By Shabbir Hassanally

No matter how dark things might look, no matter how hopeless a situation might be, no matter how powerful the despots might be, always know that the Truth will without a doubt always prevail.

Recent examples of this can be seen in the eight-year war and 40+ years of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, that while certainly painful, have not resulted in the capitulation and break up of the Islamic Republic system, but have rather made the Islamic Republic stronger, due to it’s lack of reliance on the technology and products of the oppressors, and instead by having a strong reliance on God, and upon its own abilities.

We can see the same with the Islamic Resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine. While these movements have been declared “terrorist” entities by the so-called “civilized world”, the world is now seeing the reality that the occupation entity – the Zionist Entity – is, in fact, the terrorist entity[1].

In Yemen, we can see the true face of the terrorists occupying Arabia[2], who like Yazeed profess Islam, but act contrary to Islamic teachings of kindness and compassion, of justice and equity and of being completely against oppression.

This is what is meant by the Zaynabi Component.

To take the Truth, and tell the world. To take something that perhaps at one time you had to whisper quietly, and shout it from the rooftops because the Truth cannot and will not be suppressed.

Today, close to 1400 years after the event of Ashura, we can see the tens of millions marching towards Karbala. We can see yet more tens – if not hundreds – of millions gathering at their mosques and centres – in every corner of the world – to remember the revolution of Ashura, to allow the lessons of Ashura – lessons that were delivered close to 1400 years ago – to come into their lives and to empower them and renew their hope of the ultimate victory of truth against falsehood.

We can see the child in Yemen, in Palestine, in Bahrain, in Kashmir and elsewhere, make resistance against the despots occupying and harming his land and people, even if it be just by shouting at the oppressive occupiers, and this is because the Truth has been understood by this child.

This Truth is not exclusive to one Islamic School of Thought or to the Muslims only, this is a completely inclusive Truth, that includes every human being, who has ever lived, currently lives and will live; this is the innate Truth that every human is born with; that tells us what is right and what is wrong; but that sadly we forget.

But the epic of Ashura and the movement of Lady Zaynab brings together and injects the veins of humanity with the spirit of Truth. This is the real victory.

And there is yet more evidence to this fact.

When you examine the lack of coverage of this global gathering, that by all accounts is the largest gathering of humanity in a single location[3] for a single purpose, this reveals the reality of the global arrogance and those who support and nurture it.

Indeed, you see those in the global media, which is but the propaganda arm of the powers of Global Arrogance, manufacture documentaries in an attempt to defame this powerful, human and indeed revolutionary gathering[4].

The global mainstream media refuses to cover this gathering objectively and fairly for one primary reason.

Covering such an event will encourage and enthuse the population to find out what and why there is such a great gathering. This will make the population look at who Imam Husayn was and what was the Epic of Ashura, and ultimately, it will wake up the world population.

Wake the world population to understand who the Yazeed of their time is and who the Husayn of their time is, and the natural condition of people is to go towards the good and avoid and reject that which is evil.

This event brings people together, from different schools of thought, Sunnis and Shias, from different religions, from Christians, Jews and others. It opens the eyes of people to who the real oppressors are; and to who the real Yazeeds of our age are.

It exposes those who are working to harm the population. To delude them, to present to the people truth as falsehood, and falsehood as truth. To present that which is natural as unnatural, and that which is unnatural as natural.

This is the underlying fear.

The reason – one of the core reasons – for this; is that on account of the Zaynabi component, a major victory was achieved 40 years ago in a place that was completely controlled by a Yazeed of that time. That place is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Shah of Iran was an asset of the Yazeed of that time (and indeed the same Yazeed is around today in the form of the American Administration). He served the Empire and cared nothing for the people of Iran. In fact in the Shah’s time, a regular Iranian civilian had fewer rights than an American dog in Iran, and Iranian natural resources were being squandered, either by the Shah and his associates or directly by the American Administration.

Interestingly, this is the same as the approach that was attempted in Iraq following Saddam’s removal – who was also an asset of the American Administration, but who had outlived his usefulness, and of course, this hasn’t been as successful as the despots would have liked.

In the same way, we can see the way that the American administration in recent days discarded their allies from the Kurds, who had on behalf of the Americans occupied swathes of Syrian territory and indeed enacted a regime of terror upon the people of North-Eastern Syria. But as they became less useful to the American Empire, they were discarded the same way garbage is discarded[5].

However, within the countries of the Persian Gulf, such as the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and off course Saudi Arabia; this is definitely the case. These countries are true vassal states of the American administration and do nothing without approval from Washington. They also massively squander the natural resources – which are the property of the people of the countries (and not the ruling families who are essentially occupiers and illegal at that) – and now we are told that they pay the United States to act as mercenaries on their behalf[6]. Killing and harming men, women and children across the entire region, including (but not limited to), Yemen, Bahrain, Palestine, etc.

In light of this, we can see that the miracle of the event of Ashura and the stance of Imam Husayn, the awakening brought about by the event of Arbaeen and the stance of Lady Zaynab and Imam Al-Sajjad.

The multitude of people that make this walk and hold the commemorations – both on Ashura and especially on Arbaeen – terrify the despots; because these activities will awaken the curious minds and hearts into the subjects I’ve discussed herein, and as a result, will inspire humanity towards rejecting the occupiers and despots and moving towards the Truth and Justice.

This is also another reason why the stance of Imam Husayn and Lady Zaynab are eternal and so powerful.

Finally, we also know that regarding the Islamic Revolution and its victory, Imam Khumayni is known to have said:

“The whole unity of expression that was at the base of our victory came about by the grace of these (Ashura) mourning rites and meetings, as well as the sessions for the propagation and spread of Islam.” [7]

These events of Ashura and Arbaeen – these gatherings, these processions, these multi-million strong marches to the shrine of Imam Husayn in Karbala from all corners of the World and by people of all denominations; these are a sign that the universal message of Truth, of Justice and of Resistance against the despots, tyrants and real terrorists, is one that joins all of humanity as a unified fabric against the small number of tyrants who seek to dominate over humanity, both physically and psychologically.

These events prove that the despots have a limited shelf-life, their time is ending rapidly; and that the word of Truth will not and cannot be suppressed.

Even with the attempts made by the forces and media powers of Global Arrogance to sideline such monumental events like Arbaeen, efforts by the enemy which in the short-term appear to be successful; in the same way that in the short-term Yazeed and his forces considered that their massacring of Imam Husayn and his companions was a victory for them, the reality says something very different.

An important series of verses of the Holy Quran comes to mind here, where God is speaking about how He helped and indeed bestowed favour and liberated the children of Israel, supporting them to overcome Pharoah and liberate themselves from his tyranny, and how His promise is eternal:

“Pharaoh exalted himself in the land and divided its people into factions. He persecuted a group of them, slaughtering their sons while sparing their daughters. He was truly a corrupter.

But We desired to favour those who were oppressed in the land, and to make them leaders, and to make them the inheritors.

And to establish them in the land; and to show Pharaoh, Hamaan, and their troops, the very thing they feared.” -Quran, Chapter 28 (Al-Qasas / The Narrations), Verses 4 to 6[8]

It is indeed Imam Husayn who we are speaking about, and about Lady Zaynab and her stance against Yazeed that we remember and draw inspiration from, nearly 1400 years after it took place; and Yazeed and his minions; they are held in complete contempt and forgotten as the rubbish that they are. Hated for generations and marked as examples of unjust rulers and the most debased of creation.

The name of Imam Husayn, the stance of Imam Husayn, the name of Lady Zaynab, and the efforts that she exerted to spread and propagate the message of Imam Husayn, the message of Truth, of Resistance, is alive and well, and getting stronger with each generation.

We can see, when the latter-day Khawarej[9] terrorists invaded – with the blessing and indeed support[10] of the despotic powers of Global Arrogance – Syria, with a view to destroying that country, and bringing it into the orbit of Global Arrogance; groups came about, from within the Muslims and Christians, who named themselves after Lady Zaynab[11], and vowed to protect the innocent from the preying schemes of the terrorists, and who have been instrumental in defeating DAESH and related terrorist groups in Syria.

This same group, Liwa Zaynabiyoun[12] along with other groups who have fought and defeated the terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq are now designated as terrorist groups themselves by the American Administration and its allies[13].

The reason for this is very simple.

When you stand against the despots, the despots will try to vilify you, they will try to insult you and break you; but know that if you are moving towards the Truth, towards Justice, towards helping the oppressed, towards enjoining the good and forbidding the evil; then your movement is a Husayni movement, and it is a Zaynabi movement, and as a result, cannot be suppressed, and is guaranteed victory.

After all, God, the Most Sublime, says in the Holy Quran:

“They want to extinguish God’s light with their mouths, but God refuses except to complete His light, even though the disbelievers dislike it.” -Quran, Chapter 9 (Tawbah / Repentance), Verse 32[14]

And from God alone is all ability and He has authority over all things and He is a Witness over everything.

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[1] Dissident Voice, Israel is a Terrorist State, Jonathan Cook, 13th October 2015 – https://dissidentvoice.org/2015/10/israel-is-a-terrorist-state/ and Counter Currents, Israel’s Secret, Elias Akleh, 20 August 2019 – https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/israels-secret

[2] Kayhan International, 24 September 2019, Yemen Exposes Saudi Hypocrisy – http://kayhan.ir/en/news/44565/yemen-exposes-saudi-hypocrisy

[3] Arbaeen Pilgramage, Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arba%27een_Pilgrimage

[4] I will not provide more details about the documentaries here to prevent giving them publicity, suffice it to say that while there are some negative practices that take place, they are not practices that are within the realm of Islam, and while there are some people who might be references as “Islamic Clerics” by the mass media, that doesn’t mean that they are; even if they wear such clothes. After all it is well known that people have masqueraded as doctors in hospitals and resulted in harming the population. See Former California college student, 23, accused of pretending to be doctor at a children’s hospital and even diagnosing a patient, the Mail Online, 31 August 2018 – https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6118727/Man-23-charged-pretending-doctor-diagnosing-patient.html and more examples at Oddee, 10 people who pretended to be doctors, 22 February 2016 – https://www.oddee.com/item_99612.aspx. The timing and manner of the documentaries that I am talking about are what is a problem; they are timed to create more strife and sedition, when it serves the agenda of the despots. In this case, the government of Iraq getting closer to the Islamic Republic of Iran and refusing the US Sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic, results in Iraq being defamed (and ultimately Islam being defamed as a net result) by the propaganda arm of the so-called Empire.

[5] Trump on Abandoning Kurdish Forces: The Kurds didn’t help us in WW2, Huffington Post, 10 October 2019 – https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/trump-kurdish-forces-world-war-ii_n_5d9e624ce4b087efdba7a1c3 – though it should be noted that the situation of the Kurds and their being abandoned by the US is somewhat more complicated and needs an article in and of itself to elaborate on. Perhaps at a later stage I will attempt this.

[6] A mercenary is one who is paid to fight on behalf of another see the definition from the Free Dictionary – https://www.thefreedictionary.com/mercenary and the news article from Sputnick News 12 October 2019 Trump Says Saudi Arabia to Pay for Deployment of Additional US Troops – https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201910121077029929-trump-says-saudi-arabia-to-pay-for-deployment-of-additional-us-troops/

[7] Muharram and Ashura in the words of Imam Khumayni, Published 15 February 2012, Tebyan – https://english.tebyan.net/newindex.aspx?pid=198858

[8] See translation from Itani, Tanzil Online Quran – http://tanzil.net/#trans/en.itani/28:4

[9] See note 24

[10] UN Report confirms Israel’s support for Terrorist Organisations in Syria, Muraselon, 21 March 2018 – https://en.muraselon.com/2018/03/un-report-confirms-israels-support-for-terrorist-organizations-in-syria/

[11] Liwa Zaynabiyoun – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liwa_Zainebiyoun

[12] Ibid.

[13] Zaynabiyoun Brigade, IFTMAT, Entity Designated / sanctioned for Terrorism – https://www.ifmat.org/01/25/zaynabiyoun-brigade/

[14] See translation by Itani from Tanzil Online Quran – http://tanzil.net/#trans/en.itani/9:32

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Shabbir Hassanally is a software engineer, and an Islamic Scholar, having studied in the Islamic Seminary of Qum. He contributes to various outlets as a political analyst.