Tuesday, 18 th August 2020
*Tara O’Grady (human rights activist)
**Dr Alireza Bhojani (academic, author)
***Dr Laith Kubba (academic, political commentator)
The first ten days of the Islamic New Year are dedicated to the memory of Prophet Mohammad’s grandson, Hussain, who was slain in Iraq in 680 AD. His slogan as he began his fateful journey from Mecca to Karbala to challenge the tribal hereditary rule imposed on Muslims by the Umayyad clan was reform. He was aware that self-sacrifice would be needed when challenging tyrants; he was ready for it. How relevant is Hussain’s slogan of reform and martyrdom to today’s political and social predicaments in the Muslim world? How can that uprising be reflected in the modern context? What is Hussainism and what is Yazidism?
Chairman: I was having a discussion with Brother Saeed. As we are getting close to muharram it would be good time to have a conversation on the forthcoming period which is marked by the Muslim world. In the current time with social distancing this may not be possible so most of the programmes will be through webnairs. This discussion is on Imam Hussein’s faith, revolt and reform. It is open to interpretation by our three guest speakers.
I will open with two couplets from very famous poets from the Indian sub continent. One is Joes Madyabadi a progressive radical poet. He writes “ let mankind awaken and all of them will cry that Hussein is ours. ” Iqbal the famous poet said that there are only two things which Islam has: one if the swiping of the hand of Allah and the other is his homage. These couplets set the scene for this evening’s programme. The first ten days of the Islamic New Year are dedicated to the memory of Prophet Mohammad’s grandson, Hussain, who was slain in Iraq in 680 AD. His slogan as he began his fateful journey from Mecca to Karbala to challenge the tribal hereditary rule imposed on Muslims by the Umayyad clan was reform. He was aware that self-sacrifice would be needed when challenging tyrants; he was ready for it. How relevant is Hussain’s slogan of reform and martyrdom to today’s political and social predicaments in the Muslim world? How can that uprising be reflected in modern the context? What is Hussainism and what is Yazidism?
Dr Alireza Bhojani: It is a great privilege to have this opportunity to share some of my thoughts and hopefully benefit from the conversation and insights from this learned circle. I am going to focus my comments which are based on the introduction our host has given to us to thinking about the legacy of Imam Hussein in terms of the relevance in terms of contemporary political and societal challenges
The slogan of his faithful journey as he made his way from Mecca to Karbala to challenge the tribal hereditary rule imposed on Muslims by the Ummayad clan. He was aware that such a sacrifice was needed when challenging tyrants in Muslim societies. When it comes to the relevance of Imman Hussein and the remembrance of Karbala. I think it goes without saying that there is relevance for contemporary politics and societal challenges. I am going to focus on three areas which I picked out. They are not intending to be comprehensive in any shape or form but I hope people will agree they are pertinent.
The first one builds from the one that our hosts chose to frame Iman Hussein’s movement for the phenomenon of Karbala which in his own words he described his movement as a reform movement. So the first issue that I want to focus on is reform and the spirit of reform advocated by Iman Hussein endorses, encourages and insists on the importance of a spirit of protest and self critique and space in fact for dissent in Muslim societies in the pursuit of human betterment whether this is directed towards power and politics or whether that is directed to the practices of religion. So the first issue I want to focus on is reform. The second is the direction of this reform. Iman Hussein is reported to have premised the direction of this reform as a call to good and a restraint from bad.
The relevance of this canonical duty has not been explored fully for its contemporary significance as an ethic of societal, moral responsibility. Maruf and mumkar rather than simply halal and haram starts to speak about values which go beyond any particular tradition. So the second element of the relevance of Iman Hussein is that I think it is pushing us towards reform which is directed to what we might describe today as the common good and this emphasises space for collaborative action.
The third area of relevance which I will focus on is that in the story of Hussein Ibn Ali we also see a criteria for human success and human dignity. This comes down away from these grand social aims of a human being. At the very personal level success is measured by moral virtue. For Hussein Ibn Ali is was a very personal journey where success was measured at the level of the conscious and ultimately in terms of his relationship with Allah.
Before elaborating on these three areas I think it is worth reflecting in this learned gathering on the events of Karbala. They have been reported and interpreted in different ways whether by Muslim or non Muslim, whether by Sunnis or Shias. In the historical accounts we have of Karbala before the identity of Sunni and Shia as they have been crystallized today we see marked differences in the reports.
We can look at the academic treatment of the incidents of Karbala and we can see the contemporary mourning rituals. In each of these settings we see the narratives of Karbala and the significance of Karbala interpreted in different ways. For some Karbala and Hussein Ibn Ali is a symbol of social justice. For others he is this motif par excellence of a lover of God who gave absolutely everything of himself for the sake of his beloved.
Politicised readings of Karbala encouraging revolt and revolution are very modern phenomena employed by a range of actors the so-called Islamists whether they be Shirati or Imam Khomeini or secular socialists. If we accept the politicised reading of Karbala it is a modern phenomena and we should be reminded of the risks of that anachronistic reading of history. There are risks of imposing our own contemporary concerns upon historical events. This however is very different from reading history. These momentous events in human history can be read as a way of helping us to face our contemporary issues. This seems a very Quaranic approach to history. Surely in their stories is a lesson for those who think deeply.
This is approach that we need to take to the narratives of Karbala and not try to impose our contemporary concerns but explicitly seek to explore history in the light of our contemporary concerns. And the potential significance of the relevance of the lessons of Karbala have proven to be profound and immense. The immediate events shaped and informed Muslim history. They have informed implicitly and explicitly political theologies of classic Muslim thought – Sunni and Shia and beyond. They have left a very pervasive and deep impression on Muslim spirituality and ethics.
But I said I wanted to focus on these three areas. I am arguing for contemporary relevance the first of which was related to this issue of reform. We see and I am sure that many of those who are participating are aware of those traditions. Some of them are reported in a letter to Imam Hussein’s brother where he describes his movement toward Karbala. He says I have not left for any other reason except to see the Islah of my grandfather’s community. Here we get his imperative of reform and the importance of protest against oppression.
In another speech of Imam Hussein when he was in Beidan approaching Karbala he cites the traditional of the Prophet: “ O human kind did you not hear the Prophet of God for having said that whoever sees an oppressive tyrant (and I translate this loosely) who makes permissible those things which God has made impermissible, who break their contact, who goes against the way and the conduct of the Prophet, who acts with God’s servants with sin and enmity and oppression and seeks not to change the situation through word or deed then surely it is worthy of Allah to include them in the place of the tyrant.”
So we see this absolute impetus in the statements of Hussein Ibn Ali from the heritage of the Prophet of the need to protest and dissent against oppression and in the way of truth. The point I want to make is that if we have this core duty to protest through action and word this requires a space for dissent. This requires the legitimacy of critique and intellectual freedom.
So Hussein Ibn Ali, a symbol for all Muslim, a grandson of the prophet was himself critiquing institutions. We live in a time where reference to Islam is often used to shut down debate and shut down institutions. In the discourse of Hussein Ibn Ali we have an opportunity to open up space for dissent, reform and critical reflection questions which are challenging whether this relates to political discourse or arguably, in terms of my own work and interest, in terms of religious thinking and practice.
I move to my second key area and that is the direction of this reform and dissent. What should this space for critique be directed towards. Hussein Ibn Ali says I am seeking nothing but to go towards the maruf and to prevent munkar. So framing this movement in terms of marful and maunkar to me against is a great opportunity and a fertile resource for Muslim thinkers and Muslim society.
This canonical duty of promoting the good and preventing evil is much more than a zealous call to those things which are known to be halal and those things which are known to be haram. These core Islamic ethnics are the shared societal responsibilities. So the famous tradition attributed to the eighth Shia Imam, which has a great similarity to Sunni sources attributed to the Prophet, reported that the eight Iman said that you have this duty of moving towards the good and restraining from evil. Because if you don’t the worse of you will come to rule over you and then the best of you will pray and your prayers will not be answered.
Man woman they are not an island in this world. We are all interconnected, we have social responsibilities towards each other but when framed as marugf and munkar there is another very important thing here. It points to this reform as those things which are commonly understood to be good. This is a linguistic connotation of maruf and even among the fukaha across traditions (there are differences across traditions) have pointed out that this maruf is anything that the human minds agree on as being good. We see the Quran calling to maruf before the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed referring to the teachings of prophet Lukman. Call to that which is good. This is a notion of good which goes beyond any particular religion. This is about shared values, what is sometimes now described as the common good. It now makes no sense to call people with religious zeal to wearing a head scarf when in the Muslim world women among the most oppressed on this globe. It makes no sense to seek an Islamization of an economy through the elimination of interest when inequality runs rampant.
Calling to the good and societal benefits seems to be pointed towards those goals. What difference is there between a nominal elimination of interest yet increasingly inequality at every level. In the name of religion such acts are seen where people could slaughter the grandson of the prophet yet pray those ritual prayers. Hussein Ibn Aliseems to be talking about those values to which Islam and human nobility is directed.
If we accept this direction of reform, this space for critique, this space for dissent to be directed towards common goals and shared values it also reminds us of the importance and the possibility of working across traditions as we live in a time of exceptionally limited resources. In the context of COVID-19 we are seeing a race to the vaccine and arguably a need to maintain differentials across the world.
Once COVID has come and gone we will still see the pressure on resources, we will still have climate change, we will still have the problem of mass population movements. These are solutions and challenges that can only be addressed through collaborative engagement towards common conceptions of good in preventing common conceptions of challenges.
Finally we go to the criterion of success shown to us which is implicit or explicit (depending on how you read it) in the movement of Hussein Ibn Ali. Yes it was a reform movement, it was a dissent movement, it showed us the need for criticism, the need for intellectual reform, against power and religious practice. Those ends to which he strove were common shared human ends: justice, nobility, truth, human dignity – yet he also showed us a criterion for success and that criterion for success was not material gain but it was in moral virtue.
Here was a man who did not achieve, at least in the immediate sense, raging change. He was left cornered on a battle field to watch his friends and family killed one by one. Those who survived were paraded from city to city to see the heads of the martyrs on sticks. Yet he could say never will we allow ourselves to be humiliated. This shows that victory for Hussein Ibn Ali was not at the level of any material outcome. It was at the level of the conscious. When we start to access our success towards those aspirations of social justice, the level of the conscious it makes those idealist goals possible. There is no real pursuit beyond the pursuit of consciousness and dignity and it is before none other than God.
So I end with this famous statement from Hussein Ibn Ali: “What has he gained the one who has lost you and what has he lost if he has gained you.” Thank you for listening and I hope to hear your comments and discussion.
Dr Laith Kubba: It was very interesting listening to the previous speaker. He overlapped so many of the points I was going to make. In a small meeting like this to comment on any events that are so well covered one can only bring added value by trying to raise questions and bring a new perspective and a new angle with the hope that the discussions that take place today can be followed up later, especially if one is talking about a profound event in history that took historical dimensions that founded many movements – not one movement – and lifted up the hearts of tens of millions of people.
When you mention the word ‘Hussain’ the immediate impression among the majority of Muslims and non Muslims is that they think of the word Shia, they think of a tragedy, they think of principles, they think of the rituals people perform and those a little more learned put it into context. One must separate the multiple narrations and interpretations we had from the real context of what it was all about. There was a history of Imam Hussein, the opposition to what took place and the emergence of a tribal war that narrowed down and deviated from the fundamentals of Islam. Today we have the whole of the Shia world the largest number of Shias in Iran – the most historical and deeply rooted – and the Gulf , Pakistan and India.
What is important if one looks at such a big event is to try to deconstruct it. So I will deviate. My talk it not to confront what you know but to introduce some new perspectives and to raise questions. So the first element in deconstructing this and looking at with a new lens is to separate the faith what we call the mystical and the religious from this discussion because it is dangerous if one talks about issues of deep faith one might get offended. Let us look at it from the objective tools that we have within a human context, human nature and culture that has a mixture of everything.
Over the generations we tend to dramatize and we all know that if we give the brain a dimension from this discussion we have to talk in human terms. What stuck me and I have to mention this when talking about the contemporary relevance of the principles and the message but I would like to look at that in reality.
Last year I was in Iraq in muaharram. You saw ten million people walking for days in and out. There was a huge mass commitment that was driving large numbers of people in Iraq. This is not once. It happened even under Saddam Hussein. His attempt to challenge those who led the ceremonies and rituals in 1977 led to a clash. It is deep and it cannot be stopped. The reality that ten million people among the Shias – we are talking about a third of the population – were out in these ceremonies. This is a country that has the highest level of corruption. I think it is unrivalled by any other country. And those majority of Shias are living in very bad condition in country very rich in human and natural resources but their condition is very bad.
And worst still the majority of those who run parliament are not only Shias they are strongly Shias who are affiliated to that identity. Yet I witnessed things among the Shia elite whose devotion to Imam Hussein I don’t doubt which struck me. One evening I was invited for dinner and all the banners were there yet the people on the table made corrupt deals and they talked comfortably about corruption.
I am struck by the disconnect between the very high devotion and emotion and the widespread total disconnect between the message of Imam Hussein. Worse you find these words are recited in so many poems in so many ways you find people crying but there is a disconnect and somebody fused that emotion and that devotion to impacting on reality.
One can draw a parallel. Why then do we see the Quran which is so powerful and it is in Arabic and we see Arab countries and Arab conditions also with that disconnect. We see the Quran read by over 200 million Muslims during Ramadan every year and yet it does not have that impact. I think it is this disconnect that we really need to focus on among ourselves.
Of course one can draw other parallels from the non-Muslim context to show that disconnect and one will then start opening a the real discussion, not about the divine and not about the ideal. One can talk about the divine and the ideal but one can talk about the real, the human nature with all its weaknesses from the highest level of devout people be it majaria or simple people who are devout and walk in the street.
If we construct a discussion on the realities and the disconnect then we are introducing a new lens and I think having put a bit of a critique there is a question that I would like to argue and push that we must add a new dimension to our review every year when we read Imam Hussein in our meetings. We do need a new lens because the current lens avoids the question. I wonder if it can answer this question. I wonder if very clever narrators and people have managed to acquaint the issue and if I am too cynical. I would argue you can dissolve or empty the message of Iman Hussein from its real value so that you keep the structures and the institutions. You want to keep the status quo alive. I wonder if that might happen.
We need that new lens and my suggestion is that the new lens can only be constructed if the divine issue is set aside and we look at reviewing the whole culture that evolved over the years around Imam Hussein. That culture evolved over the years, over the decades, over the centuries around Imam Hussein and it is a human culture. As with any human culture, any human evolution you will find all the traits, all the finger prints of power, of human ignorance, of zeal or extremism. You find it among the Shias and non-Shias and the Muslims as much as you find it among the non-Muslims.
What we need to look at is reviving the message of Iman Hussein. And in my view the last thing one wants to see in the name of Imam Hussein is if we collectively witness sectarian killing. That is happening against the Shias and by the Shias – the very people who sometimes seem to be devout.
The broad public interest over the narrow interest, the issue of putting values above one’s own interest, the issue of focusing on reform and not getting power. That is how one needs to be truthful to the message of Imam Hussein in dealing with these.
There is plenty of room to talk more. My concern is that I am not in a position to push for those reforms. Those who can push for those reforms are those who are primarily preaching and talking about Imam Hussein every year. The irony is that the first reform must start from within those institutions for it to be effective. Going back looking at good examples.
Jesus Christ when he advocated change, when he made his message started by shaking the temple and all those people who were benefiting from religion at the time. And of course there is equal parallel with the stand he took and the stand Imam Hussein took. An industry evolved around Jesus and around Christianity. Not all of that industry is healthy. It is again a human product with all human faults and the only way to proceed is to have the courage inspired by Imam Hussein to have a critique from within of the existing order establishments and narrations.
Chairman; You are being too modest. You are sufficiently knowledgeable and influential to start this sort of critique which you started today. I don’t think you are that old to be cynical. These two things enable you to do a lot for the community as you have done over the years.
Tara Reynor O’Grady: It is a supreme honour to address. My name is Tara O’Grady. I am from Ireland and I am a human rights defender. I fasted for three days to prepare myself for this event and had only water which I know Imam Hussein did not have on those last three days of his life.
This evening when I address this meetingI wear the hijab even though the organisers said there is no compulsion to do so. It may seem peculiar to Christians of and people of other faiths who may be watching that I wear the hijab but it is important to be ultimately respectful on this particular subject. Iman Hussein’s sister Zeinab was covered before him. Who am I not to be modest and respectful in memory of him. My faith is in God and my duty is only to him, not to man or woman. In this I have established my allegiance. I am a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ and on this path I have to respect the teachings of Imam Hussein who is the grandson of the Holy Prophet Mohammed.
Ayatollah Sistani said it is not right for the one who addresses the general public to present specialist issues when the audience has not grasped the prerequisites of the issue due to poor academic standards even if the speakers presume to be qualified to engage in such discussions. Of course the problem is compounded if the speaker is not qualified for such discussion as is the case with those who ascend the pulpit who have not been through the religious studies at a centre of knowledge but only have some general religions knowledge. So I ask you to forgive this human failing. I ask that God uses my talk and that from whatever passes between my mouth and your ears there will only be good things that you are hearing.
Have you ever felt so alienated that it seems like an out of body experience, the sheer thrill of delight when you heart is in your mouth and your stomach flutters? Can you imagine being somewhere where everyone around you is feeling a similar heightened sense of purpose both personally and collective as an assembly of compassion. I have found a place that is suspended in time where people congregate from the four corners of the world, a place where men and women from all faiths and colour and culture congregate to share their enthusiasm for universal social justice and their contempt for the persecution of the innocent.
Embassies, departments of foreign affairs and consulates warn you not to travel there. Others will try and persuade you not to go and your family will object. But the journey of the experience of the pilgrimage to the shrine of Imam Hussein is a gift to your spiritual self.
Do you remember being told a tale that stirred something inside and resonated long after the telling, one that has all the elements of a myth and legend but that is in practise a historic truth. Perhaps some chronicle is a stain on history but has the power to change the world.
So it was with me and the story of Hussein and the massacre at Karbala. Arguably I have nothing in common with the man neither in space, time, gender or religion but I was drawn to the Ahl Al Bayt in a spiritual and mythical way almost since childhood. His message to me encouraged my human rights work, my experience of cancer and how I chose to live my life. The deeper I became engaged with the struggle for human rights the more profoundly it struck me that his narration frames the cultivation of the model of the Middle East crisis and informs much of the rationale between regional protagonists and those who prefer to use the tools of peace making as opposed to mongering for war.
My experience of people’s and civilisations has grown because of my work. I have met people from Bahrain, Western Sahara, Sinai, Lebanese, Qataris, Palestinians, Bosnians and the people that I know share this love of Imam Hussein. It is a family of people. I have had such wonderful experiences with the extended family of Islam.
The first time I was introduced to Imam Hussein was on a flight returning from work in Beirut. I sat beside a friend from Bahrain who recounted the story as if it had happened recently such was his eagerness and his sorrow. Pressing for details I discovered that this was not during Saddam’s era as I had presumed but that it had occurred in 680AD. I wondered how this story could be so relevant to him. Over the course of the years I met countless individuals who recounted the story to me, each in the same form, maybe not recounting the same details but using a part of the story to relate to something that we were working on at the time for teaching, guidance or enlightenment. This reminds me very much of the parables in Christianity so it became second nature to illustrate through these very much appreciated and largely known prisms of understanding.
I was wondering if I could share my screen with pictures from my first pilgrimage from a Western women’s perspective.[Speaker not able to share screen] Imam Hussein’s message is not just for Muslims. It is for the whole of humanity. Not only to struggle. It seems strange to say to struggle for peace but to live together in peace and harmony and togetherness. So I had the opportunity to go to college at my husband’s insistence when I was 40 and though I had already started working in human rights I decided that I should tailor my degree to Middle East studies as that is where my interest is.
I have always had a heart for the Middle East. I was studying international relations, politics and history and I know that your faith is founded in science, knowledge and wisdom. So my first real encounter with Imam Hussein was in college and it seems very fitting to me that it was in a Christian university, Dublin University College, to have my professor talking about Imam Hussein and Karbala. The way that he was speaking about it was so respectful that it was very appealing for me to do further research.
I was supposed to fly to Bahrain at the beginning of 2012. I was going to met Nabil Rajab before he was arrested four or five years ago. He is a most incredible human rights defender in Bahrain, really a man of absolute peace. I contacted him because I wanted to know more about what was happening in Bahrain and I could see that the media was not presenting it accurately enough. I called him out of the blue and that conversation changed the focus of my work towards human rights.
I left everything else and focused on Bahrain and the Gulf. Two days before I was due to travel to Bahrain I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was so disappointed that I was not able to go to Bahrain and I was more upset about that than about having cancer. My husband had to unpack my bags because I could not bring myself to do it.
During the months of treatment I was taking the testimonies of people who were the victims of torture or from their family members. I was involved with a hospital which was trying to get treatment for people in the villages.
During my treatment for cancer I was thinking about how the people I knew had been tortured and the continuing torture of cruelty and revenge. The pain that I was suffering because of my surgery was to heal and help me feel better so I was grateful for the pain of my surgery. I had six surgeries and people were offering prayers for me. I was grateful for the prayers. Each time I would go for surgery I would listen to the adan someone would send to me.
If I have to explain my faith I would say that I am a Christian Shia and I know that this will not make sense to everyone. I went to Karbala. I am sorry I can’t share my screen from this end. I will try again but it is not working. I was at the UN at the Human Rights Council with a friend from Lebanon who asked me what I knew of Hussein and Karbala and I said I really dreamed of visiting Karbala.
I saw Abbas trying to bring back the women and children who were in the battle and how he had been attacked. I really wanted to go to Karbala. This friend said you can go to Kerbala. I would give my hind teeth to visit Karbala but there was no possible way as I did not have the financial means to get there. During the course of the week I had about eight people offering me accommodation and expenses inside Iraq and I really was astonished. My friend said I have someone who will pay part of the airfare and the others will take care of the rest. He then called and said that the most amazing thing had happened. The shrine of Imam Hussein was going to host me and they would take care of all my needs there. And of course I cried with happiness.
The next problem was that my passport had just gone out of date. So I made the application and it was sent back to me in three days. Then I had to send it to the UK. Yousif Al Khoei helped me, it was sent to the Iraqi embassy and my passport was returned to me. I asked my husband how he felt about this and he said I understand that you have to do this for your soul and I encourage you. There was no conversation like o mind yourself.
I don’t usually wear a hijab and when I arrived in Iraq I did not have one. I only had a scarf around my neck. In the customs area there was a lady who was easily in her seventies and she was crying. I immediately walked over to her because everything inside me wanted to comfort her. I knelt down beside her. I knew that she did not understand English but felt that she would understand the emotion in my voice. And she reached up and she took the scarf from around my shoulders and wrapped it around my head so that my modesty would be preserved.
I arrived in Iraq alone. I had no idea whatsoever what to expect and I really didn’t know anything about the perceptions because I wanted to go completely naïve which I certainly was. Ignorant. I discovered that her sons had been killed by ISIS. She gave me her blessing and I went on my way. That was my first introduction to Iraq.
Then I was in the car park in the airport in Najaf. I was alone in the heat and it was like the moon. I was a world away from everything that I knew. And very quickly the man from the group I was supposed to be with arrived in a truck that had just been used in the battle of Mosul. I felt so safe and minded by all the brothers. I was the only woman and I was wearing my Western clothes. They brought me to a changing room and they said just go. I walked across a carpeted area and there was a sign that it was just for ladies. And it was obvious to me that it was just for ladies. I went in and I had been given a hijab by the wives of one of the men. I did not meet her till about two days later. His wife had sent this really beautiful hijab for me. I felt very privileged to have it. I came out of the tents and on my left there was coffee and I could see this throng of humanity. I saw the people who were servants to the pilgrims. You could not feel thirsty. Someone was always handing you coffee or water or some form of sustenance. They were mending shoes, they were mending wheel chairs. There were people who had no legs. There were whole families. It was such a massive movement of humanity all on the same path, focused directly ahead on Imam Hussein’s shrine.
People asked me if I felt I could get lost. There is no way you can get lost on that walk. At no point did I feel pushed. I was there for five days. Nobody stepped on toes. Everyone was aware of each others’ space and totally respectful of each other. There were people making bread. You did not have to put your hand in your pocket once when you arrived on that pilgrimage from Najaf to Kerbala. Every human need was satisfied. If you fell down there were doctors’ tents. It is just such an incredible mass movement of harmony. The year I was there there were 17 million people. That is mind blowing.
I would like to finish with the words of Saida Zeinab who rebuked Yazid with contempt at his own court. She said do you think that by killing people you have become great and respectable and the almighty looks at you with special grace? “O Yazid, do you believe that you have succeeded in closing the sky and the earth for us and that we have become your captives just because we have been brought before you in a row and that you have secured control over us? Do you believe that we have been afflicted with insult and dishonour by Allah and that you have been given honour and respect by Him? You have become boastful of this apparent victory that you have secured and you have started feeling jubilant and proud over this prestige and honour. You think that you have achieved worldly good, that your affairs have become stabilised and our rule has fallen into your hands. Wait for a while. Do not be so joyful. Have you forgotten Allah’s saying: ‘The unbelievers should not carry the impression that the time allowed to them by us is good for them. Surely we give them time so that they may increase their evil deeds, and eventually they will be given insulting chastisement.”
There are Yazid’s throughout the world today and they would do well to look at Zeinab’s words and know that their time would come.
* Tara Reynor O’Grady is an Irish historian and human rights defender. Tara contributes to the work of various organisations in developing strategies that encourage dialogue and fair laws that respect human life and dignity. She appeals for the judicial accountability of those responsible for Human Rights aberrations. Tara has participated at conferences from the Middle East to South America on promoting forms of democracy and good governance, capacity building for non-violent mobilisation of Civil Society and Transitional Justice. She is determined to be outspoken against cruelty and discrimination and she believes that no one should be persecuted for their faith. She joined the Araba’een pilgrimage to Karbala in 2018 and 2019 and has outspoken respect and interest in Imam Hussain and his movement.
**Dr Ali-Reza Bhojani is a lecturer at the Al-Mahdi Institute, co-director of the Centre for Intra-Muslim Studies, and a Research Affiliate of the School of Anthropology, University of Oxford. His research, teaching and writing focuses on contemporary implications of Islamic legal theory, theology and ethics. His publications include Moral Rationalism and Shari’a: A Study of Independent Rationality in Modern Shi’i Usul al-fiqh (Routledge, 2015) and the co-edited volume Visions of Shari’a: Contemporary Discussions in Shi’i Legal Theory (Brill, 2020). Beyond his academic work, he regularly contributes to a range of knowledge exchange activities within Muslim communities, inter-faith settings and beyond.
***Laith Kubba is a thinker and political commentator. He holds a B.A. from the University of Baghdad, Iraq, and a Ph.D. from the University of Wales.In 2005, he served as a senior advisor to Iraqi Prime Minister and as a spokesman for the Iraqi government. He was formerly director of international relations at the Al-Khoei Foundation in London, a global charity and faith-based endowment, and founded the International Forum for Islamic Dialogue, a London-based network of liberal Muslim activists and intellectuals. He regularly contributes to global media talks on democratization in the Middle East and North Africa, Islam and democracy, and politics in Iraq. Laith served as a senior director for Middle East and North Africa programs at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington for 17 years.
