Do we demand from history-or when we read or listen to a good story...

Do we demand from history-or when we read or listen to a good story, or a fine poem, or a good play-that our hearts should not be affected by what we read and listen to? From all this the stupidity of all the criticism which is made about the phenomena of grief at the rites of remembrance for al-Husayn should now be clear to us, as should the superficiality of the way in which this problem is dealt with.

In the rites of remembrance for al-Husayn, we listen to a historical portrayal of a tragedy whose like history has not witnessed, in which holy men were killed and raised to the highest ranks in dedication and self sacrifice as they made a pure gift of their lives and in which women and children were killed as they were parched with thirst, far from home and isolated. Their heads were carried away and their womenfolk taken captive.