living up to his name, he could not conceive of using
force against the Prophet’s grandson and his family.
Instead, in a gesture of peaceful intent, he approached
Hussein with his shield reversed. Then, like so many
before him, he tried to persuade him that if he could not
pledge allegiance to Yazid, he should at least turn back to
Mecca.
“No, by God,” came the answer. “I will neither give
my hand like a humiliated man nor ɻee like a slave. May
I not be called Yazid. Let me never accept humiliation
over dignity.” And in demonstration of that dignity,
Hussein stood high in his saddle and addressed Hurr’s
men, many of them the same Kufans who had previously
pledged to rise up against Yazid under his leadership.
“I have here two saddlebags full of your letters to me,”
he said. “Your messengers brought me your oath of
allegiance, and if you now fulɹll that oath, you will be
rightly guided. My life will be with your lives, my family
with your families. But if you break your covenant with
me, you have mistaken your fortune and lost your
destiny, for whoever violates his word, violates his own
soul.”
With men such as Yazid and his governor Ubaydallah
in power, he said, “the goodness of the world is in
retreat, and what was good is now bitter. Can you not
see that truth is no longer practiced? That falsehood is
no longer resisted? When that is so, I can only see life