My faith is that the progress of Islam does not depend on the use of
sword by its believers,but the result of the supreme sacrifice of
Husain, the great saint.
Dr. Rajendra Prasad
The sacrifice of Imam Husain is not limited to one country, or nation,
but it is the hereditary state of the brotherhoodof all mankind.
Dr. Radha Krishnan
Though Imam Husain gave his life almost 1300 years ago, but his
indestructible soul rules the hearts of people even today.
Swami Shankaracharya
It is Husain's sacrifice that that has kept Islam alive or else in
this worldthere would be no one left to take Islam's name.
Rabindranath Tagore
In order to keep alive justice and truth, insteadof an army or
weapons, success can be achieved by sacrificing lives, exactly what
Imam Husain did.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
Imam Husain's sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example
of the path of rightousness.
Mrs. Sarojini Naidu
I congratulate Muslims that from among them, Husain, a great human
being was born, who is reverted and honored totally by all
communities.
Reynold Alleyne Nicholson
(1868-1945) Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge.
"Husayn fell, pierced by an arrow, and his brave followers were cut
downbeside him to the last man. Muhammadan tradition, which with rare
exceptions is uniformly hostile to the Umayyad dynasty, regards Husayn
as a martyr and Yazid as his murderer."
[A Literary History of the Arabs, Cambridge, 1930, p. 197]
Robert Durey Osborn
(1835-1889) Major of the Bengal Staff Corps.
"Hosain had a child named Abdallah, only a year old. He had
accompanied his father in this terrible march. Touched by its cries,
he took the infant in his arms and wept. At that instant, a shaft from
the hostile ranks pierced thechild's ear, and it expired in his
father's arms. Hosain placed the little corpse upon the ground. 'We
come from God, and we return to Him!' he cried; 'O Lord, give me
strength to bearthese misfortunes! ' . Faint with thirst, and
exhausted with wounds,he fought with desperate courage, slaying
several of his antagonists. At last he was cut down from behind; at
the same instance a lance was thrust through his back and bore him to
the ground; as the dealer of this last blow withdrew his weapon, the
ill-fated son of Ali rolled over a corpse. The head was severed from
the trunk; the trunk was trampled under the hoofs of the victors'
horses; and the next morning the women and a surviving infant son were
carried away to Koufa. The bodies of Hosain and his followers were
left unburied on the spot where they fell. For three days they
remained exposed to thesun and the night dews, the vultures and the
prowling animals of the waste; but then the inhabitants of a
neighbouring village, struck with horror that the body of a grandson
of the Prophet should bethus shamefully abandoned to the unclean
beasts of the field, dared the anger of Obaidallah, and interred the
body of the martyr and those of his heroic friends."
[Islam Under the Arabs, Delaware, 1976, pp. 126-7]
Sir William Muir
(1819-1905) Scottish scholar and statesman. Held the post of Foreign
Secretary to the Indian government as well as Lieutenant Governor of
the Northwestern Provinces.
"The tragedy of Karbala decided not only the fate of the caliphate,
butof the Mohammedan kingdoms long after the Caliphate had waned and
disappeared. "
[Annals of the Early Caliphate, London, 1883, pp. 441-2]
Peter J. Chelkowski
Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, New York University.
"Hussein accepted and set out from Mecca with his family and an
entourage of about seventy followers. But on the plain of Kerbela they
were caught in an ambush set by the . caliph, Yazid. Though defeat was
certain, Hussein refused to pay homage to him. Surrounded by a great
enemy force, Hussein and his company existedwithout water for ten days
in the burning desert of Kerbela. Finally Hussein, the adults and some
male children of his family and his companions were cut to bits by the
arrows and swords of Yazid's army; his women and remaining children
weretaken as captives to Yazid in Damascus. The renowned historian Abu
Reyhan al-Biruni states;". then fire was set to their camp and the
bodies were trampled bythe hoofs of the horses; nobody in the history
of the human kind has seensuch atrocities."
[Ta'ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran, New York, 1979, p. 2]
Simon Ockley
(1678-1720) Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge.
"Then Hosein mounted his horse, and took the Koran and laid it before
him, and, coming up to the people, invited themto the performances of
their duty: adding, 'O God, thou art my confidence in every trouble,
and my hope in all adversity!'. He next reminded them of his
excellency, the nobility of his birth, the greatness of his power, and
his high descent, and said, 'Consider with yourselves whether or not
such a man as I am isnot better than you; I who am the son of your
prophet's daughter, besides whom there is no other upon the face of
the earth. Ali was my father; Jaafar and Hamza, the chief of the
martyrs, were both my uncles; and the apostle of God, upon whom be
peace, said both of me and my brother, that we were the chief of the
youth of paradise. If you will believe me, what I say is true, for by
God, I never told a lie in earnest since I had my understanding; for
God hates a lie. If you do not believe me, ask the companions of the
apostle of God [here he named them], and they will tell you the same.
Let me go back to what Ihave.' They asked, 'What hindered him from
being ruled by the rest of his relations.' He answered, 'God forbid
that I should set my hand to the resignation of my right after a
slavish manner. I have recourse to God from every tyrant that doth not
believe in the day of account."
[The History of the Saracens, London, 1894, pp. 404-5]
Edward G. Brown
Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic and oriental studies at the
University of Cambridge
"A reminder of the blood-stained field of Kerbela, where the grandson
of the Apostle of God fell at length, tortured by thirst and
surrounded by the bodies of his murdered kinsmen, has been at anytime
since then sufficient to evoke, even in the most lukewarm and
heedless, the deepest emotions, the most frantic grief, and an
exaltation of spirit before which pain, danger and death shrinkto
unconsidered trifles."
[A Literary History of Persia, London, 1919, p. 227]
Ignaz Goldziher
(1850-1921) Famous Hungarian orientalist scholar.
"Ever since the black dayof Karbala, the history ofthis family . has
been a continuous series of sufferings and persecutions. These are
narrated in poetry and prose, in a richly cultivated literature of
martyrologies - a Shi'i specialty - and form the theme of Shi'i
gatherings in the first third of the month of Muharram, whose tenth
day ('ashura) is kept as the anniversary of the tragedy at Karbala.
Scenes of that tragedy are also presented on this day of
commemmoration in dramatic form (ta'ziya). 'Our feast days are our
assemblies of mourning.'So concludes a poem by a prince of Shi'i
disposition recalling the many mihan of the Prophet's family. Weeping
and lamentation over the evils and persecutions suffered by the 'Alid
family, and mourning for its martyrs: these are things from which
loyal supporters of the cause cannot cease. 'More touching than the
tears of the Shi'is' has even become an Arabic proverb."
[Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, Princeton, 1981, p. 179]
Edward Gibbon
(1737-1794) Considered the greatest British historian of his time.
"In a distant age and climate the tragic scene of the death of Hosein
will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader."
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And Allah Knows the Best!
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Published by :->
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