messenger, exhausted from the long, urgent ride from
Kufa. All of them bore letters begging Hussein to come to
Iraq. Pleading with him to save them from the brutality
and injustice of Yazid and his governor Ubaydallah.
Calling on him to reclaim the caliphate and restore the
soul of Islam. And then came the most persuasive letter
of all, the one from Muslim, Hussein’s cousin, assuring
him that he had twelve thousand men ready to rise up
under his leadership.
Hussein’s response was to engrave the tragic rift
between Shia and Sunni deep into the Muslim psyche.
The third Imam, son of the ɹrst and brother of the
second, set out from Mecca for Iraq in September of 680,
with his family and just seventy-two armed men, not
knowing that he was journeying toward his death—that
within the month, he was destined to become forever the
Prince of Martyrs.