Ali, Husayn’s Father
Imam al-Husayn’s father, Ali (ﻉ), needs no introduction, but for the benefit of those who do not know much about him, we would like to state the following:
Ali was born in May of 600 A.D. inside the Ka’ba, the holiest of all holy places in Islam, the cubic symbol of “Allah’s House” in Mecca, Hijaz, northern part of today’s Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world named after its ruling dynasty! No other human being was ever born in the holiest of holies besides him. Ali (ﻉ) was raised and cared for by his cousin Muhammad (ﺹ), the Messenger of Allah, who wished to return the favor Ali’s father had done him when he was a child. You see, when Muhammad (ﺹ) was orphaned, Ali’s father, Abu Talib, took him in his custody and raised him, so Muhammad (ﺹ) wanted to return the favor especially after seeing how Abu Talib’s trade business was not doing well in his old age.
Muhammad (ﺹ)’s upbringing of Ali (ﻉ) polished the lad’s personality and prepared him to play a major role in the dissemination of the Islamic creed. He was the first male to believe in Muhammad (ﺹ) and to offer prayers with him. The second was another young man who was also raised and cared for by Muhammad (ﺹ), namely Zaid ibn Harithah who later commanded the army of the Muslims during the Battle of Mu’ta of 629 A.D., and so did his son Usamah in 632 A.D., both proving their military ability, insight and wisdom. The third to embrace the Islamic faith was Muhammad’s longtime friend Abu Bakr.
When pagan Meccans wanted to assassinate Muhammad (ﺹ) in 622 A.D., Ali (ﻉ) slept in his (Muhammad’s) bed, offering his life as a sacrifice to save his, while the Prophet succeeded in leaving his house safely even under the nose of the infidels, having recited the first eight verses of Surat Yasin (Chapter 36 of the Holy Qur’an) and thrown a handful of dust before their eyes. They could not see him leave.
Muhammad (ﺹ) safely reached Quba, a suburb of Medina where he camped and waited for Ali (ﻉ) to rejoin him. He did not want to enter Medina triumphantly without Ali (ﻉ). After a few days, Ali (ﻉ) walked all alone the entire distance from Mecca to Medina, about 250 Arabian miles, arriving there with swollen and lacerated feet, bleeding and fatigued.
Ali (ﻉ) defended Islam in the Battle of Badr (624 A.D.) and married Fatima, the Prophet’s only surviving offspring, in the same year. He also fought in the Battle of Uhud in the next year, in the Battle of Moat (Khandaq) in 627 A.D., in the Battle of Khayber (against the Jews of Medina) in 628 A.D., and took part in the Conquest of Mecca in 630 A.D.
He also fought in the Battle of Hunain in the same year. On Thul-Hijjah 18, 10 A.H., corresponding to March 19, 632 A.D., and according to divine orders which Muhammad (ﺹ) had received from his Lord in the form of Qur’anic verse No. 67 of Surat al-Ma’ida (Chapter 5), the Prophet of Islam delivered a speech at a place between Mecca and Medina known as Ghadir Khumm in the Juhfa valley wherein he enumerated some of Ali’s merits and informed the huge crowd of an estimated 132,000 pilgrims who had accompanied him during his last pilgrimage, the Farewell Pilgrimage, that just as they had accepted him as the Prophet, they were bound to accept Ali (ﻉ) as “Ameerul-Mu’mineen,” Commander of the Faithful, title of one who rules the Muslims as the supreme political leader and, at the same time, as the highest religious authority. Details of and references to this historic event are recorded, with the entire original Arabic text (23 pages) of the Prophet’s historic sermon, are in my book titled Ghadir Khumm: Where Islam was Perfected.
Because of the numerous battles in which Ali (ﻉ) participated and the number of those whom he killed, he was not popular with those who considered blood relations more important than earning the Pleasure of the Almighty; therefore, only a few months after that date did some people promote Abu Bakr, a wealthy Meccan and a very successful businessman, to the post of “Ameerul-Mu’mineen.” This took place in 11 A.H./632 A.D. He ruled for two years and a half, dying on a Tuesday, 13 A.H./634 A.D. at the age of 63…
They promoted Abu Bakr to be “Ameerul-Mo’minnen” instead of Ali (ﻉ), forgetting or pretending to forget what they had heard from and pledged to the Prophet (ﺹ) only two months and nine days ago at Ghadir Khumm. This took place immediately after the Prophet’s demise on Safar 28, 11 A.H./May 28, 632 A.D. (By the way, like all lunar Hijri years, the solar calendar year 632 of the Christian Era coincided with both the 10th and the 11th Hijri years.)
Imam Ali (ﻉ) did not receive any significant recognition during the reign of the first three caliphs, and even his wife’s property, Fadak, was confiscated; thus, his family was deprived of a good source of income. Abu Bakr ordered the confiscation in 632 A.D. The only just and fair Umayyad ruler, namely the last one, Omer ibn Abdul-Aziz, returned Fadak to Fatima’s offspring in 718 A.D., 86 years after its confiscation with profound apologies. When Ali (ﻉ) was elected as caliph in 36 A.H./657 A.D., tribalism and racism were as rampant as they used to be during the pre-Islamic era. Islam’s teachings were either forgotten or distorted.
In Syria, Mu’awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan had declared himself “caliph” and was buying people’s conscience and loyalty. He was, once more, raising one army after another to fight Ali (ﻉ) just as his father Abu Sufyan had raised one army after another to fight Muhammad (ﺹ), causing tens of thousands of Muslims to be killed in the process. Most of Ali’s time was spent in defending law and order; he hardly had time to rest and to improve the conditions which he knew were in need of improvement because of the injustices of past regimes that did not protect the Islamic creed from liars and fabricators of traditions, indirectly assisting in the distortion of the Sunnah.
Caliph Ali (ﻉ) had to fight the Battle of Jamal (Camel), which broke out at the end of Rab’i II 36 A.H./June 28, 632 A.D., the forces of dissent which had been herded and led by Aisha daughter of the same Abu Bakr mentioned above and one of the Prophet’s wives. She was then nineteen years old and was riding a huge camel named Askar, hence the name of the battle: Harb al-Jamal, battle of the camel. She kept urging her men to fight Ali (ﻉ) and his men. It was the first time that Muslims killed Muslims, and such killing has been going on ever since. Look at Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq and Iran (during the 1980s when more than a million Muslim lives were lost), and remember the civil wars in Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen, and elsewhere…
History repeats itself. Those who do not learn from the mistakes of past generations are doomed, condemned and destined to repeat them, rest assured. Aisha accused Ali (ﻉ) of having collaborated with those who had killed her Umayyad relative Othman ibn Affan who became caliph in 24 A.H./645 A.D. and ruled till he was killed in 35 A.H./656 A.D. when he was 89. Ali (ﻉ), in fact, had sent both of his sons, Imam al-Hassan (ﻉ) and Imam al-Husayn (ﻉ) (the latter being the hero of this brief report), to defend Othman who was placed by the angry protesters under virtual house arrest and his mansion was twice subjected to a siege.
Water and food supplies were blocked from reaching him. Ali (ﻉ) used to get water and food smuggled to Othman’s mansion during the night passed on from one person to another from one flat rooftop to another till they reached Othman’s mansion. The public outrage stemmed from Othman’s mismanagement of public funds and preference of his own relatives over all others for top government jobs even when such relatives were not fit at all to occupy any government post.
He himself lived in luxury unseen before, getting mansions built for him and for his wife, and silk clothes and exotic perfumes were being imported especially for him and for her. His wife, Na’ila daughter of al-Qarafisah, used to wear so much jewelry that people could hear the jingle from a distance! Such should not be the conduct of successors of Prophets.
While defending Othman, Imam al-Hassan (ﻉ) received a wound on his forehead. But the huge number of the angry crowd finally assaulted Othman’s mansion and dealt him blows with their swords, killing him instantly. It was the first time Muslims killed their caliph. Na’ila tried to defend her husband with her bare hands, getting four of her fingers cut off. She sent those fingers together with the copy of the Holy Qur’an which Othman was reciting when he was killed and which was stained with his blood to Mu’awiyah in Damascus to use them to excite people and to urge them to seek revenge for Othman’s murder.
Aisha, ironically, was one of those who had urged the Muslims to kill Othman, making her historic statement which we would like to quote here in its original Arabic text verbatim: أقتلوا نعثلا فقد كفر “Uqtulu Nathal faqad Kufar,” that is, “Kill Nathal, for he has committed apostasy.” Nathal was a contemporary Jew famous for his untidy and too long beard; hence, Aisha was comparing Othman with a Jew.
She, in fact, was trying to get either Talhah ibn Ubaydullah, her cousin who aspired to marry her after the demise of the Prophet (ﺹ), something which Islam prohibited, or az-Zubair ibn al-Awwam, son of her older sister Asma’ daughter of Abu Bakr, become caliph instead of Ali (ﻉ). Az-Zubair ibn al-Awwam did, in fact, succeed in declaring himself as the caliph after rebelling against the Umayyads as the reader will come to know in the chapter dealing with the Harra incident. Aisha disliked Ali (ﻉ) very much despite all the praise lavished on him by her husband, the Messenger of Allah (ﻉ), and although he did not do anything to warrant such an attitude.
There is no room here to detail all the grievances the Muslims raised against their caliph, Othman, in addition to the above, for these would fill an entire volume, and books have, in fact, been already written about this subject. One such book is titledالفتنة الكبرى Al-Fitnatul-Kubra (the greatest dissension) by the renown Egyptian scholar Dr. Taha Husayn (winner of a Nobel prize for literature) and published in Cairo, Egypt, a book which the author may have modelled after at-Tabari’s book bearing the exact title and dealing with the same theme.
One of the best references written about the Battle of the Camel is al-Mas’udi’s famous book مروج الذهب Muraj at-Thahab. Ali (ﻉ) won the battle; 13,000 men from aisha’s camp and 5,000 from Ali’s were killed, according to p. 177, Vol. 5, of Muraj at-Thahab. The heaviest casualty was the loss of thousands who knew the entire text of the Holy Qur’an by heart and whose knowledge, during that critical time, was crucial.
The Prophet of Islam has said: موت العالم موت العالم “Mawt al-aalim mawt al-aalam,” that is, “The death of a scholar spells the death of the world.” What is the world without scholars? It is darkness without light, trees without fruit, river without water… Islam very much encourages scholarship and reveres scholars, writers, intellectuals, researchers, scientists, etc.
After the Battle of Camel, Ali (ﻉ) had to fight the Battle of Siffeen (40 A.H./661 A.D.) against the army of Mu’awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan, Yazid’s father. Shortly after that, and in the same year, and to be exact on the 19th of the month of Ramadan, 40 A.H./January 29, 661 A.D., Ali (ﻉ) was killed by Ibn Muljim al-Muradi, one of the Kharijites, those who were fed-up with certain Muslim caliphs and with some of the latter’s un-Islamic practices.
These Kharijites had been crushed by Ali (ﻉ) in the Battle of Nahrawan, which started on Safar 6, 38 A.H./July 17, 658 A.D., but their remnants scattered thereafter throughout the Islamic lands. When he was killed, Ali (ﻉ) was leading the morning prayers at Kufa’s grand mosque. Ali (ﻉ) was the embodiment of everything Islam stands for. Even his name, Ali (ﻉ), is derived from “Al-Aliyy,” one of the Amighty’s ninety-nine Attributes known as Asma’ Allah al-Husna, Allah’s most beautiful names.
Scholars of tafsir, exegesis of the Holy Qur’an, have identified numerous Qur’anic verses praising Ali (ﻉ) and his family, his Ahl al-Bayt أهل البيت. The most widely known of such verses is No. 33 of Chapter 33 of the Holy Qur’an (Ayat at-Tathir, Surat al-Ahzab).
This much should suffice the reader to form an idea about Imam al-Husayn’s father, so let us now discuss the hero of our story.
قال رسول الله (ص): “حسين مني و أنا من حسين؛ أحب
الله من أحب حسينا”
The Messenger of Allah (ص) has said, “Husayn is of me, and I am of Husayn; Allah loves whoever loves Husayn.”
السَّلام عَلَى الحُسَيْن ، وَعَلَى عَليِّ بْنِ الحُسَيْنِ ، وَعَلَى أوْلادِ الحُسَيْنِ وَعَلَى أصْحابِ الحُسَين
Peace with al-Husayn, with Ali son of al-Husayn, with the offspring of al-Husayn and with the companions of al-Husayn