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WHEN THE HELPLESS Imam stood all alone in the field surrounded by the enemies, he was summoned by a call from his sister Zainab in his camp. When he went into the tent, he found his baby son Ali-e-Asghar, dying of thirst in his cradle and the poor mother Rubab, whose milk had dried up by the continuous thirst and hunger for the three consecutive days, could not help the baby with even a drop of her milk. Telling the mother that he would show the baby to the enemy and get some water for it if they give it, Husain took the babe to the field and getting on a camel and raising it up in his arms to enable everyone in the enemy's forces to see it said:

It is reported that the address of the Holy Imam and the scene, with the thirsty innocent babe in his hands, was so touching, so pathetic and so heart-rending that even the men in the Devil's army could not help weeping and cursing the Devil and his Deputy Ibne Ziad, Governor of Kufa, who had gathered them there against such Holy and helpless ones. Ibna-i-Sa'd, fearing a revolt of his forces in sympathy for the Holy Imam, at once ordered a stone-hearted brute named Hurmula to answer Husain. The tyrant, shot a three-pronged arrow from his bow which after piercing through the Imam's arm got stuck into the tiny neck of the innocent babe. Blood flowed from the neck and the baby looking at its father's face smiled and stopped breathing for ever. Husain collected the little blood that came out of the tiny neck of his baby son in his ,hand, and it is reported that when he wanted to drop it on the earth, from the earth the Holy Imam heard a voice saying :-

And when Husain wanted to throw the blood towards heaven, he heard a voice saying:-

An Urdu poet has versified .the event:-

i.e. The heaven refuses and the earth does not agree,
0' Ali-e-Asghar, thy blood has no place in the world.

It is reported that the Holy Imam smeared his face with the blood of the innocent baby.

Husain could not take the dead baby to be returned to its mother who was waiting anxiously for it, at the door of her tent in the camp. Hence he sat down to bury his baby son in the burning sand of the desert. Does not even this one single sacrifice suffice to touch every human heart ? Can we not call this one sacrifice alone greater than the sacrifice offered by Abraham ? God alone knows the degree of the patience and the fortitude which He had endowed in the Holy Imam to bear the series of such unbearable calamities.

Adapted from the book: "Husain; The Saviour of Islam" by: "S.V. Mir Ahmed Ali"