Lohoof (Sighs of sorrow)

Introduction

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

All praise belongs to Allah Who shows His Magnificence through the horizon of wisdom; Who removes the veils from His Intentions, through the logic of the Holy Quran and Sunnah; Who has lifted His friends from the filths of the house of deception (this world), and raised them to the heights of shining happiness.

This bliss to His friends is not by the way of granting them a higher status among His creation, nor is it to shelter them through nice paths; but He considered them worthy of Graceful Rewards and good morals. Therefore, He did not like that they should treed the absurd path. Rather, He granted them the good sense of adopting perfect deeds and actions.

This was until all souls became dejected from everyone except Allah, and their hearts got adorned by the ornaments of His Pleasure. So their hearts turned towards His light, and their ambitions got tied up with His Mercy and Grace. You can observe their happiness in reaching the eternal life, and their sympathetic desire of meeting their Lord.

Invariably, they have an increasing urge toward the goals put by their God; their faces shine up by traversing towards their Lord, and their ears are attentive for listening to His secrets, and their souls enjoy the sweetness of His remembrance. Allah bestows on them His Greetings proportionate to their acknowledgement, and rewards them with His gifts and mercy.

Hence everything, which prevents them from the area of His Majesty, is worthless in their eyes. How easy is it for them to give up everything that takes them away from

His path until they taste and enjoy the pleasure and happiness due to this Bounty and Perfection? Then Allah adorns them with a dress of dignity, grandeur and reverence.

As they realize that their (worldly) lives act as an obstacle in attaining their noble ambition, and that their stay in this world keeps them away from His Grace, they discard their dress of worldly life and put on the apparel worthy of meeting Him. On this way, they found pleasure by giving away their life, and receiving wounds of swords and arrows.

This is the lofty grandeur which raises the souls of the martyrs of Taff (Karbala) to such an extent that they compete with each other in sacrificing their lives, and their holy bodies turn into targets of arrows and swords.

How beautiful has Seyyed Murtaza Alamul Huda (r.a.) praised of such noble men[^1]:

Their bodies lie in the sands of desert

Wherea s their souls are enjoying the hospitality in the vicinity of Allah

It is, as if those who wanted to harm them have benefited them

And those who had killed them with swords were those who made them alive (immortal)

Had it not been incumbent upon us to put on the dress of mourning, as ordered by the Book and the Islamic Tradition, over the vanishing of the “standards of guidance” and establishment of the rule of misguidance and deviation of Umayyides, and to grieve over such losses of bounties, and the martyrdom of such great personalities, it was good to rejoice over such great bliss.

And since in this mourning is concealed the consent of Allah and the goal of His good servants, we invariably and regularly put on the dress of mourning and bring tears in our eyes. We ask our eyes to go on weeping continuously and also ask our hearts to cry like a mother who has lost her son.

The precious trusts of the compassionate Prophet were destroyed on the day of ƖshurƗ, and many of his wills regarding his household and sons were thrown away by his Ummah and by his enemies.

For Allah’s sake, how difficult were the calamities which made hearts sick, brought so much hardship and destruction, those troubles which were so terrible that rendered all other troubles insignificant; the events wherein the fear of Allah was driven away and those arrows which made the blood of the holy Prophet flow on earth and those hands which arrested and imprisoned the noble Ahlul Bayt (a.s.); those tragedies which rolled the heads of devotees; those catastrophes which took the lives of the best families; the trouble whereof reached even to Jibrael; those atrocities that raised the wrath of Almighty Allah.

Why should it not be so when, on that day, the flesh of the holy Prophet of Allah (i.e. the body of Imam Husayn, a.s.) fell on sandy land, and his holy blood flowed on the soil by the swords of the deviated people, and when the holy faces of his daughters were exposed to the eyes of people who were condemnable, and rejoiced at the misfortune of others, and those who (the holy women) were disrobed before both the talking and the dumb, when the holy bodies were stripped and when those holy bodies were strewn on ground!

These calamities dispersed the holy family of the Holy Prophet, and arrows were pierced in the hearts of the guided ones. There were the troubled ladies the plight of whom makes the flames of sorrow and grief rise high.

I wish Fatima and her father had dared to see the plight of their daughters and sons, who were seized, wounded, chained, decapitated; the daughters of the holy Prophet with their collars rent, had none to care them, were grieved for having lost their relatives and dear ones. Their hairs strewn and veils torn, they were slapped on their faces. They were crying and complaining with a painful feeling, and there was none to help and protect them.

And you, O men of wisdom and reason, O intelligent people, narrate to yourselves these calamities which fell on the holy household, and recite elegies for them in solitude and in public for the sake of Allah. Accompany them by shedding tears on the plight of these dear ones, and sit in mourning for having lost the opportunity of helping them.

It is so because these precious lives are the valuable trusts of the holy Prophet, and the fruits of his holy heart, and the light of the eyes of Zahra al-Batool. They are the ones who were kissed by the holy Prophet, and their parents were granted superiority over the Ummah (Islamic nation).

If you have any doubt about their superiority in grace Then ask the holy Quran regarding their distinction

The holy Book which is the most just witness to their gracefulness for the men of reason Therein is also the will, which Jibrael brought regarding them

How did they compensate all the favors of their grandfather? How did they devastate the fruits of his heart and the repository of his soul by shedding the blood of his precious son so disgracefully?

How is the place and location of fulfilling the will of the holy Prophet regarding his family? What will be the answer of the Ummah in this regard? The Ummah destroyed all that the holy Prophet had established, and the wailing of the oppressed Islam is raised high;

O Allah! What a heart which does not melt by the remembrance of these events? How strange is the negligence of an Ummah and what is the excuse of the people of Islam regarding this tragedy?

Do not they know that the holy Prophet is injured and he is claiming revenge? That his beloved has been slain, and his blood is boiling? Those angels are giving him condolence over this calamity and prophets have shared these tragedies?

Then, O loyal followers of the Prophet Muhammad! Do not you join him in this weeping? O, follower of the son of Zahra; mourn and recite the poems of grief, and weep over the princes of Islam for the sake of Allah. Maybe by participating in the sorrow of this great tragedy you may proceed on the Day of Judgment.

Verily, it has been narrated from Imam Baqir (a.s.) that Imam Zainul Abedin (a.s.) said, whenever a tear drops from the eyes of a believer, While mourning for Husayn (a.s.), and rolls down his cheek, Allah will grant him a permanent home in Paradise. And for every believer, who sheds a tear because of the oppression and injustice to us by the enemy, when that tears rolls down his cheek, Allah grants him a high position in Paradise. And when a faithful person suffers harm in our way, by our enemy, Allah turns away the trouble from him and saves him from Hell on the Day of Judgment.

Imam Sadiq (a.s.) is reported to have said that anyone who remembers us, and tears, even as little as a fly’s wing rolls from his eyes, Allah will forgive his sins, even if they are equal to the bulbs of the seas. And it is reported that he said; “One who weeps over us and causes one hundred people weep, is entitled to Paradise; one who weeps over us and causes fifty people weep over us, heaven will be his abode; one who weeps and causes twenty persons weep for us will go to Paradise; and one who weeps for us and also causes ten men weep for us will be entitled to Paradise; one who weeps for us and causes one person weep for us will also go to heaven; and the one who weeps for us and makes his face sorrowful will also get Paradise.”

The author, Ali IbnMusa Ibn Ja’far Ibn Muhammad Ibn Tawus Husayn says; “The noble impulses which inspired me to adopt the manner and method of this book, was that after the compilation of the book Misbahuz Zaer wa Jannatul Musafir[^2], I felt that various appealing aspects of Ziyarats have been collected therein and hence one who carries it does not need to take with him heavy books to the holy tombs during the Ziyarat time.”

I also wished that a person visiting the holy shrine should not be required to carry Kitab al-Maqtal during the Ziyarat of Ashura in Karbala.

Therefore, I wrote this book so that a visitor needs not to carry any other book along with Misbahuz Zaer; Moreover I have tried to save his time by avoiding details and repetitions. Yet various chapters about KarbalƗ have been included for the faithful people, as we have infused the words with an appropriate spirit, given the title Al-Malhoof ala Qatlat Tafoof to it, and have arranged it in three parts; we seek help from the Merciful Lord.

Sayyid Ibn Tawus

[^1]: Abul Qasim Ali bin Husayn bin Musa bin Muhammad Musa bin Ibrahim Ibn Imam Kazim (a.s.) is a chief of the Talibiyyin and one of the leading writers and poets and orators. He was born and died in Baghdad. He has narrated from people like Shaykh Mufid, Husayn bin Ali Babawayh. People like Sallar and Abi Salah Hilli and Khatib Baghdadi and Qazi Ibn Qudamah have narrated from him. He has written books like Ash Sha fi fil Imamah...He expired in the year 433 or 436 A.H. [Riyazul Ulama 4/14, Wa fyatul Ayan 3/313, Al -Kunni wal Alqab 2/439, Mizanul Etedal 2/223, Lisanul Mizan 4/223, Jumhiratul Ansab: 56, Al-Elam 4/278]

[^2]: Misbah is the first work of the author, having 20 sections: the first section is about formalities and preliminaries of the journey and the last contains the Ziyarats of the Holy Imams and their sons.