On Ashura Day, the 10th of Muharram, Shia muslims around the world remember the tragic death of Imam Husayn (A), the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (S). Husayn was killed in Karbala for the sake of his grandfather, for true Islam, for freedom, justice, and humanity.
For several days, Husayn and a small group of associates and relatives faced the army of the tyrant Yazid. They fought in the desert under the scorching sun, cut off from water, and died of thirst. In the battle of Ashura Day, all the men in Husayn’s camp were killed, even the infants. Finally, only Husayn remained, one against thirty thousand. Covered with hundreds of wounds from swords, spears, and arrows, the Infallible One died when enemies of Islam cut off his holy head and raised it on a pike. Meanwhile, the women and children were taken captive.
Today, almost 1,400 years after this tragedy, tens of millions of people around the world gather for mourning ceremonies. They express their grief and sorrow for the lord of the martyrs, may peace be upon him!
Everyone who joins these million-strong seas of people gets nothing in terms of the benefits of the earthly world. No one pays them money to come. They come because Husayn (A) is the king of their hearts. Husayn (A) is the ruler of the free, because he rules the hearts, that is, the inner essence of a person, and not his outer body shell, like all earthly rulers and tyrants. And as long as he rules the hearts, he will remain the true king of mankind. But who can banish it from our hearts? There is no such power on earth or in heaven. Therefore, all regimes, dictatorships, empires, and ideologies will leave… and Husayn will remain.
How many tyrants have tried to put out the light of Ashura and ban mourning ceremonies! All of them have long been in the dustbin of history, and today the mourning ceremonies have turned into a hurricane, a roaring torrent that sweeps away everything in its path. Where are cursed Muawiyah, Yazid, Harun al-Rashid, Mutawakkil, Saddam? How pitiful they seem before the greatness of what they tried to resist! Husayn (A) led mankind from the worship of earthly rulers to the worship of the One God. He proved that there is no mighty power but the Power of The One and The Oly Allah. By taking part in these ceremonies, we are telling the modern world that Islam is absolutely not what terrorists and murderers are trying to make out of it, turning it into a religion of blood, violence, and cruelty. Those who killed Husayn (A) wanted to mute the voice of True Islam, just as their followers want to do the same today by blowing up and killing pilgrims and followers of Husayn, as well as thousands of innocent people around the world.
The murderers of Husayn (A) did not know God, Islam, the Messenger, Sharia, or humanity. Their hearts “became like stones, and even harder” (2:74), as the Qur’an says. They have descended from the human condition to the animal state, and even lower than that. They have abandoned humanity in every sense of the word.
The mourning ceremonies on Ashura are also a protest against the distortion of the image of the Prophet Muhammad (S), whom some representatives of false Islam have turned from the embodiment of the most perfect qualities into a prophet of blood and murder.
On this day, we declare that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was one who, for the sake of the triumph of truth, shed not only someone else’s blood, but his own — because the blood of his family is his own. Husayn on Ashura is the same Messenger of Allah Muhammad (PBUH), who, if he were in the place of his grandson Husayn, would do the same thing and die just like him.
According to the hadith, “Husayn is from me, and I am from Husayn.” What does “I am from Husayn” mean? It means that he founded Islam, while Husayn preserved it. On the day of Ashura, not only was Husayn killed — but Muhammad was killed too. On the peak next to the head of Husayn (A) was the head of Muhammad (S).
So, with his pure blood, Husayn (A) washed away the veil of slander and lies that the supporters of Saqifah had shrouded his grandfather, the Messenger of Allah (S).
By participating in the mourning ceremonies, we say to the whole world: the gates of help for Husayn are open. The program of all the prophets in history has been to awaken the mind of humanity and its best qualities — freedom, beauty, dignity, strength, goodness, honor, humility, submission, patience, knowledge, and goodness. And on a concrete historical plane, the event that is inscribed in the writings of the human form was Imam Husayn’s Karbala (A).
The Creator wanted such a unique event in the entire history from Adam to the Last Day, through which the guidance of mankind on the straight path will be carried out, through which the plan of Allah, the program of Allah, will be fulfilled. An event must have taken place in which all beauty, all perfection, all the best and most beautiful qualities, and, on the contrary, all wickedness, all evil, all meanness, baseness, filth and sin, would have been united as in one point. An event that awakens streams of flowing tears and feelings that come from the depths of the soul, from the very bottom of the heart, affecting the whole person.
Therefore, Ashura is a means of saving humanity and guiding it on the straight path, the axis around which all history revolves. It is not by chance that the hadith says that the Messenger of Allah (SAW), when he was in Mi’raj, saw the words on the support of the Throne: “Husayn is the lamp of the straight path and the ship of salvation.” And as another hadith says: all Imams are ships of salvation, but Husayn’s ship is the fastest.
Therefore, with these shouts, cries, and shouts on the day of Ashura, we send a message to all people: turn to Husayn!
Turn to Husayn (A) to turn to the light of your humanity, which is the bridge that leads to Paradise!
Turn to Husayn (A) to renounce the inner Yazid of your passions and sins and turn to Karbala of reason and justice!
Turn to Husayn (A) to reject the tyranny of ordinary people and accept the guidance of an immaculate Imam, appointed by God for happiness and a straight path!
To turn to Husayn (A) to turn to truth, freedom, justice, goodness, honor, and dignity!
This is the perfect argument and the true message of the Almighty Creator to all people until the Day of Judgment, written in blood on the tablet of humanity. Husayn’s voice is heard all over the world, just as it was 1,400 years ago: “Are there those who are ready to help me?” And millions of free people answer from the depths of their hearts: “Labaik, labaik” — “Here we are, O Husayn!”
