Safarnama Iraq – Kazmain

From Balad we reached Kazmain in nearly two hours covering a distance of approximately 50 miles. This holy shrine, as with the others, is visited by millions of the followers every year. Our Maulana explained the reasons for its sanctity and veneration. Sharing it.

We reached our hotel at Najaf after four hours around 9 pm. It was thursday and the Najaf Haram was totally filled with the disciples who had gathered to offer namaz. I took the opportunity to pay homage and pray in the holy mosque before leaving Iraq.

A lifetime wish and desire has been redeemed; missing my wife’s presence makes the journey incomplete, devoid of companionship, love and understanding. She would have relished and revered every step of our ziarat. May Allah bless her soul; may she rest in peace in heaven. Amen!

Hazrat Ali (AS)

Translation of the Arabic inscription on the Golden Dome of the Shrine of Imām ‘Alī (as) at Najaf. Written by a famous 19^th century Arab poet and the Sunnī Ḥanafī governor of Mosul for the Ottoman Empire, ‘Abdul Bāqī al-‘Umarī (1790-1862), who traces his lineage back to ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb.

You are that ‘Alī raised above every worth For in Makkah’s core—in God’s House—was your birth! And you are that Ḥaydar from which Leo’s constellation Does rebound in fear and exasperation! And you are the Gate—Exalted its Guard Except by the knock of Gabriel, barred! And you are the stout, in wisdom amassed The Cosmos a tenth of which can’t encompass And you are that lion, ferocious and flawless Whose claws skinned idolatry of any promise And you are that dot under Bā’, which singly Sums up God’s Book in a manner so simply And you and The Truth, oh most just in its render Tomorrow in truth will be raised up together And you are the twin to a Prophet whose creed The Lord none but it to Prophets decreed And you are the spouse to the Prophet’s daughter That Hādī to Ways of whose shunners falter And you are that inborn sword which wrecks Oft quenching the holes and oft-curing defects And you are the rain in drought, and the succor To those dispossessed and seeking a shelter And you are the nook sought by each refugee And you are the fort to whom fugitives flee And you are the one to whose grace one aspires And whoever seeks other debased does retire And you are that core of belief, not decreased: Though veils should be cast, you’re never increased And you own that serpentine sword that hisses In a sheath that devours whole disbelief’s pitches And you have a line traced through a descent Stitched back to a strain of the steepest ascent And you are the source of glory distinguished That Time keeps extending and cannot extinguish And yours is a fur by which faith was defended And your mane with the coats of Islām was augmented And of you this manifest creed was bereaved And Islām by your children’s plight was aggrieved And indeed from you did God unsheathe Pillars of dawn that cracked the night’s wreath And indeed you alone have mounted by foot A place where Allāh His own Hand had put And indeed with the Prophet in both the directions You were first in prayer and in genuflection And indeed you alone on his very bed On the night of his Hijrah had slept in his stead And indeed yours are signs that surpass all antiquity And render its worth in the throes of humility And indeed you alone approach large battalions Such rigor that mountains concede to your valiance! And indeed you for God alone was your action And indeed you for God alone was your fashion And indeed you for God alone you had weaved And indeed you for God alone you had cleaved Against disbelief such a sword you erect With its strike even Atlas at once would be wrecked Suspended, while in its pummel does loom A wave on horizons that would well-nigh boom Yes even those struts of Khaybar’s door If tied to Earth’s axis, you’d pluck from the core You rivaled the Sun with the moon of your shield At Badr, when shining you rose to the field And a lion’s daughter was truly your mother So fitting it is that she named you Ḥaydar And you have that rank of gathering under The Cloak with the Prophet, your sons, and his daughter And you are that King of the Bees for the Faithful Wherever you turn, they follow—so graceful No virtues has God diffused midst his creatures Except that in you altogether they feature I excel—oh Abū Ḥusayn!—in your praise And I don’t cease but with gems to amaze But pardon—for it falls short of my grasp For when I clamp down, it breaks through my clasp! So accept from me—may The Worlds be your ransom This praise that stuns the Heavens: most handsome!

Karbala I Weep

My tears continue to spill
How Hussain was slain,
On the scorching sand,
Without food and water,
With 999 wounds, blood splurting
out of all parts of his body, to be slaughtered,
Forty thousand army raining arrows at him from all directions,
Blood blurring his vision
He, Hussain alone, unable to move a limb,
A target to satisfy their whims
Some threw stones, some pierced spears and others wounded him with axes,
And Hussain said,”Let me prostrate before Allah and pray for forgiveness for my people,
Wounded and feeble,
With an inner strength Hussain heaved himself and gave the last Sajda(prostation),
The enemy severed off his head from his body without hesitation.
Hussain kept his promise to his grandfather to sacrifice his head for Islam,
That day the skies, earth and nature wept bitterly for Hussain(Alai Salam).
Who would not?
The tragedy of Kerbala would evoke deep grief even in the heedless.

Salambanu Hatim