[3] \n After the Shahadat of Imam Hassan -asws ...

[3] \n After the Shahadat of Imam Hassan -asws , through, Jawda -la , Imam Hussain -asws took the responsibility of Immamat for nearly 10 years.\u00a0 Imam Hussain remained patient during all this time while persecution and assassinations of his -asws Shias by Muawiyah -la continued. The Imam -asws got on with the facilitation and communication of Divine Commands until the son of Myawiyah -la , Yazid -la , took his place in the middle of 60 A.H.

Yazid -la , soon after coming into power, asked for an oath of allegiance from Imam Hussain -asws . A similar attempt had already been made earlier, by Abu Bakr -la when he tried to force Imam Ali -asws , without success, into accepting what he wanted when he legitimatised himself as the successor of Prophet -saww . \n No one dared to try it again not even Muawiyah -la .

But Yazid -la , out of his arrogance and faithlessness tried to repeat the mistake of Abu Bakr -la by sending soldiers in plain clothes to Medina. Imam Hussain -asws , with the view of safeguarding the great sanctuary of Madina and Mecca, left both of these holy places and travelled towards Kufa.

It was also in response to a cry for help from the inhabitants of Kufa, who had written hundreds of letters to Imam Hussain -asws pledging loyalty to him -asws and asking for guidance and deliverance.\u00a0 Imam Hussain -asws knew it very well that most of them were hypocrites and only wanted to reinstate their lost scholarships which Muawiyah -la used to give them, as his informers and allies against Imam Ali -asws , but Yazid -la had stopped.

But as an Apostolic Imam, Imam Hussain -asws had to fulfil the Divine mission of removing the masks of hypocrites and reveal their devious schemes and seeds of contention which were planted at \u2018Saqifa\u2019-where the first Muslim caliph was elected. \n Imam Hussain -asws reached Karbala on the 3rd of Moharram, a place which is approximately seventy kilometres from Kufa, a desert near the banks of river Euphrates.

Yazid -la \u2019s army under the command of Ibne Saad -la encircled Imam Hussain -asws and his companions from all sides and stopped their water supply from the river. Imam Hussain -asws exhausted all means to avert the war, even at the expense of living under intolerable thirst and famished conditions.