Islam Guidance

On the day of Ashura, over 1300 years ago, a noble man was slaughtered thirsty on the land of Karbala, just by the river Euphrates.
The head of the martyr was severed and raised upon a spear. The torn body, with uncountable wounds, was left on the hot sands under the burning sun.
The warriors, who accompanied that noble man, were also martyred and beheaded. Their heads joined the head of their master upon the spears. The household of those martyrs were looted and taken as captive.
The heads on the spears were taken all around the cities to show off the so-called victory. The caravan of captive widows and orphans accompanied the severed heads of their beloved ones.
The sacred head kept reciting verses from the holy Quran whilst upon the spears. It kept warning the ignorant people, yet no one listened.
After a long painful journey, the head was finally returned to Karbala and buried with the body of the martyr.
The head of Imam Hussain (A.S) was buried, yet, the head remains held high.
People may argue, how would a buried head remain held high?
We believe that the head remains held high by inspiration.
Lady Zainab (S.A) inherited the tragedies of her mother and faced them with the patience of her father to resume the mission of her brother.
The spirituality of the sacred head became hearable in the whispered prayers of Al-Sajjad. The faith and passion for the creator are revived in the words: O Allah, who can have tasted the sweetness of your love, then wanted another in place of you?
Persistence is inspired from the head held high. It inspired all the infallible Imams (A.S) down to the Imam of time, the Awaited Mahdi (A.S). The endurance of the head held high is felt in the existence of the awaited Imam, who lives among us spreading the mercy of the almighty.
Again, we live the utmost spirituality inspired by the sacred head when we listen to Duaa Arafa. Every year Millions of Muslims respond to the call of the almighty and go on pilgrimage. On the day of Arafa, hundreds of thousands of believers recite this amazing supplication:
That eye should be blind if it does not see you watching it, and the trade of your servant would be lost without giving him a share of your love.
The sacred head of imam Hussain (A.S) inspires our prayers. When Imam Hussain (A.S) was a child, the prophet was teaching him how to pray and start prayer with Allah Akbar.
At that time Imam Hussain (A.S), being a child could not follow until the seventh call of Allah Akbar. Since that day, many followers of the holy household repeat Allah Akbar seven time to start their prayers.

Ref: Almujtaba Islamic Network

The Imam with his father at the massacre in Karbala
Imam Sajjad (A.S) was present in Karbala and endured the psychologically scarring event of watching his father, brothers, uncles and near relatives massacred by Yazid’s army. The Imam therefore serves as a pivotal eye-witness to the events at Karbala.
Although being the successor to Imam Hussein(A.S), Imam Sajjad (A.S) still wished to defend his father. Despite being overcome and afflicted by a very severe fever, he was still prepared to leave the camp and defend his father. However, Imam Hussein (A.S) did not give his son permission to leave, knowing that he needed to protect the future Imam from harm.

The Imam’s scholarly activities
One of the qualities that the Imam possessed, which can be observed through the surviving writings from the Imam’s letters and sayings, is his courage in advising other scholars to carry on the Islamic duty of calling to good and forbidding evil.
In a letter which survives as an example of the Imam’s advice to the scholars, the Imam harshly rebukes one of the scholars of the Muslims known as “Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri”. The Imam condemns him for having offered his position as a scholar to be used knowingly by corrupt authorities.
“You have been the propagandist of their temptation when you took their courses. They have employed you as the means through which they aroused doubts against the scholars and dragged the hearts of the ignorant to them. The best one in their government and the most powerful of them could not achieve success like that which you have attained through showing their corrupt affairs as honest and attracting the attentions of the celebrities as well as the ordinary people to you.”
The Imam was particularly critical of scholars who openly supported the government as they were in a position to be able to speak out against the regime. He also condemned common Muslim scholars whose silence tended to lend the government legitimacy.
The Imam’s greatest scholarly contribution, however, is a very unique work which comparably has no equal in classic Islamic texts - a unique genre, called the “Treatise of Rights” (Risalat al-Huquq).
The Treatise of Rights is a document which highlights the uniqueness of the intellect of the Imams. It builds upon the general rights prescribed in the Qur’an and offers unique guidance for believers as to the rights of God, the rights of slaves, parents, rulers and those ruled over. As a document it highlights just how visionary the thoughts of the Imam were given the era that his Imamate took place.
The document remains very unique, even by the standards of modern day charters of rights in that the document highlights numerous objects which have rights, for example, the rights of the ear, the rights of the eye etc.

Death of the Imam (A.S)
In the year 95 A.H, Imam Sajjad (A.S) was poisoned under the instructions of the Caliph Walid b. Marwan. The Imam left behind a vast collection of devotional supplications and written documents and as such his legacy was enshrined in the corpus of Shi’a devotional literature.

Taken from: Center for Islamic Shia studies

Unvirtuous Elites | Shabath ibn Ribi

This is the story of Kufan. This is the story of Shabath, who wrote a letter to Imam Hussein inviting him to Kufah, and then later became one of the commanders of Umar ibn Saad's army in Karbala. Shabath is an example of those people whose hypocrisy and disloyalty resulted, time and again, in the killing of the Ahl al-Bayt. Shabath is one of the reasons Imam Mahdi is in Occultation.