Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Salaam and hello, dear listeners. I'm your host, Roshan Iqbal, and this is History Speaks. Today we are honored to welcome Dr. Cyrus Ali Zargar, the Al Ghazali Distinguished professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Central Florida, to discuss his illuminating new book, the Ethics of Karbala. It's a short read, just over 100 pages, but I can't recommend it more highly.
We can easily find recountings of the events of Karbala in many historical sources, but Dr. Zargar's work is rare. It doesn't just tell the story. It invites us into the moral heart of the tragedy.
He asks us to dwell on profound questions. How do moments of immense suffering shape our convictions? What does it mean to live or die for love, justice and principled resistance?
In a time when moral clarity feels scarce, the Ethics of Karbala offers a timely reflection on virtue, courage and ethical refusal.
To really grasp why Karbala means so much, we have to go back to the very beginning. Right after the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, passed away in 632.
Let me back up a minute.
Here is something important.
During his farewell pilgrimage, known as Hujatul Wada, the Prophet gave a powerful sermon. He knew it would be his last pilgrimage. And in that moment, he asked the people to bear witness that he had completed his mission and delivered the message of Islam.
The significance of that sermon cannot be overstated. At a place called Qadir Kum, he turned to the crowd and said something that Shia Muslims hold especially dear.
Mankuntu Mawla fahada Aliyun Mawla.
Whoever takes me as their leader, friend, guide. Ali is their leader, friend, guide. For Shias, this wasn't just affection, it was appointment. That moment just before the Prophet's death is seen as him naming Ali IBN Abi Talib, his cousin and son in law, as the rightful spiritual and political successor.
It is the foundation of Shia belief that leadership, or imamat, is divinely appointed and remains within the Prophet's family, the Ihl Al Bayt.
After the Prophet died, leadership passed first to Abu Bakr, a close companion and respected elder of the community, for about two years. And when he passed away. Then came umar for about 10 years, and then Uthman for nearly 12.
These leaders were chosen through consultation among elders, which laid the basis for Sunni understanding of political leadership. Then came Ali, the fourth Caliph, who ruled for about five years.
But his time wasn't peaceful. His rule was challenged by Mawiya, the powerful governor of Syria and the cousin of Uthman iii, Caliph. It's worth pausing here to say that although Uthman's early years are marked by stability and prosperity, his later years are full of unrest.
He was accused of favoritism towards his Umayyad clan, which caused serious resentment. That context is important. It is how Mawiya ended up in such a strong position. To begin with, After Ali was assassinated in 661, his eldest son Hassan, who was also the Prophet's grandson, was accepted as Caliph, especially in Kufa. This is a good moment to remember the Prophet's love for his grandsons, Hassan and Hussain. He once said, hasan and Hussain are the leaders of the youth in Paradise. And he was often seen praying when they climbed on his back and he stayed in that posture or holding them close in public.
His love for them was not deeply personal. It was deeply visible too.
But Mavia refused to recognize Hassan's authority and prepared for war. To avoid more bloodshed, Hassan made a peace treaty. He gave up the caliphate on several conditions. That Mawiah would govern by Quran and Sunnah firstly, and then that he would not appoint a successor, but leave the choice to a council Shura, and that Hassan's followers would be protected.
After this, Hassan withdrew from politics and retired to Medina.
But Mawia broke the deal. He named his son Yazid as his successor, cracked down on Ali's partisans, and even instituted the public, cursing Ali from the pulpits.
Hassan died about nine years later, reportedly poisoned. Many early sources point to Mavia's involvement, seeing it as a way to remove an obstacle to Yazid, his son's succession.
Maviah ruled for about 17 years and shifted the capital from Kufa to Damascus, centralizing power and moving towards a monarchy.
When Yazid became Caliph in 680, he demanded his allegiance from Hussain, Ali's youngest son and the Prophet's beloved grandson. Yazid sent his governor in Medina Al Walid IBN Utba to pressure Hussein, stating plainly in letters, gain Hussein's allegiance or send his head.
But Hussein refused. He saw Yazid's rule as unjust, immoral, and a betrayal of the principles his grandfather had lived for.
Initially, Husayn planned to perform the Hajj pilgrimage. But when he learned that Yazid's men were planning to seize him within the sacred boundaries of Mecca, he changed course. To avoid bloodshed in the holy sanctuary, he turned towards Kufa, where people had called on him to lead them. But on the way, his caravan was intercepted and stopped in the barren land of Karbala. And that's where on the 10th of Moharram 680, Hussain, his family and his small group of 72 companions were killed. For Shia Muslims, Karbala isn't just history. It's a sacred moment when truth stood against tyranny, when a family stood alone for justice. And even today, Karbala calls on us to ask, what are we willing to sacrifice for what is right?
Dr. Zargar, could you describe for us some key moments on the day of Karbala that you feel the audience would benefit from learning about and to sort of put them in that space?
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Yes.
So the beauty of the Karbala narrative is that, you know, Imam Hussain, he's this.
He's this almost otherworldly figure, especially in Shiite theology, but he's human.
And the pains that he and those around him go through are so real and vivid that that, that gives the emotional depth to the story.
So you could really start anywhere. But, you know, the night before, Hussain tells all of his followers that, you know, basically, I paraphrase, and they're only after me. You can, you can leave. You don't have to stand by.
And there's this just moving, gripping scene where his supporters say, you know, we wouldn't leave you no matter what. One of them, Zohair, says, you know, even if I was killed and brought back to life, and killed and brought back to life a thousand times, I wouldn't leave you. I wouldn't turn my back.
So when the day of Ashura comes to, there's other really, really moving scenes. One of them, the general that I mentioned, he realizes that he's faced with this moral dilemma.
Before, he could bring Hussein and his family and have them be cornered, but now he has to make the choice whether to fight them or not. And he's a serious man. He's a soldier. He's not known to be someone engaged in self doubt.
So when they look at him, they're confused because they can see he's, he's nervous, he's pacing.
And finally he makes the decision to switch sides and he begs Hussain for forgiveness. And actually he and I think his son are among the first to be killed in defense of Hussain.
So in defense of Hussain, first those who are not his close family go out, in which is a statement of protection. They go out and they're killed. But I think to me, and for many people, the most moving parts of the narrative are when it's about Hussain and his family.
So he has a son, Adi Al Akbar, who's known to who was known to look and sound like the Prophet Muhammad. He's the great grandson of the Prophet.
And he, you know, it's difficult for Hussain to see him go because he knows this is the last time he's going to see his son.
And so the son, you know, his son rides out and he comes back and he tells his father, if, you know, if there's any water left in the camp, you know, I, I could fight harder, but there's nothing, there's no water left. And so he, his son rides out and he sees his son, you know, surrounded.
They are drastically outnumbered. You know, historically speaking, as I mentioned in the book, there's one, there's a poet, his name escapes me who said that the soldiers I saw gathered outside of Kufa was the largest gathering of human beings I had seen in my life.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: So it's a huge army.
They surround this, you know, great grandson of the prophet Ali Akbar, Imam Hussain's son. And each time he'll run out to them and spend their last moments with them.
And so each time he's going through this process and losing those he loves most.
And among those he loves most, of course, is his brother Abbas.
The narrative of Abbas, I spend quite a bit of time in it on because I think he's a real exemplar of the warrior ethos. Abbas goal isn't even to go out and fight.
So he's been hearing the complaints of the children about water.
They're, they're very close to the Euphrates. He decides he's going to ride out on horse and try to bring water back to the camp.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: I think it might be interesting to mention to the audience how long they've been, how long water has been sort of denied to them at this point.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: That's a good point.
So this is, all, this is happening on the 10th of Muharram and from my memory it's. The water is cut off on the 7th.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember that.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: So they, so we can probably assume that the camp of Imam Hussain is relying on whatever water they had with them for a number of days.
And probably, and it has been running.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: Out before that humans and animals, so.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: And that's right, they have. That's an excellent point. There's, there are horses, there are a lot of animals. And you know, one thing about the story that I never really understood, but then I, I have a kind of theory on, I think I finally understand is, is actually that point when Ali Akbar comes back and says, is there water?
Because we, the way I was I was. I was always in the impression that everybody knows there's no water, right? So why would he ask for water if there's no water? But then what I realized is. Oh, I see. So there had been, before this point, a lot of sort of kind of avoiding water on one's own so others could drink it.
So he's been. He's probably many of these, you know, he older, you know, adults in the camp have probably been avoiding water for some time to make sure that water, Water gets to the younger, more needy people, or there were even women there who were breastfeeding. Right. So there's. There, there. There has been before this night, people who have willingly kind of given up water so others could have it.
And of course, you know, the thirst is extreme.
It's a hot time at a very hot place. Anybody who's been to Karbala can tell you it gets very hot. So the story of Abbas begins with him heading out to get water. But he's an intimidating person. He's physically big, he's tall.
And even though he's outnumbered, those.
The opposing camp being afraid of him and wanting him dead, they first, they cut off his arms and he keeps trying to bring water back in the narrative. He keeps trying to bring water back, but then finally, of course, he can't.
The. The tragedy. The story itself ends up focusing on the. The death of Imam Hussain, the kind of murder of Imam Hussain. Again, it's very human.
One of the first things he does is he puts on an old, ragged shirt, clothing, in hopes that when his body is sort of looted, when they. They take all of his things after he dies, that they will at least give him the dignity of keeping that on. He wants to put something undesirable on beneath his clothing so that when he's. He's that aware of what's to come. But again, you'll notice the emphasis on nobility, the emphasis on, you know, even in his death, wanting to, you know, be dressed. It's. It's a really powerful scene when they surround Hussain. And one of the things that historians record are his many conversations with God.
So he's. He remains connected.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: So beautiful.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You know, before he goes out, when they kill his. His child, he brings the. He has a child that's an infant. That's, you know, a suckling infant. It's still being nurse fed. He brings the child out to ask if they can provide water. Harmullah sees that there's some sympathy in his camp and they're worried. So I think it's actually Omar Ibn Assad that, that commands Harmallah to shoot an arrow. It pierces the, the baby and the baby's, the baby's.
His. His baby is killed in his own arms.
So one of the conversations he has is, is famous. Famous, famously associated with that scene where he says, you know, I'm, you know, whatever happens, happens. God, I'm satisfied with what you've determined, what you've decreed. I've satisfied.
It's one of many beautiful statements to come out of this. In fact, one of the most beautiful statements happens after the fact. And it spoken by Zeynep when Obeydullah Ab Nad says, what do you think about what happened to your family or what God did to your family? And she says, I didn't see anything but beauty. It's really an amazing statement.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: Amazing.
Thank you so much for the vivid and heartbreaking description.
So as we begin, I want to focus on the heart of the story itself.
What exactly makes up the core of the Karbalan narrative?
It seems clear from the sources that Hussein knew what was coming and yet he chose not to pledge allegiance to Yazid. That act of refusal carries so much weight.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: Yes, well, the core, the core narrative begins just as you, as you told it so beautifully, that Imam Hussain is pressured to pledge allegiance. He's one of three very prominent figures who, whom Yazid needs to kind of make his authority legitimate.
And the other ones are the son of Zohair and the son of Omar.
They're, you know, this is the next generation of, you know, from the Prophet's companions. And there's three prominent figures and Imam Hussain is the most prominent among them. So the first stage is, is, is Imam Hussain becoming pretty much a fugitive in his own fatherland.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Right?
[00:16:18] Speaker B: This is his grandfather's city. But he knows his life is in danger. At first he was going to Mecca to make the Hajj, but he actually doesn't see that as safe. And he redirects his course shifts.
He had been in communication with supporters in Kufa. So as you had mentioned, his father had ruled in Kufa and, and so he has a base there, a political base.
And they had written 12,000 letters to him in support that if you come here, you can be our governor, you can rule over us.
And they were very unhappy with the current ruler. His name was Noman.
They were unhappy with him. And in fact, Imam Hussain took a precautionary measure and sent his cousin, Muslim Ibn Aqeel to Kufa to see how steadfast and and true the Kufans were.
That is like a micro narrative. Muslim Ibn Aqil goes to Kufa and he's betrayed and killed there. And that's also, you know, in the, in the nights of remembering Imam Hussain, there's also one night very often that's devoted to Muslim and the tragedy of Muslim because it's like a, a microcosm for everything that's going to happen to Imam Hussain. It. It portends everything that will happen to Imam Hussain.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: It's pretty interesting. I haven't thought of it as a microcosm, but now that you say it. Yeah, I see it. I see it. Right, yeah.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: He's betrayed by the Kufans and actually so is Imam Hussain. He's betrayed by the. By a large number of his former supporters in Kufa. So Imam Hussain is headed toward Kufa, but he and his family are redirected. And the general that redirects the family, his name is Al Hur Ibn Yazid Ariyahi Al Hur takes this kind of very subtle position with Imam Hussain. He doesn't want to fight him, but at the same time he's following orders and he knows that. He knows that this is a pious and good man and the descendant, he's the last living grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. But at the same time, you know, he's a general. That's his. He. He has a certain job. So actually it's, it's hurting. Who redirects Imam Hussain to this place called Karbala where he and his supporters are basically cornered. They're surrounded by a much larger army and they're denied resources, water. And of course this is about to all come to a head on the 9th of Muharram. But they negotiate, they get that. They buy themselves another day to be engaged in a nightly visual and worship. And then on the day of Ashura, that's the, that's the kind of crux of the martyrdom narrative of the tragedy. It begins in the morning and goes pretty much up until like the noon afternoon period where Hussein's supporters, you know, go out and fight on his behalf and his, his, you know, his supporters are killed, then his family members are killed, including his own son, his infant. His son is killed in his own arms.
So this is the core of that battle narrative. Then of course there is the killing of his half brother and greatest supporter, Abbas. And then finally he's killed, he's surrounded and killed in a really gruesome way.
And that's sort of one part of the narrative. And then There's a whole other part of the narrative that I think we'll get to. That's the aftermath of everything that happens after Karbala. And that's also remembered and also incredibly important. But that's the core of. Of the story.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: I was just thinking about that. The aftermath. I was thinking, to truly feel the weight of that sacrifice, we have to remember not just who died, but how and what happened to those who were left behind. The Battle of Karbala didn't just take the life of Imam Hussein.
It devastated his entire family. Can you talk about what happened to his companions, to the women and children and the long shadow that suffering cast on Shia memory?
[00:20:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
So, I mean, starting immediately, like that night, so is incredibly important because it becomes a kind of method and way of remembering the events of Karbala.
So present throughout this is Hussein's sister Zaynab, who becomes basically the leader of this group after he's killed.
He does have a son who's present, Ali IBN Al Hussein, or he's called Imam Sajaj or Imam Zayn Al Abedin. He's present, but he's very sick.
In fact, that's why he doesn't participate in the battle. So Zaynab really becomes the leader of the group on the, you know, in the aftermath of what happens to Imam Hussain and his companions, because the protectors of these women are gone, they've been killed, the tents are looted, and it's a very unsafe climate for the, the, the children and the women. And then they're. They're dragged basically back to Kufa. They're taken to Kufa in this really humiliating way. And then from Kufa to Damascus also in a humiliating sort of like a. A parade of the conquered.
But the important part is that at each of these, you know, stages, Zainab doesn't back down. She's known for her oration.
She. She's said to channel her father's Imam Ali's eloquence.
And she, you know, it was meant to be a humiliation parade for them, but actually it's quite the opposite. She ends up winning over the audiences and making either them feel ashamed or sort of embarrassing. These political figures who are trying to, you know, put her down, put her family down. It's really amazing.
I think it's that. That's worth reading about on its own. And actually, we're lucky that Tahira Qutbudin has this really amazing book, Arabic Oration.
There's at least three different parts that are focused on these sermons of Zainab and their historical context.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: I would love to at some point do a podcast with Dr. Qutbuddin. I'm really to that.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, she's most, most recently done her Nacho Balaka project. This was earlier, but it's, it's amazing. You really appreciate the power of Zaynab's speech because what Zainab's able to do is to awaken everyone to the evil of this situation.
Right?
So like in Kufa, the governor is Obeyd Al Ab Niziyad. And Obeydul Ibn Ziyad is really one of the main actors of all this.
He's one of the reasons that it comes to a head. I mean, killing Imam Hussain, killing the grandson of the Prophet was not supposed to happen.
So according to the, the Maqata literature, as you mentioned, Muawiyah, Muawiyah had warned against something like this because it's a huge political mistake. But it comes to a head in part, of course, because of Yazid, but another part because of Obeyd Al Abne Ziyad. And when Obaydahl Abne Ziyad has Zaynab in his court, he tries to frame it as well. Like, look what God has done to your family, right?
This is fate. This is what God has done. Zaynab really does this beautiful maneuvering through oration, through her speech where she completely flips it and, and reminds him that, you know, God gives tyrants time to ruin themselves and that's what he's doing with you. And she has no fear.
And in this time when, you know a woman isn't supposed to have that kind of power, it's doubly dangerous for him because now he's being embarrassed, but he's being embarrassed by a woman.
And it's, it's a really.
I mean, you know, that's the thing about the Karbala narrative from, from, from Medina to Karbala to Kufa to Damascus is you see the finest qualities of a human being come out at every instant, in every instant. And that's, I think that's what makes the, the narrative so powerful and, and able to be remembered repeatedly is that there's always a way where you find some kind of moral modeling in the story.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: I mean, from thinking about your work. I think Zeynep's courage and eloquence turned trauma into testimony, and her speeches in Damascus became living sermons that refused to let history be rewritten. She ensured that Karbala stayed alive in the public consciousness even as political powers tried to bury its significance.
The duality between memory and meaning, between what we remember and what we make of it, is something your book explores through Nietzsche's lens. Which brings me to the next question. Your discussion of the historicity of Karbala centers on a saying of Nietzsche. The ahistorical and the historical are equally necessary for the health of the individual, a people and a culture. In what ways does the Karbala narrative respond to this need for both the historical and the ahistorical?
[00:25:37] Speaker B: That's a really great question. Thank you.
One of the reasons that I took an interest in that the. The tension between the historical and the ahistorical is because of the way the Karbala narrative was treated or considered in, I would say, like, the early 1980s among. Especially among some of the Shi' I ulama, where they became kind of fixated on what is the real history of what happened in Karbala. Because anybody who's attended what they call majalis, these sessions of, you know, that have to do with Kabbalah, which we quickly, quickly began to realize, is that there is the way it's remembered and there is the way it's written in history books. And sometimes those two things don't cross over completely.
Right. There's a lot of mythic elements sometimes to it or parts of the story that are told in such a way to heighten the emotional intensity.
I'll give you an example, please.
So usually when people remember Karbala in Muharram, in the first 10 nights, one of the things they'll do is they'll devote each night to a person, to a figure. Okay. And in some communities, one of those nights is dedicated to Umm al Baneen. Fatima Binthizam was the wife of Imam Ali. After Fatima passes away, after the daughters, after the daughter of the Prophet passes away, he remarries. And his new wife, Fatima, says, don't call me Fatima. Call me mother to her sons. Because it brings too much pain to these children to hear their mother's name all the time. But it's not their mother. It's me.
She's this amazing individual.
And she and Ali together have four sons. Uthman, Ja', Far, Abdullah, and Abbas, the oldest. I went backwards. So Abbas is the oldest, and then Ja', Far, Abdullah, and Uthman, all four of them are killed at Karbala. All four of her children are killed at Karbala. Yeah. In defense of Imam Hussain. And yet when they tell her the news, each time they tell her the news that, you know, this son was killed, that's what he says, she says, I didn't ask you about them. I asked you what happened to Hussain. She's very concerned with Hussain. Her love goes out to Hussain. Now that narrative, for example, if you look at the Meqata literature, it's subject to question, you know, was she even alive after the events, you know, after this all transpired? Was she even living?
It sometimes becomes unclear. Right. But my interest is, well, look, there is a historical part to the narrative that gives it, gives it its power and its authority and its weight. Right?
But if, if we get too caught up in that and if we turn it into something that's completely historical, then we forget that, that it also has what you can call its mythic elements that matter just as much.
It's about how we make sense of the world.
And that's what Nietzsche, I think, really got to beautifully. He saw that people, when they study history, they, they kind of go very often in his time because, you know, he's these German kind of Oriental scholars and others in his age, very often too much into the historical and they get involved in these complexities and details of what actually did or did not happen. But what they're forgetting is that, you know, great people read history to, to become even greater people.
And I, I think to me that was the, a really powerful part of it. And then of course, I, you know, I, I, I thought of it through Rakur and Paul Ricoer does a, does a nice job of framing this as a, as a very modern problem, right? Where we, we want to frame everything as if it's building to this modern moment that we live in. In the book, for example, I was, I was interested in historical sources and I used historical sources. But at the same time, what I'm really interested in is what is the narrative? Because the narrative is alive in the hearts and minds of the people who remember it. And in that narrative are going to be things that are historically either unverifiable or more poetic than fact. But at the same time they're true because what they usually capture is some thematic core in the, in the narrative, like in the, in the narrative of Umo Benin. Listen, I, that, that account of when she, when she's given the news in Medina, I don't know if it happened, but it kind of doesn't matter. She lost four sons. She did it willingly. And everything in her life points to the fact that that's what she would have said.
[00:30:21] Speaker A: I mean, I see that in Western academia that there is a tension between the historical critical method and then the narrative.
But I think what your work captures is that that narrative has spiritual meaning to people across centuries. And your work, at least to me, suggests that both are essential. There needs to be some sense of historical accuracy. But. But the symbolic resonance of, like, these narratives is kind of really important, and it's a living ethical tradition.
So in that sort of. In that vein, I'm interested in talking to you about in what ways might the Karbala narrative inform moral reasoning and thinking, especially around injustice, around us in our own time? And what are the ethical dimensions of this narrative that draws so many to it?
[00:31:13] Speaker B: The way I thought of Karbala, the key virtue that I keep seeing that surrounds the narrative is karam. Karam, Karama, sometimes Karam, nobility. But it's actually a very big term.
Big in terms of. It's a virtue that includes other virtues. And according to those Muslim ethicists who write about it, in fact includes all the virtues.
To be Karim, to be noble means to be completely virtuous. And it's fascinating to me once you dig in to, you know, the way Muslim writers think about Karam, you know how prevalent it is. Right. First of all, you start to see it all over the Quran. Right? God is Kareem. He introduces himself in the first surah ever revealed as Rabbuk al Akram. Your lord is the most Kareem, actually.
And it comes up over and over again that he is this generous, noble lord. And then, of course, the Prophet Muhammad emphasizes, he says, well, you know, I was only raised as a prophet to bring Makarman Akhlaq, to bring these most noble character traits.
And so when people write about Hussain, they write about the sacrifice that he made and everything that he was willing to do as emanating from his sense of nobility, from his Keram. But it's so much more complicated than to say that it's just. It just means virtuous. Because when you start to look at it in its historical context, you start first, you start to realize a few things. First of all, to be Karim, to be noble, does have to do with your birth. And that's something that I think, like a modern person has a hard time with. Yes, but it's a sign of being from a good family and coming from good stock and a good tribe that you're Karim, someone who comes from a bad family, they have to work at it very hard, and it's not something that will come as naturally to them. And that's. I think that's something interesting for us. And so you start to see the emphasis on family in the, in the narrative, in the Karbala narrative, this is the grandson of the Prophet, this is the son of Ali, this is the son of Fatima. This is.
You start to see it not just as, oh, this is an important person of someone that I love. And start to see it, oh, this is, this is a living manifestation of Karam.
He is among, he is by birth from the moral elite. And that's something we have a hard time with. But it's a, it's a pre modern way of looking at things. That coming from an elite family means that you are a paragon of virtue. Right? And the interest that I take in the book is in how that status of belonging to this family, of a noble family and having these noble character traits, how it informs his decision making and not just his, but every virtuous person in the narrative. So I can give you an example. This is the example. This is probably the clearest example.
So I told you that the Muslim.
I told you two things already. That, that will, that will help me explain this or at least to the audience. I know you already know this, but to the audience first, that the Muslim Ibn Aqeel narrative is a micro version of the Karbala narrative. Muslim IBN Aqeel, Muslim, the son of Aqeel, is the cousin of Imam Hussain. Aqeel and Ali were brothers. And Muslim is, is the son of Aqeel, just like Hussain is the son of Ali. Hussain has sent Muslim to Kufa, as I mentioned. And I mentioned something else, which is that Obeydullah Ibn Ziyad, the new governor of Kufa, he is a main sort of instigator of everything that happens at Karbala. He's the one who's pushing for this to happen in this way. For them to corner Imam Hussein, for them to kill Imam Hussain. He's very cruel.
His cruelty begins in Kufa. And the important thing to know is that if somehow Muslim had been able to kill Ubaydullah IBN Ziyad, the whole story might have, might have ended. Meaning the Karbala doesn't happen. Imam Hussain is saved, all of these things. And the interesting thing about the narrative is that he does have the opportunity to do that. So he's hiding out. Muslim is hiding. He's hiding at the house of a man named Hani because Obeydullah has basically is searching the town for Muslim to execute him. And Obeydullah Niziyad shows up at Hani's house.
Muslim is hiding and he has an opportunity, sword in hand to kill, obey the secretly, but he doesn't obey the leaves. And the narrative goes in this direction where eventually Muslim is going to be executed and Imam Hussain is going to be martyred.
So the interesting thing is we know about Muslims reasoning because he's asked, they say, well, you had the opportunity to kill Abaytullah nun Ziyad, why didn't you?
And Muslim gives two reasons. Okay? He says, the first reason, he says, well, I was in Hani's house and I knew that Hani as much as Hani does not, is not happy with obeyad and would have liked to have seen him killed. Would not be happy to have basically his guest killed in his own house.
Okay? So the first reason I think is so completely fascinating, it has to do with being a good host and being a good guest. I'm a guest in Hani's house and he's a good host. He doesn't want his guest to be killed. So I'm observing the etiquette of being. It's fascinating, right? This is coming from his sense of being Kareem, of being nobility. This is he's living by a code. And the second thing he says is, he says, and I remembered that the Prophet has said that a believer, a believer does not kill furtively, doesn't kill secrets, basically doesn't stab someone in the back. Something like that.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: And you could see this as like a universal, like this is a law, but that's not how I see it. I see it as it doesn't be fit. It is not becoming for a believer. It is beneath the status or dignity of a believer to kill someone in that way. And so that too again goes back to this sense of nobility that, that permeates the narrative where these people are in a horrible high pressure situation. But at the same time they say, no matter what, I can't lose this.
This is what gives me value. This is who I am. I am a noble person. So even if it would be, if it would change everything for me to murder this man, I can't because it's beneath who I am. It's not befitting. And to me that that is a virtue ethics kind of reading of Karbala.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it's interesting that someone could choose nobility over convenience or consciousness over convenience. Like we don't even have. Nobility is not even part of our vocabulary anymore, let alone like something that we try to embody.
Let me move on to the next question that in your book you begin with an essential question about the benefits of remembering Karbala's violence. You say you write in your book, how does the community benefit ethically from remembering the murder of a noble warrior during Moharram? Karbala becomes remembered around the world.
What does the narrative teach?
What does it aim to teach? And how does it help communities respond to the issues of shared grief and injustice?
[00:38:39] Speaker B: To really appreciate what Karbala teaches, I think you have to experience it.
And the way you would experience it is to kind of be a part of a community or visit a community or observe a community, but not in an hour and not in a night, but watch the way they change in those first. In those ten nights.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:39:04] Speaker B: And I. I have. I have had that opportunity to see it and to feel somewhat like a foreigner in doing so. So for the first, you know, for the first time, I visited Iran in Muharram one time, and I was in a part of Tehran that is not religious at all. I mean, from my. From what. My observation versus the way people dress and the way people.
But what was fascinating to me is when Muharram set in, I don't think I would still call anybody religious. I mean, it's not like people all of a sudden became religious, but they just became so good.
Taxi drivers.
Taxi drivers stopped trying to, you know, get more than, you know, that, you know, rip you off or whatever. People were polite. I mean, this is still a big city. You know, I saw, I would see like a guy and, you know, so in. In Iranian culture to have a dog, it seemed like a very secular kind of non.
Un. Islamic kind of thing. I saw this guy and he, you know, he had all these tattoos and. And this like, wild haircut and this dog. But he's. He's.
He's dressed in black and he's putting up a, like a. A huge kind of display for Imam Hussain.
And he has this like, loudspeaker and he's playing like a, you know, a poem, like a rhythmic sort of musical poem for Imam Hussain. And so it's. You get to see the effect that it has on people to remember this narrative on all sort of. On all levels. People who don't regularly pray and observe Islamic rituals, to them, this has a kind of meaning that nothing else has. And you see it in American communities, too. People behave differently. Because I think there is something about it. There's a sense of sacrifice. And again, this is going to go back to Kerem, go back to nobility. There's a sense of honesty, sacrifice, sincerity.
All of these Things that are wrapped up in this super virtue, this comprehensive virtue called kerem, that people can actually see in a human model that's presented through a narrative that you cannot really comprehend. If someone gives it to you as theory, or if someone tells you you should do this or you should be, that they can actually see.
Oh, wow. So this person was so committed, so sincere, so honest, so unwilling to capitulate. They even went so far as to, you know, their infant child, that suckle, you know, suckling child.
They're willing to. To give that. Right.
So it has a kind of profundity to it because humans are storytelling creatures by nature that nothing else. That nothing else has. And I call it the warrior ethos. But I think the most fascinating part of it to me is that you get to experience a warrior ethos without war.
You get to be a part of a battle without going to battle. Yeah.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: That is such an amazing way to put it, I think. Yeah. I have not thought of it that way, but, yeah, that's. It does bring to that to the fore. You don't have to experience it to experience it, to benefit from that experience, if you pay attention to what's happening.
[00:42:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:26] Speaker A: I remember when October 7th happened, and I read somewhere, you are what you grieve.
And, you know, I've thought about that for a while now.
And I guess you're also talking to us about how grief is an ethical teacher and Karbala has universal appeal far beyond Shia community. So that'll lead me to my next question, which is, while Karbala is central to Shia identity, many Sunnis and even non Muslims feel drawn to its message. What is it about Karbala that transcends sectarian lines? And I will, like, shout out to my Atlanta Muslim community, there's so many of us on this WhatsApp group, and so many of my Sunni friends attend Madlis and go to Muharram. It just is so heartening. But let me leave that question to you.
[00:43:12] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, as you and. As you and I know, what it means to be Sunni and Shia and Muslim has changed quite a bit in the past, let's say, I don't know, hundred years, whatever. There's. There's. There's new. New lines have been drawn that were much blurrier in the past and are still blurry in some places. So for. To give you an example of what I mean, pretty much, with very slight exceptions, most of the historical sources I use are Sunni.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: Yeah. When it comes to Marm. So in terms of historical writing, historiography the, the Karbala narrative is one of the most widely reported narratives we have.
Reason being is the writing of history was basically coming to be soon after the, the events of Karbala. There was a genre called the Makhtal genre that was at first about writing the Maktarman writing about the, the horrible and gruesome murder of Uthman that gets repurposed and it becomes the Makht al Hussein. And so people would write, you know, write the narrative of the Maktar Hussain that makes its way into these larger histories, these huge chronologies like Tabaris. So when I'm drawing from the story of Imam Hussein, I'm very often just going to Tabari because Tabari is using the same Maktal that anyone would use.
But then other authors too, so Sunni Sufiya authors were very interested in the story of Imam Hussain.
Those are other ones I use. And the remembrance of Muhammad was much, was, was and still is not seen as sectarian.
Some, in some cases it was like, it's hard to make that like a clear line. It kind of depended on where you were and who you were.
I think that if a person cares deeply for Muhammad, the Prophet Muhammad, then it is, it is sort of a natural thing to care deeply about, you know, his grandson and his family.
It's also something that's deeply ingrained in both Sunni and Shia Islam. The love of the Prophet's family. It's mentioned in the Quran and it's just a part of who we are as Muslims. It's always been there.
So it's not so much of a stretch. I do think that there is a kind of political, a politically sub subversive message in it that I think could, you know, could some people can see as dangerous.
But it doesn't have to even be taken that way. You know, I mean, at the end of the day this is about a holy man, the descendant of the Prophet, the grandson of the Prophet, who stood up for what he believed and was and was willing to give everything and was killed with him and his family. It doesn't have to mean that the entire system changes, right?
It could. I mean that's the Shia perspective, right? It's about legitimacy and, but it doesn't, I don't think it has to be. I think it could be non sectarian too.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: Before I. Thank you, I was wondering if I've missed something that you would like to mention from your book. A question I didn't ask. Are there any final thoughts you want to leave the audience with?
[00:46:26] Speaker B: I Think. I mean, the questions were amazing, actually. This was really good. I would say that one thing that comes up in the book that maybe we could talk about in the future or something like that that I think people would be interested in is I found that studying the Karbala narrative was a great way to reflect upon the way we think of moral issues today.
[00:46:47] Speaker A: Say some more.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: Okay, so I'll use the example that I mentioned from the book. So I don't know if people are aware of this, but this was probably about two years ago. The Guardian took a letter that they had published in around 2001 and had kept online. They took it off.
So if you want to access that letter now, you have to do it through archives. It's gone now. That letter was a letter by Osama bin Laden. And it was. It was written and it was written in 2000, again, 2001. And it was his justification for everything that had happened in 9 11. And it's a manifesto, basically.
Now, this is the interesting part to me. Why was it taken down? The reason why it's taken down is that all of a sudden there were these young sort of Gen Z people who, they weren't alive at that time, they don't remember at that time, but saw themselves in that letter. The. The letter was going viral.
To me, that's important because bin Laden's thinking or that kind of thinking has certain flaws in it, has certain shortcomings in it that I think show the importance of the warrior ethos in the book. And the reason why I bring it up is I. I'm seeing a lot of that on social media and a lot of that out there. And this is just anecdotal, this isn't a study, but when I look at the way people talk about justice and tit for tat and a kind of revenge narrative, all of that is to me very much the opposite of how I read Karbala. And I know some people do read Karbala that way. I mean, especially people who are focused on, like, the Mukhtar narrative, which we didn't get to the aftermath, there are people who look at it as, like, you know, as revenge, as being an important part of it. But when I look at Hussain or Muslim Ibn Aqeel or, you know, his son, you know, Ali al Akbar, and I look at the way they talk about why they're doing what they're doing. They live by a kind of code, a kind of nobility, and their lives are not focused on tit for tat. You hurt me I hurt you. They don't think in that way. They don't function in that way. Right.
It's, it's about care.
Caring for others comes out in everything they do, even in the way they engage with an enemy. So if I want to end on something I would end on that.
I think there actually is a message for people who love justice and it's good to love justice but maybe haven't thought about that.
The search for justice always needs to be framed in a kind of series of character traits that you have so that you don't become enveloped in what Nietzsche called a slave morality. You don't become enveloped in a way of seeing the world where your focus is really on bringing others down instead of lifting everybody up.
[00:49:41] Speaker A: I could not ask for a better end to the podcast. Dr. Zagar, thank you for joining us and for helping us think so deeply about the moral imagination that Karbala invites us into.
[00:49:53] Speaker B: It.
