Hussain ibn Ali: Difference between revisions

Hussain's [[martyrdom]] is considered a defining event in Shi'i Islam. Few personalities in Muslim history have had as enduring an influence on Islamic thought and piety as Hussain. His death provided his followers with a new passion. Shi'i Islam gained in strength, ensuring the continuance of Hussain's legacy. Shi'i Muslims still consider a pilgrimage to his tomb in Karbala second in importance only to the hajj. Modern Muslim political groups draw inspiration from Hussain as a symbol of resistance against tyranny.   

==After the Martyrdom of Hasan b. Ali==

The death of Hasan in 50/670, apparently by poisoning, strained the relationship with [[Mu’awiya]] further. Hasan refused to name his suspect, probably Mu’awiya, to his brother since he did not wish to obligate him to retaliate. He asked to be buried with his grandfather [[Muhammad]]. If this demand were to provoke a danger of blood-shed, however, he wished to be buried next to his mother [[Fatima]]. When Marwan b. Hakam opposed Hasan’s burial near Muhammad on the grounds that ‘Othman had not been buried there, Hussain appealed to the helf al-fozul, a solidarity pact of several clans of Qoraysh, to back the right of the Prophet’s family against the Banu Umayya. His brother Muhammad b. Hanafiya and others, however, prevailed upon him to heed Hasan’s wish to avoid bloodshed and to bury him next to his mother. At the same time the Kufan Shiʿites shifted their allegiance to him. Their leaders met with the sons of Jaʿda b. Hobayra b. Abi’l-Wahb Maḵzumi, grandsons of ʿAli’s sister Omm Haneʾ, in the house of Solayman b. Sorad Khozaʿi and wrote Hussain a letter of condolence on the death of his brother in which they assured him of their loyalty. The Banu Jaʿda informed him of the high esteem of the Kufans for him, their longing that he would join them, their loathing of Mu’awiya, and their dissociation from him. Hussain wrote them that he was still bound to keep the peace concluded by Hasan as long as Mu’awiya was alive and asked them to conceal their feelings. If he were still alive at Mu’awiya’s death he would inform them of his views.

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==Bibliography==

*Abu’l-Faraj Eṣfahāni, Maqātel al-Ṭālebiyin, ed. Aḥmad Ṣaqr, Cairo, 1949, pp. 78-122.

*Idem, al-Aḡāni, ed. Naṣr Hurini, 20 vols., Bulāq, 1869, XLV, pp. 163-65.

*Tabari, index. Ebrāhim b. Muhammad Ṯaqafi, Ḡārāt, ed. Jal-āl-al-Din Moḥaddeṯ, Tehran, 1975, p. 426.

*Fahmi ʿOways, Šahid Karbalāʾ al-Imām al-Hussain b. ʿAli . . . , Cairo, 1948.

*Julius Wellhausen, Die religiös-politischen Oppositionsparteien im alten Islam, Berlin, 1901, esp. pp. 61-71; tr. R. C. Ostle and S. M. Walzer as The Religious-Political Factions in Early Islam, Amsterdam, 1975, pp. 105-20.

*Aḥmad b. Yaʿqub Yaʿqubi, Taʾrikò, ed. M. Th. Houtsma as Historiae, 2 vols., Leiden, 1883; repr., Leiden, 1969, II, pp. 266-67, 286 ff.

*Moṣʿab b. ʿAbd-Allah Zobayri, Ketāb nasab Qorayš, ed. E´variste Lévi-Provençal, Cairo, 1953, pp. 57-59.

==Sources==

*[http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t243/e141 OXFORD ISLAMIC STUDIES ONLINE]

*[http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/hosayn-b-ali ENCYCLOPÆDIA IRANICA]

[[Category:Individuals]]

[[Category:Historical Character]]