For reply...

For reply, let me quota Tabari himself:- "Hani bin Thubait Hadhrami (one of the commanders of Ibn-e-Ziyad's army in Karbala) says that (Imam) Husain sent a message to Umar bin Saad to meet him at night between the two camps............Umar bin Saad came out with about 20 people and Husain came out with the equal number.

When they met, Husain told his companions to stay at a distance and Umar bin Saad ordered his group likewise." (Hani says) Therefore, we stood so far from them that we could not hear their voices or their words. They talked a long time and then they went back to their camps with their companions.

Then people started talking among themselves, on what those two people might have talked-but all was just guess work on the people's part; they suggested that Husain had told Umar bin Saad, "Let us go together to Yazid".................(Hani goes on saying) People started talking like this and they spread such rumours without anybody ever hearing anything like this or knowing what was said." After one more narrative, Tabari has narrated the words of Aqba bin Sam-aan (r.a.).

He was a freed slave of Bibi Rabab; and was a sort of secretary of Imam Husain (a.s.); he was present in Karbala, fought bravely, was seriously wounded. But he survived and was taken prisoner and is one of the original sources of the narratives of the events of Karbala. Tabari quotes him as saying: - "I accompanied Imam Husain (a.s.), went with him from Madina to Mecca, and from Mecca to Iraq. And I was never far from him till he was martyred.

And he did not talk with anybody a single word, (neither in Madina nor in Mecca; neither in the way, nor in Iraq nor in the army) up to the day of his martyrdom, but I heard it. By God, he never even suggested to the enemies any such thing which they are now propagating, like the thing which they suppose that he said that he would put his hand in the hand of Yazid or that he was ready that they should take him to any border of the kingdom of Islam. But he only said.

Leave me, so that I go away in this wide world, till we see what turn the situation takes." After copying all these narratives, Tabari copies the letter of Umar bin Saad to Ibn-e-Ziyad which you have mentioned in your question. We know by the emphatic declaration of Aqba bin Sam-aan (r.a.) that imam never suggested any such thing. And the whole nature of the battle of Karbala shows that there never was any proposal of accepting the authority or order of Yazid.