A Man Emerges from Fatima's House | ||
A Man Emerges from Fatima's House By Ali Shariati Hossain (AS) inherits the Islamic movement. He is the inheritor of a movement which Muhammad has launched, Ali has continued and in whose protection Hasan (AS) makes the last defence. Now there is nothing left for Hossain (AS) to inherit, no army, no weapons, no wealth, no power, no force, not even an organized following. Nothing at all.
It is now around the year 60 A.H. (680 A.D.), fifty years after the death of the Prophet. Each Imam chooses the form his struggle will take. The form of the struggle of each Imam and each leader is not based upon his own personal tastes, but it has to take shape to fit the circumstances, and evaluate the factions, and the nature of the enemy's strength and formation.
Thus the shape of the struggle which Hossain (AS) chooses cannot be understood without taking into account the nature of the circumstances in which Hossain (AS) launches his particular revolt. Now, when Hossain’s turn comes, the times and the people are looking for a man. How difficult it is when such a situation arises - sometimes the fate of a nation, the fate of a faith, an idea, a society, a generation is looking to an individual or several individuals in anticipation of how they will act.
Now the responsibility of safeguarding the revolution has fallen upon Hossain’s shoulders at a time when the last bastions of resistance have been lost. Nothing has remained for him from the power of his grandfather, his father, his brother, the Islamic government or the party of Truth and justice, not a sword, not a single soldier.
Now Hossain (AS) appears but the central base of the power of the Revolution has been lost. The companions of the Resistance struggle have either been killed off or silenced. The faithful companions, who had not sold themselves, sought the security of devotion in out-of-the way corners rather than be bothered with the battling for that which is right and the risks involved in social and political struggle, to liberate the people and free them from their oppressive lot. Sixty years have passed since the migration of the Prophet. Everything earned by the Revolution has been destroyed. All of the successes earned half a century before have been abolished. The Book brought by the Prophet is placed on the spears of the Bani Ummayyid. The culture and ideas which Islam had developed through jihad, struggles and efforts in the hearts and thoughts of the people became a means for explaining the Ummayyids rule.
The foundations of Muhammad no longer have a spokesman nor an altar, or a pulpit. Throughout the whole of this wide territory which included Rome, Iran and the Arabs, no one remains who relates to the Prophet's family or who was of the generation of those faithful to the Revolution. The results of all of the sufferings of the Emigrants and the Companions (Helpers) went with the wind. The palace of Mu'awiyyah gained a treasure, easily earned.
So, now, sixty years after the migration, all of the powers are in the possession of the oppressive ruler. The values are determined solely by the ruling regime. Ideas and thoughts are developed by idea-making and thought making agents. Brains are washed, filled and poisoned with material presented in the name of religion. Faiths are altered, bought, paralyzed. If none of these efforts prove successful, faith is cut off with the sword. Now, Hossain (AS) has come up against this power, the power which possesses the thoughts, religion, Quran, wealth, sword, propagation, public arms and heredity of the Prophet. Hossain (AS) appears with empty hands. He has nothing. What can he do? Can he become an ascetic and run away to a corner to worship? Should he keep quiet rationalizing that since he is the grandson of the Prophet, the son of Ali and Fatima, therefore Paradise has been guaranteed to him?
This argument does-not hold with him. The other believers believe it but he is responsible, committed. Can he change his responsibility to perform the jihad into reaching nearness to God through reading and reciting prayers which is certainly easier? He cannot choose this solution because it is just 60 years after the migration and no prayer books have as yet been printed.
He has two ways open to him - either to say "No.
I cannot start a political fight against the Ummayyid tribe because a combat like that needs an army and 1 have no power so I have to just sit down and perform an intellectual, a mental jihad." But Imam Hossain (AS) cannot choose this solution.
Imam Hossain (AS) leaves Medina and goes to Mecca. In Medina, he receives the invitation of the people of Kufa, "We believe in you and expect you to accept the leadership. We need your leadership. We will give power to you. We will stand with you against usurpation and oppression. We will defend you. Please release us from this exploitive government."
In Medina, Imam Hossain (AS) announces: "Following in the traditions of my grandfather and my father, I am leaving Medina to 'invite people to the good and to forbid evil.' “Then he travels the 600 kilometres and arrives openly in Mecca, accompanied by his family.
In Mecca, he announces to the pilgrims who had come for the annual pilgrimage, "I am going to my death." A person who is planning a political rebellion does not speak in these terms. He would say, "I am going to fight to kill. I will conquer. I will destroy the enemy."
But Imam Hossain (AS) addresses the people, saying, "Death, for the sons of Adam, is as beautiful as a necklace around the neck of a young and beautiful girl. Death is an ornament for mankind." Then he leaves Mecca to go towards death.
He formally, clearly and distinctly announces to the government, to the ruling power, to the military governor, to the people, "I do not give my allegiance. I am leaving Mecca. I am migrating to Kufa. I am migrating to death. I begin to move."
Imam Hossain (AS), as a responsible leader, sees that if he remains silent, Islam will change into a religion of the government. Islam will be changed into a military-economic power and nothing more. Islam will become as other regimes and powers. When their power diminishes, when their army and government are destroyed, nothing will remain. It will be nothing more than a memory in history - an accident which occurred in the past and has ended.
It is for this reason that Imam Hossain (AS) now stands between two inabilities. He can neither remain silent nor can lay fight. He cannot remain silent because time and the right opportunity are passing. Everything is being destroyed, abolished in the minds and deep consciences of the people - feelings, thoughts, schools of thought, goals, targets, meanings, ideals - everything brought by the message of Muhammad, all of the Islam that he brought and developed through jihad, great efforts and struggles. All of the others are obeying the ruling power. They are being; deceived. Their present atmosphere is one of complete silence, palpitations and surrender. He cannot remain silent because he has a duty to fight against oppression.
On the other hand, he cannot fight because he has no army. He is surrounded by the ruling, oppressive regime. He can neither shout out nor surrender nor attack. He remains with empty hands, yet the heavy burden of all of these responsibilities rests on his shoulders. He receives nothing from the power and the results of the struggles and efforts of his grandfather, the Prophet, his father, Hazrat Ali, and his brother, Imam Hasan, except an honour, a misery and a very heavy responsibility.
He is alone, unarmed. Opposing him is one of the most savage empires of the world which is being covered over by the fairest and most deceiving cover of piety, sacredness and unity which the ruling power possesses. He is alone. He is a lonely man who is responsible to this school of thought. In this school of thought, the lonely man is also responsible to oppose the determining power of fate because responsibility appears from awareness and faith, not from power and possibility. Whoever is more aware is more responsible, and who is more aware than Imam Hossain (AS)? What is his responsibility? He is responsible to fight against the elimination of truth, the destruction of the rights of the people, annihilation of all of the values, abolition of all of the memories of the Revolution, destruction of the message of the Revolution, and protect the most beloved of cultures and the faith of the people, for their destruction is the aim of the most filthy enemies of the people. They want to once again create the unknown, mysterious deaths, exiles, putting people in chains, the worshipping of pleasure, discriminations, the gathering of wealth, the selling of human values, faith, honour, creating new religious foolishnesses, racism, new aristocracy, new ignorance and a new polytheism.
The responsibility of resisting, struggling and fighting against all of these treacheries to the thoughts and crimes of the people, strikes against the people and jihads which are performed against the new conservatism and guarding that great, divine Revolution, are all placed upon the shoulders of one man. Alone! No one else has remained in the ranks of truth, justice, awareness, the people and God.
All of the defenders have either been killed or have run away. He has remained alone, empty handed, without any possibility, surrounded by the enemy who caused others to surrender to the silence, to become indifferent and fall into public ignorance.
He can neither keep silent nor can he cry out. He cannot remain silent because all of the responsibilities are awaiting the actions of this lonely man. He cannot cry out because the sound of his voice has been curtailed. He must fight, but he cannot. How strange. He must and yet is unable. This responsibility burdens his awareness. It results from 'being Hossain (AS)' not from his 'ability'. He is still Hossain (AS) alone, unable, unarmed and helpless.
What should he do? 'Being Hossain (AS)' calls him to fight but he has no arms to fight with and yet he still has the duty to fight. All of the supporters of wisdom and religion, advisors of tradition and common law, recommenders towards goodness and logic, all, unanimously say, "No!" But Hossain (AS) says, "Yes."
He leaves Medina for this purpose. He has come to Mecca to announce his unique answer to all Muslims who have gathered there for the pilgrimage ceremonies. He leaves Mecca to reply to the question, "How?" The question existed in that important moment of history in which the fate of the people and Islam were changing and being determined. At the moment, all things have fallen down. All of the intellectuals and aware people and those who are faithful to the truth, justice, freedom of Islam and revolution, all those who could see, feel, understand and thus suffered and felt themselves responsible, who are thus looking for a revolution, are then asking, "What should be done?"
All classes, including those who were in power, religious men, scholars, even Shia s - that is, intellectuals who sought out the truth and knew the truth and their social; mental and political policy to be quite clear and distinct - all of them at this time, sixty years after the migration - in reply to the question of the times, without any exception - say 'No!'
There is only one man - a lonely man - who says 'Yes.' What is that yes? It is a response behind which is total inability, total weakness in a time of darkness and silence, against oppression and tyranny, an aware and faithful man who still has the responsibility of the jihad. It is Imam Hossain’s command: 'Yes!' There is also a 'must' in his inability. For him it is living in idea and jihad.
Ability or inability, weakness or strength, loneliness or crowds only determine the form of the mission and the manner of approaching the responsibility, not its necessity.
He must fight. But he has no arms. Nevertheless it is his duty to fight. Hossain (AS) answers his command and he is the only one whose opinion is 'Yes.' He is a lonely man. He has left his home in Medina. He has gone from Medina to Mecca as it is the season of the Pilgrimage, beside the Ka'ba, where the people have gathered to say, 'Yes'.
And now, he is leaving Mecca. He is in a hurry. His Pilgrimage is half finished in order to show the world, 'how'.
Now, time awaits one man. Everything is in expectation of a man who embodies the values which are being destroyed, who embodies the symbols of all of the ideals which have remained friendless and abandoned.
Suddenly a spark appears in the darkness and bursts through the silence. The radiant visage of 'a martyr who walks alive upon the earth'. From the depths of darkness, the immense corruptions and obscure nights of despair, the light and powerful feature of 'a hope' is seen.
Once more, from the silent and sorrowful home of Fatima, the little house which is greater than the whole of history, a man emerges - angry, determined, in a state of rebellion against all of the palaces of cruelty and fronts of power. He is as a mountain which holds a volcano within it or as a hurricane like the one God sent to the tribe of 'Ad.
A man emerges from Fatima's house. He looks at Medina and the mosque of the Prophet, Mecca and Abraham, the Ka'ba which is enchained by Nimroud, Islam and the message of Muhammad, the Green Palace of Damascus, the hungry people, the slaves and . . .
A man emerges from Fatima's house. The load of all of the responsibilities has been placed upon his shoulders. He is heir of the great suffering human being. He is the only successor to Adam, Abraham, Muhammad . . . a lonely man.
But no! A woman has come out of Fatima's house with him, walking side by side with him. She bears half of the heavy mandate of her brother upon her shoulders - Zainab. | ||
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