Whose honour you have desecrated!

Whose honour you have desecrated! It is not just Imam Husayn whose headless body lies unburied on the sands of Karbala’. It is the heart of the Holy Prophet. It is the very soul of Islam!” The first majlis touched and moved the people of Kufa so deeply as to give rise to both the Tawwabun movement and al-Mukhtar's quest for vengeance. Ten days after Ashura, a messenger from Yazid arrived in Madina. His name was Abd al-Malik ibn Abi al Harith al-Sulamee.

He came to tell the Governor, Amr bin Said al-Aas that Husayn ibn Ali had been killed in Karbala’. The Governor, more conscious of the mood of the people, said that he himself could not make the news public but Abd al-Malik, if he so wished, could make the public announcement. Abd al-Malik announced the news after the morning prayers. There was such intense weeping and wailing from the homes of Banu Hashim that the very walls of masjidun-nabawi began to tremble.

Zainab, Umme Luqman, the daughter of Aqeel ibn Abi Talib came out screaming: “What will you say when the Prophet asks you: “What have you, the last ummah, done with my offspring and my family after I left them? Some of them are prisoners and some of them lie killed, stained with blood. What sort of ajr al-risaalah is this that you disobey me by oppressing my children?” Fatimah Bint Huzaam, also known as Ummul Baneen, carried her young grandson Ubaidullah ibn Abbas and prepared to go out.

When asked where she was going, she said that she was taking the orphan of Abbas to offer condolences to the mother of Husayn. Marwan ibn Hakam reports that every afternoon men and women would gather at Jannat-ul-Baqee and there would be remembrance of the tragedy of Karbala’ and the weeping and wailing could be heard miles away. When the prisoners were finally freed by Yazid, they asked for an opportunity to have rites of remembrance in Damascus.

A house was made available to them and Aza’ al-Husayn went on for over a week. Just as Hadhrat Musa Kalimullah had been raised in the palace of the enemy of Allah, Firaun, Bibi Zainab laid the foundation of Aza’ al-Husayn in the very capital of his murderer! On their return to Madina, Bibi Zainab took over the leadership of Aza’ al-Husayn in the city of the Holy Prophet.

This aroused such strong emotions in the people and such revulsion against the oppressor that Amr ibn Said ibn al-Aas wrote to Yazid to have Bibi Zainab exiled from Madina. This was done in the beginning of 62 A.H. Bibi Zainab died shortly afterwards.