Documents of the Right Word

evoking the order of his governoship of Rey. ’Umar asked for a
day’s permission to consider the matter and came back with an
affirmative answer. The two parties met at Kerbelâ (or Karbala).
Hadrat Huseyn said that he was ready to “go back.” Ibni Ziyâd’s
answer was that he could go back provided he should “pay homage
to Yezîd” and that “otherwise he should not be given any water.”
Hadrat Huseyn refused to pay homage. So ’Umar drove forward
his forces. In the year 61, on the tenth of Muharrem, hadrat
Huseyn and seventy other people with him attained martyrdom.
Two days later, ‘Umar bin Sa’d took the women and Zeynel’âbidîn
Alî to Kûfa. Ibni Ziyâd convened the people in the mosque.
Mounting the minber, he addressed, “Gratitude and praise be to
Allah for making the right prevalent and helping the Emîr almu’minîn
Yezîd.” When the women and the report of hadrat
Huseyn’s martyrdom arrived in Damascus, tears filled Yezîd’s
eyes. “May Allah curse Ibni Sumayya,” he said. Ubeydullah bin
Ziyâd was called ‘Ibni Sumayya’ and ‘Ibni Merjâna’, too. He
pronounced a benediction over hadrat Huseyn, and added, “I
would have forgiven Huseyn if he came to me.” He did not give
any presents to Zubeyr, who had brought him the news. “May
Allah damn him. Ibni Ziyâd hasted and killed him,” he said. Then,
inviting the people brought from Kûfa to his place, he had the
following conversation with them: “Do you know why Huseyn lost
his life? Huseyn said, ‘My father Alî is better than his (Yezîd’s)
father Mu’âwiya. My mother Fâtima is better than his mother and
my grandfather Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu alaihi wa sallam’ is better
than his grandfather. Therefore, I am better than he. Caliphate
belongs to me by rights.’ His father and my father left the solution
to arbitrators. Everybody knows who was elected. Let me say this
for Allah’s sake: His mother Fâtima is better than my mother. As
for his grandfather; a person who has îmân in Allah and in rising
after death will not hold anyone equal with the Messenger of
Allah. However, Huseyn said (and acted) on his knowledge of fiqh
and on his ijtihâd, forgetting about the âyat that purports, ‘Allâhu
ta’âlâ is the owner of everything. He will bestow sovereignty on
anyone He chooses.’ ” People in Yezîd’s palace mourned and wept
very much for hadrat Huseyn. The property taken away from him
was paid back in multiples. In fact, hadrat Huseyn’s daughter
Sukayna acknowledged, “I have not seen a person more
beneficent than Mu’âwiya’s son Yezîd.” [This fact cannot be
denied even by people without a certain Madh-hab. Yet in their
quotation of this statement they substitute the word ‘person’ with
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