Karbala's Foundation Laid

Karbala's Foundation laid

THE EVENTS OF history give out a clear verdict that the series of the sufferings, the miseries and the calamities inflicted on the AhlulBait, which culminated at one stage in the wholesale massacre of the Holy Imam Husain and his faithful devotees at Karbala, and the misfortunes and the assassinations of the other Imams and their families and their devotees, which thereafter followed up to the ninth Imam Hasan al-Askari, was inaugurated at the Saqeefa. Had the people remembered the repeated declarations about Ali, and his Ahlul-Bait, the world would never have witnessed the hideous scenes of the sufferings and the massacre of the Holy ones; on the other hand, today the world would have been ruled by the men of God, and humanity had enjoyed the godly kingdom on earth, and the human race by this time would have been united under one single brotherhood which was inaugurated by the Holy Prophet at Madina.

The Fate of the Kalifate

THE COURSE WHICH the kalifate adopted at the Saqeefa, and the personnel that occupied its throne and called themselves Kalifs, is a matter of history to be referred to. Such of us who are not much acquainted with Arabic and Persian, may refer to the famous work 'The History of the Arabs' by Hitti which is sometimes prescribed as a text book for the university courses in Islamic History. However, a list of the Omayyid and the Abbaside Kalifs is given as an annexure to this work for the general information of the readers. The particulars given in the chart, are those given in the famous work by Hitti.

What happened to the Directive from God

WILL NOT ANY one, be he a muslim or even a non-muslim, who has gone through the following verses of the Holy Qur'an with the

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average understanding of a common man, ask 'What about the divine directive of God to the muslims in matters of dispute among themselves:-

What happened to the Holy Prophet's appointing Ali as his heir, his Khalif, and his Successor with the announcement of it, at the Tawate Asheera' at the very outset of his apostolic mission ? If this was too old an event for the companions to remember it what about the most recent appointment of Ali, only about ten or eleven weeks before the dispute, the Holy Prophet declaring it officially in the historic assembly convened by him at the command of the Lord (5:67) at 'Ghadeer-e-Khum' announcing Ali as the 'Maula', i.e., Master, Commander or the Governor in his place, at which the Lord declared the religion, Islam, to be complete and acceptable to Him, and at the end of which ceremony, every one of them had paid 'Bai'at' or allegiance to Ali.

The condition laid down by the above directive of God, is open and very severely emphatic, commanding the muslims to act according to it, if they believe in God and the last day, and the failure to do it, will naturally mean disbelief in God and the last day of Judgment. The course laid down in the above verse is said to be the Righteous and the Best One and anything otherwise will naturally be unrighteous and the worst.

Besides the above, there is another verse of the Holy Qur'an which gives out a clear verdict about those who do not unconditionally submit to, or implicitly obey the decision of the Holy Prophet :-

However, it is a fact that the matter in the dispute was neither referred to God nor to the Holy Prophet's definite decrees; on the

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other hand what was already decreed by the Holy Prophet at the command of the Lord was totally neglected and ignored. Under these circumstances it is for the readers to say, if or not, the opening words of the above verse get applicable to those who neglect, ignore and disobey the verdict of the Holy Prophet about Ali's position in relation to him.

Man cautioned against the Disobedience to God and the Holy Prophet

MAN HAS ALREADY been cautioned by the All-Merciful Lord against the fate of those who go against His will and the decree of the Holy Prophet in the matter of the choice of a leader or guardian or a ruler of man's destiny in this world :-

The above verses of the Holy Qur'an are sufficiently clear and plain enough to necessitate any elucidation or a further explanation of the matter. They are not about the disbelievers but about those who believed in the Holy Qur'an and neglected it. The verses relate about those who got astray after once getting guided aright. The verse No. 28 is too aloud about the subject of the address and the cause of the repentance on the Day of Judgment.

The Sense of Discretion and Discrimination

THE SENSE OF discretion and the faculty of discrimination, i.e., the power of unrestricted prudence, liberty to act with the endowment of conscience, to note and distinguish the difference between good and evil, or the faculty cif equation is the greatest gift of the All-Wise and the All-Merciful Providence, given exclusively to man and to

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no other animal. The dawn of this faculty in a human individual is the first sign of the maturity of the mind.

Animals also are given this power but only to the extent of distinguishing the profitable and the harmful to their life, with no regard for others, even for their own kind. Every animal takes only that food which is profitable to its life and nothing otherwise.

Some people succumbing to the currents of over enthusiasm of their righteousness or to imitate unwarranted godliness, forfeit this great gift of God and pretend to pronounce neutrality and overlook the evils in favour of some goodness. Particularly about certain persons of their own choice, assigning some worldly deeds of credit to them. They forget that such a course is unnatural and also ungodly. Unnatural in the sense, however, good and nutritious the food one might have taken but when the same individual takes a killing poison, the fatal drug will not fail to act duly according to its nature and the intensity of its property, undoing all the goodness and the nutrition of the diet taken by the individual. Ungodly, or it has been proved that the one who is titled as Satan, was not originally a Satan. He was a Jinn (18:5o) who for the extent and the degree of his supplication to the Lord, had been raised to the rank of the angels and even as the Chief of them. His one refusal to submit to the command of the Lord, to pay obeisance prostrating to Adam, made him fall with the title of Lucifer.

A Point of Note for False Unitarianism

In the fall of Satan from the rank of the angels and his being expelled from goodness for ever, lies a point of note against false unitarianism. It is to be noted that Satan never refused to pay obeisance or prostration to God, but he insisted that he would prostrate only before God and not before man. The will of the Almighty Lord was that one should not prostrate only to Him but to any one, He desires. No doubt the prostration to the Lord will be the obeisance, surrender or the submission to the Absolute Authority of the Lord and the prostration to other than Him, will be the token sign of honour, respect and regard, as did all the angels to Adam and as did also Holy Prophet Jacob with his other sons, to his son Joseph on the throne. Thus prostration to any holy person or to any sacred object, with the intention to pay the individual or the object, any regard or reverence, can never be ungodly or objectionable. The point lies in the intention.

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Goodness and Evil, can undo each other

To ILLUSTRATE THE natural phenomena of goodness and evil, undoing each other, the following is the law of the legislation of the Lord by which man has been warned and encouraged with:-

It is to be noted that the warning in the above verse refers particularly to those to whom the signs of the Lord have been made clear, i.e., to those who have accepted the clarity of the commands of the Lord through His Apostle, i.e., the followers of the prophets like the christians, the jews and the muslims.

Let us read the above verse with 5:67 revealed at 'Ghadeer-eKhum' with reference to what the Holy Prophet commanded in compliance with the command and the people's liking or disliking it, accepting or rejecting it, or following or going against it.

"O' ye who believe ! raise ye not your voices above the Prophet's voice, nor speak loudly to him as ye speak loudly one to another, lest your deeds become vain, while ye perceive not." 49:2 See also: 3:22-7, 147:9, 69:18, 105:39, 65:49, 169:5 6:S 8 II, 16:2, 217.

The above verse gives a clear verdict about the deeds of those who raised their voices in the presence of the Holy Prophet when he was about to leave this world at which he was so much displeased with them that he turned them out of his presence.

There are similar verses about the wiping out of the sins other than disobedience to God and the Holy Prophet, in return for special acts of goodness as well as for abstaining from greater sins:-

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See also 42:35 and 53:32.

What greater virtue can there be than sincere devotion to God's Apostle and his Ahlul-Bait and why not the lesser sins of the sincere devotees of the Lord and the Holy Ones be wiped out. And what greater and graver sin can there be than deserting the Apostle of God, leaving him in the jaws of death, escaping away from the battlefields, disobeying him, torturing and killing his offsprings and what virtue could be of any avail to the deserters of the Apostle of God, even though they might have been admired by him thereafter, out of his personal grace and goodness and even if they had been pardoned by him in this world, for the Lord says:

It must be known that the Apostle of God will never pray for the enemies of God, i.e., for the disbelievers or the infidels or the idolatois; his prayer could naturally be only for those who profess to believe, but actually at heart they believed not, and were treacherous calling themselves Muslims but in the words of God they are Munafiqs, i.e., Hypocrites or the opportunists, about whom the Lord says:-

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The people referred to in the above verses are those the actual position of whose faith has been clearly declared by God Himself :-

The application of the above verses of the Holy Qur'an is not restricted to any particular people of any particular age; those refered to in the verses are the people of all times, if they own the qualities referred to in the verses.

The Successor to the First Kalif Nominated

When on 13th Jamadi II. 13 A.H. (634 A.D.), Abu Bakr got ill and got hopeless of recovery, he nominated Omar in his place. (For details the readers are referred to TKS., translation by Jarret). Any enlightened man or woman would ask:

1. What happened to the principle of election resorted to in the case of the choice of the first Kalif.

2. On what authority of the Holy Qur'an or Hadith or the principle of politics was the appointment of the successor to the first Kalif effected ?

The Successor to the Second Kalif Co-opted

WHEN OMAR FELT the approach of his end, he avoided election as well as nomination and appointed a committee of six men of his own choice to elect a successor to him:- I. Abdur Rahman b. Auf.

2. Ali ibne Abi-Taleb.

3. Sa'd ibne Abi Waqqas.

4. Othman ibne Affan.

5. Zobeir f. Alawam. Talha ibne Obaidallah. It was by Omar that Ma'aviah was appointed as the governor Of Syria. (Mr. Annl., EHI)

To know the details as to what took place and how Othman was elected, and how the Kalifate was conducted by him, one

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would do better by referring to Tabari and Kamil ibne Atheer etc., and W. Muir has given the details in his Annals on p. 324. However, Othman was co-opted to the Kalifate.

Othman's patronage of his relatives gave further strength to Ma'aviah son of Abu Sofyan to the extent that Ma'aviah's son Yazeed could play the havoc of the heartless wholesale massacre at Karbala, and his issues, the Ommayids, followed by the Abbasides, killed the holy Imams of the House of the Holy Prophet, one after another, until the eleventh of them, and the Twelfth one, like Jesus, was rescued by God to be kept alive as per the will of the Lord.

Fatema's house attacked

IN COMPLIANCE WITH God's command Talligh maa onzila ilaik-' (5:67) the Holy Prophet had inaugurated the serial of 'Imamat' (Divine guidance in succession to the Final apostleship) and had placed Ali as the First in charge of it, and had declared it at the historic ceremonial event at Ghadeer-e-Khum, before the multitude of the thousands of the Hajies, on 18.12.10 A.H. at the conclusion of which event was revealed s :6. . .declaring the religion to be perfect and Islam to be the religion for man, accepted by God. In pursuance of the expressed divine will of the Lord, Ali could not recognise or yield to the man-made authority set up at the 'Saqeefa' and hence had not paid fealty to it.

Ali to exercise patience

THE HOLY PROPHET who knew through the divine gift of knowledge, as to what would happen after him till the Day of Judgment, had advised Ali to exercise the maximum possible patience against every atrocious move that might confront him. In compliance with the apostolic will, without the least interference into, or any concern with the affairs that proceeded at the 'Saqeefa', Ali had retired with a determination not to get out until he collects together all the notes on the Holy Qur'an which he had from the Holy Prophet about the external as well as the internal meanings of the Final Word of God.

Without Ali being subjugated, the authority set up at the 'Saqeefa' could not have the seal of the recognition of it, by the Holy Ahlul-Bait and Ali was now the Chief of the Ahlul-Bait, the House of the Holy Prophet, and he would not

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yield. The retirement of Ali was exploited and a charge of conspiracy was coined and the people of the newly set up rule, headed by Omar, collected at the door of Fatema, demanded Ali to come out of the house. The reply from inside was that it was a vow Ali had made not to come out until the collection of the important notes on the Holy Qur'an is not completed: But the insurgent crowd would not agree and a big row was set into action.

Fatema's house threatened with fire

THE HOLY LADY Fatema, bereaved only a day or two before, deeply sunk in grief, standing behind the door of her abode remonstrated saying :-

Some historians say that fire and firewood was already collected at the door of the holy house with the threat to set the abode on fire and some say fire was already kindled. However, Shibli No'mani in his well-known 'Alfarooq' says:

Fatema wounded

A VIOLENT KICK at the door from one among the crowd pushed it down on the side of the Holy Lady Fatema standing behind it, breaking her rib and the Whatoone Jannat' the Queen of Paradise, fell unconscious and ultimately the hit and the wound killed the Holy Mother along with the baby son in her womb. According to the tradition of the Ahlul-Bait, the Baby was already named 'Mohsin.'

Ali's patience

EVEN AT Tests juncture the Lion of God abided with the will of the Holy Prophet and like a helpless one, kept quiet without any resistance or retaliation which, if he had only willed to resort, would have played havoc with the insurgents.

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In short, if the valour and prowess of Ali during the time of the Holy Prophet in the establishment of Islam and its propagation was a wonder, his patience and forbearance and fortitude which he exercised against all the atrocities from even the cowards among the people, was no less a surprise and a wonder.

The point quite obvious in this regard is that to Ali the first concern was the safety, security and the maintenance of the faith and not the owning of any fortune through any temporal power, though the right to be the temporal leader as well, besides being the spiritual guide, in the place of the Holy Prophet, was of none but his, which fact is unanimously acknowledged and openly declared even by his antagonists.