as other male members of the House of the Prophet.46 Husayn was the last to be killed, for no one was willing to strike the death-dealing blow. He did, however, have multiple wounds, because he was riddled with arrows “like a porcupine” and pelted with stones during the fighting.47 Finally, at the instigation of Shimr, a swordsman approached the painfully swaying body of Husayn and severed his left shoulder, while another stabbed him in the back with a spear. It is reported that a soldier named Sinan ibn Anas al-Nakhi was the one who severed Husayn’s head in the end.48
The camp was pillaged, and Husayn’s naked body ultimately was left lying on the burning sand under the hot, noonday sun. Ayoub notes that the survivors lamented loudly on the pillaged battlefield and that upon seeing the dead bodies, Husayn’s sister Zaynab hit her head on the timber of her carriage, “staining her face with the blood of sorrow.”49 Husayn’s head, along with his only surviving son and the female captives, was first transported to Kufah, then to Yazid’s court in Damascus.50 Yazid had not expected such a gruesome outcome, nor did he wish to take credit for this heinous victory. It is said that he was horrified by the whole incident, and in compensation freed all of the captives, clothed and fed them well, allowed them to lament for their dead, and arranged for them all to be escorted back to Medina.
This brief historical overview should give the reader a sense of the events that led to later hagiographic accounts of Husayn’s tragedy, which, from the Shi‘i point of view, highlight the “destruction of family, community, government, and humanity.”51 Such inflated narratives emphasize the mournful, the oppressive, and the tragic. These tragic stories, and many others like them, provide a popular vehicle for the development of a powerful theological conception of Husayn as the paradigmatic martyr in Shi‘i thought. Among the more heartrending stories that have been recounted by later hagiographers and are remembered annually today are the purported marriage of Qasim to Husayn’s daughter Fatimah Kubra on the battlefield just prior to Qasim’s death; the sacrificial death of Abbas, whose arms were severed as he was attempting to procure water for the parched women and children; and the death of Husayn’s infant son Ali Asghar. I will have more to say about the importance of these scenes in the development of dramatic ritual reenactments, but first a few words on the importance of the figure of the imām are necessary in order to understand why Husayn became such a key symbol for the Shi‘ah.
The Theological Significance of the Imām
The cultural construction of the imām figure in Shi‘i Islam is a result of the interaction between historical, hagiographic, and theological forces. The impact of the imām on Shi‘i thought and society has been so great that he is perceived to be an infallible center of sacredness or a “divine guide,” as Ali Amir-Moezzi calls him.52 Unlike the Sunni caliphate, the imāmate is not seen primarily as a political office. Instead, the imām serves the Shi‘i community in a spiritual capacity as the interpreter of religious teachings; he is the exegete par excellence. He is, for all practical purposes, a direct link in a chain of succession leading back to Creation itself. Therefore, his role as a conduit between the human realm and the sacred sphere throughout the ages is seen as a special, innate quality that only he possesses in any given lifetime. To understand why Husayn’s martyrdom is so significant in the ritual year and in Shi‘i eschatology, we must consider the concept of the imām in general.
Ayoub writes that “the imāms, for Shi‘i Muslims, may be thought of as a primordial idea in the mind of God which found temporal manifestation in persons occupying a position midway between human and divine beings.”53 This does not mean that these hereditary divine guides are something other than physically created sentient beings, for they are subject to death, just like any other human being. But their uniqueness rests in the critical place they occupy in maintaining the cosmic harmony of the universe. They are, first and foremost, products of divine thought, mirroring the Creator’s mental blueprint of order for the world. Beginning, then, as pure thought in the worldly conception of the Divine, they became manifest as “luminous entities or conventicles of light in the loins of prophets and wombs of holy women until they reached actualization in the Prophet Muḥammad.”54 The imāms are thus seen as “light upon light,” an image used by the sixth imām, Jafar al-Sadiq, to describe the illuminated pattern of imāmi̅ succession. The imāms, embodying pure light that has passed from the beginning of time through successive generations of prophets, are known as al-nūr al-muḥammadi̅, the “light of Muhammad.” The bearer of light, the interpreter of revelation, and the source of knowledge must be both physically and spiritually pure. He is further seen as the perfect man, the possessor of infallibility. This characteristic above all endows the imām with a special spiritual aura resulting from his gnosis, upon which he draws to fulfill his central religious duty.
Because the Twelver branch of the Shi‘ah philosophically perceives religion to have mutually dependent external/exoteric (ẓāhir) and internal/esoteric (bāṭin) factors, there is a need for a spiritual leader who is entrusted with the divinely given metaphysical knowledge that allows him to act as an interpreter of God’s revelations and the Prophet’s teachings. The figure of the imām is the physical embodiment of God’s primordial and divine trust (amānah). He alone can communicate divine knowledge to humans, and therefore he must always be present in some form on earth. According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the basic task of each successive imām, above and beyond all other aspects of mundane life, is to guide the faithful from the external to the internal, toward the source of their existence.55 The imām is, in this capacity, the entrusted being who guides the seeker of religious knowledge on an inner journey by performing the proper exegesis (ta’vi̅l) necessary to facilitate the adept’s spiritual progress.56
Although the world can be without a prophet, it can never be without an imām, according to Shi‘i theologians. The figure of the imām therefore must always be present on earth to serve as an interpreter of revelation. He is a vital link in a chain of authorities that must always be represented on earth, either physically or theoretically, in each successive generation. Only he has the capacity to understand and interpret that which no other earthly being can.57 The role of the imām, then, is absolutely critical for the proper functioning of the world. Nasr suggests that the imām’s threefold functions and duties are “to rule over the community of Muslims as the representative of the Prophet, to interpret the religious sciences and the Law to men, especially their inner meaning, and to guide men in the spiritual life.”58 Ayoub adds that “if the concept or ideal of the imām embodies all spiritual and physical perfections for the Shi̅‘i̅s, then Imām Ḥusayn can be regarded as the living perfection, or concretization of this ideal.”59 Husayn is, of course, an integral part of the chain of unbroken tradition, for he manifests the mystical light mentioned above and acts as the vicarious bearer of all the world’s suffering. Indeed, the whole prophetic silsilah (chain) partakes in this suffering and pain, for hagiographic and legendary sources all point to the predetermination of Husayn’s martyrdom. For example, when Husayn arrived at Karbala on the second of Muharram, it is reported that he prayed, knowing that he had arrived at the place of sorrow (karb) and calamity (balā’) where his blood would be shed, according to his grandfather’s prediction.60
Ayoub eloquently documents the eternal participation of all the prophets in Husayn’s suffering.61 Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jesus, and Muhammad each shared in the pain of the violent acts at Karbala. Their suffering, resulting from foreknowledge of the Karbala incident, has potent teleological significance, but it is merely a prelude to Husayn’s own suffering and death. His self-sacrifice is the final act of the cosmic drama that encompasses all creatures—past, present, and future—in a recurrent test of faith and piety to guarantee the ultimate reward of vindication from all sinful acts performed on the face of the earth.62 It is believed that even as a child Husayn had foreknowledge of his tragic end and knew of his unique, predetermined role in God’s divine plan. It is written that when the Prophet was asked if
