The pilgrims on returning to their homes must have felt...

The pilgrims on returning to their homes must have felt compelled to narrate this strange story; and thus the Shias throughout the Muslim world came to know, without any formal proclamation, that Imam Zainul Aabidin was their divinely appointed Leader and Guide. Uniting the Shia Community This is an even more fascinating aspect of his Imamat. How was he to unite all the Shias in an, ever-lasting bond? What was the factor, which could join them permanently? Philosophical exhortations?

But they have effect on only small group of intellectuals; they do not influence the man-in-the-street. Moreover, it cannot influence the “feelings”; and “unity” is a feeling of oneness. Some joyous aspects of religion? Joy and happiness is a “feeling”, no doubt. But it does not necessarily “unite” the people. Many a time a man celebrates a joyous function and his brother refuses to join him, because of some minor misunderstandings.

But let there be a tragedy in that house, and the same brother would rush therein to share that sorrow. This tendency of human nature brings us to the third alternative: Sorrow. Sorrow and grief succeeds in binding the mourners together, while intellectual arguments and joyous functions fail to achieve that object.

Have you not seen how at the time of a national tragedy all political differences are genuinely forgotten and how the whole nation unites together to share the sorrow and shoulder the resulting responsibilities? Imam Zainul Aabidin under divine command selected this method to unite the community. And again it was adopted apparently just as a personal way of life, without its being aimed against anyone.

Allamah Majlisi[^2] has written a chapter, “His mourning and Weeping on the Martyrdom of his Father, May Grace of Allah be on Both”, in which he, inter alia, writes: “And it is said that he (i.e. Imam Zainul Aabidin) continued to weep until his eyes were endangered. And whenever he took water to drink, he wept until the tears filled the pot.

Someone talked to him about it and he replied: ‘Why should not I cry, when my father was denied the water which was free to the beasts and animals?’ “And never was food brought to him but that he wept, so much so that a servant told him: “May I be your ransom, O Son of the Messenger of Allah! I am afraid that you would die (of this weeping).” The Imam said: ‘I only complain of my distraction and anguish to Allah and I do not know.