Ibn Abi al-Hadid describes Imam Hussein (peace be upon him) as follows: “The master of those who refuse, who taught people generosity and taught them to choose death under the shadow of swords over humiliation, is Abu Abdullah, Hussein ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib. To him and his companions, safety and peace were offered, but he turned away from humiliation and refrained from the thought of living in shame, even if Ibn Ziyad did not kill him. So, he chose death instead…”[1]
“You, O soul at rest, return to your Lord, pleased and content, and He is pleased with you. Enter among My servants, and enter My paradise!”[2]
“…Now, Imam Syed al-Shuhada (peace be upon him) has no one left. His companions have been martyred, and the Banu Hashim have also entered the battlefield and drunk the cup of martyrdom.
We must look at several things and pay attention to a few points:
One is to see where Imam Hussein (peace be upon him) is and what he is doing;
One is the tent, where he goes and comes (and where his family members are staying);
And one is the direction of the battlefield.
These looks must follow one after the other because now is the time when the situation has become difficult…
…First, I looked at him, and I saw him on horseback, surrounded by the army, and they had approached him.
I looked again, and I could not see him on horseback. He had dismounted. Do you know why the best soil is his soil? Because on this earth, a prostration was made that has never been made since the beginning of the world and will never be made again. A prostration that was made not with the forehead but with the right side of the face. When was that prostration? It was when the narrator said: ‘When the wounds from the arrows and swords struck Hussein (peace be upon him), Salih ibn Wahb struck a spear to his blessed side, and suddenly, Hussein fell from his horse with the right side of his face touching the ground, while he was saying: “In the name of God, and by God, and according to the religion of the Messenger of God…”‘
Again, I looked, and I could not see anything, the air had become dark…
Ah, woe to us…
Two looks remain, even though the air is dark. But these two things are luminous, and they can be seen in the darkness. One is towards the sky, something is coming down from the sky towards the earth, and the other thing is rising from the earth towards the sky.
I looked, and I saw light. I saw the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) coming from the sky, dusty, with a changed state, his turban removed from his head…
But in the second look, I saw something rising towards the sky. But it did not rise far from the earth, only about the length of a spear. When I looked closely, I saw a head on top of the spear. Upon further inspection, I saw that it was the head of Hussein (peace be upon him) on the spear…
Indeed, to God we belong and to Him we return…
Taken from the books “Fawaid al-Mashhad” and “Mawaa’idh” by the late Ayatollah Sheikh Ja’far Shushtari
Footnotes:
[1] Sharh Nahj al-Balagha, Ibn Abi al-Hadid, Vol. 3, p. 249
[2] Surah al-Fajr, verses 27–30