It can be imagined what the feelings of despair and...

It can be imagined what the feelings of despair and disappointment of the poor children and the helpless mothers would have been, and how disappointed the brave son of Ali, who got the water, would have felt at the loss of the water which he could get for the poor children and the inmates of the camp after so much of fight with the enemy guarding the banks of the river. Attempts to dig a well also made but in vain, for instead of water, stones came out.

The holy imam preached patience and fortitude to every one at each disappointment and torture saying: "Be all cheerful and always surrender to the will of the All-Merciful, Lord, for the end of all these trials in hand and the water of Paradise awaiteth there to quench your thirst". EMEMY DECIDES TO ATTACK All efforts of the enemy through temptation, promises, persecutions and tortures, to persuade the holy Imam, to yield to YAZID were in vain.

Even the killing heat and the thirst of three continuous days suffered by himself, his faithful companions, the helpless ladies and even the innocent infants and the babies, could not move the holy Imam to effect the least change in the strength of his will to re-establish the Truth paying any price the task might demand. On the 9th day of MUHARRAM, the enemy's forces advanced towards the camp of the helpless Imam to effect a wholesale massacre of all the inmates therein.

HUSSAIN sent word to the enemy's Commander, IBN I-SA'D through the brave ABBAS with the request for a night's time to spend it in his last prayers to the Lord which was at first refused but ultimately with much reluctance granted. THE HOLY IMAM AND IBN I-SA'D CONFER The holy Imam sent for the enemy's Commander IBN I-SA'D and proposed three honorable conditions: "Leave me, and I shall quit the Muslim empire with my whole family and children and live in some non-Muslim lands.

I shall go away to YEMAN or to Iran or to far off Hind (i.e., India)". The Tyrant answered: "It can never be so". HUSSAIN said: "Will you at least allow to have some water for the helpless ladies and the innocent babies who are dying of thirst in my camp?" The tyrant replied: "First pay 'BAIAT' (Allegiance) and then take the water from the river". HUSSAIN at last said: "IBN I-SA'D, why dost thou destroy the house of the holy Prophet?

If the whole world were to be given to me to rule over, I shall never yield to the tyrant".