ভূমিকা

Surely my sorrow for you is great and I pray to Allah who has honoured your status and has also honoured me through you that He grant me the opportunity to seek your revenge with the victorious Imam from the family of Muhammad.” This is perhaps one of the most moving, inspirational, and thought provoking lines of this Ziyarat. We first make a very honorific promise to the Imam that had he been alive today, that we would be willing to sacrifice ourselves and even our parents in his way.

Thus, our lives mean nothing when compared to the Imam. This is not only a plea made to an Imam who is no longer with us, rather, since our 12th Imam is still alive and among us, we are making this pledge to him as well, since he is the inheritor of Imam Husayn – are we truly ready and willing to sacrifice ourselves and our families for the 12th Imam? It is hard enough to sacrifice our money let alone our lives and our parents...

The appeal made in this section of the Ziyarat is to be along side the 12th Imam in his army to take the revenge on all of those who were guilty of this great crime – from the days in Saqifah up until the day of ‘Ashura in 61 AH.

As for the honoured status of the Imam, to recount his lofty rank would take us volumes, however it is enough to mention that he was the son of the Prophet (according to the Qur’an) and that the dirt from around his grave is a means of cure for illness as has been seen and recorded in many books.

It is through his noble status that we today, the Shi’a, have any status or honour – as it is through following his mission that true Islam is separated and differentiated from the Islam practiced by the majority of others. We also make a supplication that we are able to assist the 12th Imam in his mission to avenge the death of the Hujjat of Allah on the Earth.