Ya Imam Huseyn!

Bismillahirahmanirahim

Peace to your hearts and blessed New Year to each of You

We are now in the first ten days of Muharram, the first month of the new year in the Koranic calendar.

These days are guided by the blessed light of Imam Huseyn, radiallahu anhhu, may Allah be pleased with him and with his companions and community and descendants and with all those who love him

These days are filled with his love, his spiritual power and his forbearance. They are also colored with the dye of his suffering and his blood.

As spiritual descendants of this glorious human being, this Imam to the worlds, the son of Fatima the Radiant and Ali the Inheritor, we are tasting a drop of the ocean of tears in his heart for humanity. We are experiencing an atom of the tests and trials that he and his companions endured. We feel such sadness for any harm that could come to him, for the prick of a thorn or the slight of another human being. He was the beloved of Allah and the heart joy of his grandfather Muhammad, sallallahu aleyhi wa sellim. How could we endure witnessing the affliction of Karbala? Through the bond of our heart, we grieve for his body, we grieve for his soul. We grieve for his family, for his wife Umm Rubab who survived, for his sons who were killed, Ali al Akbar and Ali al Asghar, and for his son Zayn al Abidin who survived to become the fourth Imam. We grieve for his saintly sister Lady Zaynab who survived him and later confronted Yazid in his court. We grieve for all the holy companions who were with him, those who chose his companionship over their own life. We grieve for those who survived and for those who died. We grieve for the state of the human beings who afflicted him. In the martyrdom of Imam Huseyn and the Seventy we feel the grief of humanity on earth.

Where can we turn? Where can we take shelter? We turn to Allah and we take shelter in Allah and in Allah’s Mercy and great Love and in Allah’s all-healing Forgiveness. We let go of our grudges. We pray for Allah to forgive us and to forgive those who afflict us. We forgive. We pray for human beings and for the beings who are in their care. We learn to bear our own trials which are small. We remember not to fall into despair as our Lord and Lover is the most Generous and Responsive, swift to help. We feel tenderness and compassion for all beings. We strive to help without needing recognition in return. We recount Allah’s Generosity to ourself every day. We consciously praise Allah as much as we can remember to praise Allah. We rely on Allah in all conditions. We maintain a place of peace in our heart despite outer circumstances.

We remember to live in gratitude. We walk humbly on the earth.

We aspire to be the servants of Rahman.

Ya Imam Huseyn! You are our beloved! You are the mirror of Muhammad, sallallahu aleyhi wa sellim.

I remember the tears of Effendi when he would sing the ilahi to Imam Huseyn.

Fariha Fatima