it is his obligation.
Therefore, certainly the Imam must militarily or politically arise against the usurping government and destroy the powerful ignorance, govern through their revolutionary power and establish the truth in the community and keep the leadership in his own possession. I would like to say that this military or political revolution is the very mission of Imam Husayn ('a) but that he, in actuality, does not possess the ability.
Those that believe that Imam Husayn ('a) undertook a political and military revolt, use the argument that Kufa was a center which supported and protected Imam Husayn ('a), his family and the family of the Prophet and Ali. It is correct that Iran is behind Kufa and that the Iranians supported Ali and his family and that they even believe that all of Kufa is in the possession of Imam Husayn ('a) and that the people of Kufa were faithful and loyal to Imam Husayn's ('a) agent, Muslim ibn Aqil.
I assume that if Kufa is so powerful, in the case that Imam Husayn ('a) is able to reach there, he could have transformed it into a strong Islamic foundation and could even defeat Damascus and establish a free Islamic government under his leadership. Nevertheless, I believe that the movement of Imam Husayn ('a) had not been a political and military one.
Let me add - not for the reason that, as some people say, it is a defect for Imam Husayn ('a) to attend to politics and undertake a political revolution. No. This is the duty of an Imam. What I say is that he did not have the possibilities available to him to make such a Revolution.
You may argue: How is it possible that if Imam Husayn ('a) had reached Kufa, you yourself admit that Kufa had the possibility of defeating Damascus and thereby giving the leadership of the government to Imam Husayn ('a) ? Therefore, why is it that you do not believe the revolt of Imam Husayn ('a) to have been a political and military Revolution against the Ummayyid regime? In order to clear up this point, we should look at the start and form of the Imam's movement from Medina.
Imam Husayn ('a) leaves Medina and goes to Mecca. In Medina, he receives the invitation of the people of Kufa, 'We believe in you and expect you to accept the leadership. We need your leadership. We will give power to you. We will stand with you against usurpation and oppression. We will defend you. Please release us from this exploitive government.'
In Medina, Imam Husayn ('a) announces: 'Following in the traditions of my grandfather and my father, I am leaving Medina to 'invite people to the good and to forbid evil.' ' Then he travels the 600 kilometers and arrives openly in Mecca, accompanied by his family.
In Mecca, he announces to the pilgrims who had come for the annual pilgrimage, 'I am going to my death.' A person who is planning a political rebellion does not speak in these terms. He would say, 'I am going to fight to kill. I will conquer. I will destroy the enemy.'
But Imam Husayn ('a) addresses the people, saying, 'Death, for the sons of Adam, is as beautiful as a necklace around the neck of a young and beautiful girl. Death is an ornament for mankind.' Then he leaves Mecca to go towards death.
Is it possible that a politician, who is living in the center of the power of the Ummayyid tribe and is surrounded by a district of the ruling government, in reply to an invitation sent to him from one of the remote cities which had rebelled against the central government, to go to them to accept their revolutionary leadership and then formally announce, 'I am coming,' takes his wife, children and all the members of his family, his nephews and all the men and women of his family in an open caravan -not secretly - moves very naturally from one town to another all of which are occupied by the enemy who are supporters of the central government? He crosses six hundred kilometers in this manner, and enters Mecca. There, all those who are ruled by the Damascus government, all of the powers, fronts and Islamic nationalists are gathered. Here he announces once more that he intends to go to Kufa. He leaves by the western side of the Arabian peninsula and passing the whole eastern-western diameter, in the same manner, goes to Iraq and arrives near Kufa, the center of rebellion and revolution. It is obvious that the central government would not permit such a movement.
If a well-known political personality or even an ordinary opposing politician intends to leave a country to join the revolutionaries who are out of the country, to participate in their activities against the regime, it is clear under what conditions and in what manner he should leave the country and approach them.
Certainly, he should not announce it. He should not make the invitation known. He should keep his goal and his journey quite secret so that no one knows about it. it is obvious that if he formally announces to the government, 'I am a revolutionary who opposes the regime. I will not give my allegiance to the regime. I intend to leave the country in order to join the revolutionary group outside of the country and fight with them against the present regime. The revolutionaries have asked me to become their leader. Because of this, I am leaving the country. Please issue my passport!', they will not issue him a passport, but will seize and destroy him. But what does Imam Husayn ('a) do?
He formally, clearly and distinctly announces to the government, to the ruling power, to the military governor, to the people, 'I do not give my allegiance. I am leaving Mecca. 1 am migrating to Kufa. I am migrating to death. I begin to move.'
If the people suddenly realized that Imam Husayn ('a) had left the city, if Imam Husayn ('a) had left the city secretly, if he had quietly migrated and through the help of the tribes, reached Kufa in the same way that the Prophet migrated from Mecca to Medina, after a time, the central government would realize that he was in Kufa and among the revolutionaries. It would then be obvious that Imam Husayn ('a) had rebelled against the government.
But the form of his movement, his moving with the caravan shows that Imam Husayn ('a) has moved for another purpose. His purpose is neither to run nor to seek seclusion. He is neither surrendering nor putting aside politics and a political rebellion for intellectual, scientific, theological and moral affairs, nor for a military revolution. Then what?
It had reached the point where thoughts had become paralyzed. Personalities had sold out. The faithful have been left alone. Virtues have been isolated. Young people are either in a state of hopelessness or they have sold themselves out. The important pioneers of Islam have either been martyred or silenced and choked or made to sell out. It is a time when no sounds are heard from the community. Pens have been broken. Tongues have been cut off. Lips have been scaled shut. All of the pillars of truth have been knocked down, and have fallen on top of the faithful followers.
Imam Husayn ('a), as a responsible leader, sees that if he remains silent, Islam will change into a religion of the government. Islam will be changed into a military-economic power and nothing more. Islam will become as other regimes and powers. When their power diminishes, when their army and government are destroyed, nothing will remain. It will be nothing more than a memory in history - an accident which occurred in the past and has ended.
It is for this reason that Imam Husayn ('a) now stands between two inabilities. He can neither remain silent nor can lie fight. He cannot remain silent because time and the right opportunity are passing. Everything is being destroyed, abolished in the minds and deep consciences of the people - feelings, thoughts, schools of thought, goals, targets, meanings, ideals - everything brought by the message of Mohammad, all of the Islam that he brought and developed through jihad, great efforts and struggles. All of the others are obeying the ruling power. They are being; deceived. Their present atmosphere is one of complete silence, palpitations and surrender. He cannot remain silent because he has a duty to fight against oppression.
On the other hand, he cannot fight because he has no army. He is surrounded by the ruling, oppressive regime. He can neither shout out nor surrender nor attack. He remains with empty hands, yet the heavy burden of all of these responsibilities rests on his shoulders. He receives nothing from the power and the results of the struggles and efforts of his grandfather, the Prophet, his father, Hazrat Ali, and his brother, Imam Hasan, except an honor, a misery and a very heavy responsibility.
He is alone, unarmed. Opposing him is one of the most savage empires of the world which is being covered over by the fairest and most deceiving cover of piety, sacredness and unity which the ruling power possesses. He is alone. He is a lonely man who is responsible to this school of thought. In this school of thought, the lonely man is also responsible to oppose the determining power of fate because responsibility appears from awareness and faith, not from power and possibility. Whoever is more aware, is more responsible, and who is more aware than Imam Husayn ('a)?
What is his responsibility? He is responsible to fight against the elimination of truth, the destruction of the rights of the people, annihilation of all of the values, abolition of all of the memories of the Revolution, destruction of the message of the Revolution, and protect the most beloved of cultures and the faith of the people, for their destruction is the aim of the most filthy enemies of the people. They want to once again create the unknown, mysterious deaths, exiles, putting people in chains, the worshipping of pleasure, discriminations, the gathering of wealth, the selling of human values, faith, honor, creating new religious foolishnesses, racism, new aristocracy, new ignorance and a new polytheism.
The responsibility of resisting, struggling and fighting against all of these treacheries to the thoughts and crimes of the people, strikes against the people and jihads which are performed against the new conservatism and guarding that great, divine Revolution, are all placed upon the shoulders of one man. Alone! No one else has remained in the ranks of truth, justice, awareness, the people and God. All fronts have been released. All of the defenders have either been killed or have run away. He has remained alone, empty handed, without any possibility, surrounded by the enemy who caused others to surrender to the silence, to become indifferent and fall into public ignorance.
He can neither keep silent nor can he cry out. He cannot remain silent because all of the responsibilities are awaiting the actions of this lonely man. He cannot cry out because the sound of his voice has been curtailed. His cry will not reach the terrible silence of the sacrificing people; it will not reach the threat of immunity, the negligence of ignorance, the stupefication of the ruling religion, it cannot effect the brawls, false and savage wars of the Caliphate which are performed in the name of jihad, victory, profit, slogans, assemblies, the pilgrimage, the Quran and Islam. In the meantime, dance, music and art progress; power, pleasure and corrupt liberties are announced in the name of the Caliphate.
He must fight, but he cannot. How strange. He must and yet is unable. This responsibility burdens his awareness. It results from 'being Husayn ('a)' not from his 'ability'. He is still Husayn ('a) alone, unable, unarmed and helpless.
What should he do? 'Being Husayn ('a)' calls him to fight but he has no arms to fight with and yet he still has the duty to fight. All of the supporters of wisdom and religion, advisors of tradition and common law, recommenders towards goodness and logic, all, unanimously say, 'No!' But Husayn ('a) says, 'Yes.'
He leaves Medina for this purpose. He has come to Mecca to announce his unique answer to all Moslems who have gathered there for the pilgrimage ceremonies. He leaves Mecca to reply to the question, 'How?' The question existed in that important moment of history in which the fate of the people and Islam were changing and being determined. At the moment, all things have fallen down. All of the intellectuals and aware people and those who are faithful to the truth, justice, freedom of Islam and revolution, all those who could see, feel, understand and thus suffered and felt themselves responsible, who are thus looking for a revolution, are then asking, 'What should be done?'
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