Tributes to the Heroine of Karbala

Heartfelt condolences to you on a doleful day. Today the 15th of the month of Rajab is the martyrdom anniversary of a very noble lady to whose selfless endeavours Islam and humanity will always remain indebted.

She is none other than Hazrat Zainab (SA), the granddaughter of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

Before we present to you a special feature in this regard listen to an immortal phrase from her against the fate of tyrants, while delivering a moving sermon to universalize the message of her brother, Imam Husain (AS), the Martyr of Karbala.

“The end of all the tyrants is terrible and God knows the misguided and wrongdoers amongst you.”

The phrase which you just heard is an apt description of the fate of all oppressors, whether of the past, the present or the future, including Nimrod, Pharaoh, Hitler, Saddam, Ariel Sharon, and Insha-Allah (God-Willing) of the Saudi rulers and Donald Trump. These words, however, were not directly addressed to any of these public enemies of mankind, but to perhaps the chief of all these and countless other hellish thugs since the dawn of history.

To be more precise, the addressee here is the accursed Yazid, the perpetrator of the heartrending tragedy of Karbala. The important point to note is that the despicable tyrant is being addressed in his face by a seemingly helpless lady standing in his pompous court beside the severed heads of her martyred brother(s), sons, nephews, and other kinsmen.

It is obvious that we are referring to Hazrat Zainab (SA), the indomitable daughter of Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA) and Imam Ali (AS).

The reason we remember the Heroine of Karbala today is the 15^th of the sacred month of Rajab, the day the Lady whose electrifying sermons institutionalized, universalized and immortalized the life-inspiring mourning ceremonies for Imam Husain (AS), was herself martyred.

She achieved this immortal honour in the path of God in Damascus in the year 65 AH, when hit with a pickaxe on her blessed head by an enemy of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt, while weeping under the tree at which the severed head of her brother had been hung four years earlier.

A lunar millennium and almost four centuries have passed since that day, but her sermons continue to inspire the seekers of truth, many of whom from different parts of the world have assembled at her magnificent golden-domed shrine after defeating the devilish Takfiris, who supported by modern-day Yazids, such as the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, USA, Britain, the Zionist entity and etc., had unleashed a reign of terror in Syria.

For a proper cognition of the peerless personality of Hazrat Zainab (SA), as a hadith says: “If it is impossible to comprehend everything it is also not possible to leave all.”

It is beyond the power of ordinary mortals to pen the merits and virtues of a lady, whose praise requires a tongue as eloquent as that the Holy Qur’an or as fluently expressive as that of the Prophet and his Infallible Progeny.

We do not think we are capable of shedding full light, and that too in a brief radio programme, on the life and times of the lady whose merits have earned her the title of Sani-e Zahra or second only to the Greatest Lady of all times, her own impeccable mother, the Prophet’s daughter, Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA).

Accounts are usually written of those whose life is bare and bereft of any God-given virtuosity, but in the case of such a holy figure, the human mind is clearly wonderstruck and incapable of penning down the exact merits.

It is said the immortal saga of Karbala would have remained incomplete if not for the endeavours of Hazrat Zainab (SA). Here was a sister who refused to let the mission of her martyred brother be confined to the epic Day of Ashura as the cowardly enemies of humanity had planned. Imprisonment did not dampen her spirits. She not just carried the message of Imam Husain (AS) to Kufa and made the Iraqis rue their betrayal of the Prophet’s grandson; neither did she allow the dungeons of Damascus and the jam-packed court of the tyrant Yazid to drown the eloquence of her sermons that eventually apprised the Syrians of the treason of the Omayyuds against Islam; nor was she content to merely lighten the burden of her bleeding heart on return home to Medina at the outpouring of grief of the people of Hejaz shocked by the tragedy that befell the Prophet’s Household.

By ripping off the mask of hypocrisy off the ungodly face of Yazid, whom she rightly called “yabna at-tulaqa” (son of freed slaves – a reference to the Prophet’s magnanimity in sparing the life of his accursed father Mu’awiyya and equally evil grandparents Abu Sufyan and Hend) in front of the whole court filled with foreign dignitaries including the Byzantine ambassador – a descendant of Prophet David who was shocked at what the Muslims had done to the grandson of their own Prophet – the granddaughter of Prophet of Islam brought about a revolution transcending continents, climes and eras.

In fact, Hazrat Zainab (SA) along with her nephew, Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS) – who used to call her “The Unschooled Scholar and Sage by Connation” – not only publicized the tragedy of Karbala, but, as was the goal of her brother, she infused eternality in it for the salvation of humanity, so that mankind in every age, era or geographical place could sift truth from falsehood by reflecting on the uprising of Imam Husain (AS).

Thus, when any conscientious mind turns to the Epic of Ashura and the traumatic aftermath of history’s greatest tragedy, it will acknowledge that Islam and all humanitarian values, without the least doubt, are also indebted forever to the Lady whose indefatigable role earned her the title of “Sharikat al-Husain” or partner in the mission of Imam Husain (AS), for preserving the teachings of the holy Qur’an as revealed by God to her grandfather, as expounded to the faithful by her father, and as preserved for posterity by her brother with his lifeblood.

AS/ME