Hussein the Saiviour of Islam

The Ahlul-bait and the Temporal Power

THERE IS THE famous saying of Ali which gives out the actual attitude of the holy ones of the Ahlul-Bait towards this world and its enjoyments:-

Ad-donya Jeefaton wa tullaboha Kilab

'The world is a corpse and its seekers are dogs.'

Neither the Holy Prophet, nor Ali nor any one of the other holy Imams were ever inclined towards the least enjoyment of this world. They were the rays of one and the same Divine Light destined to enlighten the world during their own respective times, in their respectively assigned ways to guide humanity on the right path to raise itself from the abyss of the material degradation to the glorious heights of the heavenly bliss. None of these holy ones ever thought of any secular power or any worldly kingdom. The God's given kingdom to them, was ever with every one of them. Their throne was the hearts of the believers and they had come to exercise the godly authority over the sincere believers in God. They had nothing to do with any enjoyment on earth. The one and the only object of their life-mission on earth, was service to the Lord in total submission to Him towards the fulfilment of His will.

Hasan as an lmam received the reins of the godly kingdom of the faith and only as a convention had received the Kalifate after his father. As Ali, his father, Hasan had accepted to be a Kalif only in the interest of the people and his being the Kalif was an honour to the Kalifate and not any additional distinction or honour to his holy self. The real ' Khilafat' or the Vicegerency of God, succeeding the Holy Prophet, was now with Hasan and what else could be greater and grander than, the godly office which he now held.

The Age of Political intrigucs and murderous plots

WITH THE OMAYYID Kalifate, started the age of political intrigues and murderous plots against the House of the Holy Prophet. History has made known to us, of what loins Ma'aviah had comeinto this wor1d. His father Abu Sofyan had made a mark and earned a special distinction in the enmity against Islam and the Holy Prophet, and Ma'aviah's mother Hind was the woman who tore open the corpse of Hamza the uncle of the Holy Prophet, martyred in the battle of Ohod, and she was the woman who minced under her teeth the liver of Hamza and taking out the other internal parts of the corpse, she put them on, around her neck. The factor of heredity both from his father and mother, had its full play in the issue of Abu Sofyan and Hind, and Ma'aviah, now after the departure of Ali from this world, had become an open enemy of the Ahlul Bait.

We are not here to go into the dirty details of the political history of the age, and all the intrigues and the crafty moves of the ruling authorities, employed to strengthen their hold on the state and the people. Only a few events directly connected with the miseries of the Ahlul Bait, are referred to, to indicate the treachery of the people against the House of the Apostle of God and the attitude of the Holy Ones during the calamitous age, towards the guidance of the people at the cost of their own lives. Hasan was the eldest son of Ali and Fatema, and the First grandson of the Holy Prophet. The muslim world in Madina had seen Hasan and Husain on the shoulders of the Apostle of God on the morn of the festival day, and in the lap of the Holy Prophet on the occasion of the historic ' Mobahila', had declared "Hasan and Husain are the Chiefs of the youth of Paradise and these were the two for whom had been sent festive robes from heaven. Inspite of all that the Holy Prophet had declared about these two holy souls, the world had turned totally hostile to them, and was bent on putting an end to their godly lives on earth.

Not only did Ma'aviah aim at owning the paramount power of the Kalifate or the rule of the muslim empire as a whole, exclusively for himself, but wanted also to have his way cleared off the holy ones of the Ahlul-Bait to perpetuate the kingdom in his family, passing the throne of the Kalifate to his son Yazeed, for which he employed several kinds of crafty means and men. Ma'aviah, now being openly hostile to the House of the Apostle of God, hired mercenaries to cause mischief in the different parts of the empire. The intelligentsia among the subjects including the iurists had been purchased by the state, hence the question of winning over the general masses was not a problem. Corruption began to rule the destiny of man.

People opposing the corruption were plundered and mercilessly massacred. There was no safety or security of life or property particularly of those who were loyal to the House of the Holy Prophet, who called themselves the Shias or the devotees of the Ahlul- Bait. Preachers were ordered to curse Ali openly in their sermons from the pulpits. The mischievous move from Ma'aviah, became more and more intolerable. The people employed to create mischief, acted as devils in human frames. There was regular bloodshed caused by the agents employed for the purpose. The Holy Imam Hasan knew full well that all the troubles were for the seat of the Kalifate which he then most reluctantly occupied. The public which had begged his father Ameerul-Momineen Ali to accept the Kalifate and rule the state, by the crafty campaign of Ma'aviah, had turned disloval, deceitful, hostile and treacherous.

Hasan the Holy Imam the Vicegerent of God on earth, the Successor to the Holy Prophet, whose first concern was the peace and safety of the people, did not need any contested throne to excereise his divine rights. Ultimately in the interest of the welfare of the people, the safety of the public life and property, and the security of the chastity of the gentle womanhood Hasan relinquished the Kalifate to Ma'aviah under a written and a signed treaty with the following terms:-

1. Ma'aviah should rule over the state strictly according to the word of God the Holy Qur'an as depicted by the traditions of the Holy Prophet.
2. The people should he allowed to enjoy perfect peace and seourity of life and property.
3. The persecution of the Shias, i.e. the votees of Ali, should atonce be stopped and they ould no more be harassed.
4. M'aviah should not in any way interfere with Hasan and Husain or any one of the Ahlul-Bait.
5. The cursing of Ali on the pulpits, be atonce stopped.
6. All prisoners, particularly the Shias of Ali, the devotees of the House of the Holy Prophet who had been unlawfully put into prisons and mercilessly tortured therein should at once be released.
7. Ma'aviah should not appoint any heir to the throne of the Kalifate but leave it to the decision of the muslim public.

Hasan Martyred

WITH THE ABOVE terms of the treaty agreed to and signed by Ma'aviah, Hasan relinquished the rule of the state to Ma'aviah and retired into complete seclusion, having no concern whatsoever with politics or any affairs of the state and yet he was not left to live in peace even to spend his life in devotion to God and guiding the people to a godly life on earth. Ma'aviah's main object was to make the way for his son Yazeed to succeed him to the throne of his monarchica1 Kalifate and hence he was devising plans to see that Hasan is once for all done with by putting an end to his life.

Justice Amir Ali in his famous work the Spirit of Islam, quotes Osborn in depicting the personality of Ma'aviah:- "Astute, unscrupulons and pitiless, says Osborn the first Kalif of the Omayyids (Ma'aviah) shrank from no crime necessary to secure his position. Murder was his accustomed mode of removing a formidable opponent. The grandson of the Prophet he caused to be poisoned. Malek- al- Ashtar, the heroic lieutenant of Ali, was destroyed in the like way. To secure the succession of Yazeed, Ma'aviah hesitated not to break the word he had pledged."

Though the Holy Imam bad retired into complete seclusion and did not at all interfere in any matters of the people in general, totally unconcerned with the matters of the state, the Omayyid enmity would not allow him to live even in seclusion. Several attempts on the godly life of the Holy Imam was madc through poison and somehow the attempts did not prove successful. Ultimately, Ma'aviah succeeded in hiring a wicked woman who was a wife of Hasan, tempting her with the promise to get her remarried to his son Yazeed the heir to the throne and with rich presents in cash, to poison Hasan fatally.

Hasan's advice to Husain

THE POISON WAS administered through the drinking water and it was so strong that no sooner did Hasan drink the water, than he began vomiting blood and the bits of his liver and knowing the ultimate result of the drink he had, Hasan called his brother Husain and advised him saving:-

" Brother Husain! I am going. Be thou patient in the will of the Lord being done. Let my body be interred beside my Grandfather but if that be objected, let there be no fight for my sake. Then let it lay beside my Mother in the Baqi." It is said that the departing Holy Imam even prophesied as to who will object to his burial besid his Grandfather.

Hasan's Body shot at

As THE FUNERAL proceeded towards the grave of the Holy Prophet, some Omayyids mounted on horses obstructed and Ayesha appeared mounting a mule, shouting that the grave of the Holy Prophet was in her house and she would not allow the grandson of Khadija to he buried beside the Holy Prophet. With the shouts from Ayesha a shower of arrows fell on the coffin. Husain in the fulfilment of the last wish of his departed brother, turned the procession of the funeral towards 'Baqi' and when the body was taken out of the coffin to be laid to rest in the grave, Husain finding some of the arrows which were showered at the coffin, had struck holy body of his martyred brother, cried addressing the body saying:-

"I am ashamed of thee O' Brother that Husain is alive and seest thy body wounded and cannot do anything."

Oakley, the well-known historian Scholar in his famous work, the History of the Saracens, reports:-

" Ma'aviah, therefore, being desirous of leaving the Kalifate to his son Yazeed, and thinking that he could not bring his design about, so long as Hasan was alive, determined to get rid of him! And at last Ayesha said it was her house and she would not allow him (Hasan) to be buried there'."

The fate of the devotees of the House of the Holy Prophet

MA'AVIAH DID NOT, in the least honour the treaty he had signed. The Shias or the faithful devotees of the House of the Holy Prophet were vigorously persecuted and mercilessly put to death. Those who professed faith and loyalty to the House of the Holy Prophet, particularly to Ali, or any one found reciting any traditions of the Holy Prophet in the praise of Ali, were caught and mercilessly killed. Meesam-e-Tammar, for refusing to curse Ali, met a brutal death his limbs were severed, and his body was put on the trunk of a tree; nailed to it, and when found still praising Ali, his tongue was cut off. When the man came to cut his tongue, Messam himself offered his tongue extending it out of his mouth saying that the prophecy about his meeting the calamity and the end of it, had been given to him by Ali, and he was glad that the prophecy of Ameerul-Momi- neen was being fulfilled.

Hajar-e-Kandi met a similar fate for his faithfulness to Ali. The fate of poor Muhammad, son of Abu Bakr, the faithful devotee of Ali and the Ahlul-Bait was most horrible, for after his murder, his body was packed into the belly of an ass killed for the purpose and the corpse of the poor animal with the body of Muhammad ibne Abu Bakr in its belly was thrown into a flaming fire prepared for the purpose.

The reign of Ma'aviah, particularly after the Martyrdom of Hasan,. had become the age of plunder, pilage, pitiless killings and heartless murders and inhuman acts or ruthless persecution of the true muslims and particularly those who were attached to the House of the Holy Prophet. Thousands of those who professed devotion to the House of the Holy Prophet, were mercilessly butchered, and thousands of families migrated to various places outside the jurisdiction of the Omayyid rule.

Not only was the praise of Ali and the Ahlul-Bait, totally banned but at the same time a free and uncontrolled manufacture of counterfeit traditions were in full swing praising the enemies of the House of the Holy Prophet.

The Fate of the Faith

UNDER THE OMAYYID desire of establishing an independent Omayyid dynasty with the paramount power over the muslim empire, not only the deceitful intriguers and crafty agents were hired but also the muslim jurists were purchased to adulterate the doctrines of the faith in favour of the ruling authority and its supporters. Thus the Islam-Original was left only with the Ahlul- Bait with whom the Holy Prophet had left the Holy Qur'an and according to his saying if any one wanted the faith Islam, in its Original form and the Holy Qur'an with its true interpretation, could have only from his Ahlul-Bait About the attachment to his Holy House, the Holy Prophet had said:-

"The likeness of my Ahlul-Bait is that of the Ark of Noah. Whosoever got into it, got saved and whosoever turned away from it, got drowned and lost.

It is the same Islam-Original which is called Shiasm, distinguished from the Islam-general corrupted at the hands of the Omayyid fortune hunters. Shiasm is nothing but the Original Islam as preached by the Holy Prophet and preserved by his Ahlut-Bait without any unwarranted additions to it or substraetions from it and nothing else besides the pure, strict and the original Qur'anic faith.

Hasan's Services and Sufferings

HASAN THE SECOND HOly Imam was the Fourth of the Martyrs among the HoW ones of the House of the Holy Prophet who are popularly called by the muslim world as the 'Panjetane-Pak' or 'the Holy Five.' (Muhammad, Ali Fatema, Hasan and Husain.) The sufferings of this Holy Imam were of special intensity and the calamitous and the murderous situation he had to face, was peculiar in its gravity and the patience and the fortitude the holy one, displayed was divinely superb and exemplary.

Immediately as the Omayyids gained the paramount power over the muslim empire, their first effort was to endeavour as much as they could, to find fault with some aspect or the other of the practical lives of the holy members of the Ahlul-Bait and when they could not all succeed in their wicked venture, they hired corrupt scholars of the age, to fabricate traditions in favour of their enemies.

The Truth underlying the Sex difference in the Creation

THE NATIVE ENDOWMENT of the sex urge in the animated species of the creation, is itself, eloquently evident that the object of the Alwise Creator of the universe, is to maintain the wheel of procreation going, in the fulfilment of His Omnipotent will to effect the continuation of life on earth for an ever progressive development up to a term unknown to man. The physical world is classified in four commonly known realms viz., the Mineral, the Vegetable, the Animal and the Human. Of these four general classes of the physical existence on earth, excepting the granite of the minerals, every other specie expands itself, either through development in itself or by procreation. The botanist scholars will vouch that sex is not restricted only to the animal and the human realms but it is also found in the vegetable world. Even among the minerals there are species which expand themselves through the process of crystallisation.

The sex urge is a native endowment in every living specie, more apparently evident in the animal and the human kinds. The love of multiplication, is enacted through the sex urge as a divinely devised course for the continuity and the development of the specie on earth.

The lack of this urge in any individual is a want, not commendable but deplorable. A fruitless tree is first selected for fuel, a barren animal is first chosen for slaughter and an impotent man is not counted among the males for any manly service, and a issueless man or woman always prayerfully longs for an issue.

The cornmendability among the human beings regarding the use of this native endowment is not as to how less it is used or how much it is neglected but how best and how healthily and to what maximum it has been utilised in the fulfilment of the will of the Almerciful Donor of the great gift. The beauty lies not in the total or a partial suppression of this urge but in the maximum desirable use of it, avoiding successfully the misuse of the gift.

If this divine gift is used just for the timely sensual enjoyment, it is a sin and a crime and if the same is used for the healthy procreation of healthy souls to serve the will of the Lord, i.e., for the development and the progress of human life on earth, is a rewardable virtue.

The apostles of God, like Solomon, the saints and the sages in the various parts of the earth, had several wives at a time, not for the lust of any sexual enjoyment but to supply thc souls desired by the Lord for the continuation and the expansion of humanity on earth.

The Holy Prophet Jesus, for want of a male partner in the parental process of his advent into this world, might not have been given this urge, for the main purpose of his creation was only to manifest the omnipotent creative power of the Originator of the universe to prove that He is not subject to the laws of nature which are known to man but the same laws being subservient to His Omaipotent will. Our christian brethren exploit the want of this native endowment in Jesus, to prove his godhead or his being the son of God.

The lack or the absence of this urge, is a want and weakness and a want or a weakness is a defect, and none with any want or a defect can ever be imagined to be God Who is the Omnipotent Perfection Absolute, and impotency is a defect in nature and hence unnatural, and anything unnatural or defective, can not he godliness or a commendable virtue.

When God had given the urge for the continuity of His creative will, to restrain the use of it, or to neglect it, or suppress it altogether, can never be righteousness. It will be ingratitude to reiect the gift of the Lord and it will be rebellion to act against His object in His vesting the native endowments in the individual. If any one gifted with sight destroys his eyes or spends his life without his using sight, it will be sheer foolishness and not a virtue. Thus polygamy desired by God if correctly used, will not be a sin but a commendable virtue and monogamy if undesirably restricted defying the will of the Lord, or if Celibacy is unnecessarily imposed, it will be no virtue but a self-imposed deprivation, prone to sinful resorts of unhealthy and criminal outlets for the native urge.

It is some modem adultrous people, to cheat the innocent women, their legal wives, that pretend to be monogamous and condemn polygamy, while in practice, without the knowledge of their wives, they are ultra-polygamous in their private lives, not minding even if their wives also become polyandrous behind them. Whereas the godfearing righteous ones, who keeping their wives happy and honoured, are polygamous only as God has permitted and even that, only when necessary and otherwise remain contcntedly monogamous.

It was one of the wicked moves of Ma'aviah that a talk was set afloat among the public that Hasan had a large number of wives, frequently marrying the women and divorcing them, and had scores of children. This is such a falsehood that the enemy could easily fabricate hut none of them could ever substantiate the allegation through any historic records. This was one of the Omayyid moves to cast prejudice in the minds of the public against the Holy Imam and to divert the attention of the people away from him, and the holy ones of the House of the Holy Prophet.

The modern day writers quote the narrations about this allegation about Hasan from the Great Shia traditionist Mullah Baquir- Majlisi and the others. Before resorting to quote anything on the authority of the great learned Mullah, one should know that the great Mullah had never said that whatever he has quoted is a gospel truth. The collection of the traditions, he has made, is a store of food for the thought of those busy in the scrutiny of the traditions of the Holy Prophet, and it is up to the seekers of the knowledge of the Ahadees (traditions), to pick out the genuine ones from the collection, and from the false ones to know the turn of the minds which effected the counterfeit sayings. It is a fact universally acknowledged by all scholars that the great work of the collection of the traditions by Mullah Baquir- e- Majlisi named 'Bihar-ul- Anwar' or the Oceans of Lights, contain in its traditions:-

Saheeh- correct: Ghalat- wrong or false

M'otabar- reliable : Ghaira M'otabar- unreliable Mustanad- certified: Ghaira Mustanad-uncertified Musalsal- continuously related: Ghaira Musalsal- not continuously related Ah'haad- The Lonely- related by only one person and not supported by any one else and so on-

The narration about the number of wives is nothing but a false allegation against the Holy Imam to make him unpopular for none of the reports, gives the names of all the wives and the names of all his children. The stories are mere folklore fabricated and purposefully made current to level a calumny against the Holy Imam.

If the Holy Imam Hasan had in fact married such a large number of wives, it is also said at the same time that he divorced also a large number. Hasan being the Vicegerent of God on earth, would never have been unjust to have married unnecessarily and to have divorced any women unreasonably. It clearly indicates that as he is reported to resemble his Grandfather the Holy Prophet, his private life in his household also resembled that of the Holy Prophet, in having unfaithful wives as had the apostle of God, whom he had to discard for about a month until the revelation of the Sura-e-Tahreem (Sura No. 66). The fact that Hasan was poisoned by- none else other than one of his wives hired by Ma'aviah, proves the kind of women, some of his wives were.