In the Realm of the Husseini Epic by Abdul Sattar Al-Jabri 7
2 weeks ago
Wisdom anecdotes-طرائف
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**The Effects of the Revolution (3)**
**Fourth:** The divine law (sunnah) operates in the realization of lofty goals over the long term. Speed in reaching the goal is not an objective in itself; rather, the objective is the building of the human being so that a person proceeds 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 affair:
“Have We not made for him two eyes, 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 freeing a slave, or feeding on a day of severe hunger an orphan of near kin or a poor person in misery. Then he becomes among those who believe and counsel one another to patience and counsel one another to compassion.”
Thus, unless a person frees himself from the whims of his own soul and gives precedence to the truth over his inclinations—using the faculty of discernment that God, the Exalted, has granted him between truth and falsehood—by providing him with the means and preliminaries of perception: two eyes with which he observes actions, two ears with which he hears statements, and a tongue with which he expresses what passes through his mind and reflects the hidden aspects of his inner self. After taking the truth from its source so as to distinguish the sound from the unsound in light of what he observes and after learning the paths of truth, he must then rise above being absorbed in worldly life and free himself from its chains by making what is in his possession a means to attain the pleasure of the Lord, Blessed and Exalted. Only then will he be prepared to become among those who believe, are mindful of God, and comply with what God, the Exalted, has willed.
Naturally, the human being lives in a struggle between the call of God, the temptations of Satan, and the desires of the self. He continues to live this inner conflict until one of the two calls prevails—either he becomes among the men of God or among the soldiers of Satan.
**Fifth:** The scope of choice and the freedom to select the path of truth—which God has made the basis of responsibility for both the individual and society—explains for us the reasons behind the collapse of the authority of truth and the dominance of the authority of falsehood. God does not compel people to do what they do not wish, so long as social deviation has not reached the stage of absolute corruption, as occurred with the people of Noah (peace be upon him) and other communities that God destroyed.
As long as the struggle between truth and falsehood continues, and truth has clear signs and followers, God conducts affairs on the basis of indirect intervention from the 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 thereafter. Among its clearest manifestations are the abdication of authority by Imam al‑Hasan (peace be upon him) and the martyrdom of Imam al‑Husayn (peace be upon him). These two events, just as the withdrawal of the Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon him) from authority after the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), reveal the reality of society and its abandonment of the truth and its people.
Likewise, the assumption of power by Imam ‘Ali (peace be upon him) revealed the continued struggle between the forces of truth and falsehood within society. The revolution of Imam al‑Husayn (peace be upon him) also reveals the divine law in instilling the spirit of defending the truth in the conscience of the community once matters reach a dangerous stage that threatens to overthrow the methodology of truth and allow falsehood to dominate social reality—such that religion becomes other than religion, the paths of truth and reality are altered, the breath of the people of truth is stifled, and they are pursued until they are eliminated so that none of the callers to truth remain.
**Sixth:** Observing the course of social reality from the passing of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) until the present day confirms what has been mentioned. The truth, by the blessing of the blood of the Master of Martyrs (peace be upon him), resumed its path in social life, while the forces of misguidance and deviation have experienced great decline in many of their foundations. The struggle between the two directions—truth and falsehood—continues until the promise of God is fulfilled:
“Allah has written: ‘I and My messengers shall surely prevail,’”
and His saying: “And Allah will accomplish His purpose.”
The course of deviation that began after the passing of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) first encountered correction when the Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon him) assumed authority. This produced a level of social liberation in Iraqi society that no other society experienced; thus Iraq, despite its diverse intellectual orientations, became a thorn in the throat of the Umayyads.
Then came the revolution of Imam al‑Husayn (peace be upon him), which drove a wedge into the deviant methodology established by Mu‘awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan. The revolution of Imam al‑Husayn stripped the Umayyad approach of its legitimacy and exposed the falsehood under which those who opposed the Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon him) had cloaked themselves, revealing that they were merely seekers of power.
The revolution of Imam al‑Husayn (peace be upon him) also established the legitimacy of rising against injustice and deviation within Muslim society and brought an end to the myth of the ruler’s sacredness and presumed righteousness and justice. As time passed, the effects of the revolution of Imam al‑Husayn (peace be upon him) became evident across the broad spectrum of society.
For after those people had managed, over twenty‑four years, to marginalize the role of the Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon him) in social life, Mu‘awiyah followed by spreading hostility and enmity toward him to the extent that he made cursing him from the pulpits obligatory—one hundred times after the call to prayer and a thousand times after the Friday prayer. Yet this hostile methodology soon collapsed after the revolution of Imam al‑Husayn (peace be upon him). ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al‑‘Aziz recognized this and realized that continuing to curse the Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon him) from the pulpits would harm the Umayyad throne more than benefit it. He therefore ordered the cessation of the practice introduced by Mu‘awiyah and replaced it with the collection of various narrations—sound and weak, authentic and fabricated, truthful and false—so that they would become a legacy followed by later generations without scrutiny or correction, thereby allowing the project opposing the Ahl al‑Bayt (peace be upon them) to continue through its influence on the social mentality.
After them came the Abbasids, who sought to impose a state sectarianism that conflicted with the methodology of the Ahl al‑Bayt (peace be upon them). Yet it did not take many centuries before the school of the Ahl al‑Bayt (peace be upon them) came to stand alongside other schools in circles of learning, teaching, and legal verdicts after the Buyids opened the space for intellectual freedom for all in the fourth and fifth Islamic centuries.
Despite the Seljuks’ attempts to extinguish the vibrant flame of the community of truth, they failed, for the community of faith had already firmly rooted itself intellectually and socially. What we witness today—calls for intellectual freedom, a return to the Noble Qur’an and authentic Sunnah, and the rejection of methodologies imposed by earlier authorities with political dimensions established by the Umayyads and adopted by those who preceded or followed them—reveals the profound influence of the revolution of Imam al‑Husayn (peace be upon him). This revolution represents the continuous path of truth originating from the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) and carried on through his household (peace be upon them).
Even though many of those calling for liberation have not embraced the Shi‘i school, their call to abandon imitation of the Umayyad approach and return to the true Islam is one of the indirect fruits of the revolution of the Master of Martyrs (peace be upon him), whose aim was to liberate humanity from the servitude of falsehood and guide it toward the worship of the Truth.
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