Husayn (radiyallahu anhu), the Grandson of the Prophet (peace be upon him): The Sorrow of Karbala

There are days in our history that are heavy to even write about. The tenth of Muharram is one of them. On that day the grandson of the Prophet ﷺ was killed. Not by an enemy army from outside Islam. By men who prayed, who said the shahadah, who would have sent blessings on the Prophet ﷺ and his family with the same tongues that ordered the killing. They were oppressors all the same.

His name was Husayn (radiyallahu anhu). The Prophet ﷺ loved him. He carried him on his shoulders. He held his prostration longer so a small boy could finish playing on his back. And years later, on a plain called Karbala, that same boy, now a man, was surrounded, made thirsty and killed with members of his own household.

This is one of the saddest days the Ummah has known. We do not look away from it. We also do not let it pull us off the straight path. We honour him. We name his killers as the oppressors they were. We turn the grief inward and ask what it means for us. That is the whole of this piece.

Who Husayn (radiyallahu anhu) was

Husayn (radiyallahu anhu) was not a stranger to the Prophet ﷺ. He was his blood. His mother was Fatimah (radiyallahu anha), the daughter of the Prophet ﷺ. His father was Ali (radiyallahu anhu), the cousin the Prophet ﷺ raised in his own house. Husayn and his brother Hasan (radiyallahu anhu) were raised in the home of revelation itself.

The Prophet ﷺ said of the two of them:

He held them close and made dua for them and for anyone who loved them.

He called the two boys something tender. His two sweet basils.

To love the Prophet ﷺ is to love his family. We begin with love, not argument.

And he held them tenderly. Once he held his prostration long in prayer because a grandchild had climbed onto his back and he would not rush a child. This is the same grandfather, the same boy. The full scene is in the Prophet's mercy to children.

Their rank, in every prayer you pray

Here is something most of us say five times a day without stopping to feel it. When the Companions asked the Prophet ﷺ how to send blessings on him, look at how they asked and look at how he answered.

The same words are in Sahih Muslim 406a. Sit with what this means. In every single prayer, the believer says "wa ala aali Muhammad", and upon the family of Muhammad. Allah placed the family of the Prophet ﷺ on the tongue of every Muslim, in every prayer, until the Last Day. That is their rank. That is the honour Allah gave them. Husayn (radiyallahu anhu) is one of that family.

The household Allah named

That rank was not left for us to guess at. The Prophet ﷺ named his household himself. He once told us he was leaving two weighty things behind, and he made his household one of them.

He repeated that reminder three times. To honour and love the Ahl al-Bayt is part of our faith, not an extra. And who are the Ahl al-Bayt? In this same hadith Zayd was asked exactly that. He was asked whether the wives of the Prophet ﷺ were part of his household. Zayd answered that the wives are indeed of his family. The Mothers of the Believers are honoured members of his household, and Allah Himself addresses them in Surah al-Ahzab as the people of his house. But Zayd then drew a line. He said the Ahl al-Bayt in the operative sense are those for whom zakat is forbidden, and he named them as the family of Ali (radiyallahu anhu), the family of Aqil, the family of Ja'far, and the family of Abbas. This is the family Hasan and Husayn (radiyallahu anhuma) come from. We honour and love them all, the wives and the wider family together, as the authentic Sunnah teaches.

We hold this love the right way. We honour the family of the Prophet ﷺ and we do not raise them above the rank Allah gave them. We do not claim for them what is not theirs. Honour and love, kept on the straight middle path. And we hold that love alongside love for all the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ. The room is not asked to choose between them. We love them all.

What happened at Karbala

By the year 61 after the Hijrah, the ruler of the day was Yazid ibn Mu'awiyah. He demanded that Husayn (radiyallahu anhu) pledge allegiance to him. Husayn refused. He would not put his name behind a wrong. So he set out, with his family and a small group of companions.

The command came down from the top. Yazid was the ruler whose authority and demand for the pledge drove these events. That demand was a tyranny. We name him as the responsible authority of his time. We do not soften what his command set in motion.

Under that authority, Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad, the governor of Kufa, directed the operation against Husayn (radiyallahu anhu). He sent a force commanded by Umar ibn Sa'd. In the killing itself the historical record names Shimr ibn Dhi'l-Jawshan. These were the men on the ground.

They surrounded Husayn (radiyallahu anhu) and his family at a place called Karbala, in what is now Iraq. They were not disbelievers from outside. They prayed. They called themselves Muslims. On the tenth of Muharram, the day of Ashura, they killed Husayn (radiyallahu anhu), thirsty and outnumbered. They killed members of the Prophet's own household with him, including the young ones of his house.

This is the sober historical record, kept by the careful historians of Islam such as Ibn Kathir in Al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya and al-Tabari in his Tarikh. The names of the men who did this come from that record, not from any narration of the Prophet ﷺ. What is soundly established is sad enough. We leave the later exaggerations out.

Naming the oppressors as oppressors

We will not soften this. The killing of Husayn (radiyallahu anhu) was a grave injustice. It was zulm of the gravest kind. It was a wound on the whole Ummah. He was the grandson of the Prophet ﷺ, the household we send blessings on in every prayer.

The men who ordered the killing and the men who carried it out were zalimun. Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad directed it. Umar ibn Sa'd commanded the force. Shimr ibn Dhi'l-Jawshan is named in the record. And above them Yazid ibn Mu'awiyah, the ruler whose demand drove the whole affair. They were the oppressors and the murderers of the family of the Prophet ﷺ.

Right is right and wrong is wrong. We say it plainly. We do not tolerate what they did. We do not honour them and we do not seek forgiveness for them. Their account is with Allah, who is never unjust. Their crime was zulm of the gravest kind. To honour Husayn (radiyallahu anhu) is to name the wrong done to him and the men who did it, not to bury it.

Hold one line carefully. We do not declare any one of these men out of Islam. That is not ours to do and it is not the stance here. They were grave oppressors and wrongdoers. We name them as zalimun. We stop there. Calling them oppressors is the truth. Declaring a Muslim out of Islam is a separate matter and we do not do it.

These men were not the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ. Naming them changes nothing about our love for the Sahaba. The Companions are honoured and untouched. The blame here sits on the men who did this and on the ruler who drove it, and on no one else.

Worship that never reached the heart

Look hard at what these men were. Ibn Ziyad, Umar ibn Sa'd, Shimr and the army with them prayed. They said the shahadah. Many of them would have said "wa ala aali Muhammad" with the same tongues. And then those same hands shed the blood of the very family they had just sent blessings upon. Their prayer never reached their hearts. It did not stop them for a moment.

So let no one hide behind their prayer. Their worship did not make them anything but oppressors. The forehead on the ground meant nothing while they raised the sword against the household of the Prophet ﷺ.

Allah does not weigh the prayer marks on the forehead or the words on the tongue. He weighs the heart behind them and the deeds that follow. These men had the marks and the words. They were oppressors all the same, because their worship changed nothing in how they treated people.

Now a short word to ourselves. Worship that does not hold us back from zulm is worth nothing. It is easy to weep for Husayn (radiyallahu anhu) and still carry a cold heart and a cruel hand. So turn the grief inward, after we have named the wrong and not before it. Does my prayer change my heart? Does my salawat keep me from harming another? Or does my worship stay on my tongue while my life goes another way? That is the question Karbala asks of every one of us.

The rule that began and ended in wrong

Look at the rule this killing came from. It began in wrong and it ended in wrong.

It opened with the blood of Karbala, the killing of the grandson of the Prophet ﷺ. It did not stop there. In the year 63 after the Hijrah came the day of al-Harra, when the army of Yazid turned on Madinah itself, the city of the Prophet ﷺ. Its people were killed and the city was given over to the soldiers. Then in the year 64 came the march on Makkah. The army laid siege to the city against Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr (radiyallahu anhu). In that fighting the Kaaba itself was damaged and caught fire. The historians differ on exactly how the fire started, but no one disputes that the rule had now brought war to the walls of the sacred House. A rule that began with harm to the family of the Prophet ﷺ, went on to harm his city, and ended at the walls of the sacred House. All of this is as Ibn Kathir and al-Tabari record.

Some say Yazid did not give the direct order for the killing at Karbala. Suppose that is granted. He still never punished the men who did it. Not one killer of the Prophet's grandson was brought to account in his time. A ruler who looks away from the murder of the household of the Prophet ﷺ and lifts no hand against the murderers has given his verdict by his silence. The blood was on his watch and he let it lie.

And the men on the ground did not escape it either. As Ibn Kathir and al-Tabari record, within a few years the chief killers were hunted down and killed, one after another. Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad. Umar ibn Sa'd. Shimr ibn Dhi'l-Jawshan. The same hands that shed that blood were stilled. We do not tell this to gloat over anyone. We tell it because it is the truth and because it carries a warning. The zulm of this world does not slip past Allah. He gives the wrongdoer time. He does not give him escape.

What we learn from his sacrifice

Husayn (radiyallahu anhu) gave everything rather than make a wrong look right. He could have stayed safe and comfortable. He chose his principle over his own life.

Not all of us are asked to give our lives. All of us are asked to refuse to call a wrong right. This is exactly what Allah commands.

O you who believe, be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses for Allah, even against yourselves. (Qur'an 4:135)

Husayn (radiyallahu anhu) lived that verse all the way to its end. Most of us never face Karbala. We face the small version of it. The honest word when silence is easier. Refusing to sign off on a wrong at work. Standing for justice even when it costs you, even against your own side. That is your Karbala.

And the grief turns to hope here, because Allah keeps the account.

Indeed, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their wealth in exchange for Paradise. (Qur'an 9:111)

Husayn (radiyallahu anhu) paid the highest price a person can pay. We ask Allah to count him among the martyrs He loves. And the same verse speaks to us. Every small thing you give for the truth, Allah is keeping the account. Nothing given for Allah is ever wasted.

Why Ashura is fasted

The fast of Ashura is not built on Karbala.

The Prophet ﷺ fasted the tenth of Muharram and taught it years before Karbala ever happened. He fasted it in thanks to Allah for saving Musaعَلَيْهِ السَّلَام.

So the day of Ashura is a day of mercy and gratitude. Allah saved Musaعَلَيْهِ السَّلَام and his people. Karbala fell on the same date in history. We honour Husayn (radiyallahu anhu) on it, but the fast itself is for Musaعَلَيْهِ السَّلَام and for Allah's mercy. That distinction keeps everything in its place.

The Prophet ﷺ also taught us to add the day before it.

So fast the tenth and add the ninth before it, following the Prophet ﷺ.

Learn more about him

This piece is short. Husayn (radiyallahu anhu), his brother Hasan (radiyallahu anhu), his mother Fatimah (radiyallahu anha), his father Ali (radiyallahu anhu), and the whole household of the Prophet ﷺ deserve far more than one essay. Read about them. Learn who they were, how the Prophet ﷺ loved them, and what they stood for. The more you know them, the more the tenth of Muharram will mean to you.

And keep the day the right way. Honour Husayn (radiyallahu anhu). Name his killers as the oppressors they were and grieve the injustice soberly. Fast the ninth and the tenth in thanks to Allah for saving Musaعَلَيْهِ السَّلَام. Send abundant blessings on the Prophet ﷺ and his family this week and mean it. Stand for one truth that has been costing you to say. Do not turn the day into a ritual of cursing names, and do not harm yourself in grief. Name the wrong, honour the household and keep your heart on the straight middle path.

A closing dua

O Allah, grant us love of Your Prophet, love of his household and his Companions. Keep us firm on the truth. And make us among those who stand for justice and fear no blame in Your cause.

The tenth of Muharram is a hard day to carry. But carried the right way, it leaves something behind. A love for the family of the Prophet ﷺ. A heart that will not call a wrong right. And a worship that reaches further than the tongue. Ask Allah for all three.