central paradigm of Shia Islam, the symbol of the eternal
battle between good and evil, but Shariati raised it to the
level of liberation theology. He transformed Ashura, the
ten-day commemoration of what happened at Karbala,
taking it out of the realm of grief and mourning and into
that of hope and activism. Karbala would no longer
merely explain repression; it would be the inspiration to
rise up against it, and Shariati’s most famous call to
action would become the new rallying cry of activist
Shiism, chanted by idealistic young revolutionaries in
the streets of Teheran even as the Shah’s troops ɹred
volley after volley into the crowd: “Every day is Ashura,
and every land is Karbala.”
If Hussein had resolved on martyrdom, Hurr was
equally resolved not to be the one who brought it about.
But he was confronted with a terrible dilemma: his
orders from Ubaydallah on the one hand, his respect for
Hussein on the other. This was the last surviving
member of the People of the Cloak, the Prophet’s own
grandson, his ɻesh and blood. If Hurr could not allow
him to continue on to Kufa, neither could he attack him.
It was Hussein himself who resolved Hurr’s dilemma
by turning in the least expected direction—not back to
Arabia, or on to Kufa, but to the north. He led his small
caravan along the desert bluʃ overlooking the immense
ɻat valley formed by the Euphrates and the Tigris, and