Husayn, living in Medina, had vowed to march back to Kufah in order to receive Iraqi support for his campaign after Muawiyah’s death. Promises of support poured in from Kufah, and Husayn resolved to go there via Mecca to claim his regal rights. While in Mecca, Husayn sent an emissary named Muslim to Kufah to prepare for his coming. When Yazid learned of the plot, he sent Ubaydallah ibn Ziyad to Kufah to bring the situation under control.38 Muslim was executed in Kufah along with later messengers sent by Husayn, who learned about these executions while on his way to Kufah but refused to turn back. Ibn Ziyad sent one thousand horsemen under the command of al-Hurr with the mission to check Husayn’s movements and bring him back as a captive. They met near Karbala, at a place called Qadisiyyah, and al-Hurr informed Husayn of the impending doom awaiting him if he proceeded. Al-Hurr apparently meant Husayn no harm, for he attempted to convince him to take another road, one not leading to Kufah. At first, Husayn was inclined to accept his offer, but he refused on second thought because he had a pact with the Kufans.
Husayn reached Karbala on the second of Muharram in 61 A.H./680 C.E. He and his forces pitched camp there and made preparations for the rest of the journey. On the third, al-Hurr received word from ibn Ziyad by courier, that he should prevent Husayn’s party from taking water from the Euphrates. Husayn was thus forced to pay homage to Yazid or die of thirst in the desert. Ibn Ziyad then sent Umar ibn Sad, the son of one of the Prophet’s companions, to Karbala. Alhough ibn Sad attempted to turn down the task, ibn Ziyad forced him to go.39 He thus proceeded to Karbala with four thousand men. Ibn Sad did not want to do battle with Husayn and hoped for peaceful reconciliation. But following the command of his superior officer, ibn Sad sent soldiers to guard the river against Husayn’s access during the negotiations. Ibn Sad was, however, sympathetic to Husayn and therefore did not enforce this order strictly until the seventh, when he sent five hundred men to guard the banks of the Euphrates.40 His congenial position and respectful attitude toward Husayn’s party led to some partial agreements with the imām concerning the future course of events. It is surmised that Husayn provided ibn Sad with three alternative courses of action: to allow Husayn to return, to confront Yazid, or to go freely to another land.41 Ibn Sad then sent word to ibn Ziyad that reconciliation leading to peace would be for the best. It is purported that ibn Ziyad was at first inclined to accept Husayn’s proposal but was eventually dissuaded by Shimr ibn Dhi-l Jawshan, who argued that accepting any of the options would be admitting to cowardice. Shimr was thus sent to Karbala with a letter demanding an unconditional surrender from Husayn and a strong suggestion for ibn Sad to comply with the order to destroy Husayn’s party if he did not pledge allegiance to the caliph. If Husayn was not willing to accept this proposal, his punishment would be death.
Shimr passed on ibn Ziyad’s message to ibn Sad on the ninth of Muharram. That day ibn Sad delivered the final ultimatum to Husayn, who asked that the battle be postponed until the next morning so that the small group could pray together one last time. Meanwhile, the order to guard the river from Husayn’s soldiers was stepped up again. It is reported, however, that Husayn’s half brother and standard bearer, Abbas, was able to fill twenty water skins with the help of fifty of Husayn’s men before the order was strictly enforced.42 That evening Husayn gave a sermon and urged the others not to fight, for Yazid wanted only Husayn. But out of piety and devotion to the ahl al-bayt, no one turned back. All agreed to die as martyrs alongside Husayn. After prayers and the sermon, Husayn ordered a trench to be dug on one side of his encampment. The trench was filled with reeds and kindling to create a protective bed of flaming embers, allowing battle on only one side of the camp.43
The tragic battle began with a parley the next morning. Husayn’s party was hopelessly outnumbered and the result was a slaughter. Ibn Sad, who wavered at first, is said to have shot the arrow that marked the beginning of heavy fighting. Seeing the massacre that was being committed, al-Hurr defected to Husayn’s side before midday, asking to be in the front ranks of those to be killed. The fighting was fierce and bloody; even small male children in Husayn’s party were killed, according to sources wishing to stress the extreme cruelty of the enemy.44 Many of those massacred were still too young to handle weapons. Among these were Hasan’s sons Qasim45 and Abdallah as well as other male members of the House of the Prophet.46 Husayn was the last to be killed, for no one was willing to strike the death-dealing blow. He did, however, have multiple wounds, because he was riddled with arrows “like a porcupine” and pelted with stones during the fighting.47 Finally, at the instigation of Shimr, a swordsman approached the painfully swaying body of Husayn and severed his left shoulder, while another stabbed him in the back with a spear. It is reported that a soldier named Sinan ibn Anas al-Nakhi was the one who severed Husayn’s head in the end.48
The camp was pillaged, and Husayn’s naked body ultimately was left lying on the burning sand under the hot, noonday sun. Ayoub notes that the survivors lamented loudly on the pillaged battlefield and that upon seeing the dead bodies, Husayn’s sister Zaynab hit her head on the timber of her carriage, “staining her face with the blood of sorrow.”49 Husayn’s head, along with his only surviving son and the female captives, was first transported to Kufah, then to Yazid’s court in Damascus.50 Yazid had not expected such a gruesome outcome, nor did he wish to take credit for this heinous victory. It is said that he was horrified by the whole incident, and in compensation freed all of the captives, clothed and fed them well, allowed them to lament for their dead, and arranged for them all to be escorted back to Medina.
This brief historical overview should give the reader a sense of the events that led to later hagiographic accounts of Husayn’s tragedy, which, from the Shi‘i point of view, highlight the “destruction of family, community, government, and humanity.”51 Such inflated narratives emphasize the mournful, the oppressive, and the tragic. These tragic stories, and many others like them, provide a popular vehicle for the development of a powerful theological conception of Husayn as the paradigmatic martyr in Shi‘i thought. Among the more heartrending stories that have been recounted by later hagiographers and are remembered annually today are the purported marriage of Qasim to Husayn’s daughter Fatimah Kubra on the battlefield just prior to Qasim’s death; the sacrificial death of Abbas, whose arms were severed as he was attempting to procure water for the parched women and children; and the death of Husayn’s infant son Ali Asghar. I will have more to say about the importance of these scenes in the development of dramatic ritual reenactments, but first a few words on the importance of the figure of the imām are necessary in order to understand why Husayn became such a key symbol for the Shi‘ah.
The Theological Significance of the Imām
The cultural construction of the imām figure in Shi‘i Islam is a result of the interaction between historical, hagiographic, and theological forces. The impact of the imām on Shi‘i thought and society has been so great that he is perceived to be an infallible center of sacredness or a “divine guide,” as Ali Amir-Moezzi calls