Muslim b. Aqil b. Abi Talib: Difference between revisions

Muslim was brought before Obayd Allah, and the two had a heated exchange. Muslim then received permission to give his final instructions (wasiyya). In most accounts he is said to have chosen for this purpose [[Omar Ibn Sa’d|Omar Ibn Saʿd]] as the only member of his tribe (Quraysh) present. Muslim asked him to send a messenger to al-Hussain to inform him of the treachery of the Kufans and to urge him not to come; he also asked him to pay a debt of his and take his corpse for burial to prevent its being mutilated. In other reports, Muslim is depicted as receiving a promise from Ibn al-Ashʿath (rather than Omar) to inform al-Hussain. Obayd Allah entrusted Muslim’s execution to Bakr b. Humran al-Ahmari, whom Muslim had wounded before being taken prisoner. Bakr led Muslim to the top of the fortress, decapitated him in sight of the populace, and threw down first the head and then the rest of the body. Haniʾ was also executed, and the two bodies were dragged through the market-streets of Kufa. Muslim is said to have been posthumously crucified, and his head was sent to Yazid in Damascus and hoisted on a pole; he was the first [[Hashimite]] to be treated in this fashion.<ref>cf. al- Masʿudi, Muruj , § 1899.</ref> An elegy on the fate of Muslim and Haniʾ which is cited in the sources is variously attributed to al-Farazdaq, to Abd Allah b. al-Zabir al-Asadi and to Sulayman (or Sulaym) b. Salam al-Hanafi. Muslim’s death, which followed his uprising by one day, is said to have coincided with al- Hussain’s departure for ʿIraq.  

==Imam Hussain departs for Kufa==

Al-Hussain was at Zubala (or Thaʿlabiyya, or Zarud, or Sharaf) when he received news of the tragedy. Shi’i authors maintain that al-Hussain gave his entourage the option of withdrawing and that members of Muslim’s family were among those who chose to stay with him to the end. The lists of those killed at Karbala do indeed include Muslim’s brothers Abd Allah, Abd al-Rahman and Jaʿfar; some say that in all five brothers died on the battlefield.<ref>Ibn Maʿsum al-Shirazi, al-Darajat al-rafiʿa , Najaf 1382/1962, 165.</ref> Abd Allah, a son of Muslim from his marriage to Ali’s daughter [[Ruqayya]], was also reportedly killed in the battle; some sources refer to two sons who perished there.<ref>e.g. al-Safadi, al-Wafi , xii, ed. Ramadan ʿAbd al-Tawwab, Wiesbaden 1399/1979, 426.</ref> Two other sons (sometimes identified as Muhammad and Ibrahim) are said to have escaped from Obayd Allah’s camp a year after Karbala only to be brutally murdered by a Kufan who expected to be rewarded by Obayd Allah (but who was beheaded instead).<ref>Ibn Babawayh, Amali , Najaf 1389/1970, 73-9.</ref> Their story, like that of their father, is re-enacted in the annual [[taʿziya]] plays.<ref>Pelly, The Miracle play, i, 190-206.</ref> In some versions of these plays, the two sons are said to have been decapitated at the same time as their father<ref>e.g. Metin And, The Muharram observances in Anatolian Turkey , in P.J. Chelkowski (ed.), Taʿziyeh : ritual and drama in Iran , New York 1979, 251.</ref>; and the text accompanying several pictorial renderings of this event identifies their executioner as al- Harith b. Badr.<ref>R. Milstein, Miniature painting, 101, 102, 104.</ref>

*[https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/muslim-b-akil-b-abi-talib-SIM_5596?s.num=637&s.start=620 Encyclopaedia Iranica]

[[Category: Karbala Martyrs]]