THE STORY OF KARBALA - PART 4/02

THE MORNING OF ASHOORA, THE DEFECTION OF HURR

previous episode

It was however clear that Umar and his troops were not going to change their stance.

After the prayers, Husayn's followers took it in turn to approach the troops and address them formally. This was important because every member in Husayn's party had one or more rela-tives, kinsmen or at least people from his tribe facing him from among the enemy camp. Then Husayn himself rode towards the enemy troops and addressed them explaining in detail who he was, his close relationship to the Prophet, his puritan way of life and that he was a peaceful citizen living quietly without cau-sing any distur-bance to anybody, and that they were going to commit a grave sin by harming the Prophet's family.

Watching the crowd listening to these discour-ses, Umar Ibn S'ad became concerned that some of these lectures could affect the morale of his troops. To pre-empt this effort to compro-mise and bring sense into people, Umar stood up and said loudly: `Every one in my troops witness to the fact that the first arrow of this battle is being cast by none other than the commander-in-chief, that is myself.' Saying this he put an arrow to his bow and shot it towards Husayn.

This was symbolically the official beginning of the battle. Following the arrow cast by the commander-in-chief, thousands of arrows were shot by other archers in this first round. But no one was hurt in Husayn's camp at this stage because of the intervening distance.

next episode