WILAYAH NEWS VOICE OF THE GLOBAL AWAKENING
Related Articles
**In the Realm of the Husseini Epic (7–8)**
**Abdul Sattar Al‑Jaberi**
**Effects of the Revolution (3)**
Fourth: The divine tradition operates in achieving lofty goals over the long term. Speed in reaching the objective is not a goal in itself. Rather, the goal is the building of the human being—so that a person walks toward the truth with will, determination, and choice. The purpose of human creation is to test him so that he may choose the outcome of his own path. As the Qur’an states:
“Have We not made for him two eyes, and a tongue and two lips, and shown him the two paths? Yet he has not attempted the steep path. And what will make you know what the steep path is? It is the freeing of a slave, or feeding on a day of severe hunger an orphan near of kin, or a needy person in distress; then being among those who believe and encourage one another to patience and encourage one another to mercy.” (Qur’an 90:8–17)
Unless a human being frees himself from the desires of his own soul and places truth above his personal inclinations—using the ability God has granted him to distinguish truth from falsehood—he cannot reach this state. God has provided the means of perception: two eyes by which one observes actions, two ears by which one hears speech, and a tongue by which one expresses what lies within his mind and reveals the inner state of his soul. After taking truth from its source and distinguishing sound from unsound through observation and knowledge of the paths of truth, the human being must rise above absorption in worldly life and free himself from its chains, making whatever he possesses a means to attain the pleasure of the Lord, Blessed and Exalted. Only then does he become prepared to be among those who believe, are mindful of God, and fulfill what God has willed.
Naturally, a person lives in a struggle between the call of God, the whispers of Satan, and the inclinations of the self. This internal struggle continues until one of the two calls prevails—either he becomes among the people of God or among the soldiers of Satan.
Fifth: The space of free choice—the ability to choose the path of truth—which God has made the basis of responsibility for both individuals and societies explains why the authority of truth may collapse and the authority of falsehood may dominate. God does not compel people to what they do not choose, as long as social deviation has not reached the stage of absolute corruption such as occurred with the people of Noah (peace be upon him) and other nations whom God destroyed.
As long as the struggle between truth and falsehood remains, and the truth has a clear banner and followers, God allows events to proceed through indirect intervention of unseen forces. This has been the case since the conquest of Mecca and the passing of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), and it continued afterward. Among the clearest examples are the abdication of authority by Imam Hasan (peace be upon him) and the martyrdom of Imam Husayn (peace be upon him). These events—just as the sidelining of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (peace be upon him), from authority after the Prophet—revealed the reality of society and its abandonment of truth and its people. Likewise, the period in which Imam Ali (peace be upon him) assumed the caliphate revealed the continued struggle between the forces of truth and falsehood in society.
The revolution of Imam Husayn (peace be upon him) reveals the divine tradition of reviving the spirit of defending truth within the conscience of the community when matters reach a dangerous stage—when the methodology of truth is on the verge of collapse and falsehood dominates social reality, to the extent that religion itself becomes distorted, the paths of truth and reality are altered, and the people of truth are suffocated and hunted until they are eliminated and no caller to truth remains.
Sixth: Observing the course of social reality from the passing of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) until today confirms the matters mentioned above. Through the blessing of the blood of the Master of the Martyrs (peace be upon him), truth found its path within social life, while the forces of deviation and misguidance suffered significant decline in many of their foundations. The struggle between the paths of truth and falsehood continues until God’s promise is fulfilled:
“Allah has decreed: I and My messengers shall surely prevail.” (Qur’an 58:21)
“And Allah will accomplish His purpose.” (Qur’an 65:3)
The path of deviation that began after the Prophet’s passing first encountered correction when the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (peace be upon him), assumed authority. This led to a degree of social liberation in Iraqi society that no other society had experienced, which is why Iraq—despite its diverse intellectual orientations—remained a thorn in the side of the Umayyads.
Then came the revolution of Imam Husayn (peace be upon him), which drove a wedge into the deviationist system established by Mu‘awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan. The revolution of Imam Husayn stripped the Umayyad approach of its legitimacy and exposed the falsehood with which the opponents of Imam Ali (peace be upon him) had cloaked themselves, revealing that they were merely seekers of political power.
The revolution of Imam Husayn (peace be upon him) established the legitimacy of uprising against oppression and deviation in Muslim society and ended the myth of the ruler’s sanctity, righteousness, and justice. Over time, the effects of the Husseini revolution spread widely throughout society. After those in power had managed for twenty‑four years to marginalize the role of Imam Ali (peace be upon him) in social life—and after Mu‘awiyah spread hostility toward him, even instituting the practice of cursing him from the pulpits after the call to prayer a hundred times and after Friday prayer a thousand times—this hostile doctrine soon collapsed following the revolution of Imam Husayn (peace be upon him).
‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al‑‘Aziz realized this and became convinced that continuing the cursing of Imam Ali from the pulpits would harm the Umayyad throne more than benefit it. He therefore ordered the practice introduced by Mu‘awiyah to be stopped. In its place, efforts were directed toward compiling narrations—mixing the weak and the strong, the authentic and the fabricated, the truthful and the false—so that they would remain as a legacy followed by later generations without critical examination or verification. In this way, the project opposing the Ahl al‑Bayt (peace be upon them) continued through shaping the social mentality.
After them came the Abbasids, who sought to impose a state-sponsored doctrinal orientation contrary to the method of the Ahl al‑Bayt (peace be upon them). Yet within a few centuries, the school of the Ahl al‑Bayt came to stand alongside other legal schools in circles of study, teaching, and issuing legal rulings, particularly when the Buyids allowed intellectual freedom during the fourth and fifth Islamic centuries.
Although the Seljuks later attempted to extinguish the vibrant flame of the community of truth, they failed, because the community of faith had already established deep intellectual and social roots.
What we witness today in calls for intellectual freedom, for returning to the Noble Qur’an and authentic Sunnah, and for rejecting methodologies imposed by earlier generations with political motivations—foundations laid by the Umayyads and those who followed them—reveals the enduring influence of the revolution of Imam Husayn (peace be upon him). This revolution represents the continuing path of truth inherited from the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) and carried on by his Household. Even though many of those who call for such intellectual liberation have not embraced the Shi‘i school, their call to abandon imitation of the Umayyad approach and to return to true Islam is one of the indirect fruits of the revolution of the Master of the Martyrs (peace be upon him), whose aim was to free human beings from the servitude of falsehood and guide them toward the worship of the Truth.
