Karbala and the Imam Husayn
in Persian
and Indo-Muslim literature
Annemarie Schimmel
Harvard University
Al-Serat, Vol XII (1986)
I still remember the deep impression which the first Persian poem
I ever read in connection with the tragic events of Karbala' left
on me. It was Qaani's elegy which begins with the words:
What is raining? Blood.
Who? The eyes.
How? Day and night.
Why? From grief.
Grief for whom?
Grief for the king of Karbala'
This poem, in its marvellous style of question and answer, conveys
much of the dramatic events and of the feelings a pious Muslim
experiences when thinking of the martyrdom of the Prophet's beloved
grandson at the hands of the Umayyad troops.
The theme of suffering and martyrdom occupies a central role in
the history of religion from the earliest time. Already, in the
myths of the ancient Near East, we hear of the hero who is slain
but whose death, then, guarantees the revival of life: the names
of Attis and Osiris from the Babylonian and Egyptian traditions
respectively are the best examples for the insight of ancient
people that without death there can be no continuation of life,
and that the blood shed for a sacred cause is more precious than
anything else. Sacrifices are a means for reaching higher and
loftier stages of life; to give away parts of one's fortune, or
to sacrifice members of one's family enhances one's religious
standing; the Biblical and Qur'anic story of Abraham who so deeply
trusted in God that he, without questioning, was willing to sacrifice
his only son, points to the importance of such sacrifice. Iqbal
was certainly right when he combined, in a well known poem in
Bal-i Jibril (1936), the sacrifice of Ismail and the martyrdom
of Husayn, both of which make up the beginning and the end of
the story of the Ka'ba.
Taking into account the importance of sacrifice and suffering
for the development of man, it is not surprising that Islamic
history has given a central place to the death on the battlefield
of the Prophet's beloved grandson Husayn, and has often combined
with that event the death by poison of his elder brother Hasan.
In popular literature we frequently find both Hasan and Husayn
represented as participating in the battle of Karbala', which
is historically wrong, but psychologically correct.
It is not the place here to discuss the development of the whole
genre of marthiya and taziya poetry in the Persian
and Indo-Persian world, or in the popular Turkish tradition. But
it is interesting to cast a glance at some verses in the Eastern
Islamic tradition which express predominantly the Sunni poets'
concern with the fate of Husayn, and echo, at the same time, the
tendency of the Sufis to see in him a model of the suffering which
is so central for the growth of the soul.
The name of Husayn appears several times in the work of the first
great Sufi poet of Iran, Sana'i (d. 1131). Here, the name of the
martyred hero can be found now and then in connection with bravery
and selflessness, and Sana'i sees him as the prototype of the
shahid, higher and more important than all the other shahids
who are and have been in the world:
Your religion is your Husayn, greed and wish are your pigs and
dogs
You kill the one, thirsty, and nourish the other two. [Divan,
p. 655]
This means that man has sunk to such a lowly state that he thinks
only of his selfish purposes and wishes and does everything to
fondle the material aspects of his life, while his religion, the
spiritual side of his life, is left without nourishment, withering
away, just like Husayn and the martyrs of Karbala' were killed
after nobody had cared to give them water in the desert. This
powerful idea is echoed in other verses, both in the Divan
and in the Hadiqat al-Haqiqa; but one has to be careful
in one's assessment of the long praise of Husayn and the description
of Karbala' as found in the Hadiqa, as they are apparently
absent from the oldest manuscripts of the work, and may have been
inserted at some later point. This, however, does not concern
us here. For the name of the hero, Husayn, is found in one of
the central poems of Sana'is Divan, in which the poet describes
in grand images the development of man and the long periods of
suffering which are required for the growth of everything that
aspires to perfection. It is here that he sees in the 'street
of religion' those martyrs who were dead and are alive, those
killed by the sword like Husayn, those murdered by poison like
Hasan (Divan 485).
The tendency to see Husayn as the model of martyrdom and bravery
continues, of course, in the poetry written after Sana'i by Persian
and Turkish mystics, and of special interest is one line in the
Divan of 'Attar (nr. 376) in which he calls the novice
on the path to proceed and go towards the goal, addressing him:
Be either a Husayn or a Mansur.
That is, Husayn b. Mansur al-Hallaj, the arch-martyr of mystical
Islam, who was cruelly executed in Baghdad in 922. He, like his
namesake Husayn b. 'Ali, becomes a model for the Sufi; he is the
suffering lover, and in quite a number of Sufi poems his name
appears alongside that of Husayn: both were enamoured by God,
both sacrificed themselves on the Path of divine love, both are
therefore the ideal lovers of God whom the pious should strive
to emulate. Ghalib skillfully alludes to this combination in his
tawhid qasida:
God has kept the ecstatic lovers like Husayn and Mansur in the
place of gallows and rope, and cast the fighters for the faith,
like Husayn and 'Ali, in the place of swords and spears: in being
martyrs they find eternal life and happiness and become witnesses
to God's mysterious power.
This tradition is particularly strong in the Turkish world, where
the names of both Husayns occur often in Sufi songs.
Turkish tradition, especially in the later Bektashi order, is
deeply indebted to Shi'i Islam; but it seems that already in some
of the earliest popular Sufi songs in Turkey, those composed by
Yunus Emre in the late 13th or early 14th
century, the Prophet's grandsons played a special role. They are
described, in a lovely song by Yunus, as the 'fountain head of
the martyrs', the 'tears of the saints', and the 'lambs of mother
Fatima'. Both of them, as the 'kings of the eight paradises',
are seen as the helpers who stand at Kawthar and distribute water
to the thirsting people, a beautiful inversion of Husayn suffering
in the waterless desert of Karbala'. (Yunus Emre Divani,
p. 569.)
The well known legend according to which the Prophet saw Gabriel
bring a red and a green garment for his two grandsons, and was
informed that these garments pointed to their future deaths through
the sword and poison respectively, is mentioned in early Turkish
songs, as it also forms a central piece of the popular Sindhi
manaqiba which are still sung in the Indus Valley. And
similar in both traditions are the stories of how the boys climbed
on their grandfather Prophet's back, and how he fondled them.
Thus, Hasan and Husayn appear, in early Turkish songs, in various,
and generally well known images, but to emphasize their very special
role, Yunus Emre calls them 'the two earrings of the divine Throne'.
(Divan, p. 569)
The imagery becomes even more colourful in the following centuries
when the Shi'i character of the Bektashi order increased and made
itself felt in ritual and poetical expression. Husayn b. 'Ali
is 'the secret of God', the 'light of the eyes of Mustafa' (thus
Seher Abdal, 16th cent.), and his contemporary, Hayreti,
calls him, in a beautiful marthiya, 'the sacrifice of the festival
of the greater jihad'. Has not his neck, which the Prophet used
to kiss, become the place where the dagger fell?
The inhabitants of heaven and earth shed black tears today.
And have become confused like your hair, O Husayn.
Dawn sheds its blood out of sadness for Husayn, and the red tulips
wallow in blood and carry the brandmarks of his grief on their
hearts ... (Ergun, Bektasi sairleri, p. 95).
The Turkish tradition and that in the regional languages of the
Indian subcontinent are very similar. Let us have a look at the
development of the marthiya, not in the major literary
languages, but rather in the more remote parts of the subcontinent,
for the development of the Urdu marthiya from its beginnings
in the late 16th century to its culmination in the
works of Sauda and particularly Anis and Dabir is well known.
In the province of Sind, which had a considerable percentage of
Shi'i inhabitants, Persian marthiyas were composed, as
far as we can see, from around 1700 onwards. A certain'Allama
(1682-1782), and Muhammad Mu'in T'haro are among the first
marthiya-gus mentioned by the historians, but it is particularly
Muhammad Muhsin, who lived in the old, glorious capital of lower
Sind, Thatta, with whose name the Persian marthiya in Sind is
connected. During his short life (1709-1750), he composed a great
number of tarji'band and particularly salam, in which beautiful,
strong imagery can be perceived:
The boat of Mustafa's family has been drowned in blood;
The black cloud of infidelity has waylaid the sun;
The candle of the Prophet was extinguished by the breeze of the
Kufans.
But much more interesting than the Persian tradition is the development
of the marthiya in Sindhi and Siraiki proper. As Christopher
Shackle has devoted a long and very informative article on the
Multani marthiya, I will speak here only on some aspects
of the marthiya in Sindhi. As in many other fields of Sindhi
poetry, Shah 'Abdu'l-Latif of Bhit (1689-1752) is the first to
express ideas which were later taken up by other poets. He devoted
Sur Kedaro in his Hindi Risalo to the martyrdom
of the grandson of the Prophet, and saw the event of Karbala'
as embedded in the whole mystical tradition of Islam. As is his
custom, he begins in media res, bringing his listeners
to the moment when no news was heard from the heroes:
The moon of Muharram was seen, anxiety about the princes occurred.
What has happened?
Muharram has come back, but the Imams have not come.
O princes of Medina, may the Lord bring us together
He meditates about the reason for their silence and senses the
tragedy:
The Mirs have gone out from Medina, they have not come back.
But then he realizes that there is basically no reason for sadness
or mourning, for:
The hardship of martyrdom, listen, is the day of joy.
Yazid has not got an atom of this love.
Death is rain for the children of 'Ali.
For rain is seen by the Oriental poets in general, and by Shah
'Abdul Latif in particular, as the sign of divine mercy, of rahmat,
and in a country that is so much dependant on rain, this imagery
acquires its full meaning.
The hardship of martyrdom is all joyful rainy season.
Yazid has not got the traces of this love.
The decision to be killed was with the Imams from the very beginning.
This means that, already in pre-eternity, Hasan and Husayn had
decided to sacrifice their lives for their ideals: when answering
the divine address Am I not you Lord? (7:171), they answered
'Bala' (=Yes)', and took upon themselves all the affliction
(bala) which was to come upon them. Their intention to
become a model for those who gain eternal life by suffering and
sacrifice was made, as Shah'Abdu'I-Latif reminds his listeners,
at the very day of the primordial covenant. Then, in the following
chapter, our Sindhi poet goes into more concrete details.
The perfect ones, the lion-like sayyids, have come to Karbala';
Having cut with Egyptian swords, they made heaps of carcasses;
Heroes became confused, seeing Mir Husayn's attack.
But he soon turns to the eternal meaning of this battle and continues
in good Sufi spirit:
The hardship of martyrdom is all coquetry (naz).
The intoxicated understand the secret of the case of Karbala'.
In having his beloved suffer, the divine Beloved seems to show
his coquetry, trying and examining their faith and love, and thus
even the most cruel manifestations of the battle in which the
'youthful heroes', as Shah Latif calls them, are enmeshed, are
signs of divine love.
The earth trembles, shakes; the skies are in uproar;
This is not a war, this is the manifestation of Love.
The poet knows that affliction is a special gift for the friends
of God, Those who are afflicted most are the prophets, then the
saints, then the others in degrees', and so he continues:
The Friend kills the darlings, the lovers are slain,
For the elect friends He prepares difficulties.
God, the Eternal, without need what He wants, He does.
Shah 'Abdu'l-Latif devotes two chapters to the actual battle,
and to Hurr's joining the fighters 'like a moth joins the candle',
e.g., ready to immolate himself in the battle. But towards the
end of the poem the mystical aspect becomes once more prominent;
those who 'fight in the way of God' reach Paradise, and the houris
bind rose chains for them, as befits true bridegrooms. But even
more:
Paradise is their place, overpowering they have gone to Paradise,
They have become annihilated in God, with Him they have become
He ...
The heroes, who have never thought of themselves, but only of
love of God which makes them face all difficulties, have finally
reached the goal: the fana fi Allah, annihilation in God
and remaining in Him. Shah 'Abdu'l-Latif has transformed the life
of the Imams, and of the Imam Husayn in particular, into a model
for all those Sufis who strive, either in the jihad-i asghar
or in the jihad-i akbar, to reach the final annihilation
in God, the union which the Sufis so often express in the imagery
of love and loving union. And it is certainly no accident that
our Sindhi poet has applied the tune Husayni, which was
originally meant for the dirges for Husayn, to the story of his
favourite heroine, Sassui, who annihilated herself in her constant,
brave search for her beloved, and is finally transformed into
him.
Shah'Abdu'l-Latif's interpretation of the fate of the Imam Husayn
as a model of suffering love, and thus as a model of the mystical
path, is a deeply impressive piece of literature. It was never
surpassed, although in his succession a number of poets among
the Shi'i of Sindh composed elegies on Karbala' . The most famous
of them is Thabit 'Ali Shah (1740-1810), whose speciality was
the genre of suwari, the poem addressed to the rider Husayn,
who once had ridden on the Prophet's back, and then was riding
bravely into the battlefield. This genre, as well as the more
common forms, persists in Sindhi throughout the whole of the 18th
and 19th centuries, and even into our own times (Sachal
Sarmast, Bedil Rohriwaro, Mir Hasan, Shah Naser, Mirza Baddhal
Beg, Mirza Qalich Beg, to mention only a few, some of whom were
Sunni Sufis). The suwari theme was lovingly elaborated by Sangi,
that is the Talpur prince 'Abdu'l-Husayn, to whom Sindhi owes
some very fine and touching songs in honour of the prince of martyrs,
and who strongly emphasizes the mystical aspects of the event
of Karbala', Husayn is here put in relation with the Prophet.
The Prince has made his miraj on the ground of Karbala',
The Shah's horse has gained the rank of Buraq.
Death brings the Imam Husayn, who was riding his Dhu'l janah,
into the divine presence as much as the winged Buraq brought the
Prophet into the immediate divine presence during his night journey
and ascent into heaven.
Sangi knows also, as ever so many Shi'i authors before him, that
weeping for the sake of the Imam Husayn will be recompensed by
laughing in the next world, and that the true meditation of the
secret of sacrifice in love can lead the seeker to the divine
presence, where, finally, as he says
Duality becomes distant, and then one reaches unity.
The theme of Husayn as the mystical model for all those who want
to pursue the path of love looms large in the poetry of the Indus
Valley and in the popular poetry of the Indian Muslims, whose
thought was permeated by the teaching of the Suf'is, and for whom,
as for the Turkish Suf'is and for 'Attar (and innumerable others),
the suffering of the Imam Husayn, and that of Hasan b. Mansur,
formed a paradigm of the mystic's life. But there was also another
way to understand the role of Husayn in the history of the Islamic
people, and importantly, the way was shown by Muham-mad Iqbal,
who was certainly a Sunni poet and philosopher. We mentioned at
the beginning that it was he who saw the history of the Ka'ba
defined by the two sacrifices, that of Ismail at the beginning,
and that of Husayn b. 'Ali in the end (Bal-i Jibril, p.
92). But almost two decades before he wrote those lines, he had
devoted a long chapter to Husayn in his Rumuz-i bekhudi
(p. 126ff). Here, Husayn is praised, again in the mystical vocabulary,
as the imam of the lovers, the son of the virgin, the cypresso
of freedom in the Prophet's garden. While his father, Hazrat 'Ali,
was, in mystical interpretation, the b of the bismi'llah,
the son became identified with the 'mighty slaughtering', a beautiful
mixture of the mystical and Qur'anic interpretations. But Iqbal,
like his predecessors, would also allude to the fact that Husayn,
the prince of the best nation, used the back of the last prophet
as his riding camel, and most beautiful is Iqbal's description
of the jealous love that became honoured through his blood, which,
through its imagery, again goes back to the account of the martyrdom
of Husayn b. Mansur al-Hallaj, who rubbed the bleeding stumps
of his hands over his blackened face in order to remain surkh
ru, red-faced and honoured, in spite of his suffering.
For Iqbal, the position of Husayn in the Muslim community is as
central as the position of the surat al-ikhlas in the Holy
Book.
Then he turns to his favourite topic, the constant tension between
the positive and negative forces, between the prophet and saint
on the one hand, and the oppressor and unbeliever on the other.
Husayn and Yazid stand in the same line as Moses and Pharaoh.
Iqbal then goes on to show how the khilafat was separated
from the Qur'anic injunctions and became a worldly kingdom with
the appearance of the Umayyads, and it was here that Husayn appeared
like a raincloud, again the image of the blessing rain which always
contrasts so impressively with the thirst and dryness of the actual
scene of Karbala'. It was Husayn's blood that rained upon the
desert of Karbala' and left the red tulips there.
The connection between the tulips in their red garments and the
bloodstained garments of the martyrs has been a favourite image
of Persian poetry since at least the 15th century,
and when one thinks of the central place which the tulip occupies
in Iqbal's thought and poetry as the flower of the manifestation
of the divine fire, as the symbol of the Burning Bush on Mount
Sinai, and as the flower that symbolizes the independent growth
of man's khudi (=self) under the most difficult circumstances,
when one takes all these aspects of the tulip together, one understands
why the poet has the Imam Husayn 'plant tulips in the desert of
Karbala". Perhaps the similarity of the sound of la ilah
and lala (=tulip), as well as the fact that lala
has the same numerical value as the word Allah, e.g., 66,
may have enhanced Iqbal's use of the image in connection with
the Imam Husayn, whose blood 'created the meadow', and who constructed
a building of 'there is no deity but God.'
But whereas earlier mystical poets used to emphasize the person
of Husayn as model for the mystic who through self-sacrifice,
finally reaches union with God, Iqbal, understandably, stresses
another point: 'To lift the sword is the work of those who fight
for the glory of religion, and to preserve the God-given order.'
'Husayn blood, as it were, wrote the commentary on these words,
and thus awakened a sleeping nation.'
Again, the parallel with Husayn b. Mansur is evident (at least
with Husayn b. Mansur in the way Iqbal interprets him: he too
claims, in the Falak-i mushtari in the Javidnama,
that he had come to bring resurrection to the spiritually dead,
and had therefore to suffer). But when Husayn b. 'Ali drew the
sword, the sword of Allah, he shed the blood of those who are
occupied with, and interested in, things other than God; graphically,
the word la, the beginning of the shahada, resembles
the form of a sword (preferably a two-edged sword, like Dhu'l-fiqar),
and this sword does away with everything that is an object of
worship besides God. It is the prophetic 'No' to anything that
might be seen beside the Lord. By using the sword of 'No', Husayn,
by his martyrdom, wrote the letters 'but God' (illa Allah)
in the desert, and thus wrote the title of the script by which
the Muslims find salvation.
It is from Husayn, says Iqbal, that we have learned the mysteries
of the Qur'an, and when the glory of Syria and Baghdad and the
marvels of Granada may be forgotten, yet, the strings of the instrument
of the Muslims still resound with Husayn's melody, and faith remains
fresh thanks to his call to prayer.
Husayn thus incorporates all the ideals which a true Muslim should
possess, as Iqbal draws his picture: bravery and manliness, and,
more than anything else, the dedication to the acknowledgement
of God's absolute Unity; not in the sense of becoming united with
Him in fana as the Sufi poets had sung, but, rather, as
the herald who by his shahada, by his martyrdom, is not
only a shahid, a martyr, but at the same time a witness,
a shahid, for the unity of God, and thus the model for all generations
of Muslims.
It is true, as Iqbal states, that the strings of the Muslims'
instruments still resound with his name, and we may close with
the last verse of the chapter devoted to him in the Rumuz-i
bekhudi:
O zephir, O messenger of those who are far away
Bring our tears to his pure dust.