Living Ashura in Lebanon: Mourning Transformed to Sacrifice

Abstract

The slogans of Karbala are the slogans of life in its entirety. . . . Living Ashura is standing</br>against oppression. Such a stand should fill our hearts and minds each time we face the</br>oppressors and arrogant powers, whether in Muslim countries or in the whole world. It is not</br>living in a tragedy of tears and hitting ourselves with swords or chains . . . for swords should be</br>raised against the enemy as we were taught by the Imam (a.s).</br>—Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlullah, sermon commemorating the fortieth memorial of</br>Imam Husayn, 2003</br>As Hajjeh Rula began to narrate the final moments Husayn spent with his eldest son before</br>they both met their deaths, sobs rose heavily around us, filling the room with palpable grief.</br>Her voice cracked as she lamented poetry into her microphone, describing how Husayn</br>looked upon his son, who had come to him for his final blessing. This mournful parting was</br>followed by an all-too-vivid description of the son’s death and how the enemy cut up his body</br>with their swords, mutilating it, Hajjeh Rula repeating those details about the swords cutting</br>his body over and over again, weaving in foreshadowings of Husayn’s death that was soon to</br>follow, and bringing the sounds of weeping in the room to a crescendo. Then she paused.</br>After waiting a moment for the sobs to subside, she began a lecture, in which she explained</br>very clearly what the Quran, the hadith, and the hadith of Imam Ali all say about love and</br>responsibility in parent-child relationships. Another pause, and the tears returned to their</br>place in her voice. Taking up her poetic narration, she described the love of a parent for a</br>child and the love of a sister for a brother, and then focused her last lamenting breaths on</br>Zaynab. Zaynab, who looked upon the mutilated corpses from the battle as though she were</br>the sister of each, the mother of each, with all the horrific emotion of a grieving woman</br>looking upon her martyred son or brother, a grief probably far too real for many in the room.