Husayn ibn Ali
Grandson of the Prophet ﷺ, second son of Ali and Fatimah. Refused to pledge allegiance to the tyranny of Yazid. Marched with 72 companions to Kufa, was surrounded at Karbala, cut off from water for three days, and killed on the tenth of Muharram. His death defines Islamic conscience.
- Lived
- 626 - 680 CE
- Read next
- Meaning of the name Husayn
Who was Husayn ibn Ali? Grandson of the Prophet ﷺ, second son of Ali and Fatimah. Refused to pledge allegiance to the tyranny of Yazid. Marched with 72 companions to Kufa, was surrounded at Karbala, cut off from water for three days, and killed on the tenth of Muharram. His death defines Islamic conscience.
Life
Al-Husayn ibn Ali was the second son of Ali ibn Abi Talib and Fatimah az-Zahra, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. The Prophet said of him and his brother Hasan: "Hasan and Husayn are the masters of the youth of paradise."
After the death of his brother Hasan and the accession of Yazid ibn Muawiya to the caliphate, a man of open corruption and hostility to Islamic norms, Husayn refused to pledge allegiance. He accepted an invitation from the people of Kufa to lead a movement against Yazid's tyranny.
He set out from Mecca with about 72 companions and members of his household, men, women, children. He was intercepted at Karbala in Iraq on the second of Muharram, 61 AH. Yazid's army under Umar ibn Sa'd surrounded them. On the seventh of Muharram they cut off water access to the camp. For three days Husayn's family and companions, including infants, had no water.
On the tenth of Muharram, Ashura, the battle came. His companions were killed one by one throughout the day. His infant son Ali al-Asghar was killed by an arrow in his arms as he raised him to beg for water. Husayn himself was killed toward evening. His head was cut off and sent to Yazid in Damascus.
The women and children of his household, his sister Zaynab, his son Ali (later called Zayn al-Abidin), and the rest, were taken as prisoners to Damascus. Zaynab's speech in Yazid's court, denouncing the killer of her brother in front of his own throne, is preserved as one of the greatest political speeches in Islamic literature.
Karbala is remembered every year in Muharram by every school of Islam. It is the founding scene of Shia identity but it belongs to the whole ummah as the founding statement of Islamic political conscience: hayhata min-adh-dhilla, "far from us is humiliation."
Stories
Each story below is drawn from the classical Islamic historical sources.
The tenth of Muharram
For three days at Karbala, Yazid's army cut off water to the camp of the Prophet's grandson and his 72 companions. On the tenth of Muharram, 61 AH, they came for them. By evening the whole household lay dead in the sand.