Rafed English

The Captives in Damascus

EVEN DURING THE most miserable journey, the severed head of the Holy Imam manifested several miracles which guided several good-hearted Christians and Jews to embrace Islam, most of whom after embracing the Truth attacked the brutes and were ultimately martyred by the Devil's forces.

When the looted Caravan entered Damascus, at the orders of the Devil Yazid, the whole town was ordered to be fully decorated and the people to be engaged in rejoicing and making merry at the success of their Ruler. To please the Brute the people dressed in festive robes were extremely jubilant, amusing themselves in fanciful plays and merrymaking. When the looted Caravan of the Holy House of the Prophet passed through the public streets and the busy bazaars, people in huge numbers thronged to have a view of the captives whereas the godly ladies of the family of the Holy Imam who were captives, felt mortally ashamed and insulted and covered their holy faces under the hair of their heads. While the sorrow-stricken ladies were seated on the bare hacks of the camels with the hair of their heads covering their faces, the heads of the martyrs raised on the point of the lances were marching before them. The poor ladies sometimes looked at the heads of their martyred husbands, brothers and children, with tears flowing from their eyes. The children seeing the severed heads of their loved ones cried aloud innocently calling them to return to them and to relieve them of their torturous miseries.

After parading through the crowded streets and the busy bazaars thronged with the rejoicing public, the ladies and the children tied in ropes and the sick Ali in chains with the severed heads of the martyrs, were presented openly in the fully attended court of Yazid surrounded by hundreds of his courtiers. Yazid sat on the throne and kept the severed head of the Holy Imam down in front of him, drank wine, and ridiculed the Holy Imam and his family standing before him utterly helpless tied in ropes as captives. What all befell the Holy Family in the Devil's court is also a long history of unbearable sorrow and the worst degradation of the godly ones, which will surely move the coldest heart to tears.

The captives were imprisoned in a very narrow, dark and roofless cell. The members of the Holy Family suffered the hardships and the tortures of imprisonment in the cell. for a long time until in the prison expired Sakina the three year old dearly loved daughter of Husain. She died of wounds caused by the whips and slaps of the tyrants, particularly of the wounds she received from the stone-hearted Shimar. After a long imprisonment, the sick Imam Ali, with the other captives, was released. They returned to Karbala, and after burying the bodies of Husain and the other martyrs which were lying unburied till then, they returned to Madina. Thus the Holy Imam Husain offered the Greatest Sacrifice to re-establish the Truth firmly never again to be shaken by any one until the Day of Judgment.

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

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