Slmz! In this day and age it is prudent that we view and understand issues based upon their reality rather than an emotional attachment or a superficial commitment through lack of knowledge and information. In the light of this, we therefore share with you the following, in piece meal, so that the actual understanding of a dynamic historical legacy can materialised and its meaning understood and actualised. KARBALA; AN ENDURING PARADIGM OF ISLAMIC REVIVALISM: Dr. S. Wahid Akhtar, formerly Professor and Chairman, Dept. of Philosophy, Aligarh Muslim University, presented the paper at the conference on Imam Khomeini wa Farhange Ashura, (Imam Khomeini and the culture of Ashura), held on June 1-2, 1995 at Tehran. The martyrdom of Imam Husayn ibn Ali (a) and his companions in Karbala proved to be the beginning of the downfall of the Banu Umayyah dynasty which had usurped the Islamic khilafah by deceit, repression, and corruption of the Muslim community. Though the Imam (a) was martyred with his family and companions, and apparently his murderers seemed to emerge winners from the conflict, it was the martyr of Karbala who was the real victor. The mourning ceremonies that have been held through the last fourteen hundred years to commemorate this most significant event in the history of Islam are generally known as Muharram ceremonies, as they are held during the month of Muharram in remembrance of the Ashura movement. This incident has its background whose elaborate details have been given by Muslim historians and I need not cite them here. Briefly, it may be said that Imam Husayns revolt, staged against the tyranny, injustice, and repression of the regime and torture and execution of pious Muslims, which violated the Islamic concept of a just Islamic polity and society, was to uphold the ideals and values of Islam propounded in the Quran and the traditions of the Prophet (S), to rescue the higher human values, moral, social, political and spiritual, and to preserve the true spirit of Islam. It was basically aimed by the martyred Imam (a) to rescue Islam as the message of the last Prophet, a message that had to endure, not only in the hearts and spirits of saints but on the plane of society, and he achieved his purpose most completely. The episode of Karbala became the everlasting stage on which, more than anything else, the great spirit of an Imam of the Ahl al-Bayt was put for eternal display, not in mere words or traditions recorded in books, but against the background of the greatest tragedy in human history and scenes of love and loyalty, bravery and sacrifice, nobility and high spirituality, blood and battle, and also those of treachery and betrayal, human abasement and wretchedness, perversity and depravity. Due to his refusal to compromise with godlessness and tyranny, the Imam has been remembered as the very embodiment of tawhid, of la ilaha illallah, by all great Islamic mystics, thinkers, writers and poets. In the words of the great Indian Sufi of Iranian origin, Khwajah Muin-al-Din Chishti: He gave his life but wouldnt give his hand in the hand of Yazid (for allegiance, bayah) Verily Husayn is the foundation of LA ILAHA ILLALLAAH
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 13:25:30 +0000
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