REFLECTIONS
When I was asked about my personal reflections on Imam Hussain, I straight away remembered something that has been always on my mind since I have known about Imam Hussain’s martyrdom. It is the striking difference between the Ashoora customs for Imam Hussain and the commemoration of another very important person, that of Jesus Christ, in Christian tradition on Good Friday. While Jesus is considered to be the son of God according to Christian belief, yet the commemoration of his crucifixion stands in no comparison to the elaborate Ashoora practices. Pondering about the reason for this huge difference, I remembered as children we were taught that the death of Jesus is God’s proof of His love for humankind, so actually this means that the direction of this love is from God to mankind, from up to down. The death of Imam Hussain, on the other hand, demonstrates a different kind of love, that of a human for God. Hence the direction of this love is also different, it’s opposite from down to up.
So, in the case of Christian belief, God demonstrated His love for mankind through the crucifixion of Jesus. God therefore became in part human to clarify his love for humans through sacrifice. A human can believe this message or not, but I think it’s easy to understand and, as history shows us, it had a great effect on humans.
On the other hand, when examining Imam Husain’s martyrdom and comparing it with the loss of Jesus, one important basic fact is that the Imam, of course, was never considered more than a human. But the love of a human for God through sacrifice and the effect it has on the rest of mankind seems less obvious and thus more difficult to comprehend. One difficulty in fully grasping its meaning might be the difference between the understanding of martyrdom in Western and in Islamic terms. A martyr in Islam is called a “shaheed,” which also means a ‘witness’. As such he bears witness to the truth, because a witness is called upon to testify about the truth, to establish reality (usually in a court of law). Therefore, a martyr is not simply someone who dies for a higher cause that he believes in, which could be anything, even his own personal principles, but a “shaheed” is someone who witnesses to the truth or bears testimony to the truth. To find out about the truth we need a witness and Imam Hussain was the absolute witness to the truth of Islam and its message to humans from God.
You might argue that the truth of God’s message could be established by more revelations and divine signs. Ironically though, God had already sent plenty of those, but people again and again rejected or falsified them. Besides, God doesn’t need to bear witness to His own truth. This would be quite illogical too.
But again, the direction of the love displayed in Karbala on Ashoora is different. It is not God that proves His love to man, but it is man who proves the degree of love possible that a human can show to his Creator. So in order to bear such witness, to prove the absolute truth of his love for God, Imam Hussain had to be a normal human, not a son of God, not a prophet (like Abraham who was tested by God), and also not an angel who is always obedient. As human Imam Hussain not only showed his absolute love for God by giving his life, he also became a witness (a shaheed) to the absolute truth, which is God Himself. For the Imam no other alternative was possible, because any deal with an evil ruler would have meant to compromise the absolute truth of God. In other words, he gave his life in order to submit to the eternal truth of his Creator with all His attributes (Arabic … God is bigger, not Yazid, God is the most powerful, not Yazid, or any other emperor for that matter).
So, what’s the effect of Imam Hussain’s martyrdom on mankind then? First of all, the way in which this human bore the incomprehensible torture, pain, and sorrow, keeps stunning us, even if we know the story already. How could anyone be able to bear such indescribable physical and mental strain? After all, despite being infallible, Imam Hussain was still “only” a human. And yet, he demonstrated his love for God beyond intelligible human capacity to the last drop of his blood and with everything and especially everybody that meant so much to him. And what is more, he did not sacrifice everything by simply accepting death like a lamb to the slaughter. He did not, like the Christian story of Jesus suggests, have the enemies of God in superior numbers kill him without any resistance, because he was in a hopeless situation. He did not give in to the overwhelming number of Yazid’s soldiers by simply admitting defeat as inevitable consequence because he was totally outnumbered. On the contrary, the Imam and his small group fought back most bravely and killed so many enemy troops in a way that their reputation of unequalled heroes cannot be denied even by their killers. The way and steadfastness with which Imam Hussain stood up against oppression and falsehood stunned friends and enemies alike. This fact is evidence for the effect his martyrdom had on mankind.
Let’s look at this point a little closer. I have always asked myself and I am sure many other people probably too: Why did it all have to end this way? Why was the Imam killed in this manner? When we hear reports from people that have been tortured, we feel immense compassion and we certainly understand if they gave in to their torturer. After all, they are made of flesh and blood; they feel and have feelings, for they are humans. There is only so much pain and especially psychological strain a human can bear. No one would blame a person who is being subjected to inhumane torture for wanting to end their suffering. And isn’t it also permissible to submit to a violent tyrant in the face of cruel suppression as long as we resist the wrong in our mind and heart? If I am being tortured or victimized to the point that I will die if I don’t give in to the oppressor’s demands, then I am likely to consent to any agreement with any conditions attached to it, just to end the physical torture. But the question here is: can a human end his suffering by giving in to evil?
In order to examine this question, let’s consider an example from our time. I am sure you have heard about the many terrible and shocking news that reaches us time and again from Africa, where sadly there seem to rage many tribal or civil wars. The latest horrible reports came from the central African state, called the Democratic Republic of Congo, where men in uniforms abduct children and rape their young mothers, for the simple reason that they are suspected of being on the wrong side, or just to intimidate them. Only last week I listened to a radio report saying that the so-called Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel militia, massacred 500 people to increase their pressure on the government to negotiate with them. Last summer I bought a book by a former African child soldier who wrote about how some children were forced to kill one of their own family members just because some powerful man in uniform told them to do so. Not long ago, I also happened to listen to an interview on BBC radio with a mother from Uganda, who had killed her own toddler on the brutally imposed order of a female commander who came into their village to terrorize its people.
But before you judge anyone, imagine how terrified and traumatized these people must have been for a long time to see no other option but to obey their tyrants in the hope of ending their suffering and avoiding more pain or preventing more loss of life. Of course, I was shocked by so much cruelty and brutal oppression, and I asked myself the impossible question: what would I do in such a terrible situation? Just listening to that broken mother’s voice, everyone will immediately know that experiencing such horror through brutal oppression will affect a human’s life forever. Therefore, the question is, have these humans ended their suffering by giving in to their evil oppressors? I think the answer is obvious, especially when hearing the story of a mother who killed her own child, because she thought that she had no other option. Her suffering from this inhumane oppression will never be over.
While I was listening to that report I suddenly remembered Imam Hussain and the way he chose to resist the evil forces of Yazid. And then I realized once more, Imam Hussain could not give in despite all the excessive force and atrocities against him, his family, and his companions, because he wanted to remain human and not become a tool in the hands of a tyrant. Besides, the Imam was too wise to know that giving in to his oppressor wouldn’t have ended his suffering, but only prolonged it. In the light of true human values we understand that Imam Hussain could not pledge his allegiance to someone like Yazid just in order to safe his own life. What a miserable life this would have been! How miserable it is to keep on living after abandoning our own believes and conscience which make us so human. If you still have doubts then just try to imagine how this poor woman in Africa must feel now after she was forced to act totally against her conscience and believes as a mother. So Imam Hussain’s martyrdom was not merely a tragic event of history, it was so much more. It holds many messages for us, and the one I wanted to share with you tonight was the message of how a human is able to overcome the oppressive force of evil, just as the famous Indian jurist and philosopher Mahatma Gandhi said, and I am sure you have heard this quote many times now, but it keeps becoming clearer to me: “I learnt from Hussain how to achieve victory while being oppressed.”
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