In the Footsteps of Martyrs 173Rising to his feet, he lifts his bloody hands to heaven and prays:
“We are for God, and to God shall we return.”
A Quran in one hand and a sword in the other, Husayn mounts his
steed and tugs the horse’s head to face the barricade of soldiers stand-
ing only a few hundred meters in front of him. With a swift kick to the
horse’s ribs, he launches himself ferociously at the enemy, swinging
his sword left and right, all the while shouting, “Do you see how
Fatima’s son fights? Do you see how Ali’s son fights? Do you see how
the Banu Hashim fight despite three days of hunger and thirst?”
One by one, the Syrian riders perish by his sword, until their gen-
eral, Shimr, orders the soldiers to regroup and surround Husayn from
all sides. A swift blow from a lance knocks him off his horse. On the
ground, he covers his head, writhing in pain as the horses trample his
body. Husayn’s sister, Zainab, rushes from the tent to come to his aid.
But Husayn calls out to her to stay where she is. “Go back to the tent,
sister,” he shouts. “I am already undone.”
Finally, Shimr orders the Syrian cavalry to pull back. As his sol-
diers round up the survivors from the camp, the general dismounts his
horse and stands over Husayn’s racked and broken body. “Make your
confession,” Shimr says. “It is time to cut your throat.”
Husayn rolls over onto his back to face his executioner. “Forgive,
O merciful Lord, the sins of my grandfather’s people,” he cries, “and
grant me, bountifully, the key of the treasure of intercession.. .”
Before the Prophet’s grandson can finish his prayer, Shimr lifts his
sword in the air and swings the blade down in one swift motion,
cleanly severing Husayn’s head from his body. He raises the head on a
lance to bring back to Damascus, where he will present it on a golden
tray as a gift to the Umayyad Caliph.
After Ali’s assassination in 661, the remnants of the Shi‘atu Ali in Kufa
selected his eldest son, Hasan, to succeed him as Caliph. But Kufa was
a fractured and isolated city, and Ali’s supporters were scattered and
few in number. With Mu‘awiyah having already declared himself
Caliph in Jerusalem and the hegemony of Damascus stretching ever
further over the Muslim lands, there was no way for Hasan’s allies to
compete with the Syrian army for control of the Muslim community.