“There is no compulsion in religion. The right way has become clear from error. So whoever rejects the false lord and believes in God has grasped the firmest handhold, which never breaks.”

— Qur’an, Surah al-Baqarah (the Chapter of the Cow) #2, Verse 256

“God is sufficient for us, and He is the best of guardians.”

— Qur’an, Surah Aal Imran (the Chapter of the Family of Imran) #3, Verse 173

“And We did not send you except as a mercy to all the worlds.”

— Qur’an, Surah al-Anbiya (the Chapter of the Prophets) #21, Verse 107

“God does not forbid you, regarding those who did not fight you over religion and did not drive you from your homes, that you be kind and just to them — indeed God loves the just. God only forbids you, regarding those who fought you over religion and drove you from your homes and supported your expulsion, that you take them as allies.”

— Qur’an, Surah al-Mumtahanah (the Chapter of the Examined Woman) #60, Verses 8–9

But, do not tell me that a witness belongs only to yesterday, pressed between the pages of books we kiss but never become.

Do not tell me that the road ended where Karbala’s dust settled, or where the chains of Sham finally fell silent.

No. The road is still beneath our feet.

Abel still bleeds every time truth is envied.
The prophets still call every time power demands silence.
Husayn still stands wherever dignity refuses to bow.
And Zaynab still speaks whenever fear commands the tongue to rest.

The chain was never forged to hang in history’s museum.
Each generation must become its next link.
Some are summoned with sword in hand.

Some with pen in hand.
Some with a cradle,
Some with a courtroom,
Some with nothing but a heart unwilling
to sell what it knows to be true.
Not every witness dies.

But every witness must first surrender the fear of dying.
For witness begins long before blood reaches the earth.

It begins the moment comfort loses its throne, the moment truth becomes more precious than tomorrow.

We have learned to weep for names the centuries have already crowned.

How easy it is to love those
whose victory history has confirmed.

How difficult it is to recognise
the witness who still walks among us—
whose funeral has not yet become a chapter, whose sacrifice is still argued over, whose name the powerful
would rather erase than engrave.

The world has always preferred its witnesses when they can no longer speak.

Living witnesses make demands.
Dead ones can be admired without imitation.
Yet the chain asks more.

It asks whether we can see before the historians write, before the monuments rise, before the verdict becomes fashionable.

Can we recognise truth while it is still costly?
Can we honour sacrifice before the world permits us to?
Can we become what we praise?
The chain is not broken.

It runs from the first innocent to every soul who chooses God over comfort, justice over applause, truth over survival.

Its links are not made of iron, but of conviction.
And somewhere, even now, another link is being forged.
Perhaps not on a battlefield, but in a prison cell.
Perhaps not before an army, but before a judge.

Perhaps not with a cry that shakes nations, but with a quiet refusal
to betray what is sacred.
The chain passes through every age.
It has reached ours.

And it does not ask us whether we are ready to die.
It asks something far more unsettling:
Are we willing to live as witnesses,
should God decree that witness is what this generation requires of us?

“Say: if you truly love God, then follow me — and God will love you, and forgive you your sins. And God is Forgiving, Merciful.”

— Qur’an, Surah Aal Imran (the Chapter of the Family of Imran) #3, Verse #31

“And what is it with you, that you do not fight in the way of God — and for the oppressed among the men, the women, and the children — those who cry out: Our Lord, bring us out of this town whose people are oppressors, and appoint for us from Yourself a protector, and appoint for us from Yourself a helper.”

— Qur’an, Surah al-Nisa (the Chapter of the Women) #4, Verse 75

Arbaeen is usually approached through the merit of visitation, the story of its first pilgrim, and the sheer scale of the walk. Yet within the text of Ziyarat Arbaeen lies something easily passed over: the insistent repetition of a single word — Ashhadu, “I bear witness.”

The pilgrim standing before Imam Husayn (peace be upon him) does not simply offer greetings, nor merely voice grief. Again and again he testifies: “I bear witness that you are the trustee of Allah and the son of His trustee”; “and I bear witness that Allah will fulfil what He promised you”; “and I bear witness that you fulfilled the covenant of Allah.” At last he calls upon Allah Himself to witness that he is a friend to whoever befriends Husayn and an enemy to whoever opposes him.

Why so much testimony? Had the truth of Ashura not already been made plain by the blood of the Imam and his companions?

The answer lies in the distance between a truth occurring and a truth enduring. Ashura revealed the truth; Arbaeen asks the Ummah not to let that truth be buried, distorted, or drained of effect. The Imam became a martyr on Ashura. Now the Ummah must become a witness.

By the “jurisprudence of testimony” I do not mean the technical chapter on legal witnesses, but the body of intellectual, moral, and social responsibilities that fall upon a people who have come to know the truth and no longer have the right to remain indifferent while it is distorted.

The martyrdom was not the end of the duty

No truth survives merely because it once happened. Events can be denied; victorious powers routinely rewrite their moral defeats as political triumphs. The martyrdom of Imam Husayn therefore required witnesses — people who would say plainly who was killed, why, and by which power.

The Qur’an does not treat the concealment of testimony as harmless silence: “Do not conceal testimony; whoever conceals it, his heart is sinful” (al-Baqarah 2:283). One who knows the truth and withholds it at the moment it is needed has not merely failed to attain a virtue — he has helped falsehood endure.

If Ashura was the summit of the Imam’s fulfilment of duty, Arbaeen marks the opening of a new stage in the duty of the Ummah. The Imam’s blood brought the truth out from beneath the rubble of distortion; the testimony of the Ummah must keep it in the memory of history.

The battle that began when the fighting stopped

The army of Umar ibn Sa’d considered the military engagement concluded by the afternoon of Ashura. The conduct of the Umayyad state suggests otherwise: it understood that battlefield victory was worthless without victory over the narrative. Accordingly, it laboured to present Imam Husayn not as the grandson of the Prophet and a reformer of the Ummah, but as a rebel against the ruler of the Muslims.

Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad exemplified this. Receiving the captives in Kufa, he cast himself as the representative of truth and — God forbid — called the Imam “a liar and the son of a liar.” Lady Zaynab (peace be upon her) broke the framing in a sentence: “It is the corrupt person who is disgraced, and the wicked person who lies — and he is other than us.”

Ibn Ziyad also worked to attribute the killing to the direct will of God, thereby lifting the crime from his own shoulders. Seeing Imam al-Sajjad (peace be upon him) among the captives, he demanded: “Did God not kill Ali ibn al-Husayn in Karbala?” The Imam answered: “I had a brother named Ali whom the people killed.” When Ibn Ziyad insisted, “Rather, God killed him,” the Imam recited: “Allah takes the souls at the time of their death” (al-Zumar 39:42) — establishing that while the taking of the soul belongs to God, murder is the deliberate act of guilty men.

In that brief exchange another instrument of distortion was exposed: the concealment of human responsibility behind the language of divine decree. The caravan of captives refused to let the regime dress its political crime as destiny. These exchanges are recorded by Shaykh al-Mufid, al-Tabari, and others.

The captives who became the first witnesses

From Karbala to Kufa and on to Damascus, the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them) appeared outwardly as prisoners. In reality they became the first official witnesses of Ashura, carrying into public view precisely what the regime wished buried: the Imam’s relationship to the Prophet, the purpose of his uprising, the treachery of the Kufans, the character of Yazid’s rule, and the wrong done to the martyrs.

In the court at Damascus, when Yazid struck the blessed teeth of the Imam with a cane and recited verses avenging his pagan forefathers slain at Badr, Lady Zaynab rose and delivered a sermon like a storm: “O Yazid, do you imagine that because you have closed the horizons of the earth upon us… this is a sign of our humiliation before Allah and your honour in His sight?” Then she announced the outcome of the struggle in advance: “Plot whatever plot you can… By Allah, you will never erase our remembrance.”

Imam al-Sajjad, in the mosque of Damascus, introduced himself again and again: “I am the son of Mecca and Mina; I am the son of Zamzam and Safa… I am the son of Muhammad al-Mustafa; I am the son of Fatimah al-Zahra…” — making plain to a population fed on Umayyad propaganda that these captives were not strangers to Islam but the children of its founder.

The second stage of the Husayni movement, then, was not continued by the sword but by testimony. Sermon, tears, narration, and visitation became the instruments of a new struggle. On Ashura bodies were besieged; after Ashura, meaning was besieged. Had the Ahl al-Bayt not broken that siege, Karbala might today be recorded not as a divine and reformist movement but as a failed internal rebellion.

From event to memory

Any historical event, however grave or heroic, drifts into the past if left to time alone; it becomes a page in a book useful chiefly to historians. But when a community consciously and regularly returns to it, the event leaves the calendar and enters public identity.

This is precisely the work Arbaeen performs. It refuses to let Ashura remain a painful report from Muharram of the year 61. Each year it removes the file from the archive, opens it again, summons the witnesses, and puts a question to every new generation: what is your position today toward truth and toward the oppressor?

A person may love Imam Husayn privately and weep for him at home. This is a beautiful thing, but it is not sufficient to stand against unjust structures. A public and organised distortion is never corrected by hidden and individual affection.

The crime of Karbala was no assault in the dark. It was an open crime, backed by the media power of the state and accompanied by a propaganda campaign designed to present truth as falsehood and falsehood as truth. Protecting the truth suffocated there cannot therefore be a private matter; it must be visible, social, and transnational.

Seen this way, Arbaeen is not a headcount of pilgrims. It is the great assembly of witnesses. In a world where manufactured narratives work constantly to alter reality, walking toward Karbala is a form of testimony given with the body. The pilgrim’s body becomes a medium; the testimony of footsteps proves that Ashura has not ended, and that Arbaeen is the beginning of the Ummah’s continuous presence on the front of truth.

The architecture of the Ziyarat

Ziyarat Arbaeen, narrated by Shaykh al-Tusi from Safwan al-Jammal from Imam al-Sadiq (peace be upon him), is built with great care.

The pilgrim first bears witness to the Imam’s identity: “I bear witness that you are the trustee of Allah and the son of His trustee.” He then passes judgement on the quality of his life and death: “You lived in felicity, departed praiseworthy, and died missed, oppressed, and martyred.” He testifies to his faithfulness to the covenant: “And I bear witness that you fulfilled the covenant of Allah and struggled in His path until certainty came to you.”

But the Ziyarat does not stop at reporting the past. Having recognised the Imam and judged the event, the pilgrim must locate himself within it: “O Allah, I call You to witness that I am a friend to whoever befriends him and an enemy to whoever opposes him.” With that, Ashhadu moves from the statement of a historical fact to the declaration of a moral and social position.

The sequence is exact: first recognition, then judgement, and finally commitment.

One who does not know why the Imam rose is not an aware witness. One who can tell truth from falsehood yet takes no position is not a just witness. And one who holds a position with his tongue while acting against it has not yet accepted the consequences of his testimony.

A witness is not a spectator

A spectator may see an event, be moved, and return to ordinary life. A witness understands that seeing carries responsibility. Many knew the Imam was truthful and grieved his martyrdom, yet paid no price to support the truth.

The Qur’an instructs: “Be maintainers of justice, witnesses for Allah, even if it be against yourselves” (al-Nisa 4:135). Testimony proves its worth precisely where interest, attachment, and reputation would otherwise silence a person. Had the people of Kufa wished to move from spectators to witnesses, they would first have had to confess their own betrayal, fear, and expediency before accusing anyone else.

Arbaeen is therefore not only a court in which the Imam’s killers are judged. It is a mirror in which the conscience of the Ummah is examined. The pilgrim does not only ask what they did to Husayn; he is driven, inevitably, to ask what he himself would do with the truth in a comparable hour.

From the tongue to readiness

The summit of the Ziyarat is where testimony passes from speech into the heart, the decision, and the deed: “My heart is at peace with your heart, my affair follows your affair, and my support is prepared for you.”

Three levels of loyalty are sketched here: harmony of heart and mind; obedience in personal practice; and a social readiness that takes a position. First the heart must be reconciled with the values of the Ahl al-Bayt and come to care about what concerned the Imam. Then the programme of one’s life must follow their guidance. Finally, one’s abilities and resources must be held ready in the service of truth.

A successful visitation, then, is not one that yields more tears. It is one that yields greater readiness.

That readiness may mean speaking a forgotten truth and breaking a spiral of silence; defending someone oppressed and without a voice; refusing an unlawful gain; or raising a generation able to distinguish propaganda from truth. What unites them all is a departure from indifference. With the words “my support is prepared for you,” the Ziyarat draws the pilgrim out of the safe zone of detachment and makes of him an active, responsible, witnessing presence in society.

The responsibility of the present

The Ziyarat states the purpose of the uprising directly: “He gave the blood of his heart in Your path so that he might rescue Your servants from ignorance and the bewilderment of misguidance.” If the aim was rescue from ignorance, then commemorating Arbaeen must produce greater insight.

Ignorance is not simply not knowing what happened. Sometimes a person holds a great deal of information but cannot discern between competing narratives. Sometimes he knows the truth but fears the isolation that comes of saying it. Sometimes he sees the oppressed but is silenced by his own interests. Arbaeen exists to heal that gap between knowing and standing.

The pilgrim today might ask himself whether his presence makes the truth any clearer; whether his family, his society, and the media around him see a more accurate image of the school of Husayn through his conduct; whether his love for the Imam has made him firmer in speaking truth, seeking justice, keeping covenants, and supporting the wronged. Where no such change occurs, a person may stand within the assembly of witnesses and still not have risen beyond the rank of spectator.

Final word

Arbaeen may best be understood as the link between the martyrdom of the Imam and the responsibility of the Ummah. On Ashura, Imam Husayn testified with his blood that the religion of God cannot be reduced to the rule of oppression. After Ashura, the Ahl al-Bayt, through sermon and clarification, denied the Umayyad apparatus any claim to the meaning of that blood. And at Arbaeen, that responsibility passed from the first witnesses to every generation that followed.

This is the philosophy behind the repetition of Ashhadu: the pilgrim recognises the Imam, judges his truthfulness and his enemies’ falsehood, determines his own place in that confrontation, and declares his readiness to continue the path. Visitation thus ceases to be a memorial of the past and becomes a covenant for the future.

On Ashura, the question put to the Imam was whether he would give his blood so that truth might survive. On Arbaeen, the question put to the Ummah is whether it will bear witness to that truth — or conceal it amid the crowd of its fears, its interests, and its expediencies.

Ashura was the day of the Imam’s martyrdom. Arbaeen is the appointed time for the Ummah to become witnesses.

“Indeed, Pharaoh exalted himself in the land, and made its people into factions — oppressing a group among them, slaughtering their sons and sparing their women. Indeed, he was of the corrupters.”

— Qur’an, Surah al-Qasas (the Chapter of the Narrations) #28, Verse 4

“He said: I am better than him. You created me from fire, and You created him from clay.”

— Qur’an, Surah al-A’raf (the Chapter of the Heights) #7, Verse 12

As the Arbaeen season commences, Grand Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani has issued a profound message emphasising that the Arbaeen procession stands as a true manifestation of the spiritual power of Shia Islam.

In his address, the Shia source of emulation called for an accurate explanation of the teachings of Ashura and the broader school of pilgrimage. He stressed the importance of connecting the message of the Husayni movement to the contemporary needs of society and the Islamic world. Ayatollah Sobhani noted that Arbaeen serves as a crucial opportunity to reflect on the outstanding qualities of the Master of Martyrs (AS) and his companions. By wearing the garment of martyrdom, he explained, they strengthened freedom and immortalised the slogan “Never to Humiliation” in the history of humanity.

Guidance for Missionaries: Ayatollah Sobhani directed specific advice toward Arbaeen missionaries, urging them to root their preaching in the Holy Quran, the definitive Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (S), and the authentic teachings of the Ahl-ul-Bayt (AS).

• Leading by Example: Preachers were reminded that the practical life of the Ahl-ul-Bayt teaches us to invite people through our behaviour before our words.

• Tools of Propagation: A successful missionary utilises ethics, dignity, politeness, humility, patience, and respect as their most effective tools.

• Historical and Contemporary Insight: Effective preachers must understand the history and goals of the Husayni movement while possessing the ability to bridge the eternal message of Ashura to modern humanity.

The Wisdom of Pilgrimage: For the millions partaking in the spiritual journey, Ayatollah Sobhani emphasised the need to fully understand the philosophy and wisdom behind visiting the holy graves of the Infallibles (AS). The core tenets of this pilgrimage include:

• Increasing knowledge regarding the teachings and lifestyle of the Ahl-ul-Bayt (AS).

• Renewing one’s covenant with Wilayat and actively strengthening personal spirituality and faith.

• Engaging deeply with recorded supplications, which serve as a magnificent school for morality, knowledge, and self-improvement.

He also called on all pilgrims to strictly observe the etiquette of pilgrimage. This includes respecting the rights of others, maintaining order, and showing consideration for servants and neighbours, particularly when entering and exiting holy shrines in crowded conditions.

Gratitude to the Hosts: Concluding his message, Ayatollah Sobhani lauded the people of Iraq for their unwavering dedication to hosting the Arbaeen pilgrims. He expressed sincere thanks to the Iraqi government, noble tribes, scholars, clerics, and holy shrine officials who work around the clock to serve millions of visitors. He described the enthusiastic service provided by the Iraqi people as a profound manifestation of faith, Islamic brotherhood, and the unbreakable bond between the great nations of Iran and Iraq.

Reference: ABNA24

“Indeed, the submitting men and the submitting women, the believing men and the believing women, the devout men and the devout women, the truthful men and the truthful women, the patient men and the patient women, the humble men and the humble women, the charitable men and the charitable women, the fasting men and the fasting women, the men who guard their chastity and the women who do so, and the men who remember God much and the women who do so — for them God has prepared forgiveness and a great reward.”

— Qur’an, Surah al-Ahzab (the Chapter of the Confederates) #33, Verse 35

“Like her who unravels her yarn after it was strongly spun.”

— Quran, Surah al-Nahl (The Chapter of the Bee) #16, Verse #92

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi is widely celebrated as the astronomer whose mathematical breakthroughs paved the way for modern understandings of the universe. Yet, before he looked to the stars, Tusi mapped an equally vast and complex universe: the human soul.

Written during his time under the patronage of the Ismaili governor in Quhistan, his defining philosophical work, Akhlaq-i Nasiri (The Nasirean Ethics), is a monumental achievement in Islamic thought. It is not merely a book on how to be “good.” It is a comprehensive blueprint for how to live, manage a household, and govern a society.

By beautifully harmonising Greek philosophical logic with deep Islamic theological principles, Tusi created a manual for human flourishing that was studied across the Persianate world for centuries. He divided the human experience into three distinct, yet interconnected, spheres.

The Inner World (Individual Ethics)

For Tusi, the journey to a just society begins within the individual. He argued that God endowed humans with a unique capacity for rational thought, and true spiritual perfection is reached only when our reason governs our base desires.

Building upon classical philosophy, Tusi identified three core faculties of the human soul:

• The Rational: The highest faculty, which seeks truth, knowledge, and closeness to the Divine.

• The Irascible: The spiritual engine of courage, ambition, and defence.

• The Appetitive: The physical drives that seek sustenance and bodily pleasure.

Tusi emphasised the Golden Mean—the idea that virtue is the perfect balance between two extremes. True courage, for instance, sits precisely between the excess of recklessness and the deficiency of cowardice. When a believer successfully allows their rational soul to tame and balance the other two faculties, they achieve the highest individual virtue: Justice.

The Sanctuary of the Home (Economics)

In Tusi’s era, “economics” referred not to national wealth, but to the ethical management of the household. He viewed the family unit as the foundational building block of the Ummah (the Muslim community).

Tusi provided intensely practical advice on family life that remains deeply relevant. He emphasised earning a livelihood through honourable (halal) means and striking a balance between financial prudence and generosity—warning equally against the spiritual diseases of hoarding wealth and reckless extravagance.

Perhaps most importantly, he elevated the role of parenting. Tusi argued that the moral education of children was not a secondary task but the absolute paramount duty of parents, shaping a child’s ethical character from their earliest days.

The Virtuous Society (Politics)

The final section of Akhlaq-i Nasiri scales up from the home to the entire state. Humans, Tusi observed, are naturally social creatures; we cannot survive, let alone achieve spiritual perfection, in total isolation.

Drawing inspiration from Al-Farabi’s concept of the “Virtuous City,” Tusi detailed what a just Islamic society should look like. He asserted that society requires righteous leadership and divine law to prevent chaos. In his vision, a just society is one where the ruler is guided by wisdom, and citizens actively cooperate to elevate one another toward moral perfection.

Just as the individual soul requires the balance of its faculties, a just state requires the balance of its people. Every individual must receive what they are due and contribute their unique skills to the common good.

In a modern world that often feels fractured, Tusi’s 13th-century masterpiece offers a timeless reminder: true justice—whether in a nation, a home, or a human heart—is fundamentally a matter of perfect balance.

Reference: Nasir al-Din al-Tusi

The following is adapted from a recent address by Hujjatul Islam Hamid Kashani, presented in his own voice.

I have no wish even to let his name pass my lips. But the American president said one thing that, to my mind, touches on Imam Husayn (AS), and so I will speak of it.

He said the blockade mattered more than the war itself — which is to say that the military assault did not achieve what it was meant to achieve. He was speaking of the naval blockade. Without an agreement, he warned, there would be an economic crisis in the world, because it would be impossible to open the Strait of Hormuz.

Consider what that admission means. Our young men, going out in these small fast boats under the threat of shelling and explosions — knowing they might leave their children fatherless — stood so firm that the enemy, an empire whose military power has scarcely an equal in all of history, was forced to concede: the Strait cannot be opened.

What made the narrow water narrow

They call it a strait, but it was never truly so narrow. It was made narrow by the people of Husayn (AS) — people raised in the spirit of Ashura.

We have no great navy. We have a few fast boats. And a fast boat is not merely a piece of equipment; it is a person willing to give his life. Why do other nations not fight this way? Not because they cannot build such boats — America, with all its capability, could build them easily. The question is not who can build the boat. The question is who will ride it.

Who is the man who climbs aboard such a vessel? He is someone who cannot hold back his tears when he hears the name of Imam Hussein (a). That is the power of Karbala: it makes people braver, it raises them up, it turns ordinary men into great ones. And this is among the wonders of Karbala — that it is singular and unrepeatable, and yet its spirit can spread and be reborn in others.

Following the path, not claiming the peak

I do not say that any event can be compared to Karbala. Our struggle with America is not Karbala, for we are not Imam Husayn (AS) and his companions. But it is a continuation of his path. He is the summit; we walk far below, trying only to follow his example, to draw its lessons, and to strive toward that ideal.

A person becomes brave precisely because he has seen Karbala and understood its meaning.

It is worth going to the south of Iran to see these fast boats with your own eyes — how they move, how fast they go — and to ask yourself whether it is a simple thing to decide to board one. Set aside the enemy’s drones and missiles altogether: the courage it takes merely to climb aboard is immense.

Karbala in itself is a wonder. But from it, too, an example can be drawn — and each person, according to his own capacity, can come to feel this same love and devotion.

Introduction: Two Cities, Two Truths, One Mission

When the captives of Karbala were led through the streets of Kufa and then Damascus, they were carrying far more than the chains of imprisonment. They were carrying the truth itself — a truth that had been buried beneath decades of Umayyad lies. The events of Ashura had shaken the Muslim world, but it was the voice of a single woman, Lady Zaynab bint Ali (AS), that ensured the message of Karbala would not be silenced. Her words, spoken in the heart of the enemy’s stronghold, ignited a spiritual awakening that no army could suppress.

However, the mission of Lady Zaynab (AS) was not a repetition of the same speech. She was a master of rhetoric and strategy, and she understood the profound differences between the two audiences she faced. In Kufa, she addressed the guilty. In Damascus, she addressed the deceived. Both sermons were powerful, but their purposes were distinct — and together, they laid bare the crimes of the Umayyad regime for all time.

Kufa and Damascus: Two Worlds Apart

The People of Kufa: Betrayal Born from Weakness

The city of Kufa was a place of painful contradictions. Its people were not strangers to the Ahl al-Bayt (AS). Many had personally known Imam Ali (a), prayed behind him, and heard his sermons. They had lived under the radiance of his justice. Yet when the call came from Imam Husayn (A) — the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (S) — they broke their covenant. Out of fear, greed, political pressure, and the weakness of their own souls, they turned away from the one they had invited.

Lady Zaynab (AS) addressed them as they were: traitors and hypocrites. Her sermon in Kufa was a searing indictment of betrayal, cowardice, and the destruction of a trust that could never be repaired. She spoke to those who had known the truth and abandoned it.

The People of Damascus: Prisoners of Propaganda

Damascus, by contrast, was an entirely different battlefield. For decades, the Umayyad Caliphate had transformed the city into the capital of its ideological and propaganda machinery. Under Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, and then his son Yazid, the people of Damascus were fed a carefully constructed narrative: the Umayyads were the rightful heirs of the Prophet (S), the defenders of Islam, and the legitimate rulers of the Muslim world. Using their distant blood relation to the Prophet (S) through his uncle Abu Sufyan, they sought to cloak their tyranny in religious legitimacy.

The residents of Damascus did not know Imam Husayn (A). They had not heard his voice. They had not seen the faces of the children and grandchildren of the Prophet (S). When the captives arrived — heads severed, bodies wounded, women and children chained — the people of Damascus saw only what the Umayyads wanted them to see: criminals and rebels brought to justice.

This was the lie Lady Zaynab (A) had come to destroy.

The Sermon in Damascus: Dismantling the Myth

Yazid: The True Source of the Evil

Lady Zaynab (AS) understood perfectly who her audience was. She did not speak of betrayal to the people of Damascus — they had not betrayed Imam Husayn (AS). They had been deceived. Her sermon, therefore, had a different focus: defending the honour of the Ahl al-Bayt (AS) and exposing the Umayyad regime as the criminal enterprise it was.

Imam Husayn (AS) himself, before his martyrdom, had identified the true architect of the tragedy. When asked about the reasons for what was happening, he did not point to Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad, or Umar ibn Sa’ad, or Shimr — he pointed directly to Yazid:

Lady Zaynab (AS) took this truth and planted it in the heart of Yazid’s own palace. She stood before the tyrant, surrounded by his courtiers, his soldiers, and his subjects, and she spoke with the courage of a lioness. She did not beg for mercy. She did not plead for release. She accused.

The Chains That Cannot Bind Nobility

She reminded the people of Damascus that the family of the Prophet (S) had been paraded through the streets as prisoners, their heads raised on spears, their bodies dragged in the dust. She reminded them that the granddaughters of the Messenger of God were being led in chains through the marketplace. But she made one thing clear: no chain, no captivity, no mockery could ever strip the Ahl al-Bayt (A) of their divine nobility.

Imam Sajjad (A): Shattering the Main Lie

While Lady Zaynab (AS) pierced the conscience of the court with her words, Imam Ali ibn al-Husayn (AS)— known as Sajjad — addressed the theological deception at its root. The Umayyads had worked tirelessly to sever the connection between the Ahl al-Bayt (AS) and the Prophet Muhammad (S). They wanted the people of Damascus to believe that Imam Husayn (AS) and his family were strangers, rebels with no legitimate claim to the Prophet’s legacy.

Imam Sajjad (AS) stood before the assembly and, with the Quran and the Sunnah of his grandfather, demolished this lie. He reminded the people of the verse of Mubahalah (Surah Aal-e-Imran, Chapter 3, The Family of Imran, Verse 61), in which the Prophet (S) had declared Imam Ali (AS), Lady Fatima (AS), Imam Hassan (AS), and Imam Husayn (AS) as his own soul. He reminded them of the hadith of Thaqalayn — the two weighty things the Prophet (S) left behind: the Quran and his Ahl al-Bayt (AS), who would never be separated until the Day of Judgment.

The Umayyad myth crumbled in that moment. The people in the court — many of whom had never seen the Ahl al-Bayt (AS), never heard them speak — were confronted with a reality that no amount of propaganda could erase: these were not criminals. These were the children of the Prophet of God.

The Dual Impact: Court and Society

Shaking the Throne

The sermons of Lady Zaynab (AS) and Imam Sajjad (AS) had a dual effect that reverberated far beyond the walls of Yazid’s palace.

First, they shook the confidence of the Umayyad court itself. Yazid could no longer look at the prisoners as mere criminals. When Lady Zaynab (AS) spoke, the silence in the court was broken only by gasps and murmurs of shock. Yazid had wanted to humiliate the Ahl al-Bayt (AS); instead, he found himself being humiliated before his own courtiers. The sharpness of her words, the clarity of her arguments, and the undeniable truth of her lineage left him with no response. For the first time, many in the court realised that the man they served was not a defender of Islam — he was a murderer of the Prophet’s family.

Awakening the Masses

Second, the speeches deeply influenced public opinion. The people of Damascus began to ask the question that the Umayyads had spent decades ensuring they would never ask: If these are indeed the family of the Prophet Muhammad (S), then why are they being treated like criminals?

Lady Zaynab (AS) placed the responsibility squarely where it belonged — on Yazid and the Umayyad dynasty. She rejected any attempt to justify the tragedy through divine predestination. She made it clear that the murder of Imam Husayn (AS) was not the will of Allah; it was the will of Yazid, Ibn Ziyad, Ibn Sa’ad, and the Umayyad machine. This was a crime of men, not a decree of destiny.

This is why, in the Ziyarat Ashura — the supplication we recite on the day of Ashura — the curse (Laʿn means to be placed at a distance from God’s mercy) is directed not only at the direct killers of Imam Husayn (AS), but at the entire Umayyad dynasty: Muawiyah, Yazid, the family of Abu Sufyan, and all those who enabled, justified, and benefited from the crime.

Why Was There No Uprising in Syria?

Despite the profound impact of these sermons, there was no mass popular uprising in Syria against the Umayyads. The reason was not the weakness of the message — it was the strength of the prison the Umayyads had built around the minds of their people.

For decades, Syria had been under strict political, military, and informational control. The Umayyad power base was far stronger in Syria than it had ever been in Iraq. The army was loyal. The governors were loyal. The pulpits were controlled. The people had been raised from childhood to see the Umayyads as the natural and divinely ordained rulers of Islam. Breaking these chains of indoctrination required more than a single sermon — it required generations of sacrifice, scholarship, and resistance.

Yet the speeches of Lady Zaynab (AS) and Imam Sajjad (AS) accomplished something far more enduring than an immediate rebellion. They planted the seed of truth. For the first time, many Syrians saw the reality of who stood before them in chains. The myth of Umayyad legitimacy was cracked. The authority of Yazid was wounded. And the message of Karbala, which the Umayyads had sought to bury in the sands of Iraq, began to spread through the streets of Damascus, whispered in homes, passed from traveller to traveller, until it became an unstoppable force.

The Prophet (S) explicitly tied the reward of his mission to the love of his family — the Ahl al-Bayt (AS). The Umayyads sought to destroy this love. Lady Zaynab (AS) and Imam Sajjad (AS) ensured it would be revived in the hearts of the believers.

A Legacy That Endures

The sermons of Lady Zaynab (AS) and Imam Sajjad (AS) in Damascus were not simply speeches of the moment. They were the continuation of a divine mission that had begun with the Prophet Muhammad (S) and would endure until the Day of Judgment. Every Muharram, when we gather in mourning for Imam Husayn (AS), we are living in the light of that sermon. Every time we recite the Ziyarat Ashura, we are echoing the accusations that Lady Zainab (AS) levelled at Yazid. Every time we declare our loyalty to the Ahl al-Bayt (AS), we are fulfilling the duty that the people of Damascus were called to — but were not yet ready to accept.

The Umayyads could break bodies, but they could not break the truth. The chains they placed on the wrists of the family of the Prophet (S) were a symbol of their own tyranny, not the captivity of the Ahl al-Bayt (AS). For Lady Zaynab (AS) walked in chains but spoke with the authority of heaven. Imam Sajjad (AS) was bound by ropes but was freer than any man in that court. And the message of Karbala, which they carried from the desert of Iraq to the palaces of Syria, has become the eternal cry of justice against oppression — a cry that will never be silenced.

We hear the phrase often, but do we truly understand it? Discover the profound, practical, and protective reality of Taqwa through the luminous words of the Quran and the Ahl al-Bayt (AS).

Among the most frequently quoted phrases in Islamic discourse is the command:

We hear it from the pulpits, read it in books, and find it woven into the sermons of scholars and the advice of the righteous. Yet for many, these words pass by like a gentle breeze — felt but not fully grasped.

What does it truly mean to have “taqwa”? Why is it so central to our faith? And how does it translate into tangible protection in our daily lives?

To answer these questions, we turn to the luminous words of Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (AS), the fifth divinely appointed guide after the Prophet Muhammad (S), whose explanations illuminate the depths of this profound concept. As we shall see, taqwa is not merely an abstract spiritual ideal — it is the most practical and powerful tool for navigating the turbulence of this world.

What Is Taqwa? Unpacking the Meaning

At its core, taqwa (تقوى) derives from the Arabic root wa-qa-ya (وقى), meaning to guard, protect, or shield oneself from harm. In its simplest and most accessible sense, taqwa means being careful, vigilant, and protective of oneself.

Consider a memory many of us share: the global COVID-19 pandemic. During that period, doctors and health authorities constantly advised people to be cautious — wash your hands thoroughly, avoid unnecessary physical contact, maintain distance, and steer clear of contaminated surfaces. Why? To protect yourself from an invisible enemy. This state of carefulness, of actively guarding oneself against harm, is precisely the essence of taqwa in its linguistic meaning.

So when someone tells you, “Have taqwa,” they are, in essence, saying: “Take care of yourself! Protect yourself! Be vigilant!”

But this begs the question: protect yourself from what? And how? This is where the second part of the phrase becomes essential — taqwa with respect to God.

Taqwa with Respect to God: The Divine Paradigm of Protection

Human beings, no matter how intelligent or powerful, are fundamentally limited. Imagine a small child trying to navigate the world alone. Naturally, he is weak, unaware of many dangers, and incapable of protecting himself from threats he cannot even perceive. That is why his parents hold him in their arms, shielding him from harms he does not know exist.

When we grow into adulthood, we like to believe we have outgrown this need for protection. But the truth is that we still face countless misfortunes — dangers that may never even occur to us, trials beyond the reach of our intellect, and calamities we lack the power to confront.

So the question arises: who watches over us?

The answer comes from the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS), who said:

“Whoever safeguards God’s command, God safeguards him.”
— Imam Ali (as)

This is the crux of taqwa with respect to God. It means placing yourself under the protection of the All-Powerful by being mindful of His commands and prohibitions. When a person is careful not to displease God — when his greatest concern becomes earning God’s pleasure — he is, in fact, securing his own greatest benefit. God’s care for His servants is infinitely more effective than any effort we could expend on our own.

The Promise of the Quran: A Way Out for the God-Conscious

The Quran repeatedly ties the blessings of this life and the next to the quality of taqwa. Consider these divine promises:

This verse is a direct promise from the Almighty: when your carefulness — your taqwa — reaches the point where your greatest concern is earning God’s pleasure, then God Himself will open a path for you out of every difficulty. He will provide for you from sources you could never have imagined. This is not metaphorical comfort; it is a divine guarantee.

Elsewhere, Allah (SWT) declares:

And again:

On the pilgrimage, the Quran reminds us:

These verses establish that taqwa is not a secondary virtue — it is the supreme measure of nobility before God, the best provision for life’s journey, and the foundation of a believer’s relationship with the Divine.

Imam al-Baqir (AS) on Taqwa: A Shield Against Ruin

Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (AS), the heir to prophetic knowledge and the fountainhead of Islamic jurisprudence, expressed the reality of taqwa with unmatched eloquence. He said:

“Taqwa prevents your ruin. It prevents your assets and talents from being wasted, and it is a blessing for your worldly life. It was through taqwa that Noah and those who believed with him were saved on the Ark. It was through taqwa that Salih and his people were protected from the thunderbolt. Through taqwa, God protects His servant. Whatever the servant cannot comprehend or whatever lies beyond the reach of his intellect, God compensates and takes care of that.”
— Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (AS)

Let us reflect on the weight of this narration. The Imam (as) is teaching us that taqwa is not merely about avoiding sin — it is a comprehensive system of divine protection that encompasses:

1. Prevention of Ruin: Taqwa safeguards you from self-destruction, whether spiritual, moral, or material.

2. Preservation of Blessings: Your wealth, health, talents, and opportunities are protected from being squandered.

3. Divine Intervention in the Unseen: There are dangers you cannot foresee and threats your mind cannot comprehend. Taqwa invites God’s protection over these hidden realms.

4. Historical Proof: The salvation of Prophet Noah (AS) and his followers from the flood, and the protection of Prophet Salih (AS) and his people, were direct results of their taqwa. If it saved the prophets and the righteous of old, it remains the path of salvation today.

Practical Steps: How to Cultivate Taqwa

Understanding taqwa is the first step; living it is the journey. The Ahl al-Bayt (AS) have left us practical guidance for cultivating this quality:

1. Begin with Prayer

When life’s problems become overwhelming, the first step is to raise your level of vigilance. Start by performing your prayers on time and with greater attentiveness (khushu). The prayer is the ascension of the believer and the daily renewal of one’s covenant with God.

2. Guard the Tongue and Limbs

Imam Ali (AS) said: “The most beloved of actions to Allah is that which the servant continues to perform, even if it is small.” Consistency in small acts of obedience builds the habit of taqwa far more effectively than sporadic bursts of devotion.

3. Reflect on the Consequences

Imam al-Sadiq (AS), the son of Imam al-Baqir (AS), said: “Taqwa is the remedy for the sickness of the heart.” Regular self-accountability (muhasabah) — reviewing one’s actions at the end of each day — sharpens the conscience and strengthens the shield of taqwa.

4. Seek the Company of the Righteous

The Prophet Muhammad (S) said: “A person follows the religion of his friend, so let each one of you look to whom he takes as a close friend.” Surrounding yourself with those who remind you of God fortifies your own taqwa.

Conclusion: The Path Is Taqwa

In a world of uncertainty, where misfortunes can strike without warning and the future remains hidden behind the veil of the Unseen, every human soul cries out for protection. We seek security in wealth, in status, in relationships, and in plans — yet all of these can falter in an instant.

The Ahl al-Bayt (AS) offer us a different path. They teach us that the ultimate refuge is not a place, a possession, or a person — it is a state of being. It is the state of being carefully, vigilantly, lovingly mindful of God. It is taqwa.

When you are careful not to neglect God’s commands, you are, in reality, securing all of your worldly and otherworldly interests in the best possible way. When you enter the embrace of taqwa, you do not walk alone — you walk under the protection of the All-Mighty.

Amid the misfortunes of this turbulent world, we all need protection. If you wish to be saved from every illness and every peril, the path has been made clear by the Quran and the Ahl al-Bayt (AS). The path is not complicated. The path is not distant.

The path is taqwa.

Reference: Shaykh Ali Reza Panahian

Let’s Be Honest From the Start

Of all fifteen greater sins we have covered so far — Shirk, despair, murder, gambling, alcohol, false accusation — this is the one most likely to make a reader stop and say: really? Music?

Because music is everywhere. It is in our cars, our kitchens, our earphones, our weddings, our children’s cartoons, our phone ringtones. It is the backdrop of modern life in a way that almost nothing else is. And for most Muslims living in the West, it has never felt like a serious religious question — just one of those things that some scholars mention but nobody really takes seriously.

So this article is going to do something slightly different. Rather than simply stating the ruling and moving on, we are going to sit with the question honestly — what exactly did Ayatollah Dastaghaib Shirazi mean? What did the Ahlul Bayt actually prohibit? And how do we navigate this in real life with both honesty and wisdom?

Because this topic deserves nuance. And it deserves honesty. And it deserves both at the same time.

The Key Word — Ghina

The fifteenth greater sin is described in the traditions not simply as music in the broad modern sense, but specifically as Ghina (غناء) — a particular kind of music and singing.

Ghina can be explained as a sound in which the tone comes from the throat which the common people refer to as singing — it causes excitement in the person and is suitable for gatherings of vain and futile entertainment. The scholars describe it more precisely as: prolonging the sound with changes in pitch in a manner suited to the gatherings of corruption, sin, and entertainment built around heedlessness of Allah.

This is critically important — because it immediately tells us that this prohibition is not about sound itself. It is not about melody. It is not about all music in every form and context. It is about a specific kind of music — music designed to excite the lower self, music that belongs to the atmosphere of sin and heedlessness, music that pulls the heart away from Allah and toward the world.

Playing instruments of music is a greater sin. It is haram to play instruments like guitar, piano, tambourine, drums etc. Listening to music is also a greater sin. Music as a greater sin is reported by Fazl ibn Shazan from Imam Ali al-Ridha (AS)

But here is where the honest conversation begins — because the scholars of fiqh and the scholars of akhlaq (spiritual ethics) have approached this question from different angles, and understanding both is essential.

What the Quran Says — Through Interpretation

The Quran does not use the word music directly. The Quranic foundations for this prohibition come through interpretation of several verses — the most prominent being in Surah Luqman (Surah 31, Verse 6):

The phrase “amusement of speech” — lahw al-hadith — is interpreted by many Shia scholars, including Ayatollah Dastaghaib Shirazi, as referring to Ghina and music of the corrupting variety. Not every sound. Not every melody. But the kind of entertainment specifically designed to distract from Allah, to fill the heart with heedlessness, and to create an atmosphere where sin feels comfortable.

In Surah Al-Isra (Chapter 17, The Children of Israel, Verse 64), Shaytan is given permission to entice humanity using his voice — and classical scholars of tafsir understood this as including music used as a tool of spiritual distraction. The scholars noted that Shaytan himself considers music one of his most effective instruments for leading people away from Allah.

What the Ahlul Bayt (AS) Taught

The traditions of the Imams on this topic are extensive and consistent — and they are specifically directed at Ghina in its corrupting form.

Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq (AS) said: “The house in which music is played is not safe from sudden calamity, and du’as made in it are not answered, and angels do not enter it.”

Three consequences — vulnerability to calamity, unanswered du’a, and the absence of angels. That last point is particularly striking. The same angels whose presence brings barakah, whose descent brings peace, whose company elevates the spiritual atmosphere of a home — they do not enter a house where Ghina is a constant presence.

The Prophet (S) said: “Music causes hypocrisy to grow in the heart the way water causes plants to grow.”

Hypocrisy — nifaq — that gap between what is on the outside and what is on the inside. The scholars explain this beautifully: music of the Ghina variety trains the heart to feel without meaning it, to be moved without being changed, to experience emotion as a kind of entertainment rather than as a call to action or reflection. Over time it creates a person who is emotionally responsive but spiritually hollow. Their heart can be moved by a song but not by the Quran. Can feel the pull of a melody but not the weight of a du’a.

That is the hypocrisy the Prophet was describing. And many of us, if we are honest, recognise something of that description in ourselves.

Imam Ali (S) in Nahj al-Balagha said: “Music is the trap of Shaytan.”

Not a temptation. Not a test. A trap — something designed to catch and hold.

The Crucial Distinction — And Why It Matters

Here is where Ayatollah Dastaghaib Shirazi’s discussion becomes genuinely nuanced — and where honest engagement with this topic requires us to hold two things simultaneously.

The scholars of fiqh teach us the minimum requirements for a Muslim — what they must refrain from to be protected from the punishment of Allah. Although some forms of music may be permitted according to the fiqh of Islam, if one wants to reach that station of proximity to Allah in this world and closeness to the Prophet and his Ahlul Bayt in the hereafter, it is necessary to refrain from even those things which may be permitted — music being one of them.

This is a remarkable and honest statement. It acknowledges that different scholars have different rulings on different types of music — that the question of what exactly is prohibited and what may be permitted is one where the fuqaha (jurisprudential scholars) have genuine differences of opinion. But it also says: even if something is technically on the borderline of permissibility, the person seeking closeness to Allah would do well to step back from it entirely.

The practical implication of this is important. Not all music is identical in its spiritual effect. A nasheeds — melodious recitation of praise for Allah and the Ahlul Bayt — is a completely different spiritual experience from music designed for a nightclub. Quranic recitation in a beautiful, moving voice is not the same as a song saturated with sexual content. Traditional devotional music from Islamic cultures is not the same as music designed to create the atmosphere of intoxication and abandon.

The question the Ahlul Bayt were addressing was specifically the latter — music that creates an environment of heedlessness, that excites the lower passions, that belongs to the world of sin and abandonment of Allah. Not all sound. Not all melody. Not all beauty.

What About Latmiyya, Nasheed and Marthiya?

This is the question every Shia Muslim has — because our tradition is rich with devotional sound. The marthiya of Imam Husayn (AS). The latmiyya of Muharram. The nasheed in praise of the Prophet (S) and the Ahlul Bayt. The recitation of du’as in a melodious, moving voice.

The scholars are clear on this. Devotional recitation — even when melodious, even when emotionally moving, even when accompanied by certain instruments in some traditions — is fundamentally different in nature and purpose from Ghina. Its goal is to move the heart toward Allah, toward the Ahlul Bayt, toward grief for Karbala, toward love for the Prophet (S). It creates an atmosphere of spiritual elevation, not spiritual heedlessness.

To recite anything — whether poetry, prose, Quran, or poems in praise of the pure Imams — in a form that would be considered Ghina is haram. And to recite the Quran, supplications, or things such as this in the form of Ghina would actually incur more punishment.

The key is the form and the atmosphere. A beautiful, moving recitation of Ziyarat Ashura is not Ghina. A nasheed designed to sound indistinguishable from a pop song — with the same rhythms, the same production values, the same effect on the lower self — that sits in more ambiguous territory and deserves honest reflection.

The question to ask of any sound we bring into our homes and hearts is: does this move me toward Allah or away from Him? Does this create an atmosphere of taqwa or of heedlessness? Does this make salah feel more natural or does it make it feel like an interruption?

The Heart Is the Measure

Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq (AS) gave one of the most practically useful guidelines on this question:

The heart as the measure. Not just the content of the lyrics. Not just the presence or absence of certain instruments. The effect on the heart. Does it excite the lower passions? Does it create a state of intoxication — that heady, carried-away feeling where reason and taqwa recede and emotion takes over? That is the warning sign.

This is why the scholars connect music so closely to alcohol and gambling in their discussions. All three create altered states — conditions where the rational, spiritual mind is bypassed and the person becomes dominated by feeling, excitement, and the chase of more. All three are described by the Ahlul Bayt as tools of Shaytan for precisely this reason.

And all three, in the modern world, have been engineered to be more potent, more immersive, and more addictive than ever before in human history. The music industry spends billions understanding exactly which sounds, which rhythms, which frequencies create the most powerful emotional responses — and then producing music designed to maximise that effect. The Imam’s warning about music exciting and intoxicating the heart was never more accurate than it is today.

Living Honestly With This Teaching

Let us be genuinely honest here — because this article would be doing a disservice if it simply said all music is haram and left it there, or if it softened the teaching so much that it had no practical content at all.

The Ahlul Bayt were clear that Ghina — music designed for the atmosphere of sin, music that excites the lower passions, music that creates heedlessness of Allah — is prohibited. That is the ruling and it is not ambiguous.

What is more nuanced is the application of that ruling to the enormous spectrum of sound that exists in the modern world. And that nuance is precisely why the scholars of fiqh differ, why honest Muslims find themselves genuinely uncertain, and why this topic requires personal reflection rather than a simple list of allowed and forbidden songs.

Some honest questions worth sitting with:

What does the music I listen to do to my heart? Does it make me more or less likely to pray with focus? More or less inclined to remember Allah during the day? More or less peaceful in my soul?

What atmosphere does it create? If the Imam (AS) walked into the room while I was listening to this — would I feel the need to turn it off? That question alone is remarkably clarifying.

What is it associated with? Music that is designed for, marketed for, and primarily consumed in contexts of alcohol, sexual permissiveness, and heedlessness carries the spiritual atmosphere of those contexts even when listened to in isolation.

Am I using music to avoid something? Sometimes music becomes the constant background noise that prevents us from ever sitting with silence — with our own thoughts, our own du’a, our own relationship with Allah. The Ahlul Bayt valued silence. They valued the heart that could be still. If music has become the thing that fills every gap and prevents any stillness — that itself is worth reflecting on.

What Can Fill the Space?

One of the most important practical questions for a Muslim genuinely engaging with this teaching is: what do I fill the space with?

The Ahlul Bayt gave us an extraordinary treasury of sound that nourishes the soul rather than distracting it.

The recitation of the Quran — in a beautiful, moving voice — is the antidote to Ghina. It moves the heart. It produces emotion. It is aesthetically powerful. But it moves the heart toward Allah rather than away from Him. The Prophet (S) said: “Beautify the Quran with your voices.” Sound itself is not the problem. The direction it takes the heart is everything.

The du’as of Sahifa Sajjadiyya, recited with presence and attention. The latmiyya of Muharram that connects us to the grief of Karbala. The salawat that keeps the Prophet (S) alive in our hearts. The sound of a child reciting their first surahs. The adhan echoing through a still morning.

These are the sounds the Ahlul Bayt surrounded themselves with. And anyone who has spent time immersed in them knows they offer something that no playlist on Spotify can replicate — a movement of the heart that leaves you closer to Allah, not further from Him.

A Closing Thought

Music is the fifteenth greater sin — and it is placed here, near the end of volume one, following alcohol and gambling, because it shares their essential quality. Like alcohol, it alters the state of the heart. Like gambling, it captures attention and crowds out what matters. Like both, it has been specifically engineered in the modern world to be more powerful and more immersive than ever before.

Ayatollah Dastaghaib Shirazi’s discussion of this sin is not a call to live in joyless silence. Islam is not a tradition that fears beauty or rejects the power of sound. It is a tradition that understands sound’s power so deeply that it wants to direct that power toward Allah — toward Quran, toward du’a, toward the remembrance of the Ahlul Bayt — rather than allow it to be captured and used against the soul.

The question this article leaves with you is not am I technically allowed to listen to this? The question is deeper and more personal: what is this doing to my heart? And is my heart — the most precious thing I carry — being filled with what it truly deserves?

May Allah fill our hearts and our homes with sound that draws us closer to Him. May He give us ears that find their deepest pleasure in His words. And may He make the Quran, the du’as of the Ahlul Bayt, and the remembrance of His name the music that our souls keep returning to. Ameen.

The Secretary-General of the AhlulBayt (AS) World Assembly, Ayatollah Reza Ramazani, has described the martyrdom of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei, as an irreparable blow to Islam, the Iranian nation, and the wider Islamic Ummah — while framing the vast farewell that followed as the beginning of a “resurrection” of the Ummah.

In a statement issued on the occasion of the martyrdom and burial of the late Leader, Ayatollah Ramazani offered his condolences to Muslims across the world and reflected on the meaning of the loss. He opened with the Quranic verse:

A life of scholarship and struggle

Ayatollah Ramazani honoured the martyred Leader as a divine jurist and religious authority for the followers of the AhlulBayt (AS), a reformist thinker, a just ruler, and a tireless mujahid — an unrelenting foe of oppression, a defender of the oppressed and of the nations of the region, a champion of the resistance against arrogance, and a steadfast supporter of the cause and people of Palestine. Above all, he described him as a bearer of the banner of awaiting the appearance of the Promised Mahdi (may God hasten his reappearance).

After a lifetime of scholarly, political, and field jihad — devoted to the awakening of the Islamic world, the deepening of Islamic society, the movement toward a modern Islamic civilisation, and the confrontation with what he called the slavery of the new age and neo-colonialism — the Leader, Ayatollah Ramazani wrote, “proudly met his Lord.” His name, he added, would endure in history as that of a scholar, religious authority, ruler, and martyred leader unmatched since his ancestor, the Commander of the Faithful, Ali (AS).

A farewell across five cities

Ayatollah Ramazani traced the journey of the martyred Leader’s body through the sacred geography of the farewell: from the great Tehran Prayer Grounds — itself one of the Leader’s own legacies — to the holy city of Qom, the shrine of Lady Fatimah Masoumah (peace be upon her), and the Jamkaran Mosque; then, carried on the shoulders of the loyal people of Iraq, beneath the domes of the shrines of his ancestors Imam Ali, Imam Hussain, and Hazrat Abbas (peace be upon them) in Najaf and Karbala; and finally to Mashhad, where he was laid to rest in the land of Tus, near the shrine of Imam Reza (AS).

The martyrdom of the great Leader of the world’s Muslims, he declared, marked the beginning of the resurrection of the Iranian people and the Islamic Ummah. The presence of tens of millions across Iran over more than four months, and in the funeral processions across five cities in two countries, was — in his words — a sign of that resurrection: a testament to the will of Muslims and free people to confront arrogance, America, and the Zionist regime, and to continue the path of jihad under the leadership of the martyred Leader’s successor, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Mujtaba Hosseini Khamenei. That path, he said, would continue until the establishment of a modern Islamic civilisation and, ultimately, the appearance of the awaited Saviour and the founding of a government of justice and equity.

Gratitude to the Ummah

On behalf of himself, the AhlulBayt (AS) World Assembly, and Muslims and justice-seekers across the world, Ayatollah Ramazani expressed his deep gratitude for what he called the unparalleled participation of the people of Iran and the wider Ummah — governments and officials, religious leaders and clerics of various faiths and denominations, thinkers, fighters, and all those who endured the hardships of travel to take part in the historic farewell. Acknowledging the heavy conditions facing the region, he asked that any shortcomings in the hosting of the event be met with the mourners’ magnanimity and tolerance.

He closed with a prayer that God grant all of them the grace to remain united in fulfilling the divine covenant, in continuing the path of the martyred Leader, and in exalting the word of God.

Reference: ABNA24

For one Iranian woman, the events leading up to the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were marked not by mourning, but by deep-seated resentment. By her own admission, prior to January, she harboured a complete dislike for the Leader. She was a woman who could not bear to speak of him, one who would swiftly change the television channel the moment his face appeared on the screen.

However, the human heart is susceptible to profound and unexpected transformations. For this woman, the catalyst for change arrived in early March, not through a political speech or a news broadcast, but through the deeply personal and spiritual realm of a dream.

In her dream, she found herself in the presence of the Leader. Overwhelmed by the emotional distress of the times, she rushed toward him, her anger boiling over.

“You are to blame for the deaths of so many people and for this war!” she shouted. “I will never forgive you!”

Rather than meeting her anger with wrath, the Leader’s response in the dream was one of gentle reassurance. Taking her hand, he turned her attention toward a stunning vision of the future.

“Look there,” he told her gently. “Don’t worry, my martyrdom will lead to Iran becoming exactly like that.”

Before the dream ended, he handed her a gift that would cement her awakening: a copy of the Quran, bound in a brown cover and detailed with gold embossing. His final words to her were a quiet promise: “Take it. And be sure – this path will continue worthily.”

When morning broke, the lingering power of the dream remained. She awoke with a sudden, unshakeable resolve. She informed her husband that she needed to attend the pro-government events at Tajrish Square that evening. Her husband, bewildered by the sudden reversal in the woman who had previously harboured such intense dislike for the Leader, could only ask, “Are you crazy? What are you talking about?”

But for the woman, it was not madness; it was a profound enlightenment.

Today, she stands among the crowds she once distanced herself from. The woman who once changed the channel at the mere sight of him now sits near his coffin, her heart heavy with a deeply personal grief. Her journey from bitter resentment to spiritual awakening has culminated in a single, tearing emotion.

“I so hope that he will forgive me,” she reflects, her soul torn with regret. “I just want him to forgive me.”

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.

I could not sleep that whole night. I had come home from the Musalla, but I never closed my eyes. Some anxiety I could not explain had settled into my soul; my heart could find no rest, and I did not understand why.

Before dawn, I performed a full ablution with the intention of visiting the shrine. It was still dark. When the call to the morning prayer sounded, I prayed — and the moment I finished, an insistent voice rose up within me: You must go. You must be at the Musalla. The feeling pressed on my chest like a great stone; I could barely breathe. I set out.

The road was not as it usually is. The highways, the streets — everything looked changed. In the twilight, the sky and the earth seemed wrapped in a particular sorrow, as though the whole world were in mourning. The Leader’s portrait hung everywhere I looked, and the nearer I came, the heavier the anxiety in my heart grew. Something extraordinary, I felt certain, was going to happen that day. It was as if a force were drawing me forward.

When I reached the Musalla, I learned that the bodies of the martyrs would arrive at around half past six in the morning. My agitation only deepened. I sat in a corner of the courtyard while it was still dark, reciting the Qur’an, weeping, and waiting, my heart beating faster as the appointed hour drew closer.

“I could no longer control myself”

Gradually I noticed the movement of the soldiers and staff growing busier, and I understood that they were near. Then a procession appeared, and the cars bearing the martyrs arrived under guard. My heart seemed to stop. I rose to my feet and looked toward my Leader, and I greeted him. I could not believe it was happening — that I, of all people, was standing before the vehicle that carried his body.

In the hardest days of my life, my one comfort had been a kufiyah left to me in his memory. I never thought of myself as anyone special before Allah. But whenever I opened my heart to Imam Mahdi, I would tell him that I loved his vicar, and through him I would confide what weighed on me — and each time, in one way or another, I felt an answer return to me. There are things that cannot be spoken, secrets that remain only between a person and their Lord. From the day my Leader was martyred, I had held only one wish: to see his body just once, and to hold it close. Why, only he knows.

Among the mourners

When people surged toward the car, everyone seemed to scatter. I stood where I was and wept; my legs would not obey me. In all that crowd I was the only woman — perhaps others were elsewhere, but I saw no one. I felt out of place among the men, yet some force pulled me irresistibly forward. I feared only one thing: that I would not be permitted to reach the martyrs. Clutching my veil tightly, I pressed on, no longer noticing anything around me. The fear fell away, and only one desire remained — to see them, and to touch them.

I reached the door of the car. Men stood all around, every one of them weeping, every one of them speaking to their Leader. After about twenty minutes, one of the commanders gave his permission, and the doors were opened.

And I saw the bodies of the martyrs.

I could not believe my eyes — could not believe that I was truly standing there, that Allah had brought me to the very place I had so long dreamed of. The men’s weeping grew louder. I drew my veil across my face and cried. One by one, the coffins were lifted out upon the mourners’ hands. I touched them with my ring and pressed it to my face, as if receiving a blessing, and I performed the ziyarat and wept. Even that would have been enough to change me forever.

O Lord, I said, I thank You. You have shown me such mercy. You have granted my most cherished wish.

“For a few moments, I was allowed to be her mother”

The Leader’s coffin was still within the car, ready to be borne out upon hands, and beside it lay the coffin of little Zahra. I kissed the Leader’s coffin and clung to it for a moment. Then the man who had called me forward gently placed the coffin of the small martyr into my hands.

I do not know how to describe those moments. For a few of them, I was allowed to be a mother to her.

It cannot be put into words. It was as though the whole world lay in my arms. I felt that I was holding a light — a light of such weight that nothing on earth could compare to it. The lifeless body of the child rested in my hands. I turned toward where I was meant to go, and on the way I saw nothing and heard nothing around me. I only spoke to my Imam, and thanked him, for I had asked him for this meeting so many times.

The men parted to make way for me; I did not need to say a word. As I carried that small body, the sorrows of Lady Ruqayya and Lady Zaynab rose in my mind. Only one who understands can know what it means to hold the lifeless body of a little girl in your hands — what it means when your arms are so full of a child that you can no longer even set your veil straight upon your head, and when men silently open a path before you. Perhaps they, too, were remembering Lady Zaynab, and the moment she held Ruqayya.

“There are wounds that never heal”

Yesterday my hands held the little martyr Zahra. Her small body was covered with wounds. After yesterday, I am no longer the same Zahra I was.

I had thought that seeing her would bring me peace. It did not. My anxiety grew a thousandfold. Even now it sometimes seems that I still feel the weight of her little body in my arms; I clench my fists as though I were still holding that precious trust, and I feel its weight again. Every time I remember her, I weep without being able to stop.

There are wounds that never heal. They stay with a person for the rest of their life. And I wonder whether the feeling of such an embrace, too, remains in the heart forever.