In Search of Orthodox Islam 2/11

'A'udhu billahi min al-Shaytan al-rajim, Bismillah, al-Rahman, al-Rahim. Al-hamdulillah Rabbi 'l-alameen, bari' al-khalaa'iqi ajma'een. Wa as-salat wa as-salam 'ala asharafi al-anbiya'i wa'l-mursalin, sayyidina wa nabiyyina wa habibi qulubina wa tabibi nufusina, wa shafi'i dhunubina Abi 'l-Qasimi Muhammad. [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad]. Thumma as-salatu wa as-salam 'ala aali baytihi, at-tayyibeen, at-tahareen, al-madhlumeen. Wa la'anatullahi 'ala a'da'ihim ajma'een min yawmi 'adaawatihim ila yawm id-deen. Amma ba'd, faqad qal Allahu tabaraka wa taa'la fi kitabih, wa huwa asdaqul qaa'eleen. Bismillahi, al-rahman, al-Rahim. "Wa a'tasimu bi habl Illahi jami'an wa la taffaraqu wa adhkuroo ni'amata Allahi alaykum idh kuntum aa'daan faallafa bayna quloobikum fa asbahtum bi ni'amatihi ikhwaana, wa kuntum ala shafa'a hufratin min an-naar fa anqadhakum minha, qadhalika yubayn Ullahu lakum aayatihi la'allakum tahtadoon" (3:103). Salawat ala Muhammad [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad]

Second night of Muharram. Last night, we begin discussing our subjects, Orthodox Islam. And we said the Muslim Ummah today is in a pitiful state because they have lost some essential ingredients that were part and parcel of the original Islam that Allah and His messenger had intended for this Ummah and that if Muslims are to change their plight, they must find these ingredients and restore them into that orthodox Islam. And we began discussing various aspects of this and saying that Islam today is broadly seen as having two major groups, the Shi'a and the Sunni.

And speaking from a Shi'a perspective, it is my conviction and my understanding in what I am presenting that those missing ingredients are found in the aqidah of those following the Ahlul Bayt, alayhum assalam. But in order for us to make a compelling argument to the Muslims that form the majority, i.e. the Sunni Muslims, we must first understand what are the reasons for which the Shi'as are seen as being outcasts or a heterodoxy from the mainstream Muslim community.

And so we began discussing various issues. We talked about, you know, being majority does not necessarily mean proof of being the right orthodox Islam. And we talked about the origins of the term Shi'a and Sunni.

Tonight, as we continue that discussion, we now start talking about those issues that are seen as being contentious between the Shi'a and the Sunni.

I have looked at this extensively and tried to search to the best of my ability, all the possible reasons for which Muslims write, whether it is scholars writing in their books or whether it is just keyboard warriors on social media writing reasons why the Shi'as are not Muslims or should be treated as outcasts or mushriks or kafirs or whatever it is. And you have certainly done this yourself and seen a lot of arguments and fights online besides the different forms of violence that we hear of in the news.

And when I took all the possible reasons for which the Shi'as are considered or called to be mushriq and kafir and rafidhi and so on and so forth and majus and so on. And I placed all these reasons before me. What stood out to me is that I could now group all these reasons into three categories, into three buckets. The first grouping are those things that are simply lies, that are simply untrue, that are misconceptions, that are beliefs held by known Shi'as either out of ignorance or out of malice. But there is no truth to them.

The second category are issues related to Ahkam, to Fiqh, to jurisprudence, to the law in which we differ, such as, for example, the Shi'as prostrating on a clay tablet or the Shi'as not folding their hands in prayer or practices in marriage and so on and so forth.

The third difference is in theology, in a leader in beliefs, and that is where the discussion needs to happen. And those measures and yardsticks that I spoke about last night in saying that we must establish what are the yardsticks and measure on which we are going to decide what Orthodox Islam is.

And when we look at the history of Muslims, we are going to judge history or Islamic history on the basis of these yardsticks, those measures and yardsticks and parameters are going to come from aqeedah from theology, and in the subject that we have announced, we have said in search of orthodox Islam, the difference that Adalah and Imamah make. So I have already, in a sense, divulged the answer to you that I would argue on the basis that what Muslims are missing is divine leadership and the sense of justice or adalah that Allah and His messenger had intended for this Ummah.

But in order for us to make this complete and to present it in an argument that would have an opportunity to convince not only the Shi'a, but all the Muslims, we must go through the whole process of looking at the other issues as well, i.e. the issues related to Ahkam and the issues that are misconception or lies. And so we begin with those tonight. If you can recite a salawaat 'ala Muhammad wa aali Muhammad [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad].

Of all the issues that you will list that anyone has against the Shi'a of Aali Muhammad and when I use the term Shi'a, I should clarify, I'm strictly speaking about Shi'a Ithna 'Asheri Imamiya. There are other groups that refer to themselves as Shi'a, such as the Bohras, the Ismailis. I do not speak for them, nor am I conversant with their history. And so I'm speaking mainly from the Ithna 'Asheri perspective, which forms the majority of the Shi'a.

If you list every single issue that anyone has against the Shi'a what is the number one issue? The number one issue, which will take up most of our discussion tonight is that the Shi'a curse the sahabah. This is the one major issue of contention that the Shi'as are inimical towards the sahabah ikram. There is no other issues that anyone has about the Shi'a that is bigger in the eyes of those who have an issue with the Shi'a than this one issue.

In fact, I would go as far as saying that if the Shi'as were aligned with the rest of the Muslims on the issue of sahabah, then all the other issues would be tolerated and they would have been no objection to anything else that we do as Shi'as and we would have been assimilated into the rest of the Muslim community without any objection. The point of objection is that you Shi'as are anti-sahabah. Your madhab is based on cursing and hating the sahabah ikram.

So now let's talk about this, and I mentioned this last night, that if you look at history critically, you will see that there was a ploy by the dynasties that ruled for the major part of the Muslim community, the Omayyad, the Abbasids in particular, there was a planned move to create this idea that there is a sense of sanctity and infallibility around this sahabah ikram. When we look at the Qur'an and we look at ahadith, what we find is that the Qur'an and ahadith promote the Prophet and his Ahlul Bayt, alayhum assalam. The Qur'an and ahadith do not give that much of importance to the sahabah ikram.

But when we look at the Muslim ethos, when we look at the Muslim culture, we find the exact opposite, where, yes, we love the Ahlul Bayt, alayhum assalam, but the importance of the Prophet and his character is downplayed, whereas the importance of the sahabah is put on a pedestal, almost suggesting a sense of perfection, something that is clothed in a sanctity and an aura of Isma' where you cannot talk about this. You might be able to relate to it to other issues, such as, for example, the Holocaust as well. The Holocaust is something that no one denies that it took place, that certainly Hitler killed a lot of Jews and he had concentration camps and he gassed and killed them. But it is an area that nobody wants to speak about because there is a halo of sacredness around it. The moment you open your mouth to talk about it, you got to think, what am I saying? If I say something slightly off the mark, I will be pointed, you're an anti-Semite. I cannot go around doing research and saying what exactly happened, how many were killed? What was the role of the Zionists in Europe at the time? Oh, antisemite. So you were scared to talk about it. You can only mourn about it and you have to treat it with a sense of awe.There is that sort of a culture and air in the Muslim Ummah with regards to the sahabah ikram.

But what I will demonstrate is that what the Qur'an had intended was to actually place the Prophet and his Ahlul Bayt at the top and the forefront of the Ummah and something happened where this was hijacked and things went wrong. I mentioned last night as well that the majority of people don't necessarily agree with the government of the time or the values that are being promoted in society, but they are busy with their daily lives, so they don't really stand up and protest or argue. They simply go with the flow and it becomes part and parcel of that community's culture and the children who are nurtured in that society to grow up with those values. And that becomes their understanding of what is important versus what is not so important.

And this is what happened with the Muslims as well. There is a rich history to say those who became prominent scholars in Muslim Ummah. How did they go about becoming? There were many who wrote Hadith. Why did certain people's books of Hadith become famous? There are many individuals who started their schools of fiqh. Why did only four schools become prominent. There are social, political historic reasons because there is nothing in the Qur'an that attests to say that they will only be for four madhabs in Islam.

A lot of times you meet brothers from the Sunni community and I say this with respect who will say your amaal is not valid unless you belong to one of these four madhabs. We cannot pray behind you because you don't follow one of these four madhabs. Question is these four madhahibs came to be during the time of Banu Abbas. What happens to the ibadat and amaal and aqeedah of all the Muslims from the time of the Prophet until the Banu Abbas.

They were not Shafi' or Maliki, or Hambali, or Hanafi. Was their prayers accepted?Because there is nothing in Islam to say there has to be only four schools. In fact, the issue that raises an eyebrow is how can Islam be one religion but have four different schools and all four are correct, even though they don't necessarily agree with each other on everything. But let us not digress.

What the Shi'a say is this. They first ask this question respectfully to the Muslim Ummah and say - what is your definition of sahabah? And how many sahabah ikram were there? The answer to this is - any Muslim who saw the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, in his lifetime even once, even for one moment or one second while he had faith, is sahabah. So even if you were a traveler and you passed by Madinah and you saw the blessed Prophet, blessings and peace be with his family, even once you qualify as Sahabah.

The average number of sahabah, given the books at the time of the passing away of the Messenger of Allah, is one hundred thousand approximately. We know, for example, when the Prophet was returning from Ghadeer from Hajj, the final pilgrimage at Ghadeer there were about one hundred and twenty thousand. So certainly not everyone went for Hajj and therefore it would be safe to assume that even one hundred thousand is a little conservative. There was, well, more than one hundred thousand.

So we are saying one hundred and fifty, two hundred thousand are all sahabah ikram, all sahabah ikram. To add to that, we are told that the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, my sahabah are like stars, nujoom - any one of them you follow, you will be rightly guided. Which again, raises a question because it takes very basic astronomy to know that you cannot follow any star and be guided, the whole idea why I cannot use the stars and be guided is because you need to know which star to follow. You can't just follow any star and still be guided. And the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, being someone who was raised in the desert and knew that when you travel in the desert, knowing which star to follow is important, it's very unlikely that he would even give such an analogy and an example to say that my sahabah are like stars, any one you follow, you will all you will be guided.

The Shi'as also said that do not forget that most of those early Muslims were idol worshippers. They were not born and raised as Muslims. They accepted and embraced Islam at the time that they were adults. So it is not conceivable that they could have attained that level of perfection in 5, 10, 15 years of being with the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and that level of, you know, infallibility, that we cannot talk about any mistakes they made in life even after the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, passed away. That would be extremely naive to assume that. Furthermore, they were individuals in the ummah who were enemies of Islam for most of their lives. A large number of these individuals only embraced Islam when Mecca was taken over during fath Mecca. Fath Mecca happens very much at the end of the Prophet's life, around 8-9 AH. So we are talking two years, three years before the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, passed away.

Many of them converted to Islam only because it was in a sense, a surrender. You know, the story of fath Mecca, the Army of Islam appeared at the doorsteps of Mecca. Abu Sufyan, who was the leader of the Meccans, comes out to the valley or the mountain where he sees the mountain is full of lights and torches. And he realizes this is a massive army, so he comes there and he meets Abbas ibn Abdul Mutallib, the uncle of the Prophet, and he says to Abbas ibn Abdul Mutallib 'your nephew has become a great king. He was amongst us. He was oppressed. We were fighting him. And look at this now he has become a king' And Abbas says to him. 'Don't say king say Rasul Allah'. And the Prophet has a conversation with Abu Suffian and says, I have not come to shed blood. In fact, go back and tell your people that whoever surrenders and comes to your home, he shall have amnesty and will not be harmed.

And Abu Suffian comes running back to Mecca calling out to the people. 'The army of Muhammad is coming. We must now surrender and anyone who seeks refuge in my home will be granted amnesty'. And the Muslim comes in with Takbir and with, you know, the Prophet coming in and they come to the Kaaba and they break the idols. Now, do you sincerely believe that all these individuals seeing their idols being broken before their eyes changed and suddenly became so in love with Islam and became Sahaba al-Kiram and you know, completely committed to the cause of Islam? This is one or two years before the Prophet passes away.

It seems far fetched and naive to believe that all these individuals are perfect and are infallible. Now a lot of times if we were to start talking about these issues, the answer that we would get from our Sunni brothers and sisters is that, look, we understand that they were human we are not saying they are ma'soom. In fact, the concept of isma' is found in you Shi'as, we don't have that concept. So we're not saying they're infallible. We accept they are humans. They made mistakes. But what we are saying is this is history. Let's not talk about it because it will only divide the Ummah and cause splits and rifts amongst us. And we have managed to keep the Ummah together thus far by not indulging in these issues.

The problem, however, is, as I mentioned last night, is that if there was no bearing on the plight of the Muslims today, what the predecessors did, what these sahabah kiraam did, in those particularly those who took positions of leadership, then we would be fine not talking about it and saying they were human.

But the problem is that we see a direct relevance and connection to the plight and suffering of Muslims today. What we see today is that there are ideologies, there are values, there are principles on which Muslims operate today, which have been inherited by individuals amongst the sahabah who took positions of leadership. And that is the cause of our suffering.

And unless we call it out, unless we point to the elephant in the room, unless we say that, look, there was injustices done and this was not orthodox Islam and that this must be corrected, then we're not going to be able to move forward. So unfortunately, as I mentioned yesterday, when you have a relationship that is in strife, you cannot mend it by ignoring it or by sweeping it under the rug. You have to talk about it and come to an understanding and an agreement that if we agree that sahabah were human and not infallible, then we must be willing to talk about even the mistakes they made and not simply glorify them and get upset that we are pointing anything regarding them that would be wrong.

How the government, the issue of leadership, the issue of justice, the issue of how we, you know, tolerate or sympathize or coexist with others who are not Muslims. Everything is connected to values and principles Muslims have taken from those who ruled over the Muslim Ummah in the past. And therefore, we need to talk about this. if you can recite a salawaat 'ala Muhammad wa aali Muhammad [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad].

So let us first answer this question. The Shi'a curse the sahabah. The Shi'as are anti sahabah. My question is, how many of the sahabah do the Shi'as dislike and distance themselves from? We have agreed that there were at least a hundred to a hundred and twenty thousand sahabah? Do the Shi'as curse and hate one hundred and twenty thousand individuals at the time of the Prophet? No. The Shi'as list individuals, and I said yesterday, I will be very candid, I will mention names, but I will do so respectfully.

The Shi'as distanced themselves from the early caliph's - from Abu Bakr, from Umar, from Uthman. The Shi'as distanced themselves from Mu'awiyah, from Yazeed. The Shi'as distanced themselves from Khalid bin Walid, from Marwan ibnil Hakam. Do you notice a pattern here? What is the pattern? The pattern is that all these individuals held positions of leadership. What does this tell you if you are an intelligent human being? It tells you that the Shi'a faith is not founded on the basis of cursing sahabah. It is founded on the basis of justice and Adalah. It is because the Shi'as see some problems in Muslim leadership with these individuals, that is why the distance themselves from these individuals.

So the problem that the Shi'as have with specific sahabah and individuals is how they governed and how they ruled and how they sidelined the importance of the family of the Prophet. It is not that the Shi'a mahab is based on cursing. That idea that, you know, Shiism was started by a Jew named Abdullah bin Saba' and he started his madhab on the basis of exaggerating about the Ahlul Bayt and cursing the sahabah, is false.

You can take the opposite of that and say, you know. What who are these sahabahs who the Shi'as love? A lot of times some of the Sunni Muslims write about the Shi'a. This is the Shi'as, they only like Salman, Abu Dharr, Miqdad, Ammar. They're the only ones they love. Ask this question again, what is it about these sahabah that the Shi'as love? What was it about Miqdad and Ammar and Abu Dharr and Salman? What was about them was their attachment to whom? To the family of the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

So if you now begin looking at the reasons behind which the Shi'a dislike or speak against some of the sahabah and the reasons for which they attach themselves and praise some of the sahabah, you begin to see that the reason is they see a problem. They see a hijacking of what they thought was the original Orthodox Islam. It is not simply cursing for the sake of cursing or hating for the sake of hating.

Now, let's get right into this now and say, are all the sahabah infallible? No. I want you to notice what I'm going to do tonight is I'm going to tell you some stories about the sahabah found in the most authentic sources of Sunni Islam. And then I'm going to tell you some stories about the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, from the same most authentic sources. And I want you to observe, particularly if you are a Sunni Muslim in the crowd or listening to this online even later on, I want you to observe with all sincerity - how when I talk about the things regarding the Sahabah ikram, it offends you, it hurts you, it pains you. But when I say things that are even more horrendous and false about the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, it doesn't seem to bother us as much.

The first thing we ask is - where there any hypocrites amongst the Sahabah ikram? The Qur'an certainly says there were. In Surah Tawbah, in particular, At- Tawbah, chapter 9, let us take an example, verse 101 Allah, Subhana Wa Ta'ala tells the Prophet "Wa mimmann hawlakum minal A'raabi munaafiqoon"(9:101) and those who are amongst you O Muhammad from the desert dwellers, from the Bedouins there are Munafiqoon, there are hypocrites. So he identifies them as a separate group. And then he says, "wa min ahlil Madinah" and from the people of Madinah as well there are hypocrites - "maradoo 'ala an-nifaaq" - they are in fact steeped in hypocrisy. "Laa ta'lamuhum" - you don't know them O Muhammad - "nahnu na'lamuhum" we know them. "Sanu'adhdhibuhum marratain" We shall punish them twice. "thumma yuraddoona ilaa 'adhaabin 'adheem"(9:101) - and then when they come back, they will come back to a painful punishment. Now, Allah is never shy to call out the groups who are non-Muslims. There's lots of places where the Qur'an says: "Inna alladheenah kafaru min Ahlil Kitabi wal mushreqeen"(98:1) - so the hypocrites are not the mushreqeen and the kuffar, He's not talking about the Jews in Madinah or the Christians or the polytheists. He's talking about the Muslims from the people of Madinah. When you ask Muslims who are the hypocrites in the time of the Prophet, the standard answer is Abdullah bin Ubay and his band of followers.

The thing is, though, that the Prophet and the Muslims all knew that Abdullah bin Ubay and his followers were hypocrites. It was a known fact to all the Muslims. But the ayat is saying to the Prophet: "you don't know them. We know them" (9:101). So that means it is not Abdullah bin Ubay. It is someone else, and they are from the people of Madinah. Now, if you agree on this, then how can you say all this? How can you say Allahumma salle ala Muhammad wa aali Muhammad wa sabihi ajmaeen. It can't be all.

The Battle of Uhud now I'm going to move very quickly because lots of examples, I want to give. Battle of Uhud. Battle is progressing, Muslims are winning, turn of events, Muslims are now losing. As Muslims are losing, Muslims begin to flee. They abandoned the Prophet is left all by himself. Amir ul-Mu'mineen and on some accounts, one or two others are trying to save the Prophet's life. The voice of Iblis calls out and says: 'Muhammad has been killed'. Now the Muslims lose complete heart. They are demoralized. They flee. We are told by Sunni mufassiroon that some of them got together and said: 'we should send a representative to Abu Sufiyan and tell him if he grants us amnesty, we will go back to Mecca and we will go back to idol worship, as we did before if he spares our life'. Now and there is an Ayat of the Qur'an on this, in Surah Aali 'Imran that specifically says that before you there were others who fought on the other Prophets and they did not weaken or humiliate themselves. When the mufasseroon write about these things that they did not humiliate themselves they talk about this story, but they immediately said this was Abdullah bin Ubay and his followers.

There is one problem with this, however. Before the battle of Uhud took place, the Prophets, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, asked the Muslims in Madinah, should we go and fight out or should we stay in Madinah? The Muslims were sincere, said to the Prophet, let us go out and meet the enemy in the battlefield so they don't come into our homes in case we lose.

Abdullah bin Ubay and his band of hypocrites wanted to fight from Madinah, so they came up with the Prophet unwillingly. And halfway through the journey to Uhud Abdullah bin Ubay convinced his followers to defect, so they abandoned the Muslim army and they left and went back to Madinah. They were not at the Battle of Uhud. They are the ones who are Aali Imran, we are told, when the Muslims went back with losses, they said to the Muslims, did we not tell you don't go and fight. If you wouldn't have gone to fight, you would not have been killed like this. This is all in the Qur'an. So if Abdullah bin Ubay was not at Uhud, then the people who are willing to surrender their faith and go back to Mecca could not have been him.

Another example, towards the end of the Prophet's life, the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, went on an expedition called the expedition of Tabook. This is around now 7AH , maybe 3 or 4 years before he passed away. There was a lot of tension in Madinah and the hypocrites were looking to overthrow the government of Islam. And this may well have been Abdullah bin Ubay and his people. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, decided, he will leave Amir ul-Mu'mineen Ali ibn Abu Talib in charge of Madinah. Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad]. This is the incident where the hypocrites began saying to Ali that, look, the Prophet doesn't love you anymore. He took everyone and he left you his standard bearer, his Alamdar, he left you in Madinah. And Amir ul-Mu'mineen went out to meet the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and then the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said the hadith of Manzila: "ya Ali anta minni bemanizli Haroona min Musa, illa annahu la Nabiiya ba'di". That I have left to in Madinah in charge because you are to me what Haroon was to Musa, right?

So the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, now is on an expedition to Tabook. Keep in mind the hypocrites are in Madinah inciting problems for Amir ul-Mu'mineen. So there are no munafiqoon with the Prophet. There are only Sahaba ikram. Now the Muslims tell us that on the way back from Tabook the Prophet was journeying in the night and he came to a mountain pass, where he had to cross on the edge of a cliff, there was an abyss below. And as he was crossing the mountain pass, there was an attempt to assassinate him. Hudhaifah al-Yamaani an eminent sahabah, was holding the camel of the Prophet from the front, Ammar Yasir was walking behind the camel and the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, was on the camel. And there was a narrow pass on which they were walking. Ahead of them there were 14 or 15 individuals from the sahabah who were coming towards the Prophet fast with the intention to push him over the cliff.

Allah out of His miracle brought about lightening. And the Hadith, this is not Shi'a sources, as I mentioned yesterday, the sources of Hadith of Tareekh, Tareekh ibn Qatheer, Tareekh ibn Atheer and ibn Asakeer and Tabaqah ibn Saat and tareekh Tabari this is all non Shi'a sources. Lightning begins to flash. And Hudhaifah al-Yamaani sees these 14 15 coming fast towards them, the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, begins to call out to them and they turn and they flee. Now, the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, asks Hudhaifah al-Yamaani, did you recognize who they are? He said, no. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, gave him the names of those 14 or 15 sahabah. But he took an oath from Hudhaifah al-Yamaani that you shall not tell anyone the names of these individuals.

Muslim say from that day onwards Hudhaifah was known as Ameen sirr-Rasul Allah, the keeper of the secrets of Rasul Allah. Until the day he passed away. So what does this tell us then and Hudhaifah al-Yamaani, we are told in this report said to Rasul Allah, why do you not have these individuals killed? Why do you not put them to death? And the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's answer will tell you that these were from the sahabah. His reply was, I do not wish to do this, because if I do, these people will begin to say that now that Muhammad has established himself and has a government in place, he is killing his own sahabah. Yes, we have some riwayath that there were some individuals who kept asking Hudhaifah al-Yamaani did the Prophet mentioned my name as well? But we're not going to talk about that.

But this suffices to tell us as an Ummah that there were individuals in the time of the Prophet who were not sahabah ikram. So we have to talk about and know that not every one of them has to be authentic and has to be followed. Take the example of the Treaty of Hudaibiyah.

Now, here again, I'm going to be very candid and mention names. When the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, was going to Mecca for Umrah, he stopped at a place called Hudaibiyah and the Meccan refused him to come in. You know the story because of which he had to go back to Madinah and he was told you can come next year for Umrah. And he signed an agreement and this is known as the Treaty of Hudaibiyah. Now, the treaty, the conditions and terms of the treaty was such that they were completely opposed to the Muslims. The conditions of the treaty were provided and stipulated by the Quraysh, by the Meccans, by the polytheists. And if you read it at face value, it is absolutely in the favour of the Quraysh and completely against the favour of the Muslims. But in time it would prove to be the greatest blessing for Islam.

And Allah does not say: "Inna fatahna laka fathan mubeena" (48:1) for any battle, but he says it about this treaty. The Muslims were very, very upset that the Prophet was willing to sign such a treaty that was so much against Islam and the Muslims favour. Now, this narration that I'm about to tell you, it is in Sahih Bukhari, which is regarded to be absolutely authentic, every Hadith in there is authentic, it is in Sahih Muslim, it is Tabari. It is in Tareekh-e-Tabari. It is in Tabaqah ibn Saath. It is in Tareekh ibn Atheer. It is reported that the sahabah Umar Ibn Khattab came to the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and said to him, 'why are you signing this treaty?' He said, 'Because Allah has asked me to.' He said to him, 'Are you truly the messenger of God?' To which Rasul Allah, this is in Sahih Bukhari, I'm not making this up - to which he replied, the Prophet replied to him and said, Yes, I am the messenger of Allah and I will not do anything against the command of Allah. The Hadith goes on to say that the sahabah Umar went back and spoke to Abu Bakr and said to Abu Bakr, Is Muhammad really the messenger of Allah? And Abu Bakr replied in what he replied. And the Khalif later to be Khalif Umar said, 'By Allah, I never doubted in the Nabuwat of Muhammad as I doubted on the day of Hudaibiyah'.

Now the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, asked the Muslims, he said, because we have been denied Umrah, but we have brought animals for sacrifice and we have worn our Ihram what I want you to do in Hudaibiyah is I want you to shave your heads, sacrifice your animals, remove your Ihram and we go back to Madinah. And that was inconceivable to the Muslims that you haven't gone to Mecca, you haven't done Umrah, and you will sacrifice your animal and shave your heads. The messenger of Allah commanded the Muslims to do this. Not one of them moved from his place. He commanded them a second time. No one moved from his place. He was upset with them. This is in Bukhari and Muslim.

He went inside his tent for a little while all by himself. This is madlumiya. This is Rasul Allah. He came out, he ignored his sahabah and did not say a word to them. He went alone. He sacrificed his animal. He shaved his head off and he took off his Ihram. And when the sahabah saw this, they all stood up and they ran to start doing this. And they say now in the hadith, by Allah, we almost killed each other in trying to do this. We are talking of sahabah, we are talking of Sahih Bukhari , we're talking of Sahih Muslim.

The incident of Raziyat Yawm al Khamis, the Prophet is begging his followers, give me a paper and pen that I may write something for you so you will not go astray after me. The sahabah are saying to the Prophet, he is delirious, he has lost his mind auzubillah. They refuse to give him, a dying man, an ordinary dying man you would not refuse him an opportunity to write his last will. This is the Prophet of Allah. So as Muslims, we have to ask our questions. That is it, the Shi'a who are anti sahabah or have we created this sanctity and elevation for the sahabah so that we cannot speak about anything wrong, even though the narrations are very, very clear to us about all these incidents?

Sahih Bukhari says that some of the sahabah he reports from Abu Dardah, Abu Dardah is one eminent companion. He says: 'during the time of the Prophet, we used to meet other Muslims, other sahabah, and we used to smile at them on their faces, but in our hearts, we used to curse them'. Now, we said the sahabah were all getting together. They all loved each other. They never cursed each other. The Shi'as curse the sahabah. Sahih Bukhari says the sahabah were cursing each other and in their hearts. And then Bukhari mentions that taqiya is permissible illa Yaum al-Qiyamah and the Shi'as are being told, you practice taqiya and we'll talk about it tomorrow.

Yet another naration, the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,, is leaving this world, he gets a young man called Usama bin Zayd bin Harith, he tells him to set up an army and go out of Madinah to an expedition. None of the Muslims go with Usama, they say Usama is a young boy, he cannot lead us. His father, Zayd bin Harith, had been appointed as a commander. He was killed, but they had objected to Zayd bin Harith as well.

The hadith in Bukhari and in other authentic sources say the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, is so ill, he is so ill that when he comes out of his home, he cannot walk. There are two individuals holding his hand. Abdulla ibn Abbas and Amir ul-Mu'mineen are holding him. His feet are dragging on the ground. He goes to his masjid. He gets on the pulpit. He says O Muslims go out, detach, go out of Madinah and join the army of Usama.

Now the words of Rasul Allah sahih hadith: "la'nallahu man takhallafaha an jaish Usama" - May Allah curse the one who does not go and join the army of Usama. The only one who was told not to go was Amir ul-Mu'mineen. The Muslims, we are not going. Why? Because they knew he's leaving this world, the Prophet knew he's leaving. He wanted them to be out of Madinah. They knew he was leaving. They didn't want to go.

When you ask our Muslim Brothers, they said they were very concerned that the Prophet was ill. Some of them went out to a place outside Madinah called Al Jurf. And then as soon as they heard the Prophet passed away, they came back. And the hadith specifically mentioned that Abu Bakr and Umar were amongst those who were commanded and asked to go with the army of Usama. Is it the Shi'as who are cursing the sahabah or are the Shi'as simply saying, let us be fair and just let us talk about the truth, let's not bury our head in the sand?

So there are examples after examples after example, there is one hadith in Bukhari that says the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, on one occasion gave a share of wealth to a man from his sahabah. And the man said, this was not given to me fairly and justly, and it was not for the sake of Allah. And someone went and said this to the Prophet and Bukhari in his book on the chapter of sabr. He says The Prophet's face colour changed with anger that one of his companion was saying the Prophet has not been just to me and this was not done with fairness. And then the Prophet said, even my brother Musa had to deal with this, but he was patient. So I will be patient as well. This is in Bukhari.

Now, I give you an interesting hadith. This is also in Bukhari and in Muslim and in others. Bukhari mentions that the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said 'On the Day of Judgment, when I am standing at Haud, at Haud-al-Kawthar, I will see some of my sahabah approaching. And I will want to welcome them, but the angels will come and grab them and take them away to the fire of hell, and I will call out and say, ashabi ashabi these are my companions. They will say to me, you do not know what they did after you. Which tells you, this is in Bukhari, what does it mean? It means there were some sahabah who were loyal to the Prophet while he was alive, but they changed after because when the Prophet sees them on the Day of Judgment, he recognized them as his sahabah. But the angels are saying you don't know what they did after you.

And there is another version that is found in Sahih Bukhari and in Sahih Muslim, that says that the Prophet will see a man standing between him and his sahabah. And the man will say to those sahabah, let's go. And they will say whereto? And he will say to the fire of hell. And the Prophet will say, why are you taking them? They are my ashab. And he will say, you do not know what they did after you. And the Prophet says then away with them. And Sahih Muslim then says the Prophet says, and I think very few of you will attain salvation. These are the most authentic sources of Hadith.

This is not Shi'as disparaging and cursing the sahabah. Why are the Muslims ignoring all this and saying blessings and peace be on the Prophet salallahu aalihi wa-alehi wasahbihi ajmaeen, and that we don't know who those sahabah were, so we're not going to talk about them.

There is also this issue of the amount of wealth that is some of the individuals from the sahabah accumulated mass, massive fortunes. But I will talk about this a few nights later InshaAllah. If you can recite a salawaat 'ala Muhammad wa aali Muhammad [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad].

I want to now talk about something that is even more sensitive, the one thing that our Sunni brothers really have an issue with about us is our attitude towards two of the wives of the Prophet, A'isha bint Abu Baar and Hafsa bint Umar, and particularly A'isha. That the Shi'as don't like her, that the Shi'as curse her. And again, I want to say this respectfully, I want what I'm trying to do is I want my Sunni brothers and sisters to try and relate and put themselves in our shoes and see what is it that our concern is - we are not a faith based on cursing.

I want to first say as a disclaimer, there are some foolish individuals out there who call themselves Shi'as who do things that is not the akhlaq of the Ahlul Bayt, and as I hinted at it yesterday, they will celebrate the death of A'isha. They will hold a party, they will have cake, they will dance and clap and say, A'isha fin naar and you will see this on YouTube. We disassociate ourselves from this and say these are not representative of the manhaj and madhab of Ahlul Bayt, alayhum assalam, this, these are actually our enemies, we completely disassociate ourselves from them.

Our greatest leaders from Ayatullah Khamene'i in Iran to Ayatullah Sistani in Iraq have severely condemned this and have insisted that you, our Shi'a, must not speak in an insulting and condescending manner of those individuals that our Sunni brothers and sisters look up to with respect, even if we disagree with them. And in particular, they have mentioned we must not insult the wives of the Prophet. And Ayatullah Sistani has gone as far as saying that the Sunni Muslims are not our brothers, they are our Nafs and ourselves. This was in a booklet published last year here in Toronto. You have seen it. So that is a disclaimer.

Now, having said that, we ask this question - just because someone is the wife of the Prophet, does it mean she has to be righteous? When the Qur'an says: "Wa azwajohu ummahatokum" (33:6), "and his wives are your mothers", does it necessarily mean they must be respected like we respect our own mother? Or could it be that what the Qur'an is saying is they are your mothers in the sense that you cannot marry them after the Prophet has passed away? How many wives did the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, have in his lifetime? He had 13 wives. Out of these 13 wives how many wives do the Shi'as disassociate from? Two. Does that mean the Shi'as curse the wives of the Prophet? No, it's the same issue. There is certain issues they have with these two individuals because of which they have this concerns.

Now, let me mention them very quickly to you. First of all, and Allama Syed Murtadha Askari, a great historian in Shi'a Islam, he has got three volumes only on A'isha fi 't-tariq, A'isha in History. And this is an English as well. And he discusses her life from start to end in all the different times before the Prophet, after the Prophet and so on.

First of all, in Surah At-Tahrim Chapter 66, verse 4 & 5, Allah clearly mentions Aisha and Hafsa not by name, but mentioning two wives. And He speaks to them sternly and say, 'Unless you repent, surely your hearts have swerved, "faqad saghat quloobukuma"(66:4) Your hearts have swerved, and if you continue backing each other, then you should know that Allah will help his Prophet, and Jibrael will help his Prophet, and the righteous faithful saleh ul-mu'mineen will help his Prophet, and then after that the Mala'ika will help his Prophet, against you two' (66:4). Look at the language and then the next verse, verse 5, Allah says 'and if the Prophet were to divorce you two, then Allah will replace you with wives who are better than you'(66:5).

And they will be Muslimateen, mu'minateen, 'abidateen, like they will be Muslims, they will be pious, they will be worshipping, they will be worshipful, they will be humble. They will be telling us what? That Allah is pointing out, is He saying that these qualities are not found in you or that you need to show these values in yourself? Now, the Sunni Muslims, when they give a comment of this Hadith, they say that they repented. There was an incident because of these verses were revealed and they repented that repentance is not recorded, but we take their word for it.

That same Surah Surah At Tahrim Chapter 66, you go a little further down, verse 10. Allah now gives the example of the wife of Lut and the wife of Nuh, and He curses them. I ask Muslims, do you think it is a coincidence that in the same Surah that Allah mentions two of the wives of Rasul Allah, he mentions the wives of Lut and Nuh? What is Allah trying to tell us? He is trying to teach us that just because you are related to a Prophet does not guarantee salvation for you. You shall be judged on your own merit and it is not unfounded and far fetched to believe that possibly Allah would have wanted to give us an example that not all the 13 wives of the Prophet are perfect and that they had different levels of spirituality and righteousness.

We have authentic narrations to say that A'isha despised Amir ul-Mu'mineen, she did not like Ali ibn Abu Talib, to the point that she would not say his name. She would say, I saw the Prophet coming out of his house being held by Abdullah bin Abbas and another man. And later when people would ask who was the other man? So it would be Ali bin Talib. But umm ul-mu'mineen did not like mentioning his name.

She cursed Uthman. I don't have the time to to give a lot of references and details, but this is in authentic sources. But when he was killed, she began campaigning for revenge for his murder. She's the only wife of the Prophet who went out of Madinah to fight Amir ul-Mu'mineen. She took Talha and Zubair with her on the battle of Jamal.

Tabari, Ibn Atheer and Ibn Asakeer relate that when Ibn Muljeem struck Amir ul-Mu'mineen and he was killed with the poison sword, A'isha did a sajda of Shukr to Allah, and she composed verses in which she sang her pleasure and delight at the fact that he had been killed. Tabari, Ibn Atheer and Ibn Asakeer. Tabakaat al-Kubra says that for the rest of her life after Amir ul-Mu'mineen, she refused to see or talk to Imam Al-Hasan or Imam Al-Husayn. When Imam Al-Hasan was martyred and he wanted to be buried besides the Prophet and they were carrying his body to the Prophet's grave, she came out on a mule and said if Uthman was not burried besides the Prophet, we will not let Hasan be buried here.

Marwan ibn Hakim came out with her, 70 arrows were shot at the body of the grandson of Rasul Allah after he had been poisoned. Now, the books of history say that Abdullah ibn Abbas came out and said to A'isha, what is this mischief? One day you come out on a camel and the other day you come out on a mule? And her brother, Muhammad bin Abi Bakr, who was raised by Imam Ali like a son, he had a son called Qasim. Qasim came out and said to his aunt A'isha that my aunt, we have not washed our heads from people speaking ill of us because of the day of the camel, and now you're going to start a new day, the day of the mule. So there is lots of such. Bukhari mentions, clearly terms of A'isha herself expressing her jealousy for Khadijah, alayha assalam, the first wife of the Prophet, and for Fatima, alayha assalam.

There are lots of other examples, and I might mention some of these tomorrow night just to sort of close this subject. But what I want to say here, and I didn't get to the part of giving examples of what Muslims say about the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and we will continue that tomorrow, inshaAllah. But I want to conclude the subject by saying this to my Sunni brothers and sisters. Allah, Subhana Wa Ta'ala commanded us in the Qur'an to love the Ahlul Bayt - "Qul la as'alukum alayhi ajran illa al-muwadatah fi 'l-qurba" (42:23). But Allah did not command us anywhere to love the sahabah.

But you point at us and say that because you don't like all the sahabah therefore you are not Muslims you are kafir, and that it is necessary as part of being a Muslim, that you accept all the ashaab and blessings on all of them. Where is the proof? Where is the daleel from Qur'an or from Hadith that you have to love every one of the sahabah? And Allah, Subhana Wa Ta'ala commanded us to send blessings on the Prophet and his family, but he did not commands to send blessings on the sahabah. He said: "Inna Allaha wa mala'ikatu yusalluna 'ala 'n-Nabi"(33:56), "Allah and his angels send blessings on the Prophet". "Ya ayyuha alladheena amanu"(33:56), "O you who have faith", "Sallu alayhi wa sallimu tasliman" (33:56), Allahumma salle ala Muhammad wa aali Muhammad.

Now, when this command was revealed, the Muslims heard it, but they didn't know how to send blessings on the Prophet, so they asked him. Bukhari, Muslim, authentic hadith we are talking here, Sihah Sitta: "Ya Rasul Allah kaifa nu salli alayak? or nu sallim alayk?" - Allah is telling us to send blessings on you, how should we send blessings on you? You teach us. He said 'Don't send on me an incomplete salwaat don't send on me salwaat batara a half baked, a cut off salwaat. So what, how should we send you salwaat? He said: qulu say- Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad kama sallayta Ala Ibrahim waala aali Ibrahim.

And when we say our salaat in our tashahud, we don't read this full salawat, we say Allahumma salle ala Muhammad wa aali Muhammad and Imam Shafi says it is enough for you O Ahle an-Nabi to say in your praise that man lam yusalli alikum la salaata laha that the one who does not say salwaat on you Ahlul Bayt his salwaat is incomplete. But the Sunni Muslims, when they pray salat in there tashahud, they say: Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad kama sallayta Ala Ibrahim waala aali Ibrahim. I ask why don't you add in there, wa as-sabihi ajma'een?

And here is the amazing thing. The person, the Sunni scholar who is reporting that the Prophet is saying, don't send me an incomplete Salwaat, he is sending an incomplete salwaat. He will say 'qala Rasul Allah sallallahu alayhe wasallam the Prophet blessings and peace be upon him said don't send me an incomplete salwaat.

And I say this with respect, you listen to any Sunni scholar, he will either say Allah huma salle - he will say the Prophet's name and then he will say Sallallahu alayhe wa sallam - only the Prophet, or he will say Sallallahu alayhi wa alihy wa as-sabehi ajma'een. If you add the sahabah, it is bida'h. You are innovating, you are introducing something in Islam that was not there.

All we are asking for is justice. We are saying that the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the Qur'an, Allah, Subhana Wa Ta'ala wanted this Ummah not to be left an orphan. Allah wanted that when the Prophet leaves, there should be individuals who have inherited his knowledge. Allah always sent a Prophet and a guide from the time of Adam until the Prophet. Does it make sense to you that when the final Prophet goes Allah does not tell him to appoint anyone? He does not even tell the Ummah that Allah has told me not to appoint anyone. He just passes away without appointing anyone? The sahabah do not ask him, even though there is three or four days before he passes away who should we follow after you? Absolute silence and fourteen hundred years Allah has left us without any guide from Adam to Khatam he didn't leave us. Now suddenly Allah has disappeared and Muslims are on their own.

This was not the Orthodox Islam. The Orthodox Islam was that Muslims should have guides who have knowledge from the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And the Qur'an therefore, constantly when you look Ayat al-Tatheer, Ayat al-Mubaihila, Surah Adh-Dahr, there is the constant mention and the Prophet saying I leave the book and my Itrah and so on, that the elevation and those to be on the pedestal were meant to be Muhammad and aali Muhammad. But the Ummayad and Abbasids were opposed to them because they wanted to hold on power. So they downplayed their importance, and then because they had to hide their own crimes and to justify their leadership that they inherited from others, they created a sanctity around this idea of sahabiyat because if you poke holes in the sahabah, it will come to them and now you will question their leadership.

So the Qur'an wanted Ahlul Bayt up and sahabah humans. Some were very good, some were very sincere, some remained faithful, but some made mistakes. But they were to be guided by Ahlul Bayt. Those who hijacked the leadership of Islam, those who came to be the tyrants and dictators from Banu Ummayah and Banu Abbas, they reversed this. They downplayed the importance of the Ahlul Bayt and they elevated the status and created this no go zone around the sahabah that you cannot criticise or say anything about them. Which is why within 50 years of the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, his grandson is brutally murdered in a desert and thirst and hunger.

How is that possible? Muslims need to answer that question. So we stop here for tonight, inshaAllah. And then we continue tomorrow, inshaAllah. If you can recite a salawaat 'ala Muhammad wa aali Muhammad [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'aali Muhammad]. Sallallaahu wa assalam alayka ya Aba Abdillah, wa 'ala al-arwaahi al-latee hallat be finaayek. Ya laytana kunna ma'akum sayyidi, fa nafooza fawzan adheema.

Last night we begin discussing the masa'ib of Husayn from the time he left Madinah, and as Imam Al-Husayn moves from Madinah towards Karbala, in these nights, we move with him in our thoughts, in our minds and our emotions.

Imam Al-Husayn left Madinah on the twenty eighth of Rajab. And outside Madinah, there was a place, a tree at which people would normally go out with their families and then at that point they would separate and those who went back home would go home. And those who set out on a journey would set out from there and it was called shajarat ul-wida'. Imam Al-Husayn made his final wasiya to his grandmother, the wife of the Prophet Umm Salama. And he reminded his grandmother Umm Salama and said, if you ever are worried about me, my jadd left some sand with you that Jibra'il had given him. As long as the sand has not changed to blood, then you should know your Husayn is still alive.

He then gave her some books and some scrolls as his will and said to her. That when this qafaila returns, I will not be with them. But my son, Zayn ul-Abedeen will be with them, you must give this and hand this over to him. The kafila now sets out and Imam Al-Husayn decides he will seek refuge at the house of Allah and go towards Mecca and so they head south towards Mecca.

It is undoubtedly something I believe, that as they were leaving and Madinah was disappearing on the horizon, they must have been looking back at the walls of Madinah. Imam Al-Husayn knew he was not coming back. It must have weighed on his heart that I will never do ziyarat of my jadd again in Madinah or that I will never see the grave of my mother again. And I tell you, many of us are immigrants. When you leave your hometown, if you set out for a fixed amount of time and you know you're coming back, it is not difficult if you set out not knowing when you will go back, you hope you come back. But if you set out knowing you will never go back, it is very difficult for one to leave one's watan.

So, Zaynab and Umm Kulthum as well, must have had the same thoughts and feelings, looking at the walls of Madinah, disappearing in the horizon and thinking that when will we return to Madinah? Fatima Sughra must have been thinking when they return my Aliunal Asghar will have grown up and hoping that they will return soon. But from the books of aza, we understand that when Zaynab left, she was anxious to return to Madinah. But when she came back towards Madinah and she saw the walls of Madinah, she did not want to enter Madinah.

The kafila of Imam Zayn ul-Abedeen stopped outside Madinah. The people of Madinah had to come out to bring Zaynab back into Madinah. And we are told that when the daughter of Ali saw the walls of Madinah and the thought crossed her mind that there is no Husayn in Madinah now that I must now go to the qabr of my jadd and tell him what happened. Zaynab did not enter Madinah on a camel. She fell from the camel on the hot sands outside Madinah and Umm Kulthum began reciting a marthia - madinah tun jaddi na la taqbalina - Madinah of our jadd do not welcome us anymore. fa bil hasaraati wal ahzaani jena. We have come to you with remorse and grief. Kharajna minki bil ahlina jam'aa. Madinah we went out with our entire family. Raja'na la rijaalan wa la baneena, We have returned there are no men there are no children in our laps anymore. This kafila comes to Mecca - Ajarakum Allallah. Imam Al-Husayn stays in Mecca for four months and 10 days.

The sahabah keep coming for Umrah they see Aba Abdillah, the news begins to spread around Arabia that Husayn has refused to do ba'ya of Yazeed. Husayn has said Mythili la uba'ya mitlu Yazeed - one who is like me shall not pledge allegiance to one who is like Yazeed. The people of Kufa hear of this. They begin writing letters to Imam Al-Husayn. "Come O grandson of the Prophet. We await you. Come guide us and be our leader. We will fight Yazeed behind you. O Husayn. The dates have ripened. Our hearts are anxious. We cannot tolerate being separated from you." Letter after letter, messenger after messenger. Husayn collects a camel load of these letters.

The mousam of Hajj approaches. Imam Al-Husayn gets ready for Hajj. He puts on the ihram. Then he receives news that Yazeed has sent assassins to attack him while he is doing tawaf around the Kaaba. Madloum Husayn decides he will not desecrate the holy place, he changes his niyat from Hajj to Umrah and takes removes his ihram. On the eighth of zilhijja, the day of tarwiyah, when every Muslim going for Hajj is now in Mecca, waiting to go to Arafat. Gareeb Husayn, with his small kafilah, leaves Mecca and is heading now towards Iraq. People say Husayn was taken by surprise. Husayn did not know where he was going. Husayn was surrounded in the desert.

By Allah, Husayn knew what he was doing. Husayn could have left sooner with the letters he was receiving from Iraq, but he waited for the day of tarweah so that no sahabah can say that we did not know that Husayn was madloom, that we did not know that the grandson of the Prophet was leaving. And before he left, he wrote a letter to Muhammad Al-Hanafiyah in Madinah. He said to his brother inni lam akhruj ashran wa batiran wa la dhaaliman wa la mufsida, for those who say those who call themselves Salafi and say that Husayn made a mistake in rising against the khalif Yazeed and he wanted power. Husayn clarifies this fourteen hundred years ago, I did not rise to cause fasaad or to cause zulm. What he says: innama kharajtu le talabil islaah fi ummati jaddi. I am rising now only to reform the Ummah of my jadd. Ureedu an aamuru bil ma'roof wa anhaa anil munkar. I only intend to enjoin good and forbid evil. Wa aseeru bi seerati jaddi wa abi Ali ibn Abi Talib. And I will follow the path and the course of my jadd and my father Ali bin abi Talib.

What Husayn is saying is I do not simply reject Yazeed, but I reject the twenty years that Muhawiyah ruled before my father, because I will follow the Seerah of Rasul and the seerah of my father Ali bin Abi Talib. Husayn leaves Mecca. He now heads towards Iraq. Husayn, before leaving Mecca, sends his cousin Muslim bin Aqeel to Kufa to assess the situation and find and measure the sincerity of the people of Kufa.

Muslim bin Aqeel comes to Kufa. At first, the people of Kufa welcome him, they incite him and tell him write to your Mawla Husayn, and tell him to come as soon as possible. Yazeed sends Ubaidullah ibn Ziyad. Ubaidullah ibn Ziyad turns the matters in Kufa and establishes a curfew. He threatens the people of Kufa with death and with punishment. Muslim bin Aqeel is left abandoned. He's taken to Dar ul-Emara. He's taken to the top of the palace and beheaded and pushed from the palace.

Husayn is on his journey towards Kufa when Muslim is killed and the ilm al-ghaib that Husayn has. The people see that as Husayn is walking towards Iraq and moving towards Kufa, he suddenly turns towards Kufa and says, wa alayka assalam Ya Muslim! This was the salam that Muslim was giving to Husayn. As Muslims stood at the top of the palace before he was beheaded, he turned towards the desert and said, Mawla, if only there was only some way for me to reach you and say, Oh, Husayn turned back to Madinah and do not come to Kufa. As salaam alayka Ya Aba Abdillah. Husayn turned and said, Wa alayka Salaam, Ya Muslim.

A messenger on the way from Kufa came and said to Husayn what had happened. He said, Oh Husayn, I have seen the body of Muslim being tied to a horse without a head, and it was being dragged in the streets of Kufa. Husayn, alayhi assalam, when he heard this, he set his camp in the middle of the desert. The wife of Muslim and the daughter of Muslim were with Husayn. Muslim, had a young daughter, just like the Sakina of Husayn. Her name was Hameeda. Some say her name was Rukaiya. Husayn stopped his kafila. He pitched the tent to mourn for Muslim. He said, Call me the daughter of Muslim. Bring Hameeda to me. The little Hameeda came to about Aba Abdillah Al-Husayn. Imam Al-Husayn took Hameeda and set her on his lap. Then he began rubbing the head of Hameeda. Then he asked someone to bring some earrings. Then he brought earrings and he put them on the ears of Hameeda. Hameeda is from the Ahlul Bayt, alayhum assalam. She turns to her uncle Husayn - Amu Husayn have I become yateem? Why are you treating me as orphans are treated. I would say Mawla Husayn! Mawla Husayn! Let not Sakina see how you treat Hameeda for Sakina may come to believe that this is how aytaam are dealt with. What awaits Sakina after Aashura will be very different from how you treat Hameeda. Ajrakum ala Allah!

But Husayn, alayhi assalam, continues towards Kufa. Husayn does not stop or change his course. As he comes towards Kufa he is met with an army that is led by Hurr. We shall speak of the Army of Hurr at a later night. But Hurr gives an ultimatum to Imam Al-Husayn and says, I have been commanded that you cannot enter Kufa. Then Husayn says, I will return to Madinah. Hur says to Imam Al-Husayn, no, you are not permitted to return to Madinah either. You can go anywhere you like for now or you can stop here. But you cannot go to Kufa or Madinah.

Imam Al-Husayn, guided by a divine hand. He turns north now and he follows the course of Furat. As Imam Al-Husayn is progressing, the army of Hurr is following him. The kafila of Husayn is perhaps worried not knowing where they are going. But Husayn is searching for something. Husayn is waiting for something. Ajrakum ala Allah!

Imam Al-Husayn comes to a desert. He comes to a point where his horse will now not move. Zuljanah will now not move. Imam Al-Husayn dismounts from his horse. He asks for another horse. He mounts a second horse. The second horse does not move. Imam Al-Husayn asks for a third horse. Then he asks for a fourth one. Then he asks for a fifth. The arbab of aza say Husayn changed seven horses, but none of the horses would move.

When Husayn sees none of the horses are moving, he says there is something about this place, he says, who lives in this within this vicinity. They look around and say, there is a tribe called the Banu Asad. He says, bring the people of Banu Asad. The people of Banu Asad come to Aba Abdillah Al-Husayn. Sayyid ash-Shua'dah begins to ask them. He says O Banu Asad. Does this land have a name? They said yes Mawla. This place is called Shatt ul-Furat. He says, Does it have another name? They said, yes. Mawla This place is called Alqama. He said, Does it have another name? He says Yes. Mawla. This place is called Nainawa. He says, Does it have another name? They keep giving him names after name. Husayn is looking for something when they finally is no name.

Then an old man stands up and says Aba Abdillah Al-Husayn, if you take my advice, do not stop on this land. This land is cursed. Whoever stops in this faces a lot of hardship, he says. Why do you say that? He says some people say this land is called the Ardh of karbun wa bala'. But when Husayn heard karbun wa bala', he knew this is the Karbala is looking for. Abbas he called out, Abbas inzilu. O Abbas we shall stop here. Pitch the tents here. Husayn stops now in this land of karbun wa bala'.

He says to Banu Asad, I wish to buy this land from you. The banu Asad said, yabna Rasul Allah this land is yours. He says, No, I do not want this land. I want to buy it from you. Husayn purchases the land of Karbala from banu Asad. Then he gives the money. He gives the land back to them. He says, O Banu Asad. The land is now mine. I give this land back now to you in exchange for a favour. They say, What favour do you wish from us ya Ibn Rasul illah? He says, Look O banu Asad. We shall stay here for a few days as your guests. We shall be your mehmaan for a few days. Then we will be killed in this land. When we are killed in this land, our bodies will not be buried. Our bodies will be left under the hot sun. O banu Asad when you see our bodies under the hot sun, then in exchange for this land that I give you back, I ask you that you come and bury us and do not leave us unburried and unshrouded in this land.

The Banu Asad promised Husayn. Ya Ibn Rasul Allah, we will bury your bodies. Husayn is still not satisfied, he says, Banu Asad now bring your women. I wish to speak to them. The banu Asad bring their women folk. Husayn begin speaking to the women of Banu Asad. He says O women of Banu Asad. Look, when the fawj of ashqiya are around, your men will be frightened to bury us. They will not come out and bury us. When you go to Furat and fetch water, then come and bury us if your husbands do not come and bury us. The women promised Husayn and say Ya Ibn Rasul Allah we will come and bury your bodies. Husayn is still not satisfied, he says, O Banu Asad. I would like to speak to your children now. The children of Banu Assad come out. Husayn gathers the children of Banu Asad, he says. O children of Banu Asad! O children of Banu Asad when you go out playing towards Furat and you see our bodies lying in the hot sands of Karbala while you play in the desert, take some handful of sand and throw sand on our body.

Alas garib Husayn! Such times befallen on the son of Zahra. Abbas gets down from his horse. Abbas begins to pitch the tents in Karbala. I tell you, my dear brothers and sisters, when you hear someone is going to Karbala, do you not feel envious and say - Kash I wish I was going to Karbala. And when you go to Karbala, are you not impatient? Can you not find your heart beats? And you say, I cannot wait to get to Karbala. And when you get to Karbala, I ask you sincerely, when you see the dome of Abul Fadl Al-Abbas, do you not say Al-hamdulilah. At last I am in Karbala. But when Husayn reached Karbala, Zaynab did not want to stop in Karbala.

Zaynab called her brother Husayn. Akhi Husayn, can we not stop, can we not move away from this place and not stop here? Husayn asked his sister Zaynab. O Zaynab Why do you not want to stop in this place? She says, Wallah! Laqad adkhalini hawlan adheema! O my brother Husayn. There is some great anxiety that has entered my heart ever since we stopped in this land. Zaynab, what is it that bothers you in this land? She says, O Husayn, I can hear the voice of a lady crying. It is the sound of a mother crying for her child. She is calling out Wa Madluma! Wa Garibah! Zaynab do you not recognize this voice? Zaynab this is the voice of our amma Zahra. Zaynab! Ha huna yusfiku dimahuna! Zaynab this is where our blood will be spilled now. Zaynab Ha huna yudhbahu atfaaluna! Zaynab this is where our children will now be slaughtered! Zaynab, this is where you will be tired in ropes. Zaynab this is where you will be taken as captives to Kufa and Sham.

Wa Husayna! Wa Madlooma! Wa Gariba! Matam Al-Husayn!!! Ya Husayn! Ya Husayn!