People & Histories
10 October 680 (10 Muharram)

The Martyrdom of Husayn at Karbala

The Prophet's grandson Husayn and a small band of family and companions are killed by an Umayyad army on the plain of Karbala in Iraq.

  • Battle of Karbala — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
  • The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1986)
  • The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization — Marshall G. S. Hodgson, University of Chicago Press (1974)

Well established faithcommunitytraumapolitics

A grandson against a dynasty

When the caliph Mu’awiya died in 680, he had arranged for his son Yazid to succeed him. It was the first time the caliphate had passed from father to son, and to many it looked like turning the leadership of the faithful into a family kingdom.

  • The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1986)
  • An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
Husayn, the younger son of Ali and Fatima and the Prophet’s grandson, refused to swear allegiance. Men of Kufa in Iraq, his father’s old capital, wrote urging him to come and lead them, and he set out from Mecca with his family and a small group of followers.
  • Battle of Karbala — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
  • The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization — Marshall G. S. Hodgson, University of Chicago Press (1974)

Ten days of Muharram

The Umayyad governor of Iraq, Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, moved fast. He executed Husayn’s envoy and frightened the Kufans into silence. On the plain of Karbala, near the Euphrates, Husayn’s party was surrounded by a much larger army in the first days of Muharram 61 AH. Shia tradition tells that they were cut off from the river and suffered terribly from thirst, and that Husayn refused every demand to submit.

  • Battle of Karbala — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)

On the tenth day, Ashura, 10 October 680, the battle was fought. Husayn and around seventy men of his family and companions were killed, the number given in the traditional accounts. Among them, the tradition remembers, were his half-brother Abbas, who died trying to bring water from the river, and his infant son Ali al-Asghar. Husayn’s head was cut off and sent to Yazid in Damascus. The women and children, including his sister Zaynab and his surviving son Ali Zayn al-Abidin, were taken captive. Zaynab’s defiant speeches in the courts of Kufa and Damascus are central to the Shia memory of the event.

  • Battle of Karbala — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
  • The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates — Hugh Kennedy, Longman (1986)

From massacre to meaning

Militarily, Karbala was a small engagement. Its religious meaning grew enormously. Within a few years “Penitents” in Kufa, ashamed that they had not come to Husayn’s aid, rose up in revenge and were crushed.

  • An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
  • The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization — Marshall G. S. Hodgson, University of Chicago Press (1974)
Over the centuries, the memory of Karbala turned loyalty to the family of the Prophet into a distinct religious identity, with its own themes of martyrdom, suffering and justice, and a line of Imams descended from Husayn. Most Shia today, the “Twelvers”, recognise twelve Imams, the last of whom, they believe, went into hiding in the ninth century and will return.
  • An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
  • Islam: The Straight Path — John L. Esposito, Oxford University Press
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Islam — John L. Esposito (ed.), Oxford University Press (2003)

How it is remembered today

For the first ten days of Muharram, Shia communities hold majalis, gatherings where the story is recited and mourned. On Ashura there are processions, and in some places the drama of the battle is performed as a passion play (ta’ziyeh in Iran). Some mourners beat their chests in rhythm; a few practise bloodier self-flagellation, which many Shia religious authorities discourage or forbid.

  • An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
  • Battle of Karbala — Encyclopaedia Britannica
Forty days after Ashura comes Arbaeen, when millions walk to Husayn’s shrine in Karbala, many on foot from Najaf.
  • An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Islam — John L. Esposito (ed.), Oxford University Press (2003)

Karbala has also been a political language. The cry that “every day is Ashura, every land is Karbala” framed opposition to the Shah in Iran’s 1979 revolution, and Husayn’s stand is invoked by Shia movements across the region.

  • A History of Modern Iran — Ervand Abrahamian, Cambridge University Press (2008)
  • An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
Sunnis also revere Husayn and condemn his killing. Many Sunnis fast on Ashura, which, in their tradition, the Prophet recommended to mark the day God saved Moses from Pharaoh, so the same day carries different meanings for the two communities.
  • Islam: The Straight Path — John L. Esposito, Oxford University Press
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Islam — John L. Esposito (ed.), Oxford University Press (2003)

How it's seen
Shia view

Husayn, the third Imam, knowingly gave his life to stand against tyranny and to keep his grandfather's faith from being corrupted by an unjust ruler. His sacrifice is the supreme example of standing for truth whatever the cost, and mourning him is an act of devotion.

  • An Introduction to Shi'i Islam — Moojan Momen, Yale University Press (1985)
  • Battle of Karbala — Encyclopaedia Britannica

Sunni view

Husayn's killing was a terrible crime against the Prophet's beloved grandson, and Sunnis revere him too. But most do not give it the same religious centrality, and they generally discourage the public mourning rituals; Sunni scholars have long differed over how far to blame Yazid himself.

  • Islam: The Straight Path — John L. Esposito, Oxford University Press
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Islam — John L. Esposito (ed.), Oxford University Press (2003)
  • Battle of Karbala — Encyclopaedia Britannica

Why it matters today

Islam

Karbala is the emotional heart of Shia Islam. Every year on Ashura, the tenth of Muharram, Shia Muslims mourn Husayn with processions, poetry and passion plays, and the pilgrimage to his shrine for Arbaeen, forty days later, is one of the largest gatherings on earth. Sunnis also honour Husayn, and many fast on Ashura for older reasons of their own.