Hussain ibn Ali: Difference between revisions

| father        =Ali

| mother        =Fatima

| relatives          =Muhammad (maternal grandfather), Hasan ibn Ali (brother), Zaynab bint Ali (sister) Muhsin ibn Ali (brother), Umm Kulthum bint Ali (sister), Abbas ibn Ali (brother)

| spouse            =Shahrbanu, Umme Rabab, Umme Laylā

| children          = 'Alī Zayn al-'Ābidīn, Sakīnah (Mother: Shahrbanu), 'Alī al-Akbar, Fāṭimah aṣ-Ṣughrá (Mother: Laylā), Sukaynah, 'Alī al-Aṣghar(Mother: Rubāb)

| death_place =Karbala, Umayyad section of Mesopotamia

After Ali's assassination in 661, Hussain's older brother, [[Hasan]], became caliph and second imam. Soon Hasan was forced to abdicated, however, in favor of [[Mu'awiya]], a powerful clan leader and political rival who established the [[Umayyad]] caliphate. While Hussain reluctantly recognized Mu'awiya's rule, he refused to pledge allegiance to him. Hussain believed that, as direct descendants of Muhammad, Ali's sons were the rightful heirs to the caliphate. When Mu'awiya died in 680, the caliphate passed to Yazid, Mu'awiya's son and chosen successor. Hussain refused to recognize the legitimacy of Yazid's rule and again withheld his allegiance to the Umayyads. [[Yazid]], however, threatened to kill anyone not loyal to him, prompting Hussain to flee to Mecca seeking sanctuary.

His supporters from Iraq, however, kept visiting him in Medina in large numbers, and ʿAmr, the son of the caliph ‘Othman, warned the governor Marwan. The latter informed [[Mu’awiya]], who instructed him to leave Hussain alone as long as he would not display any hostility to him but also to withhold any sign of friendship from him. Marwan wrote Hussain a menacing letter, warning him against sowing renewed discord in the community. Hussain answered him scornfully, enumerating Mu’awiya’s offences, such as his recognition of Ziad as his brother in violation of Islamic law and his execution of Hojr b. Adi, and rejected his threats. Mu’awiya complained to his entourage about Hussain, but refrained from further threats and continued to send his regular subsidy and gifts.<ref>Baladhori, II, pp. 458-60</ref> Jointly with the sons of several other prominent Companions of Muhammad, Hussain resisted Mu’awiya’s demands that they pledge allegiance to his son Yazid, whom he had appointed as his successor in breach of both his treaty with Hasan and ʿOmar’s principle of election by the consultation (Shura).

In Kufa the leaders of the Shiʿa, on learning of Muawiya’s death, assembled again in the house of Solayman b. Sorad. They wrote to Hussain praising God for having destroyed the obstinate tyrant Mu’awiya, who had seized the rule of the Muslim community without its consent, appropriated its fayʾ (immovable properties acquired by conquest) and made it pass into the hands of the wealthy and powerful, who had killed their best men and retained the most evil among them. They urged Hussain to join them, since they had no [[imam]]. They informed him that they did not attend the Friday prayer with Mu’awiya’s governor Noʿman b. Bashir Ansari and would drive him out of the town as soon as Hussain agreed to come to them. They sent him in short order seven messages with bags of letters of support by Kufan warriors and tribal leaders. The first two of them arrived in Mecca on 10 Ramazan 60/13 June 680. Hussain wrote the Kufans that he understood from their letters that they had no imam and they wished him to come to unite them by right guidance. He informed them that he was sending his cousin [[Muslim ibn Aqil]] b. Abi Taleb to report to him on the situation. If he found them united as their letters indicated he would speedily join them, for it was the duty of the imam to act in accordance with the Koran, to uphold justice, to proclaim the truth, and to dedicate himself to the cause of God.  

Soon after leaving [[Sharaf]] his supporters sighted a troop of 1,000 Kufan mounted men under the command of [[Hurr b. Yazid Riahi Tamimi]]. He turned off the road towards the left and alighted at [[Dhu Husam]] near [[Karbala]], where he was joined by the Kufan troop. Hussain ordered the call to prayer to be made and addressed the Kufans, reminding them that they had invited him to come because they were without an [[imam]]. He told them that he intended to proceed to Kufa with their support, but if they were now opposed to his coming, he would return to where he had come from. The Kufans did not respond, but performed the midday prayer under his leadership. After the afternoon prayer he addressed them again. He stressed the prior right of the Prophet’s family to govern them and mentioned the letters he had received from them. When Hurr claimed that they knew nothing of these letters, he had the saddle-bags with them brought forward and scattered the letters before them. Hurr averred that they were not of those who had written them and that they were under order to bring him to ʿObayd-Allah b. Ziad. When Hussain set out to move, Hurr blocked his way. After a heated exchange, Hurr explained that he had not been ordered to fight Hussain but to bring him to Kufa. If Hussain would not follow him, Hurr would not allow him to take the route to either Kufa or Medina. He would write to Obayd-Allah for further instructions, and, also suggested that Hussain should write to Yazid or Obayd-Allah. Hussain did not accept the advice and turned left in the direction of Odayb and [[Qadisiyya]]. Hurr kept following him and warned him against a fight in which he would inevitably perish, but he was unable to prevent four Kufan Shiʿites from joining him. When they reached the district of Ninawa, a village near Karbala, a messenger arrived from Kufa with instructions for Hurr to force Hussain to camp in the open desert in a place without fortification and water. Obayd Allah’s aim evidently was to force Hussain to start fighting. As Hurr prevented him from alighting either in Ninawa or Ghazeriya (a village to the northeast of [[Karbala]]), on 2 [[Muharram]] 61/2 October 680, he set his camp in the desert land of Karbala at a location that was without [[water]].

Hussain’s first marriage was with Rabab, daughter of Emraʾ-al-Qays b. Adi, a chief of the Banu Kalb. Her father came to Medina early during the caliphate of Omar and was appointed by him amir over all tribesmen of Qozaʿa who would convert to Islam. Ali proposed to him to establish marriage ties, and he agreed to give three of his daughter to Ali, Hasan, and Hussain in marriage. Hasan and Hussain, and no doubt the daughters of Emraʾ-al-Qays, were too young for the wedding to take place immediately, and Hasan may never actually have married the girl chosen for him. Hussain later married Rabab, and in the later years of Ali’s caliphate, Emraʾ-al-Qays and his kin were referred to as his in-laws.<ref>ashar; Thaqafi, p. 426</ref> Rabab remained Hussain’s favorite wife, even though she was childless for many years. Probably after Ali’s death, she bore him a daughter Amena (Amina, Omayma), commonly known as [[Sokayna]]. Later Rabab bore him his son Abd-Allah, who was still a child when he was killed at Karbala. He presumably had saved his own patronymic (konya), Abu Abd-Allah, for a son by her. In some late Shiʿite sources Abd-Allah is called [[ʿAli Asqar|Ali Asqar]] (q.v.), but this is without historical foundation. After Hussain’s death, Rabab is said to have spent a year in grief at his grave and to have refused to remarry. No details are known about Hussain’s marriage to Solafa, a woman of the tribe Bali of Qozaʿa. She bore him a son named Jaʿfar, who died during Hussain’s lifetime.

Of Hussain’s two sons named Ali, the one who survived him, known as [[ʿAli b. al-Hussain|Zayn al-Abedin]], the fourth Imam of the Shiʿites, was the elder and probably his first-born son. He was twenty-three at the time of the battle of Karbala and thus was born during the caliphate of Ali. His mother was a slave woman, probably from Sind. She was later married to a client of Hussain and had a son with him, ʿAbd-Allah b. Zobayd, who was thus a maternal brother of Ali Zayn al-Abedin. The descendants of Abd-Allah b. Zobayd later lived in Yanboʿ.<ref>Ibn Saʿd, p. 17</ref> Whereas Zayn al-Abedin is called Ali al-Asqar in the early Sunnite sources, Muhammad Mofid <ref>pp. 236-37</ref> and other Shiʿite authors are probably correct in calling him ʿAli Akbar. The second Ali, called Ali Akbar in the Sunnite sources but Ali Asqar by Shaikh Mofid, was nineteen when he was killed at Karbala. His mother was Layla, daughter of Morra b. Orwa Ṯaqafi and Maymuna bt. Abi Sofyan, sister of the caliph Muawiya. The marriage must have taken place soon after Hasan’s surrender to Mu’awiya, as it would not have been possible during the lifetime of Ali. Hussain evidently named his son by Layla also Ali since he, because of his aristocratic Arab mother, had precedence over his elder son by a non-Arab slave woman to become his primary heir. Mu’awiya is even quoted as observing that Ali b. Hussain was the one most suited for the caliphate, since he combined the bravery of the Banu Hashem, the munificence of the Banu Umayya, and the pride of Thaqif.<ref>Abu’l-Faraj Esfahani, Maqatel, p. 80</ref>