Instructions were given that the caravan should be taken...

Instructions were given that the caravan should be taken through the longest route to cover the remotest villages and towns so that the martyrs’ heads and the barbarity with which they were treated, might instill terror and awe in the common man. In big towns and cities, Yazid’s soldiers convened huge congregations in the central mosques.

Speakers were arranged to denounce and curse Imam Ali (a.s.), Imam Hasan (a.s.) and Imam Husayn (a.s.) in a repetition of vicious false propaganda branding them as traitors and enemies of Islam. The false and cunning propaganda made earlier by Mu’awiya that he and his son Yazid were the only surviving heirs of the Prophet (S) bore fruit now.

The cunning Mu’awiya had already planted false stories and sowed the seeds of hatred against the Ahlul Bayt (a.s.) during his long tenure of about twenty years as the governor of Syria and Iraq. Thus, people were made to believe that Yazid was the representative of the Prophet (S) and Islam and that Imam Husayn and his companions were enemies of Islam. The caravan passed through cities, towns, and villages on its way to Damascus, the seat of Yazid.

The accursed Ibn Ziyad had announced that the heads of the mutineers were being brought and he declared that there should be a rejoicing and festivities by general assemblies gathered to witness the event. Throughout the route in every town and village, a false propaganda was made that the enemies of Islam were vanquished. Everywhere, advance parties went and proclaimed that the subdued opponents of Islam and of its ruler Yazid were about to be paraded.

Huge gatherings assembled to abuse the captives contemptuously and throw litter at the heads of martyrs dangling from the necks of horses, little knowing that the persons paraded before them were the progeny of the Prophet (S). At several places, people who learnt about the identity of the captives could only sympathize secretly for fear of the dreaded Yazid and his lieutenants.

When Khouli, who had taken charge of the Imam’s head, reached his house that was near Kufa, he hid the head from his wife who was a woman from the Ansar. When she saw a radiant light emanating from the place where the head was hidden, she inquired and came to know that the light was emanating from the hidden head of Imam Husayn (a.s.). From that day, she neither dressed her hair nor used any perfume out of her deep mourning for the Imam (a.s.) and she was therefore called ‘ al-Ayoof’.