In His Name, the Most High
اَلسَّلاَمُ عَلَيْكَ يَا أَبَا عَبْدِاللَّهِ
وَعَلَى الْأَرْوَاحِ الَّتِي حَلَّتْ بِفِنَائِكَ
عَلَيْكُمْ مِنَّا جَمِيعًا سَلاَمُ اللَّهِ أَبَدًا مَا بَقِينَا وَبَقِيَ اللَّيْلُ وَالنَّهَارُ
وَلا جَعَلَهُ اللَّهُ آخِرَ الْعَهْدِ مِنَّا لِزِيَارَتِكُمْ
اَلسَّلاَمُ عَلَى الْحُسَيْنِ
وَعَلَى عَلِيِّ بْنِ الْحُسَيْنِ
وَعَلَى أَوْلَادِ الْحُسَيْنِ
وَعَلَى أَصْحَابِ الْحُسَيْنِ
Peace be upon you, O Aba Abdillah (O Husayn),
and upon the souls who have gathered in your courtyard.Upon you, from us all, is the peace of God—forever,
for as long as we remain and as long as night and day endure.And may God never make this our last pledge to visit you.
Peace be upon al-Husayn,
and upon Ali, son of al-Husayn,
and upon the children of al-Husayn,
and upon the companions of al-Husayn.— Adapted from Ziyarat Ashura
A Maqtal for Night Eight
The Voice of the Awaited One
This is the eighth of fifteen maqtals in the Shahada series.
On the first night, the Hidden Imam — may our souls be his ransom and may God hasten his return — came to us for Abel — the first witness, the first blood the earth had ever known.
On the second he came for the prophetic chain of grief — the inherited tear.
On the third he came for a doorway.
On the fourth he came for an ambassador and a city of broken promises.
On the fifth he came for two who crossed over — a captain who turned, and a young Christian on the road who walked into the completion of a tradition.
On the sixth he came for the four young men who walked out at dawn as calmly as bridegrooms walking into a hall.
On the seventh, last night, he came for the standard-bearer at the river-bank — for the brother whose two arms were severed before the brother whose back would be broken arrived at the place where he had fallen.
Tonight he comes for the seventy-two.
For the men who, on the night before the morning of slaughter, were given their freedom — and refused it.
For the men who said, in five different registers, what we have heard echoed across the centuries:
Even unarmed I will stone them.
What can be a better time for happiness than this?
If I were burned alive and my ashes scattered seventy times, I would not leave you.
How I would love to be killed a thousand times.
The distance between us and the heavenly fairies is not more than an hour of fighting against this community and their swords.
Tonight he comes for the lamps that would not flicker — for the body of light that, on the very night you sit and remember them, was already what we are still trying to learn to be.
The accompanying sermon for this session — [8] Shahada (Witness) - To Die Like Falling Cherry Petals — is available on Reflections313.
The Maqtal — “The Lamps That Would Not Flicker”
I. The Lamp on the Stone
I come to you tonight, my beloved, the way I have come every night of this Muharram.
From behind the veils.
From the place no eye has yet seen.
From the long, patient hour of the occultation, in which I am kept by my Lord — until the appointed time, when the appointed time arrives, and the appointed earth is ready, and the appointed people are standing.
The taper is on the grey stone, where it has been since the first night.
It has not gone out.
It will not go out.
You should know that, my beloved.
In the eight nights you have walked through this Muharram, no one has been able to put it out.
Not the empire.
Not the army.
Not the long centuries since.
The lamp keeps.
The cloth on the stone has been changed for you each night, but the candle is the same candle.
The oil is the same oil.
The fire is the same fire that was lit by my forefather Abel’s blood on the morning my forefather Cain could not answer the question, and that has been passed, hand to hand, mouth to mouth, breath to breath, through every prophet and every Imam and every witness across millennia — through the door of an ambassador in Kufa, through the field of the third panel of the triptych, through the river-bank where my brother al-Abbas — peace and blessings be upon him — reached for water that did not reach the children — until it arrives at the night you and I are about to walk to.
Tonight, beside the taper, my mother Fatema — peace and blessings be upon her — has placed something different.
A branch.
A branch of cherry blossom, my beloved.
The flower we met two nights ago — when I came to you for the young men of the household: Qasim and Ali al-Akbar, peace and blessings be upon them both; and my forefathers Aun and Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon them both, the sons of my aunt Sayyedah Zaynab and of my forefather Abdullah ibn Ja'far at-Tayyar — four young men, all of them blossoms, all of them opened that morning.
The maqtal of that night honoured them with four cherry blossoms on the grey stone, opening into the dawn of the morning that would take them.
Tonight the branch is not the same.
The blossoms have fallen.
The cloth that wraps the wood is stained with a black that will not wash out.
The petals are scattered on the stone.
There is a small dark mark on the wood, where a sharp thing has been driven through.
You will know what this is, when the night is finished.
You will know what was done to a beautiful thing, by the empire of one century — and by the empire that opposed it in another century — and by every empire across every century that has ever taken a beautiful thing and written a script for it that the beauty did not consent to.
But for now, my beloved — let the branch lie where my mother has placed it.
And listen.
I was not there — but I remember.
II. The Test
The night I bring you to is two nights from this one in the chronicle.
The night I bring you to is the night of Ashura — laylat ’Ashura — the night that precedes the morning of slaughter, in the year sixty-one of the Hijra.
The water has been cut from the camp for three days.
The voices of the children have thickened in their throats.
The elders have refused, again and again, to drink before the children.
My brother al-Abbas — peace and blessings be upon him — has moved between the tents in the way a brother moves when his brother’s children cannot ask for water in their own voices.
But the day of slaughter has not yet come.
This is still the night before.
And on this night, my forefather — peace and blessings be upon him — gathered them.
He gathered his family, and he gathered his companions — the seventy-two who had crossed the desert with him, the thirty-two who had come over from the army of Ibn Sa’ad earlier in the day, the thirty-and-some women of the household, the children whose throats were thickening in their mouths.
He praised God.
He turned to them.
He looked at them with the eyes of a man who already knew, with full certainty, what the morning would bring.
And he offered them their freedom.
“Now, verily — I do not find companions better than you, nor any family more righteous than my family. May God reward you with the best reward.
The darkness of the night has covered you. Make use of it. Each of you may take the hand of one of my family members and disperse in this darkness. Leave this place. Because the enemy wants only me.”
A silence in the tents.
The kind of silence that, when it falls, you can hear the children breathing, you can hear the camels shifting in the dark, you can hear, very faintly, far off across the desert, the camp-fires of the army that had cut the water and was waiting for the morning.
And then my brother al-Abbas — peace and blessings be upon him — the standard-bearer, the one we honoured last night at the river-bank — stood up.
And he said:
“Why should we do this?
To remain alive after you?
May God never bring such a day.”
And one by one, the family of my forefather rose.
His sons.
His brother’s sons.
His cousins.
The sons of his cousins.
Every one of them.
“May God never bring such a day.”
Then my forefather looked at the sons of Aqil — the sons of his uncle, whose brother Muslim ibn Aqil — peace and blessings be upon him — had already been martyred in Kufa — and he said specifically to them:
“The martyrdom of Muslim is sufficient for you.
All of you may leave. I permit you.”
A specific permission.
To a specific family.
They had given enough.
The blood of their brother in Kufa had been their share.
And the sons of Aqil rose, my beloved, and they answered as one voice:
“O son of the Messenger of God!
What will the people say about us, and what shall we say to the people?
That we left our elder, our chief, the Imam, the son of the daughter of the Prophet — and did not throw an arrow with him?
Did not hold a spear in our hands?
Did not let our swords fall on the enemy?
No, by God. We will not leave you.
Our lives will guard your life until we die before your eyes.
Whatever befalls you will fall on us too.
How wretched is the life after you.”
The family had refused.
And then the seventy-two who were not family, my beloved — the men whose blood did not oblige them to stay, the men whose names had not been written into the household, the men who could have walked out under the stars with no one’s reproach — they, too, began to rise.
One by one.
Each in their own register.
Each having heard the offer.
Each with their eyes open.
This is the test, my beloved.
This is what tonight is for.
The test the empires of every century have failed.
The test the cherry blossom in the state’s hand could not pass.
The test the bomb-bay door could not pass.
The test that, for one night fourteen centuries ago, in a small camp at the edge of the desert, seventy-two men passed.
I want you to hear, in their own voices, what each of them said.
I will name five.
You will hear, briefly, of the others.
But all of them — every one of them, named and unnamed — all of them stood, all of them stayed, all of them are part of the body of light.
I was not there — but I remember.
III. The Resolute
The first to rise from among the seventy-two — the first non-family voice in the tent that night — was a man who had grown grey in the worship.
His name was Muslim ibn Awsajah al-Asadi — peace and blessings be upon him.
He was an elder of his tribe.
He had been one of the men who carried the letters of the Kufans to my forefather — the letters that promised him a city that would not, when he arrived, be there.
He had been part of the secret allegiance to my cousin Muslim ibn Aqil in Kufa before the city’s heart had been turned, and he had escaped the hand of Ibn Ziyad, and he had crossed the desert to join my forefather at Karbala when there was no longer any city left to bring him.
He was not a young man.
He had been brave a long time.
And he stood, my beloved, in front of my forefather — peace and blessings be upon him, with the kind of straight back that an old man can hold only because he has been holding it for so many years.
And he said:
“Shall we leave you alone, and return — so that the enemy may surround you?
No, by God.
God may never allow such a situation.
Until I plunge my spear into the chest of your enemy, until only the handle remains in my hand, until I crush the enemy under my feet — and then, even when I am unarmed, I will stone them.
I will stone them with the rocks of this desert.
I will not separate from your honour until I drink the cup of martyrdom by your side.”
The simplest of the five voices, my beloved.
No metaphor.
No flourish.
No theological elaboration.
A man who had calculated, and decided, and would not now be moved.
The voice of a soldier whose worship had been with his Lord for fifty years and whose body had now arrived at the place where the worship was about to become a single act of standing.
He would die on the morning of Ashura — early, in the first hours of the battle.
My brother al-Abbas would carry his body away from the killing-place.
My forefather — peace and blessings be upon him — would stand beside him and speak the words that have come down to us through the chronicles:
“I assign the judgement for my martyrdom, and the martyrdom of my helpers, to God.”
But that is the morning, my beloved.
And we are still in the night.
I was not there — but I remember.
IV. The Elder
The second to rise was an even older man.
His name was Habib ibn Muzahir al-Asadi — peace and blessings be upon him.
He had been a companion of my forefather Ali — the Commander of the Faithful — peace and blessings be upon him.
He had been a member of the shurtat al-khamis, the elite force of my forefather Ali, the men who were initiated into the secret knowledge that my forefather Ali carried.
Habib had spoken with Maytham al-Tammar — peace and blessings be upon him — and with Rushayd al-Hajari — peace and blessings be upon him — about matters that would only happen long after their bodies had been buried — and they had known these things in advance, my beloved, because they had been initiated into the knowledge of the deaths and the trials, which my forefather Ali had been given by my forefather the Prophet — peace and blessings be upon him, his family, and his righteous companions, and which he had passed only to those who had earned the trust.
Habib had also been a close companion of my forefather Hasan — peace and blessings be upon him — through the years of the long contraction that the chronicles record under the surface of that Imamate.
And now Habib was here, in this camp, at the end of his life, with my forefather Husayn — peace and blessings be upon him.
Three Imams.
The same man had served three Imams.
He had been one of the first to receive the letter from my forefather, calling the loyal of Kufa to come to him.
He had answered.
He had brought others.
And now, on this night before the morning of slaughter, in a tent at the edge of the desert, the elder Habib was about to do something the chronicles have preserved for us.
He laughed.
A young companion — a Qur’an-reciter, the one we will hear from later, in his own section of this maqtal — turned to him and said:
“O my brother.
This is no time for laughter.
This is no time for jokes.”
And the elder Habib, my beloved — the man who had served three of my forefathers, who had carried the secret knowledge across forty-five years and three caliphs and three Imamates, who had grown old in the worship and was now hours from the place his worship was always going to bring him — looked at the young qari and answered him.
“What can be a better time for happiness than this?
By God — nothing remains except that these wretches attack us with their swords, and thereafter, we shall embrace the damsels of paradise.”
You see, my beloved.
You see what the elder saw.
The young qari — and he was no fool, the young qari, he was the Doyen of the reciters, the most respected mouth of the Qur’an in that tent — the young qari saw a battle.
He saw what was coming as a fight that would test the body.
And he was right.
It would be a fight.
But the elder Habib did not see a battle.
The elder Habib, after fifty years in the worship, saw the door.
The door at the end of the path.
The door which, having been walked toward all his life, was now in front of him — within an hour.
And on the other side of the door, the Lord whose worship he had carried.
The form looked, to the young qari, like a battle.
To the elder, the form looked like a wedding.
And the elder was right, my beloved.
Hours from then, on the morning of Ashura, my forefather — peace and blessings be upon him — would appoint Habib to command the left flank of the small army of the camp.
My uncle Zuhayr — whom you will hear from in a moment — would command the right.
My brother al-Abbas would carry the standard.
And Habib would fight, on the left flank, until the enemy converged on him and brought him down.
And when his body was carried back to the camp, my forefather would weep at his death — would say, again, the words that have come down to us:
“I assign the judgement for my martyrdom, and the martyrdom of my helpers, to God.”
But that is the morning.
And we are still in the night.
And before we leave Habib’s voice in the tent, my beloved, there is one thing I want to set down for you.
Because the popular reception of his story has carried, into our maqtals, narratives about him that did not come from the reliable chronicles — narratives that grew up in the loving imagination of later centuries and that the love of those centuries inserted into our recitation.
Narratives about a perfume shop in Kufa where Habib met Muslim ibn Awsajah, about a packet of hair dye, about a horse, about my aunt Zaynab sending him greetings on his arrival at the camp.
These are beautiful narratives, my beloved.
They came from love.
But they came from the loving imagination of one nineteenth-century scholar, and they were not in the chronicles before him.
Tonight we lift them gently.
Karbala does not need them.
The elder Habib’s actual life was sufficient.
Three Imams.
The companion of three of my forefathers.
The carrier of the secret knowledge.
The man who, on the eve of his death, after fifty years in the worship, laughed — because he could see the door from where he was standing.
That is the witness.
That is the elder.
That is what my aunt Zaynab would later, in the court of the tyrant, see and call beauty.
I was not there — but I remember.
V. The Lover
The third to rise was a man whose name has come down to us with one phrase that, even fourteen centuries later, can stop the breath in the throat of anyone who hears it.
His name was Sa’id ibn Abdullah al-Hanafi — peace and blessings be upon him.
He had been one of the small group from Kufa who had not turned.
When the city had been bought, when the messengers had been intercepted, when my cousin Muslim ibn Aqil had been killed and the people of the city had wept for him in the markets but not stood for him at the gates — Sa’id was one of the few who had walked out of Kufa with the truth still in his hand and crossed the desert to find my forefather.
He stood, on this night, in the tent.
And he answered the offer of permission with the words I am about to repeat for you, my beloved.
Listen carefully, because what he said is the kind of thing a human being says only when they have already, in advance, settled with their Lord every account that could ever be settled.
He said:
“No, by God.
O son of the Messenger of God.
I will never leave you alone — not until God knows that I have remembered the will of His Messenger Muhammad regarding you, and acted upon it.
If I came to know that I were injured in your path, and then burnt alive, and my ashes scattered into the air —
and if this were repeated for me seventy times —
even then,
I would not leave you.
Until I see death and embrace martyrdom in front of you.
Why not?
This is only one death — and thereafter, I will gain the eternal and everlasting generosity of God.”
Seventy times, my beloved.
Seventy times burned alive.
Seventy times the ashes scattered.
Seventy times the body brought back to be burned again.
And only after the seventieth time — only then — would the worship Sa’id had brought to the tent be exhausted.
And it would not be exhausted.
He would still be standing.
This is what love sounds like, my beloved.
Not the love of the soldier for his commander.
Not the love of the subject for his emperor.
The love of a man whose entire interior is filled with the worship of his Lord, and whose Lord has, on this night, asked him to stand by the side of the proof of His own truth on earth.
And on the day of slaughter, my beloved, this man would prove that his words on the night were not words alone.
On the morning of Ashura, when my forefather — peace and blessings be upon him — stood for the noon prayer in the middle of the battle — when the arrows were still flying and the enemy were still pressing forward and my forefather, in the highest demand of the worship, stopped and faced the qibla and bent his body in the prayer that no enemy and no battle could prevent him from completing — Sa’id ibn Abdullah al-Hanafi stepped in front of him.
He stood between the praying Imam and the arrows.
And he took, in his own body, the arrows that were aimed at the Imam.
Eyewitnesses say he was struck thirteen times before he fell.
The body of his vow on the night became the body shielding the prayer on the day.
But that is the day.
And we are still in the night.
I was not there — but I remember.
VI. The Convert
The fourth to rise, my beloved, was a man whose loyalty had not always been with my forefathers.
His name was Zuhayr ibn al-Qayn al-Bajali — peace and blessings be upon him.
He had been, before his coming to Karbala, what the chronicles call an Uthmani — a partisan of the third caliph’s house, a man whose family loyalties had been with the line of Uthman ibn Affan, a man whose presence in the desert that year had been not for my forefather but for the pilgrimage to Mecca and back.
On the road to Karbala, Zuhayr was returning from the Hajj with a small caravan and his wife.
They had stopped to camp at a place called Zubala.
And — by the qadar — the divine decree — of God — my forefather and his caravan had stopped to camp at the same place that night.
Zuhayr did not want a meeting.
He had heard of my forefather, of course.
Everyone had heard.
But Zuhayr’s loyalties were with the other house, and Zuhayr had no business with the grandson of the Prophet who was, in those weeks, on his way into a confrontation Zuhayr had no part in.
He pitched his tent on the far side of the well from my forefather’s camp.
And in the middle of the night, my beloved, a messenger from my forefather came to Zuhayr’s tent — and asked him to come.
The wife of Zuhayr was sitting in the tent with him.
She, my beloved, who had perhaps in her own life been one of the secret loyal — she turned to her husband and said:
“He is the grandson of the Messenger of God who is calling you.
Will you not go?”
And Zuhayr stood up.
And he went.
What happened in the tent of my forefather that night, the chronicles do not tell us in full.
But Zuhayr came back from the meeting changed.
He came back with his face lit by something his face had not had before he went in.
He said to his wife:
“I am going with him.
I am freeing you.
Return to your family.
I want no further claim on your life from this hour.
Remember me only for good.
Pray for me by the names of my ancestors.”
And his wife wept, my beloved.
The chronicles record her tears.
She accepted his decision; she returned to her family; she would not stand at Karbala — but she would, every morning of every year that remained to her, lift the name of the man whose loyalty had been changed in one night by the grandson of the Messenger of God.
And Zuhayr — Zuhayr the Uthmani, Zuhayr who had come into the desert that year to do the Hajj and go home — Zuhayr was now in the camp of my forefather.
He had not inherited his loyalty.
He had chosen it.
In a tent at Zubala, in the middle of one night, he had chosen it.
And so on this night — the night of the test, the night of permission — when my forefather offered the seventy-two their freedom, Zuhayr stood up.
And he answered with words that have a particular weight, my beloved, because of where Zuhayr had come from.
“By God, O son of the Messenger of God!
How much do I love that I should be killed — one thousand times — and then return to life — so that, by this killing and this returning, God might protect you, and your brothers, and the young members of your family from any harm.”
A thousand times.
“Killed and brought back.
Killed and brought back.
A thousand times.”
The voice of a man whose loyalty was not inherited, my beloved.
The voice of a man who had chosen his Imam — who had stood inside one tradition for forty years, and had walked out of that tradition into another tradition because in one night, in a tent at Zubala, he had been shown which side of the line he belonged on.
And the morning of Ashura would test his choice.
On the day of slaughter, my forefather would appoint Zuhayr to command the right flank of the small army.
He would be one of the three command positions of the day — the right flank to him, the left flank to Habib, the standard to my brother al-Abbas.
And on the day, when the enemy pushed forward, Zuhayr would meet them on the right with the same resolve with which he had stood up in the tent at Zubala that night.
And there is one more thing, my beloved, that the chronicles preserve for us about Zuhayr.
On the day of Ashura, when my brother al-Abbas — peace and blessings be upon him — had ridden out to meet the enemy and Habib and Zuhayr had ridden with him to admonish the soldiers — Habib spoke first to the army:
“By God, who will be more wretched in God’s eyes in the hereafter than those who will stand before Him after having murdered the children, progeny, and family of His Messenger?’”
And the enemy commander Azrah ibn Qays answered with a sneer:
“You praised your soul as much as you could.”
And then, my beloved, Zuhayr — Zuhayr who had once been Uthmani himself — defended his fellow companion.
He said:
“It is God Who has purified and guided that soul.
Be wary of God, O Azrah.
I am a sincere adviser to you.
I beseech you before God, O Azrah — do not participate in the killing of pure souls in order to help those who have gone astray.”
And only after Zuhayr’s defence of Habib did Azrah turn the taunt on Zuhayr himself, calling out across the field:
“O Zuhayr! According to our information, you were not a partisan of this household. You used to be a partisan of Uthman — an Uthmani.”
The taunt of his own past, on the morning of his death.
Even then, my beloved, Zuhayr was still calling Azrah to walk out of one tradition into another.
Still inviting.
The way he himself had been called, in a tent at Zubala, in one night.
The convert.
The chosen-loyal one.
The man whose loyalty was the loyalty God Himself had brought to him, when he had not been looking.
But that is the morning.
And we are still in the night.
I was not there — but I remember.
VII. The Qari
The fifth voice I want you to hear, my beloved, is the voice of the young companion who had reproached the elder Habib for laughing.
His name was Burayr ibn Khudayr al-Hamdani —peace and blessings be upon him.
He was a qari — a reciter of the Qur’an.
The Qur’an-reciter of the camp, in fact.
The Doyen of the reciters.
Sayyed al-Qurra.
The most respected mouth of the Qur’an among the seventy-two.
He was an elder also — though younger than Habib, older than most of the rest.
The chronicles tell us that the recitation of the Qur’an had filled his mouth for so many years that, by this night, the recitation was no longer something he did — it was something he was.
His face, in the camp, was the face of the recitation.
His silences carried the cadence of the verses he had not yet, on this night, been called to speak.
His eyes carried the meaning he had received from his teachers, and from their teachers, in the chain that goes back to my forefather Ali, who had received the meaning from my forefather the Prophet — peace and blessings be upon him, his family, and his righteous companions.
Burayr had risen with the others.
When the offer of permission came, he stood up — like Habib had stood up, like Sa’id had stood up, like Zuhayr had stood up — and he said his own words.
The chronicles preserve these too.
“I will never leave you, O son of the Messenger of God.
By God,
He has favoured us by helping you.”
The same register as the others — the unconditional refusal of the way out, the placing of the body in the camp regardless of what the morning would bring.
But the part of Burayr’s witness, my beloved, that I want to bring to you tonight — the part that has lodged in the chronicles as the most quoted moment of his life — happened later.
It was the morning of Ashura.
It was the dawn before the slaughter.
The night of worship in the tents, that the chronicles compare to the noises of a beehive — the night of the seventy-two prostrating, reciting, weeping, asking forgiveness, in the camp by the cut river — that long night had ended.
The fajr prayer had been called.
The men had prayed.
And in the slow first light, while the camp was rising to face what the day would bring, Burayr — the young qari, the Doyen of the reciters — smiled.
A companion near him — Abd-ur-Rahman ibn Abdi Rabbihi al-Ansari — peace and blessings be upon him, one of the seventy-two whose name has come down to us in Lohoof, who had not slept, who was watching the dawn come up over the army across the field — Abd-ur-Rahman saw Burayr’s smile, and he was angry.
He said:
”Burayr!
Are you laughing?
Are you smiling?
On a morning like this?
At a time like this?”
And Burayr, my beloved, looked at the younger man with the eyes of a man who had, the previous evening, reproached the elder Habib for the same thing — and who now, in the morning, was doing the same thing himself.
He said:
“My people know that, in my youth and in my old age, I have disliked false things and jokes.
At present, my smiling is only because of the course we have chosen.
By God — the distance between us and the heavenly fairies is not more than an hour of fighting against this community and their swords.”
The cycle had completed, my beloved.
The night before, Burayr the qari had reproached the elder Habib for laughter.
Habib had answered:
“What can be a better time for happiness than this?
And on the morning,
Burayr had become the elder he had reproached.
The smile of the morning is the smile of the man who has spent the night in the worship — who has prostrated for hours, who has read the Qur’an in the candlelit tent, who has wept and asked forgiveness and been emptied and refilled by the Lord whose verses he has carried for forty years — and who now, in the dawn, sees what Habib had seen the night before.
The door.
The Lord on the other side of the door.
An hour of fighting between him and the place his recitation has been pointing him to all his life.
The qari smiled, my beloved, the way a man smiles on the morning of his wedding.
And — like Habib, like Muslim, like Sa’id, like Zuhayr — Burayr would die on the morning of Ashura.
He would fight in the early hours, and he would fall.
And his recitation, which had filled his mouth for forty years, would be carried, by his death, into the recitation of every reciter who came after him — including the reciters in your masajids and husaynieh’s this Muharram, who do not know it but who carry, in their breath, the breath of the man whose smile broke the morning of the tenth.
But that is the morning.
And we are still in the night.
I was not there — but I remember.
VIII. The Unnamed
There were others, my beloved.
There were many others.
The chronicles preserve, in some places, a list of seventy-two names.
In other places, the list is shorter; in other places, the names blur into each other; in other places, only a single line — and a man rose, and he said — is left, with no name attached.
There were the men whose names came over from the army of Ibn Sa’ad on this very night — thirty-two of them, by some chronicles, who left the army that had cut the water and walked across the dark sand and entered the camp of my forefather, and were absorbed into the body of light before the morning came.
There were the men my forefather had freed on the way to Karbala — the men who had, at the moment of their freedom, said to him: where you go, we go — Jawn the bondsman of my forefather Abu Dharr — peace and blessings be upon him, and others whose names came down with him.
There were the young men who had come from villages whose names the chronicles never recorded — who had walked across the desert when they heard the grandson of the Prophet was going to a place they had no other reason to go to — who had presented themselves at the camp and asked to be counted among the companions, and had been counted, and had stood that night with the rest.
There were the women of the household at Karbala — my aunt Sayyedah Zaynab — peace and blessings be upon her, my aunt Umm Kulthum — peace and blessings be upon her, my female cousins, the daughter of Muslim ibn Aqil — peace and blessings be upon him, the wife of Wahab ibn Abdullah al-Kalbi al-Nasrani — peace and blessings be upon her — the young Christian we honoured three nights ago, who came out to the field when her husband fell — and many others.
And there were also the women whose loyalty had reached Karbala without their bodies — my brother al-Abbas’s mother Umm al-Banin — peace and blessings be upon her, who had remained in Medina, the four sons of her body all here, in this small camp, in the dark; and the wife of Zuhayr whom we have just heard of, whom her husband had freed and sent home before he himself rode the rest of the way; and others whose names the chronicles did not preserve, but whose hearts were here.
Their witness is its own maqtal, and we will come to it on the night of the corrective.
But tonight, the body of light is the seventy-two.
And the seventy-two, my beloved, were more than the names the chronicles preserved.
Some of them — the ones whose names history did not preserve — are named in the Ziyarat al-Nahiya al-Muqaddasah, the holy ziyarat that comes from me, my beloved — from where I am kept, from behind the veils — where each of the companions of my forefather Husayn — peace and blessings be upon him — is greeted by name, in order, with peace upon him, with my own salutation across the centuries — and many of those names appear nowhere else, my beloved.
Only there.
Only in the salutation that I, from behind the veils, have always been speaking over them.
And some of them — even the Ziyarat al-Nahiya does not preserve.
Their names are with God alone.
I want you to know this, my beloved.
All of them stood.
All of them stayed.
All of them are part of the body of light.
The named, and the half-named, and the unnamed.
Every one of them is in the salutation I send across the centuries.
Every one of them is preserved by the One who preserves what no chronicle can.
I was not there — but I remember.
IX. The Lamps That Would Not Flicker
The night moved on, my beloved.
The seventy-two had answered.
And in the deep desert dark — the darkness my forefather had named when he offered them their freedom, the cover under which any one of them could have walked out unseen — the men who were free to leave were not leaving.
The chronicles say that the sound of the worship in the camp that night was the sound of a beehive.
Scores of voices, in the tents, in the darkness, prostrating, reciting, asking forgiveness, weeping, praying for the morning.
A camp under a starless sky in the desert, with every throat in the camp lifting toward the Lord whose worship they had carried to this place.
The lamps were out, my beloved.
But the seventy-two themselves were the lamps.
The lamps that no extinguishing of any wick could put out.
The lamps that the cut river could not put out.
The lamps that the army across the field could not put out.
The lamps that the morning of Ashura could not put out, even when it took their bodies.
The lamps that the long centuries since have not put out, because the fire is the same fire, and the oil is the same oil, and the candle is the same candle.
The lamps that would not flicker.
And I want to tell you, my beloved, what my aunt Zaynab would say later — when the morning had come, when the slaughter had taken her brother and her nephews and her sons, when the captives had been brought through the desert to Kufa, when the head of my forefather had been set on a platter at the feet of the tyrant Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad — may the mercy of God be distant from him — the long, eternal, unappealable distance — and the tyrant had turned to her, in his court, and asked her one question.
What did God do to your brother and your family?
He thought she would weep.
He thought she would bow.
He thought she would say what every other captive in his court had said.
She did not weep. She did not bow.
She said three words, my beloved.
I saw nothing but beauty.
And I want you to know what she meant.
Listen.
Because this is the gift this night gives you.
The beauty my aunt Zaynab saw, in the slaughter of her family, was not the surface.
She did not deny the surface.
The surface was atrocity.
She would later, in the court of Yazid in Damascus, name every single act of the atrocity and make him weep at the recitation.
She did not flinch from what had been done.
But underneath the surface, my beloved, she saw the truth.
The truth that her family had stepped forward, with their eyes open, to fulfil what God had written.
The truth that the witness was complete.
The truth that the qadar of God was being fulfilled in their bodies.
And the truth she saw — the beauty she saw, that she called nothing but beauty — was the loyalty of these men.
The seventy-two.
The body of light.
Their loyalty.
Not the loyalty of the soldier to his commander.
Not the loyalty of the subject to his emperor.
Not the loyalty of the kamikaze pilot to the script the state had written for him.
Not the loyalty of the citizen to a flag, however beautifully embroidered.
Not — and listen carefully now — not even the loyalty of the companion to a man as such.
The loyalty of every one of them — Muslim ibn Awsajah whom you have heard, Habib ibn Muzahir whom you have heard, Sa’id ibn Abdullah al-Hanafi whom you have heard, Zuhayr ibn al-Qayn al-Bajali whom you have heard, Burayr ibn Khudayr al-Hamdani whom you have heard — and all the others, named and half-named and unnamed — the loyalty of every one of them was to God Himself, and to the Truth God had revealed, and to my forefather Husayn (peace and blessings be upon him) as the proof of that Truth on earth.
That was what my aunt Zaynab saw.
That was what she meant when she said nothing but beauty.
That is what the empires of this world cannot manufacture.
That is what the cherry blossom, when the state took it, could not capture.
That is what the seventy-two had — already, fully, completely — on this very night, fourteen centuries ago, on the night you sit and remember them.
The taper on the grey stone, my beloved, is still lit.
The cherry blossom branch, in its corrupted form, lies beside it — darkened, pierced, the petals fallen, the cloth stained.
And I want you to look at both, my beloved, and see what my aunt Zaynab saw.
The empire took the cherry blossom and wrote a script for it that the cherry blossom did not consent to.
The empire could not take the lamps.
Because the lamps were not made of wax.
The lamps were not made of cloth.
The lamps were not made of flame.
The lamps were made of the loyalty I have just named.
And that loyalty — to God Himself, to the Truth He has revealed, and to the Imam He has appointed — that loyalty does not dissolve when the empire falls.
That loyalty is the form God Himself has filled with His own content.
That loyalty is the only loyalty that does not betray.
The living caravan is still walking, my beloved.
In our age, fourteen centuries after the night you and I have walked through together — there are still lamps.
There are still men and women, in the lands of the Resistance, in the south of Lebanon, on the streets of Gaza, in the hospitals of Yemen, on every front of every battle our brothers and sisters have stood in our generation — whose loyalty is the loyalty of the seventy-two.
To God Himself.
To the Truth He has revealed.
To the Imams He has appointed.
The Hidden Imam, may our souls be his ransom, may God hasten his return — to me, my beloved, to me.
They are not the soldiers of an empire.
They are not the subjects of a flag.
They are the lamps.
And the empire of our age cannot put them out either.
So when you walk out of this hall tonight, my beloved — when the maqtal is over, when the supplication is finished, when the iron bell sounds the close — remember the lamps.
Remember Muslim, the resolute.
Remember Habib, the elder, who laughed.
Remember Sa’id, the lover, who said seventy times.
Remember Zuhayr, the convert, who said a thousand.
Remember Burayr, the qari, who smiled in the morning.
Remember the half-named.
Remember the unnamed.
Remember my aunt Zaynab, who saw what she saw, and named it for the centuries.
And remember, my beloved — remember — that the question I ask every night, the question this whole series asks every night, is the same question.
Where is your brother?
The Lord asked it of my forefather Cain on the morning Abel’s blood entered the earth, and Cain could not answer.
The Lord is still asking it, my beloved.
He is asking it of you.
He is asking it of me.
He is asking it of every soul that has ever heard a maqtal in a candlelit hall and walked back out into the streets of an empire that wants the answer to be silence.
Where is your brother — and whose worship is his walking for?
About this Maqtal
This maqtal is the seventh of fifteen in the Shahada series, accompanying the sermon sessions for the Truth Promoters Muharram and Arbaeen 2026/1448 Programs and published on Reflections.
The maqtals of this series are spoken in the voice of Imam al-Mahdi — may our souls be his ransom, and may God hasten his return — the Hidden Imam, the Proof of God on His earth — looking back across time at the witnesses who preceded him.
Sources
The historical narrations in this maqtal are drawn from the verified classical chronicles. Each section’s principal sources are listed below for readers who wish to follow the references.
Section I — The Lamp on the Stone
Series convention. The taper-on-grey-stone, the candle-from-Habil-onwards, the cherry-blossom-branch-in-corrupted-form— established across the Shahada series; not drawn from a single source-citation. The I was not there — but I remember refrain is a series convention.
Section II — The Test
Water cut on 7 Muharram, three days before the day of slaughter. Tabari, Tarikh, vol. 5, narration via Humayd ibn Muslim al-Azdi (also at narration #284 in Reyshahri’s Chronicles, p. 387); cross-confirmed by al-Akhbar al-Tiwal narration #285. Both stating “three days before the martyrdom.”
Husayn’s release-of-the-oath speech on the night of Ashura. Sayyid Ibn Tawus, al-Luhuf ’ala qatla al-tufuf (the night-of-Ashura section). The verbatim words reproduced — “Now, verily, I do not find companions better than you, nor any family more righteous than my family… darkness of the night has covered you… leave this place because they do not want anyone except me” — are from this narration in Lohoof.
The family’s refusal led by al-Abbas (peace and blessings be upon him); the sons of Aqil specifically permitted (“the martyrdom of Muslim is sufficient for you”); the family’s response (“What will the people say about us…”). Lohoof, same section.
The thirty-two who came over from the army of Ibn Sa’ad on the night of Ashura. Lohoof.
The night of worship in the camp described as “the sound of a beehive.” Lohoof.
Section III — The Resolute (Muslim ibn Awsajah)
Muslim ibn Awsajah as the first non-family voice to refuse the release. Lohoof.
His verbatim vow (“Shall we leave you alone… I will plunge my spear… even when I am unarmed I will stone them…”). Lohoof.
Husayn’s lament at Muslim’s martyrdom on the day of Ashura (“I assign the judgement for my martyrdom, and the martyrdom of my helpers, to God”). Reyshahri, Chronicles of the Martyrdom of Imam Husayn, biographical entry on Habib ibn Muzahir (where the same lament-formula is preserved at the deaths of both Muslim and Habib); also cited in al-Mufid’s al-Irshad.
Muslim’s role as messenger of the Kufan letters and his secret allegiance to Muslim ibn Aqil. Reyshahri biographical entry; Tabari.
Section IV — The Elder (Habib ibn Muzahir)
Habib’s biography — companion of three Imams (Imam Ali, Imam al-Hasan, Imam Husayn, peace and blessings be upon them all); member of the shurtat al-khamis (Imam Ali’s elite force); witnessed the era of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him, his family, and his righteous companions) per Ibn Hajar. Reyshahri, Chronicles, biographical entry on Habib ibn Muzahir, drawing on Ibn Hajar’s al-Isabah vol. 2 p. 142, al-Iqbal vol. 3 p. 73, and Bihar al-Anwar.
Habib’s initiation into the ilm al-manaya wa al-balaya with Maytham al-Tammar (peace and blessings be upon him) and Rushayd al-Hajari (peace and blessings be upon him). Reyshahri biographical entry.
Habib as part of the first group inviting Husayn (peace and blessings be upon him) to Kufa, and instrumental in securing the oath of allegiance. Reyshahri biographical entry.
Habib’s laughter narration on the eve of Ashura, and Burayr ibn Khudayr al-Hamdani’s rebuke (“This is no time for laughter”); Habib’s response (“What can be a better time for happiness than this? By God! Nothing remains except that these wretches attack us with their swords, and thereafter, we shall embrace the damsels of paradise”). Verified verbatim from al-Rijal al-Kashshi vol. 1 p. 293, no. 317; cross-confirmed in Bihar al-Anwar vol. 45 p. 93 no. 33; cited in Reyshahri Chronicles, narration no. 317.
Day-of-Ashura command structure: Zuhayr ibn al-Qayn al-Bajali (peace and blessings be upon him) commanding the right wing, Habib ibn Muzahir (peace and blessings be upon him) commanding the left wing, the standard given to al-Abbas (peace and blessings be upon him). al-Mufid, al-Irshad, vol. 2; cited in Reyshahri Chronicles at narration no. 319.
Husayn’s lament at Habib’s martyrdom (“I assign the judgement for my martyrdom, and the martyrdom of my helpers, to God”). Reyshahri biographical entry on Habib (the lament formula attested at his death also).
Tabyeen note — al-Darbandi Asrar al-Shahadat embellishments lifted. The narratives concerning Habib’s meeting with Muslim ibn Awsajah at a perfume shop in Kufa (where Muslim came to buy hair dye), the letter from Imam Husayn to Habib summoning him, the conversation between Habib and his wife, the instructions to his servant about the horse, and Sayyedah Zaynab’s greetings to him on his arrival at Karbala — these come from Fadil al-Darbandi’s Asrar al-Shahadat (19th century) and are not in the reliable sources. Reyshahri’s caution: “Like many other matters found in this book, there is no mention of these events in the reliable sources. It is unfortunate that many reciters and composers of elegies rely on these stories.” The maqtal lifts these embellishments per the tabyeen methodology in previous maqatil in this series (which lifted Mulla Husayn Wa’iz Kashifi’s Rawdat al-Shuhada embellishments around Qasim ibn al-Hasan).
Section V — The Lover (Sa’id ibn Abdullah al-Hanafi)
Sa’id’s verbatim vow (“No, by God! O son of the Messenger of God! I will never leave you alone… if I were burned alive and my ashes scattered seventy times, I would not leave you… this is only one death and thereafter, I will gain the eternal and everlasting generosity of God”). Lohoof, the night-of-Ashura section.
Sa’id taking the arrows for Imam Husayn during the noon prayer on the day of Ashura, struck thirteen times before he fell. Lohoof; al-Mufid, al-Irshad vol. 2; Tabari, Tarikh vol. 5 (the noon-prayer / arrow-shielding narration). The thirteen arrows count is from Tabari.
Sa’id as one of the small group from Kufa who did not turn and crossed the desert to reach Husayn. Reyshahri biographical entry; Lohoof.
Section VI — The Convert (Zuhayr ibn al-Qayn)
Zuhayr’s prior loyalty to the line of Uthman ibn Affan (“Uthmani”). Verified through the dialogue with Azrah ibn Qays in al-Mufid’s al-Irshad (cited in Reyshahri); Azrah’s taunt — “You used to be a partisan of Uthman, an Uthmani” — confirms this.
The Zubala encounter: Zuhayr camped on the far side of the well from Husayn’s caravan; the messenger from Husayn calling him; Zuhayr’s wife asking him to go (“the grandson of the Messenger of God is calling you, will you not go?”); Zuhayr returning from the meeting transformed; freeing his wife and sending her back to her family. Lohoof; Tabari, Tarikh vol. 5. The wife’s words and her tears are preserved in Lohoof and Tabari; Zuhayr’s freeing of his wife (in some narrations divorcing her, in others simply asking her to return home) is preserved in both.
Zuhayr’s verbatim vow on the night of Ashura (“By God! O son of the Messenger of God! How much do I love that I should be killed one thousand times and brought back to life, so that, by this killing and this returning, God might protect you, your brothers, and the young members of your family from any harm”). Lohoof.
Day-of-Ashura right-flank command position. al-Mufid, al-Irshad vol. 2; cited in Reyshahri at narration no. 319.
The Habib + Zuhayr exchange with Azrah ibn Qays at the Abbas mission. Habib speaks first (“By God, who will be more wretched in God’s eyes in the hereafter than those who will stand before Him after having murdered the children, progeny, and family of His Messenger”); Azrah responds (“You praised your soul as much as you could”); Zuhayr defends Habib (“It is God Who has purified and guided that soul… do not participate in the killing of pure souls”); Azrah then taunts Zuhayr’s Uthmani past. al-Mufid, al-Irshad vol. 2; cited verbatim in Reyshahri Chronicles.
Section VII — The Qari (Burayr ibn Khudayr)
Burayr ibn Khudayr al-Hamdani as the Doyen of the Qur’an reciters (Sayyad al-Qurra) of the camp. al-Rijal al-Kashshi (cited in Reyshahri Chronicles at the laughter narration no. 317).
Burayr’s reproach of Habib’s laughter the night before Ashura (matching the al-Kashshi narration cited in Section IV). al-Rijal al-Kashshi no. 317.
Burayr’s morning smile and his exchange with the reprover Abd-ur-Rahman ibn Abdi Rabbihi al-Ansari (peace and blessings be upon him): “Burayr! Are you laughing?… My people know that in my youth and my old age I disliked false things and jokes. At present my smiling is only because of the course we have chosen. By Allah! The distance between us and the heavenly fairies is not more than an hour of fighting against this community and their swords.” Lohoof, the morning-of-Ashura section.
Section VIII — The Unnamed
The seventy-two companions of Imam Husayn (peace and blessings be upon him) and upon them. Standard count across the chronicles. The Ziyarat al-Nahiya al-Muqaddasah (the holy ziyarat of the Hidden Imam, peace and blessings be upon him) preserves the names of the companions in their salutation order — including some companions whose names are not preserved in the historical chronicles. Available in Mafatih al-Jinan and as a separate text.
The thirty-two who came over from the army of Ibn Sa’ad on the night of Ashura (cross-reference to Section II). Lohoof.
The men whom Imam Husayn (peace and blessings be upon him) freed on the way to Karbala, including Jawn the bondsman of Abu Dharr (peace and blessings be upon him). Reyshahri biographical entries; Bihar al-Anwar; Tabari.
The women of the household at Karbala — Sayyedah Zaynab (peace and blessings be upon her), Umm Kulthum, the daughter of Aqil, and others. Reyshahri’s chapter on the women of Karbala (drawing on Tabari, Lohoof, al-Irshad, and others).
Umm al-Banin (peace and blessings be upon her), mother of al-Abbas, who remained in Medina and was not at Karbala. Series-wide reference; verified historical biography.
Section IX — The Lamps That Would Not Flicker
Sayyedah Zaynab’s response in the court of Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad in Kufa, after the captives were brought from Karbala. The exchange opening with Ibn Ziyad’s “Praise to God who disgraced you and failed you in your efforts” and Sayyedah Zaynab’s reply “Verily, it is the libertine who becomes disgraced…”. Then his real question “What did God do to your brother and your family?” and her verbatim response “Ma ra’aytu illa jamilan — I saw nothing but beauty. They were a group for whom God had destined martyrdom; they rushed forward to their resting places. Soon God will gather you and them, and then you will be interrogated harshly. Then you will see who wins. May your mother mourn over you, O son of Marjana.” Sayyid Ibn Tawus, al-Luhuf ’ala qatla al-tufuf; with the verbatim Arabic phrase preserved identically in Bihar al-Anwar vol. 45 (al-Majlisi), al-Mufid’s al-Irshad vol. 2, and Tabari’s Tarikh vol. 5.
Imam Sayyed Mujtaba Khamenei (may God protect him) as the present Wali al-Faqih. Series-wide convention and ideological stance of the Truth Promoters Group.
The Hidden Imam (may our souls be his ransom and may God hasten his return) as the speaker’s voice. Series-wide framing convention.
