* When they approached Damascus, Al-Sayeda Om Kolthoum moved towards Shemer (Allah damn him) and said to him:" I need something from you." Thus, he said:" What's your need?" She said:" When you take us inside the city, take us to a road where there are a few people and ask them to take these heads from between the Howdahs and carry them far from us, for we have been shamed from the many eyes that were staring at us as we are in this condition." Hence, that damn man ordered them to carry the heads on the spears in the center of the Howdahs due to his malice and disbelief and he also made them pass through a road full of people in that condition and when they reached the gate of Damascus, they stopped at the stairs of Al-Masjed Al-Jamea door where the captives are kept.
* Sahel Ben Saed said:" I headed to Jerusalem until I reached the center of Al-Sham where I saw a city full of rivers and trees and veils, curtains and brocades hung by the people who were happy and glad and their women were playing music with tambourines and drums, so I said to myself:" Do the people of Al-Sham have a holiday that we have no knowledge about?!" I saw people talking so I said to them:" O people! Do you have a holiday in Al-Sham that we do not know about?!" They said:" O Sheikh! You must be a stranger?" I said:" I am Sahel Bin Saed and I have seen Mohammad (pbuhp)." They said:" O Sahel! How strange the sky would be if it doesn't rain blood! This is Al-Hussein's head, the household of Mohammad (pbuhp), offered as a gift from Iraq." Thus, I said:" How strange that is! Al-Hussein's head (pbuh) is being offered as a gift and people are happy!?" and then I said:" Through which gate will he enter?" They pointed at a gate called the Gate of Al-Sa'at and as I was standing there, I saw the banners come one after another and then I saw a knight holding a banner with a broken tip and has a head with a face that resembles the Messenger of Allah (pbuhp) the most on top of it and behind him were women on camels without carriage tops, I approached their children and said:" O women servant! Who are you?" She said:" I am Sukaina, the daughter of Al-Hussein." Thus, I said to her:" Do you want a need from me for I am Sahel Bin Saed; I have seen you grandfather and heard his words." She said:" O Sahel! Tell the holder of this head to carry the head in front of us so that people would be occupied by looking at him and not at the Harem of the Messenger of Allah (pbuhp)." Hence, I approached the holder of the head and said to him:" Can you fulfill my need and take four hundred Dinar from me?" He said:" What is it?" I said:" Carry the head in the front." Therefore, he did and I gave him what I had promised him.""
* When the captives reached the gate of Damascus, they stood at the stairs of Al-Masjed Al-Jamea were the captives are kept and then an old man approached the Harem and children of Al-Hussein (pbuh) and says:" Thanks to Allah because He has annihilated and killed you, gave ease to this country by the death of your men and let Ameer Al-Mo'mineen defeat you!" Thus, Ali Bin Al-Hussein (pbuh) said to him:" O Sheikh! Have you read the Quran?" He said:" Yes." He said:" Do you recognize this verse:{ Say: No reward do I ask of you for this except the love of the close relatives.} He said:" I have read that." Thus, Ali (pbuh) said to him:" We are the close relatives. O Sheikh! Have you read this verse in the Chapter of Banu Israel :{ And gives the close kinsfolk their right}?" He said:" I have read that." Thus, Ali (pbuh) said to him:" We are the close kinsfolk. O Sheikh! Have you read this verse:{And know that whatever booty that you may gain; fifth of it I for Allah, His messenger and the close relatives.}?" He said:" Yes." Hence, Ali (pbuh) said:" We are the close relatives. O Sheikh! Have you read this:{Indeed, Allah wants to purify you, O Household, from every filth and He wants to purify you indeed!}?" He said:" I have read that." Hence, Ali (pbuh) said:" We are the Household that has been uniquely described by the verse of purification, O Sheikh!" Thus, the old man stood in silence and regretted what he had said and said:" By Allah! Are you them?" Therefore, Ali Bin Al-Hussein (pbuh) said:" I swear to Allah that we are them without doubt. I swear by our grandfather, the Messenger of Allah (pbuhp), that we are them!" Hence, the old man cried and threw his turban, raised his head towards the sky and said:" O Allah! I announce my innocence from the enemy of the Household of Mohammad!" and then he said:" Can my repentance be accepted?" He (pbuh) said:" If you repent, then Allah will accept your repentance and you will be with us." So, he said:" I repent." Yazeed Bin Moawiya was informed about the conversation of this old man, so he asked for him and he was killed."
* It was reported that Abu Hamza Al-Thamali entered on Imam Ali Bin Al-Hussein (pbuh) and found him sad and depressed, so he said to him:" O son of the Messenger of Allah! Isn't it time for your grief to end and for your weeping to decrease? My lord, isn't being killed a habit to you and isn't martyrdom a virtue given to you by Allah? Wasn't your grandfather, Ali Bin Abi Talib, killed by the sword of Ibin Moljam? Wasn't your uncle, Al-Hasan, killed? So why are you crying this much?" Hence, Imam Zain Al-Abedeen (pbuh) turned towards him and said:" May Allah reward your attempt, O Abu Hamza! Have you ever laid eyes on or heard of an Alawiya who has been taken as a captive before Ashouraa? Having our men killed is a habit to us yet is taking our women captives a habit to us? Is burning our tents a habit to us? By Allah, O Abu Hamza, whenever I look at my aunts and sisters, I remember when they escaped on the Day of Ashoraa from one tent to another and from one pavilion to another as the crier of the people yelled:" Burn the dwellings of the oppressors." And how they took refuge with one another yelling:" O grandfather, O Mohammad!"" Thus, they say that when he (pbuh) was asked about the severest and greatest tragedies, He said:" Al-Sham, Al-Sham…"
* It was narrated that there was one of the rabbis of Jews in the palace of Yazeed, so he said:" Who is this fellow?" He said:" He is Ali Bin Al-Hussein." He said:" Who is Al-Hussein?" He said:" Ali Bin Abi Talib." He said:" Who is his mother?" He said:" His mother is Fatima, the daughter of Mohammad." So, the rabbi said:" O Allah! This is the son of the daughter of your prophet and you have killed him so fast! Woe you! This is how you treat his descendants! I swear to Allah, if Mousa Bin Omran left a grandson for us, we would have thought that we worship him and not our Lord! You have departed your prophet yesterday and now you have attacked his son and killed him!! What a shameful nation you are!" Therefore, Yazeed (Allah damn him) ordered them to bring him and then he stroke him on his throat three times so the rabbi stood up saying:" Hit me if you want, kill me or leave me for I have found in the Torah that whoever kills the descendants of a prophet will be damned as long as he lives and when he dies, Allah will throw him in the fire of Hell."
* After the massacre of Imam Husayn bin 'Ali (a.s.) and his companions at Karbala, the forces of Yazid bin Mu'awiyah took the children and women of Husayn's caravan as prisoners. They were taken from Karbala to Kufa and from Kufa to Damascus, the capital and stronghold of Umayyid power.
In Damascus, the women and children were presented into the court (darbar) of Yazid. Yazid had assembled all the dignitaries and officers of his capital for that occasion. When the prisoners where brought in, they saw that Imam Husayn's head was at the foot of Yazid's thorn. Yazid was joyfully reciting some poems in which he openly rejected the Prophethood of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) and called on his ancestors (who were killed by the Muslim army in the battle of Badr) to witness the revenge which he had extracted from the family of the Prophet.
It was under such an emotionally charged circumstances that Zaynab bin Ali, the courageous daughter of a courageous father, stood up and gave a very moving speech in response to Yazid's statements.
In the name of Allah the, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the Universe,
Allah's blessings be on His Messenger's Family altogether.
Allah says: "Then the end of those who do evil deeds is that they reject the verses of Allah and ridicule them". (Quran 30:10)
Oh Yazid! Do you think that by making us prisoners in such a way that we are being taken from one place to another in humiliation - do you think that by this you have humiliated us in the sight of Allah and have earned respect for yourself?!
This apparent success of yours is the result of grandeur of your might and lofty status for which you are proud…. You feel that you have conquered the whole world and your affairs are organised and that our domain is now under you control… And are you forgetting that Allah has said:
"Surely those who have bought unbelief at the price of faith shall do no harm at all to Allah, and they shall have a painful chastisement". (Quran 3:177)
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Then Zaynab reminds Yazid that his grandmother and other relatives came into the fold of Islam only after the fall of Mecca at the hands of the Muslims. Since Mecca was taken without any war or bloodshed, legally the entire inhabitant could have been made the slaves of the Prophet. But the Prophet, out of his mercy, declared to the people of Mecca that 'I release you from the bonds of slavery, you are free.' In other words, Zaynab wanted Yazid to remember that his ancestors were the 'freed slaves' of her grandfather. Look at the courage of Zaynab! Standing as a prisoner in the court of Yazid, she does not hesitate to remind him of his reality. |
Is it justice, O son of the freed slaves!, that you provide your ladies and slave-girls with hijab, whereas the daughters of the Messenger of God are held prisoners? You have insulted them by taking away the covers; you have exposed their faces to the enemies -- from one city to another. Everyone irrespective of his high or low status stares at their faces. These ladies do not have their gents or protectors with them.
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Then Zaynab reminds the audience of the origins of Yazid: his grandmother, Hind (the wife of Abu Sufyan), had ordered her slave after the battle of Uhud to cut open the chest of Hamzah, the Prophet's uncle, and chewed upon his liver to 'quench' her anger for death of her father and brother who were killed in Badr. |
But, of course, how can we expect protection from him whose mouth spits out the heart of the pious people, whose flesh has grown from the blood of martyrs? And why should he not hate us who is jealous of us and shamefully say: 'I wish my ancestors had seen me today; they would congratulate me and pray that my hand would never be weak'. He is saying this while, he is hurting [with his cane] the teeth of Husayn, the leader of the Youths of Paradise.
Why should he not say these things -- he who has cursed his feelings and sores by spilling the blood of Muhammad's family, the stars of the family of 'Abdul Muttalib.
You call your ancestors hoping that they will answer you. You will be put together with them and then you will regret and say had my tongue become dumb so that I would not have said what I said.
O Allah! Give us our right, and avenge those who have oppressed us; and send your anger upon those that spilled our blood and killed our protectors
By Allah! O Yazid, by killing 'Husayn you have not torn but your own skin and you have not cut but your own flesh. You will be brought to the Prophet with the crimes of spilling the blood of his children and humiliating his family.
"The oppressors will know when the time changes [against them].
