Karbala: Karbala, a Symbol Of Intense Faith  

By Anees Jung  

Karbala: Karbala, a Symbol Of Intense Faith  

What Banaras is to a believing Hindu, Karbala was to my Shia mother. She wanted to be buried there. My mother shed more tears on the tenth of Muharram, the day of Imam Husain's martyrdom than she did on November 19, the day my father died. "To mourn for a husband is to mourn for oneself. To mourn for Husain is to mourn for mankind," she would say. "You lose a son, a fortune or a kingdom. Its memory fades as does the pain of its loss. But not the pain of Husain's martyrdom. It is a larger pain that goes beyond in dividual pain."

I grew up in Hyderabad hearing the story of Husain arriving in Karbala with 72 kinsmen, pitching tents by a stream whose water was denied to them, even to the six-month-old Asghar and four-year-old Sakeena; young son Akbar and the stalwart brother who lost his arms while carrying a masqh of water for the children. And finally Husain who withstood it all, submitting to the assassin rather than give up his faith. My mother summed up the essence of this epic tragedy as "grace under pressure".

Today, I feel relieved that she is not lying under a heap of rubble in the now bombed Karbala, but is resting gently under a flowering jasmine bush in her own native soil in Hyderabad. A decade ago, when she heard over the radio that Karbala and Najaf were being bombed, she did not sleep all night. Sobbing, she was chanting: "Ya Ali Karbala mein aag lagi, Jal rahi hai Rasool ki masnad." - O Ali, Karbala is on fire, the Prophet's throne is being burnt.

She knew little about Saddam Hussein and even less about his politics. To her, Iraq was a sacred place because Imam Husain, the Prophet's grandson, was martyred in the historicbattle of Karbala. And in Najaf stood the mosque of Hazrat Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet and the fourth Caliph of the Arab Islamic empire. To her Ali was the perfect man, chivalrous and generous.

No seeker returned disappointed from his door. Even on the battlefield, when the enemy asked him for his sword, Ali threw it before them. "The non-believer depends on his sword but the believer fights even without it," my mother quoted.

Ten years ago, my mother and I travelled to the shrines she revered. The road to

Najaf ran through miles of dusty, brown flat country. A clump of trees indicated the presence of a village. After hours of travel through heat and dust we saw the golden domes of Karbala shimmering like a mirage in the desert, majestic and special. Men, women and children surged through the courtyards into the inner sanctum mouth-ing verses from the Holy Qur'an. From afar, men had travelled by road and river, carrying coffins of the faithful round and round the shrine.

A kadim who took us around said that religion was alive in Iraq. The socialist government had brought order in religion. Having lived for generations on a nominal pay given by religious trusts, the kadims were more secure, he said, as they now received a monthly salary from the government.

They no longer depended on charity. Even the young men who guarded our shoes at the gate did not accept tips since they too received a monthly stipend. As bombs rained over a once proud city during the recent Gulf War II, my heart wept, like my mother's, for those strong beautiful people who had smiled at us like children, who had grown up learning how not to bow before anyone but Allah. Does any power on earth have the right to destroy symbols of such a faith?

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More from same author see: Anees Jung  

See also: Karbala, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)