Triumph of the Survivor

By: Seyyed Ali Shahbaz
He carried the battle to the enemy’s camp. He brought to resounding victory the mission that his father, Imam Husain (AS), had entrusted to him before marching to the battlefield to drink the elixir of martyrdom.
In fact, so great was his triumph that neither his own sick and feeble condition of being dragged in chains could deter him from continuing the epic jihad of the Day of Ashura nor the constant sight of the severed blood-stained heads of his father and the nearest of relatives including that of 6-month old brother Ali Asghar, mounted on lances in the most cruel manner by the killers of Karbala.
He regarded this as Divine Providence and came out with flying colors from the ordeal. Fettered and made to stand humiliatingly along with the womenfolk and children of his household in the presence of the chief perpetrators of history’s most heart-rending tragedy, he never flinched for a single moment. He was the Conveyor of the Message of freedom against injustice, oppression and moral corruption for which his father had heroically given his life, and he spread it in a novel manner.
For instance, when the tyrant Yazid gloated at the severed heads of the martyrs placed before him in a tray in the court of Damascus and asked him in a mocking manner as to who was the victor, the 23-year old youth said in a calm and confident tone that the result would be evident in a few minutes. After some time, when the azaan (call to prayer) was heard, the Survivor of Karbala replied that his martyred father Imam Husain (AS) was the real and immortal victor.
The court was stunned and Yazid was exasperated. It was obvious to all, including envoys of other lands in Damascus such as the emissary of the Byzantine Christian empire that the Omayyud caliphs were nothing more than an evil brood of infidels pretending to be Muslims. The Omayyud objective for martyring the Prophet’s grandson Imam Husain (AS) and parading the Prophet’s household as captives through towns and cities was to try to extinguish the call of tawheed (monotheism) and the testimony to the mission of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) as exemplified five times a day through the phrase in the azaan: "Ash-hado anna Muhammadan Rasoul-Allah (I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah).
It was clear that the impetuous Yazid had failed as miserably as his crafty father Mu’wiyah ibn Abu Sufyan before him in trying to obliterate the name and mission of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA). The tyrant no longer able to conceal his inherent infidelity prided on his infidel ancestors that had been slain while attacking the fledgling Muslims over 50 years ago and blurted out that no divine revelation had ever descended on the Prophet.
It was an admission of defeat by the son and grandson of those thankless wretches towards whom Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) had shown magnanimity during the peaceful submission of Mecca in 8 AH, by releasing them as tulaqa (freed slaves) despite the fact that they had indulged in the most heinous plots against Islam with Yazid’s grand- mother Hend, conspiring to murder the Prophet’s uncle Hamza and then tearing the martyr’s liver and trying to chew it during the Battle of Ohod.
Imam Ali ibn al-Husain Zain al-Abedin (AS) thus exposed the Omayyads in their true heathen colors and brought about a revolution in minds in the very seat of their power, Damascus, thereby forcing Yazid under public pressure to release the noble captives.
On return to his hometown Medina, the 4th Imam continued his silent jihad in such a vociferous way that it continues to reverberate to this day enlightening minds and soothing hearts despite the passing of over 13 centuries. Yazid soon ended in oblivion and several other Omayyud rulers followed him in hell never daring to challenge him after the epic of Ashura enacted by his father Imam Husain (AS).
The Heir of Karbala strengthened the sapling of Islam irrigated by the blood of martyrs by recitation of his unique supplications to God Almighty. Collected in book form as Sahifat as-Sajjadiya, so moving are his words and so extensive their domain that they cover every single topic under the sun, ranging from the fundamentals of faith to social, political and scientific issues. In one place Imam Zain al-Abedin (SA) speaks of the weight of light, an issue that had baffled minds for over a millennium until modern science has just begun to unravel this mystery of creation.
For 34 years he continued his divinely ordained mission. He built up a nucleus of pious scholars who in turn groomed students of their own and contributed to the flowering of the Islamic civilization. He defined rights in details, even the rights of our own bodily parts over us. No doubt the Risalat al-Hoqouq (Treatise of Rights) has been hailed as the finest charter of human rights, far more complete than what the United Nations has come up in our times by employing an army of brains.
The right of the Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS) on the ummah as the representative of God, left an indelible mark until in 95 AH a terrified Omayyad caliph called Waleen ibn Abdul-Malik, administered him a fatal dose of poison in a cowardly way. The 4th Imam attained martyrdom and was laid to rest in the Baqi Cemetery in Medina but not before ensuring immortality for his father’s mission that continues to act as a catalyst in every age and place jolting human conscience and inspiring the seekers of truth and freedom to stand steadfast against injustice and oppression.