Karbala, Ay Karbala! (Collected Marthiyas) کربلا، اے کربلا! (مجموعۂ مراثی)

Waheed Akhtar

Ali Gholi Gharaei 

Geisteswissenschaften, Kunst, Musik / Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft

Beschreibung

This is a collection of fourteen long elegiac poems (Marthiyas) on the theme of martyrdom by one of the leading modern Urdu poets. It celebrates the memory of the saints and heroes of early Islam, namely Fatima and Imam Ali (the Prophet's daughter and son-in-law), Imam Husain and the martyrs of Karbala.Explaining the contemporary relevance of the tragedy of Karbala and the struggle of Imam Husain as a deeply inspiring literary theme, Waheed Akhtar, writes:

"Karbala was apparently a brief battle of a few hours in which there were seventy-two souls and some women and children on one side. On the other side were thousands of troops armed with all weapons of war. On the one side were the revolutionary political and social values of Islam and firm commitment to save the freedom of thought and spirit. On the other side was the attempt of wealth and power to enslave, with all the means of bribery, seduction, government, buying consciences and faiths. But history does not determine the importance of events by the scarcity or abundance of people or the length of the war. This short battle of Karbala was a clash of two systems of life, two ways of thinking and two conflicting concepts of values.

This battle did not end with the martyrdom of Hussain (Peace be upon him) in the afternoon on the Day of Ashura, but the event was a prelude to a long unceasing war, which Zainab and Ali ibn Hussain continued until Kufa and Syria.

"This war, as some historians or Orientalists say, was not a tribal conflict between the Umayyads and Banu Hashim. If this were so, the Abbasides were the cousins of the Talibis and the conflict would have ended.

"Islam has dismissed the ties of tribe, lineage, blood and race and maintained only one relationship, that is, clasping firmly the rope of God, which is the system of life established by the Prophet and represented by Imam Ali's style of governance and politics. It has no lineage, tribe, or color.

Iranians of Aryan descent, displaced Arabs of Palestine, the exploited and deprived Shiites and Sunnis of Lebanon, the hapless Muslim victims, Shiite and Sunni, of partition and riots in the sub-continent, the activists in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and the Far East, the poorly armed Afghans against Russian domination, the poor fighting for the establishment of the Islamic system in Egypt and Sudan and for human rights against apartheid in South Africa are attached to the same rope and belong to the same tribe and members of the same community.

"Not only this, if we extend this linkage, the poor Asians who struggled for thirty years against French and American domination in Vietnam, the European countries suffering under the oppression of Nazi Germany, and the Latin American nations fighting against the colonial expansionism of American imperialism, and, in the United States itself, Africans suffering from racial discrimination and those fighting for their national and ideological freedom in every corner of the world will be seen as members of the same family.

"The struggle and movement started by Ali (PBUH) and Hussain (PBUH) continues even in the 20th century world. Karbala is still alive today, from the remote jungles of the Far East to the poverty-stricken Latin American countries of the West.

"In this context, saying or thinking that Karbala is not compatible with modern contemporary thought and feeling is tantamount to negating the historical consciousness of man and the revolutionary mission of Islam. In my elegiac compositions, I have seen Karbala and presented it in the context of modern era and human history. Its framework is the composite culture of the Indian subcontinent.

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