Lessons from Ashura- The Martyrdom of Al-Husayn

Last week, we discussed the significance of Muharram Ashura

and in particular, we discussed the religious significance of this month and this day, we talked about how it indicated the gradual nature of Allah's law the study,

that before the Muslims had Ramadan they fasted or shut up. And it was only upon the revelation of the obligation of Ramadan, that our Shabbat became something that was recommended, as opposed to something that was obligatory. We also talked about how I showed up is one of the pieces of the city or that makes us different and distinguishable from other communities of faith that makes us stand out when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam arrived at Medina, after his hijra, he found the Jews there were fasting. And yet, in addition to Allah subhanaw taala, giving us the permission to fast and affirming this as part of a luxury. He encouraged us to stand out and to be different by

pairing it with another day, either the day before or the day after. And finally, we discussed the reward of fasting or showed up, which is that the sins of the entire previous year are forgiven, may Allah grant that to all of us.

This week, we're going to talk about another aspect of the significance of Ashura. But it's not the religious significance. Rather, it's the historical significance, and specifically the historical significance that this day took on after the death of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in particularly surrounding the martyrdom of his grandson, Al Hussein.

Why are we talking about this? It's a hot topic. Because in the day and age of social media, and the democratization of information, there's a lot of misinformation out there. And so if you go back 1000 years or 1200 years, you'll see many of them Oh, man, they say it's best not to talk about what happened between the Companions, the Pfitzner, the civil wars, all of the strife that our Ummah faced. However, we've reached a time where if we don't talk about it, and we don't set the record straight, then creates a vacuum where lies and slander and rumor take over.

Was the martyrdom of Al Hussein. Was it some sort of conspiracy that's been waged against the people that prophets house sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam Al Bayt? was Al Hussein some rebels who deserved to be punished in that way, or is the truth somewhere in the middle? To understand we have to go through a little bit of history, we have to go back to the succession of the leadership after the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam after the Prophet Alayhi Salatu was Salam passed away. Abu Bakr Radi Allahu Anhu he assumed the Halacha. Upon the agreement of all of the companions and all of the companions, there is EJ man, there is scholarly consensus that Abu Bakr Radi Allahu Anhu

was the best of that generation was the best companion. Even Ali himself wrote the Allahu Anhu there are authentic narrations from earlier of the Allahu Anhu. Let's say that Abu Bakr was the best, and then Ahmad and then Earth man. And after that, so Catena after that we used to stay silent. And this was something that they used to actually say at the time of the Prophet Sall Allahu Allah He was.

So to claim that this thing was taken away from Ali Radi Allahu Anhu. And given to Abu Bakr instead, this is something that you cannot literally find any proof of anyone saying this until much later and we'll come to that inshallah.

The next events that was a source of controversy, or maybe we should say the first event that was actually a source of controversy was, who should take the Hill Harper after the assassination of or not even a couple radula who and who all of you know, the four righteous qualified, we have Abu Bakr, and then we had Ahmed, and then we had Earth man. And then we had Ali, may Allah be pleased with all of them.

After Omar Abdullah Hassan who was assassinated, he was lying on his deathbed and he called a council to decide who was going to be the next leader after him. And it was a very, very, it was a close vote. Some of you I know have misgivings about democracy, but this is something like a democratic process that they had.

It was between the man or the Allah who won and Ali,

and there was one tying vote and that vote went to updraft man and if

The famous companion and updraft man, even if he went around the city of Medina, and he asked the opinion of everyone, the men, the women, the children, and he found that the majority of inhabitants of Medina that they wanted Earthman to assume the Khilafah. And so he gave his vote to Earth man and when he talked to Earth man, and Ali,

and he was going to deliver the news. He indicated and this is in Sahih Bukhari if you're looking for the reference he said to Ali, Radi Allahu Han. He said, I know perhaps you had hopes for assuming this leadership. But this we're giving it to Earth man. And he basically encouraged everybody to fear Allah and that's what happened. There are many myths surrounding this events. One of the myths that circulates is that they were trying to have the next Khalifa swear allegiance to the Quran and the Sunnah. And the Sunnah of Abu Bakr and Omar and Ali would not agree to that. This is a myth that never happened. That rather I'm the rough man of an oath, he said when he gave the br

to Earth man, he said that we give the VR to you upon the Fortran and upon the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and upon this walk around Omar as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said, when he said aguar They have been aware that when he was talking about holding on to his sanity was sunAt Al Khalifa and full of ferocity and and mathy and the Sunnah of the four righteous Calafat, and there are other narrations, authentic narrations where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, todo bien, he said, take them as your football. And he was talking about Abu Bakr and Omar Abdullah, who

this is the very beginning of what we find in the history books, what they call a to share, which really is something that eventually grew into the sheer ism that we know of today. The idea who should have taken a leadership after a model should it have been out of man, or should it have been Ali? Well, the Allahu Anhu but i Li it's important and crucial to note that Ali himself Radi Allahu Anhu was completely obedient and submissive to the reign of Earth man Radi Allahu anhu, as he was to the reins of the previous Khilafat. Before him, he was not stewing in the background. He was not wishing that he had the leadership, he was not waiting for his moment to seize power. He submitted

to the process. And once the decision was reached, he fell in line as a soldier behind the Ameerul Momineen. Behind the leader of the believers, which is a lesson in leading and following for all of us to take note of the next important point of controversy. Obviously, Earth man or the Allahu Anhu was assassinated in a very brutal way. And then there was chaos in this early Muslim community who would take over. And it's noteworthy for all of those who would like to spread rumors that it was somehow against their man that AMI and Al Hasan and Al Hussein were part of the security of Earth man at his house when he was assassinated, and they were ready for the order to defend him but at

Earth man told them no, I will not be responsible for the first bloodshed from between Muslims. And so Earth man by his order prevented them from fighting back or from trying to stop his own assassination.

Later,

Ali Radi Allahu Anhu would assume the leadership that Khilafah and things only started unraveling and unraveling further from there.

There were some of the companions that wanted justice done to those who had killed her of man. But it was not extremely clear who those people were or what was the best method of holding them to account. So you had ollie on one hand, who wanted to wait until metal matters settled down. And on the opposite extreme from that you had more IWEA, the longtime governor in Sham who wanted immediate retribution, and justice against the murderers of Earth man. And then you had our Aisha and some other companions around her, who were not happy with how slow things were, were going and so they wanted to take matters into their own hands. Much of this history. We're going to skip over, but

it's a very sad story, because you see how the inability to follow a leader the inability

It's easy to submit to a process resulted in much needed bloodshed and confusion, where we see Ali on one side and our Isha and follow her and other companions on the other side, and death and bloodshed and misunderstanding.

Ali eventually fought more Alia because more IWEA refused to give his allegiance to Ali, until the killers of Earth man were brought to justice. Ali understood this as an affront to the entire Khilafah. And so they too, went to war and fought. And after this battle, and after they came to terms and peace was eventually settled between them. Another tragedy upon tragedy happened, which was the assassination of Ali Radi Allahu Anhu.

In this week, in the wake of these terrible events, Malawi erode the Allahu Anhu he took on the leadership of the Khilafah even though there were other people who are not very pleased with that. One of them was Al Hasan the son of Ali Radi Allahu Anhu. But Al Hassan fulfill the prophecy that was given by the prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. When the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam pointed to Al Hasan, he was just a boy. And he said that this boy is a saint, he's a leader, because there will come a day where he gives up his rights, his claim for leadership in order to bring two large segments of the Muslim ummah back together again. And that's exactly what happened.

Did Hassan had a legitimate claim to the leadership of the Muslim ummah. But he understood, he understood that the peace and harmony between the Muslims was the most important thing. Even if the leader was not the best of them, wow, he was not better than Saudi, but nobody will cause more. He was not better than many of the companions that existed and were still alive during that time. But Hassan understood that if the choice was between submitting to a leader, and saving the blood of Muslims, that that was better, that was better than trying to rebel and trying to cause a problem.

After al Hassan passed away,

the next stage of our history or our tragedy, occurs where as more Alia decides in his dying days to appoint his son is Eid, as the leader of the Muslims, and this is something that many, many companions were very upset about. This was the moment that the Khilafah the leadership of a Muslim was changed from something that was appointed, or at least supposed to be based off of merit, and turned into something that was hereditary, something like a king ship, something like a dynasty. And so you had some companions even decided to rebel against Year's Eve. One of them was Abdullah Zubair, who had a counter caliphate that lasted 10 years in Mecca and Medina.

And of course, the most famous one, and the one that is of relevance today is the rebellion of Al Hussein, the Son of God, while the Allahu

Akbar Hussein was given verbal confirmation from the people of Kufa and Iraq, that if he went to them that they would support him with their minds and their forces. So Al Hussein, he took his family and he left

believing in their word only to find the trail. The Help never came. And then in instead of what he thought he was going to find, which was help and potential uprising to write what he saw was the wrongs or the wrong path that the Ummah was heading down. He found instead an army that was sent by as IID to stop him. Now there's a lot of conflictual information about how responsibility as it is for what happened next. Some say that he ordered everything and he ordered that murder of of Al Hussein others said no, he simply told them to go and stop him but the commanders took it into their own hands either way, the results are perhaps the most tragic part of the story.

Dozens of people have relatives of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam slaughtered in cold blood on the plains of Karbala and Iraq. And the remainder the are taken as captives and marched back to us eat of hamdulillah they were set free, but a very humiliating and low points in Muslim history.

To understand the formation of Shiism, we have to understand that the assassination or the murder we should say, of Al Hussein, and how people

Thought thoughts about it and felt about it in its wake people were very, very emotional and people were very, very upset. And you can imagine the regrets of the people of Kufa, the people who had promised to aid and supports her saying, only to get cold feet, and not support him and betray him.

In addition to this factor, you also had something of the pre Islamic ignorance of people in this part of the world. Many people in Persia they were used to being the superpower they were used to being the top culture, the ones in ahead of the game, and the Arabs. Instead, they were considered Bedouins, they were considered nothing. They were considered desert dwellers tent livers. They were looked at as very lowly. And so is something very difficult upon the Persian psyche when Islam triumphed and conquered Persia, and put an end to all of the glorious history that they had done.

So what happened after is that we see a mythologizing what used to be a political disputes. As the years went on, we found more and more theological elements to this disputes, people putting things of al Qaeda and people putting things of belief attached to this dispute, which nobody had believed in, or thought of before.

There was a man named Al matar, a toughie who launched something of a revenge campaign against all of those responsible for the murder of Al Hussein. And as Muqtada is very significant, because he's the first one that brings this idea of the political mathy.

He claimed that one of the descendants of the Prophet Mohammed solicit, among others, the descendants of Ali was, was the method and that he himself was the self appointed representative of the mathy. And so now his rebellion was not simply a political action now it was a theological action to and if you know anything about Islamic history, to the Abbasids, to the fallout, that means you'll see that this pattern is repeated again and again and again, claiming that somebody is the hidden mathy and claiming themselves as the representative of the Maddie in order to justify a political project. But this is not from the Sunnah. And this is not from Islamic orthodoxy. In fact,

when Al Assad reached out to Abdullah even a Zubair who still had his caliphate running in Mecca and Medina, Abdullah rejected him.

And Abdullah eventually even went to war with him Elementor and ended him and his movement, because he recognized that this was not in accordance to the prophetic way.

And no cause rebellion had significant consequences, in addition to successfully killing all of those who were played a part in the murder of Alfa Seine. It laid the political and social groundwork for the abovesaid revolution, which was coming shortly after. But the biggest thing for our time, and our significance of this day I showed up, is that it began to add theological elements to what was initially a political disputes. And so we see as the years went on, there were other theological elements that were added to it, one of them or maybe one of the main themes was exaggerating the evil of anybody who ever opposed Ali or his descendants, exaggeration. More IWEA,

who had a conflicted legacy, turned into a very evil person. In this reading of things. Mariah was someone who was a scribe of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Mariah wrote down the Quran with his hands, and if he made mistakes, and certainly which one of us is saved from mistakes. His status as a companion of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa Salam is not in question. People began to exaggerate the evils of Malawi, to the point where they questioned his Islam entirely. Even I Isha was not safe from the slander, even though I should she admitted and she made a mistake when she rebelled against Ali. She actually after that, and on the sent her back to her home, she never

left her house for the rest of her life. That's how regretful she was about what she had done.

But people as the years went on, they started to slander Ayesha and said that she apostate and she left the religion and she betrayed the the Islamic project. Ahmad Abu Bakar we're not saved from the slander either people in their exaggeration of the evil of anybody who ever see

To oppose Ali or his descendants, they exaggerated with Abu Bakr and Omar and they turned it into a conspiracy alleging that Abu Bakr and Omar had taken a hit alpha from the hands of Ali, and had usurped the power and left Islam entirely.

To some, because not all the same, but some branches of Shia claim that all of the companions except for a handful, left the deen of Islam.

And this should strike you as problematic. And we don't try to be divisive here. But we should, it should strike you as problematic. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because if you eliminate the companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, you eliminate the Koran. How do you think the Quran was narrated to you? How do you know that the Koran that you hold in your hands is the same Quran that the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam recited the companions.

The Sunnah, that you follow every Hadith and Al Bukhari and Muslim annotator Midian synonymy. There was anyone that you follow? Where do we get it from? We get it from the companions

in their regrets, and emotion in the wake of, of her scenes assassination. They threw all of the companions under the bus or at least the vast majority of them, but if you do that, you get rid of Islam. Without the Companions, there is no Islam.

This is one way in which exaggerations were made after the fact. And the second way in which exaggerations were made, again, theological elements that were being added to this political disputes was the exaggeration of Ali's greatness and nobody, nobody, nobody is going to take away from the greatness of Algeria. The Allahu Allah. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in the Hadith of the other column, he said that you are like had on to my Musa is that when he left the city of Medina, he will leave Ali in charge very often. In fact, Ali used to even regret that the prophets of Allah Allah He was sent on will leave him behind ever, but the Prophet sallallahu alayhi

wa sallam assured him by telling him listen, I'm only leaving you behind the take care of things as an honor to you, rather than accompany me. So no one is taking away from the honor of I'm here on the Allahu Anhu but just as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us to not exaggerate with loving and revering him either he salatu salam, then we must not exaggerate in our love for Ali Radi Allahu en. There's a very common expression we have. The Arabs probably know a couple of Allah who watch her that many people say after the mention of Adi Radi Allahu Allah.

Karim Allah who watch her, it means May Allah ennoble his face and the reasoning behind this statement is because Ali, having grown up in the household of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam never worshipped idols.

However, why don't we also say this for Abu Bakr Abu Bakr never worshipped idols either. Many of the companions were high enough that they never worshipped idols. And yet we don't say Karim Allah Who Wacha after their names. This is one of the efforts to elevate it beyond his status. Some people fell into worse than that. Some people alleged that Ali Radi Allahu Anhu was actually a prophets after the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, some people well or Yeah, the villa, alleged that the Quran was really meant for our Lea but Gibreel made a mistake and brought it to Mohammed that Bala to Ali instead of as brought to Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam instead of Ali, or

Oh, the villa. And of course some people went the way of the Masada and the Christians and said that Ali Radi Allahu Anhu was none other than Allah to Allah Himself. And Ali Radi Allahu Anhu actually confronted these people in his lifetime and had them put to death.

These are exaggerations and they are not correct. They are not from Islam. They are not from the Quran. They are not from the Sunnah of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasallam. They violate Islamic Arpita. They violate Islamic orthodoxy. But there are also reactions to these exaggerations that are also out of bounds and not helpful either. One of them is the silence regarding the fitna and all of the things that took place.

The idea that we just shouldn't talk about anything that happened or overlooking some of the mistakes that had very, very tragic consequences. Some people in their caution for wanting the average Muslim to love the companions and trust that can

companions went to the opposite extreme of making them into absolute saints who never made any mistakes. They had differences, they have mistakes. And if we don't study and learn from those mistakes in a respectful way, in a properly situated and contextualized way that we will deprive ourselves of the lessons that we could stand to gain from studying what happened between them. This day and age with the internet and with social media, none of us can afford to be ignorant. This is just a very brief synopsis of some of the things that have happened. Every single one of us should attempt to educate themselves so that you're not misled by misinformation and slander Akuto Polly ha

That was stupid Hola Hola. Hola como sadly Muslim enemy colada and with a stock Pharaoh who in the whole world of of all Rahim.

Alhamdulillah he certainly was shook Allahu Allah tilapia for one Tina and he won't show Allah Allah, Allah, Allah Allah, Allah, Allah to Allah militia, Annie, my shadow NLRB on our side, and Mr. Hamilton, I'm the water sudo, who has the either do any so Allahu alayhi, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi, WA when he was selling water, Stephen cathedral.

Some of the lessons that we can learn when we study Islamic history, the history of the Pfitzner, the history of Al Hussein, and how he was martyred. On this day, some of the lessons that we have to learn or that we can learn from these events include the willingness to act on principle of her saying he had his beliefs. And he had his opinions. And he saw what was happening with the Khilafah as wrong. He saw the conversion of the philosopher to a dynamic a dynasty, a hereditary dynasty or something that was incorrect. And he put himself forward to great expense and sacrifice of His own self and his family in order to stand up for a principle. And that courage that he exhibited. And

his loyalty to Islam over anything else, is something that every single one of us can take inspiration from. And indeed, Muslims have been taking inspiration from for 1400 years. That also demonstrates the need to build power as a community and capacity, power and capacity. Because there will always be people in the world that oppose righteousness, there will always be people in the world that are going to try to extinguish the good, that are going to try to wipe out the people of truth and justice. And so every single one of us would like to have a very comfortable life where we never have to think about these things, of course, but it's worthy to be prepared. And prepared can

be something that includes just having good relationships with your neighbors, or having good relationships with your local government or being somebody who is known in the community as upright so that other people when things happen, they're not just going to hang you out on a limb to dry, that they're going to understand your value in the community, and they will stick up for you just as you will stick up for them. And finally, from Ali's side, everything that we've talked about here today, we learned many, many lessons we learned his restraints of the rough man had been our indicator that he knew that Ali wanted to be the leader. How many times do we see some sort of

opportunity to be the man the guy who's out in front or the the leader of some sort, and we want that for us? But then we're passed over? It's given to somebody else, someone else steps up or is appointed in our stead? How do we react? Do we throw a tantrum until we get our way? Does it have to be us or nobody else? No, that's not what Ollie teaches us. Our lead teaches us that you try your best you put yourself forward, but you stick to process and you stick to the Brotherhood and the sisterhood of Islam and you keep your unity. There is unity even when we disagree as long as we agree to a certain process, that there that is a model for both leadership and for following. Then

we ask Allah subhanaw taala to accept our fast today. And so forgive us our sins, and to make us of those who Allah subhanaw taala bears witness or lovers of Al Hussein al Hassan and Ali Al Bates and of course the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam