Extract from the speech of Mr. Jimmy Verjee, Bar-at-law, delivered on the eve of “SHAHADAT DAY” observed in the memory of Shahide Karbala under the auspices of the Ithnaasheri Library Debating Society, Kampala on Sunday, August 1956 at the Ithnaasheri Library Hall.

 

Imam Hussein had fallen! His followers and he had died the death of martyrs and achieved Shahadat. Thus fell one of the noblest spirits of the age.

 

What influence then did Hussein’s martyrdom have on later Muslim thought?

 

Gentlemen this is not a question which can be answered in a speech which intended to last no more than 15 minutes. I shall therefore attempt no more than briefly consider only one aspect of Hussein’s self sacrifice and devotion to duty.

 

AL FAKHRI, the great historian says that the reign of Yazid, lasted three years and six months. In the first year he slew Imam Hussein the son of Ali (on both of whom be peace); in the second year he attacked Medina and looted it for 3 days and in the third year he attacked the Kaaba.

 

Of these three outrages the first in particular sent a shudder of horror throughout the Mohamaden world. It was not only a crime but a gigantic blunder. It was this most inhuman act whereby Yazid and the rest irretrievably alienated from the House of Umaya not the love or loyalty)-for there was little enough of that-but the facet toleration of all those who love the Prophet or cared for the religion which he had founded. This one single episode changed the entire history of Islam and gave it that great impetus which in the centuries which followed made Islam the greatest of all religions and made it powerful dynamic force which contributed so much to world civilization.

 

It was that event which proved to be the turning point in early Islamic history. A reminder of the blood stained field of Karbala were the grandson of the Holy Prophet fell at length, tortured by thirst and surrounded by the bodies of his murdered followers was sufficient to evoke, evening the most lukewarm and heedless, the deepest emotion, the most frantic grief and an exaltation of spirit before which pain, danger and death shrink to unconsidered trifles. The revolution of feeling which the tragical fate of Imam Hussein caused proved eventually the salvation of Islam.

 

It arrested the depravity which followed from the Umayyad count of Damascus. It made the bulk of Muslims think what the matter had done and the injuries which the children of his martyr enemies were inflicting on Islam. Then followed a series of rebellions and the rebellions brought greater persecutions misery and human suffering.

 

But eventually came the end of the Umayyad Rule and dawned the period of Islamic glory.

 

Time does not permit us to examine in nay detail the different aspects of this golden age. Suffice it to say that with the fall of the Umayyads and the rise of Persian influence, the roughness of Arab life was softened and there opened an era of culture, toleration and scientific research.

 

May I just conclude by quoting the great historian Sir Williams Muir. Sir Williams Muir says “The tragedy of Karbala decided not only the fate of the Caliphate but of Mohamaden Kingdoms, long after the Caliphate had warred and disappeared”. This is no mean claim to make. That such an event could bring about such a revolutionary change provides a measure of the influence of Imam Hussein’s martyrdom on later Muslim thought.

 

Extracted from: Manzil, August/September 1956

 

 

Taziakhana – Zanzibar

 

Shabe Ashur – Jinja (Uganda) – August 1956

 

 

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