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Karbala and the Imam Husain in Persian and Indo-Muslim literature 1 - Al-Shia The Scientific and Cultural Website of Shia belief Karbala and the Imam Husain in Persian and Indo-Muslim literature 1 2021-06-22 381 Views Karbala , Imam Husain , Persian literature , Indo-Muslim literature 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: Contents who are and have been in the world: Be either a Husain or a Mansur. 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 marvelous 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 Attic 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 bloodshed 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 Husain, 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 Husain, and has often combined with that event the death by poison of his elder brother Hasan.