It is far from us to accept humiliation...

It is far from us to accept humiliation; Allah rejects that we, His Messenger, or the faithful should ever submit to humiliation. These are [the fruit of] good and pure chambers, men of dignity and souls too proud to prefer obedience to a mean and lowly person over death in honour and in dignity. Let it be known that I shall fight with this family although our number is small, and despite the betrayal of those who promised to support us. How could he to a lowly one his submission wield?

Only to Allah did he ever submit and yield: Mightier than the shield is his will, Before lances thirsty for blood, eager to kill, To him will every h afiz refer at will, To one big as the world and greater still, One who insisted to live only in dignity, To sacrifice and personify such struggle for eternity.[^1] Such are the commandments of the purified Shari’a , and such are its injunctions regarding inviting people to righteousness, and to rise to close the door against falsehood.

Just as it mandated jihad against those who promote misguidance as well as the polytheists, it likewise exempted from such jihad the children, the invalid, the blind, the elderly, the women, and the adults who did not obtain the permission of their parents to participate in jihad . But the show of force at the Taff violated its greatest canon, permitting even what was not previously permitted in order to serve the interests and the mysteries that are beyond the reach of men's comprehension.

Such was the most oppressed martyr (‘a), informed by his grandfather, the supreme saviour (S), and by his own father, the wasi (‘a).

Al-Husayn (‘a) did not bring about a new Sunnah in jihad ; rather, it was no more than a divine lesson fixed by the most sacred tablet in the world of perfection, one limited to a particular circumstance and to a specific place, one received by Gabriel, the trusted archangel (‘a), who then conveyed to the one who was loved and chosen by Allah, namely Muhammad (S), the one who conveyed the divine message and who in turn entrusted it to his grandson the Master of Martyrs (‘a).

All the unusual events that took place during that bloody encounter, whose essence cannot be comprehended by men were things whereby the Master, Praise to Him, bestowed upon His wali and Hujjah , Abu ‘Abdullah, al-Husayn (‘a). It is to these same traditions that the martyr of Kufa, Muslim Ibn ‘Aqil, adhered.