The Tale of the Martyrdom of Imam Hussain (a.s.) [the Kerbala Epic]

Part 2 - The Arena (The desert of Kerbala, Iraq)

*    A sweltering, simmering, broiling land*

*    Igneous, sultry, arid sand.*

*    No bramble (or thistle) it boasts*

*    A crop of humpbacked dunes it hosts*

*    A torrid, baking, seething place*

*    Even delusion, cannot verdure trace.*

*    Exhausted earth's infecund plot*

*    Anhydrous, husky, soapless, spot.*

*    Parched fragment of a barren world*

*    A glowing meteor to the earth hurled.*

*    No cheerless, forlorn cactus grows*

*    Hellish, blustering simoom blows.*

*    The blazing, fiery, flaming sun*

*    An eerie desolation; the valiant shun.*

*    A spooky silence, ominous hush*

*    The wind escapes it, with a rush.*

*    The terra firma appears ablaze*

*    The earth stunned, in a languid daze.*

*    A vision, on earth, of a virtual hell*

*    A stretch of furnace, a fiery shell*

*    The heatwave diffuses thermal haze*

*    The fervid ether forbids the gaze.*

*    The primeval sands primordial heat*

*    With contempt does inferno treat*

*    Behold a dauntless, valiant band*

*    Stands, resolutely, on this land.*

*    The Profit's grandson; with his group*

*    A tranquil Guild, not a militant troop.*

*    In this sombre, dreary terrain*

*    They, their reverence did sustain.*

Omar bin Sa'ad, the commander of the enemy's army came with 30,000 of troops. He made Amr bin al-Hajjaj az-Zubaidi the commander of the right flank of his army and Shimr bin Thil al-Jawshan the commander of the left flank. Izra bin Qais Al-Ahnasi was made the commander of the horsemen, Shibth bin Ribi'e took charge of the archers.

*    "Suddenly a deafening tumult I heard,*

*    Thundering of myriad hooves, converged.*

*    A tremor struck, the earth did shake,*

*    My tranquillity disrupted, I was awake.*

*    Loomed, ominously, a host of swords,*

*    Rush, headlong, did furious hordes.*

*    The glint of tinsel arms appeared,*

*    As their coursers they spurred.*

*    My waves, in terror, rushed, did flee*

*    As their identity dawned on me.*

*    Their sinister countenance, hideous looks,*

*    Depicted a pack of depraved crooks.*

*    Their obliquity; their visage betrayed,*

*    A flash flood hit me (was dismayed)*