Qasr Muqatil
When the Imam reached Qasr Muqatil, a place not far from Kufa, he found it like a beehive, full of men and horses with rows of pitched-up tents spread all over, far and wide. Ibn Ziyad had sent a detachment of 1,000 troops (very brave ones!) under the command of Hurr ibn Yazid ar-Riyahi to divert the Imam and his small band to a particular site chosen for them, and not to permit them to go anywhere except to Kufa. At that time, when the Imam reached there, Hurr’s army had become thirsty. Its water supply had been fully exhausted, and no water could be seen around for miles.
On becoming aware of this, the Imam at once ordered his men to serve water to the thirsty enemy army and to their horses as well. When the time of noon prayers approached, the Imam admonished Hurr’s army to give up fighting on the side of tyranny and falsehood adding, “But if you disapprove of us, and are wilfully ignoring our claim and reneging from your pledge to support us, a proxy pledge that you expressed in your letters and through your messengers, well, in that case, it does not matter, for I am quite prepared to go back (where I had come from).” But orders had already been issued to Hurr to take the Imam in his custody.
The Imam asked Hurr, “Why have you come here at all?” “In obedience to my imam (meaning Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad, the governor),” answered Hurr. In obeying your imam,” responded Imam al-Husayn (ﻉ), “you have committed a great sin against Allah,” adding after a short while, “You have lost your all, ruined your life here as well as your life hereafter. You have kindled the fire of hell for your own self and kept it ready for you to be hurled therein on the Day of Judgment. As for your imam, Allah has explicitly said in the Holy Qur’an,
And We made them imams inviting them to the fire, and on the Day of Judgment, no help shall they find. In this world We made a curse to follow them, and on the Day of Judgment, they will be among the loathed and the despised’ (Qur’an, 28:41-42).”
Later on, another order to Hurr came from Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad to confine the Imam and his companions to a water land waste at a distance of about 9 – 10 miles from Kufa off the bank of the Euphrates river. This area, known as at-Taff, later came to be called “Karbala’’.” It is there that the historical battle which stamped and is still stamping the Islamic history and the conduct of all Muslims, took place. As a matter of fact, this battle was already predicted in the Old Testament in the following verse in Jeremiah 46:10:
… For this is the day of the Lord Allah of hosts, a day of vengeance, that He may avenge him of his adversaries, and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiated and made drunk with their blood, for the Lord Allah of hosts has a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.
In his famous book titled الصواعق المحرقة As-Sawaiq al-Muhriqa (“the burning thunderbolts), Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani writes saying that when the Imam came to that place, he took a handful of its soil and, having smelt it, he declared, “By Allah! This is the land of karb (affliction) and bala’ (trial and tribulation)! Here the ladies of my haram will be taken prisoners! Here my children will be butchered and our men will be slain! Here Ahl al-Bayt of the Prophet (ﺹ) will be subjected to indignities! Here my beard will be stained with the blood of my head! And here our graves will be dug.”
Historians contemporary to the Imam related that after coming to Karbala’’, the Imam purchased that lot from its owners for 60,000 dinars, although it was only four miles square, so that it would be the site of his and his family’s and relatives’ graves.