i think it's uh uh fourth day, of peace be upon you and welcome to on islam, the show where we look at current affairs through an islamic lens. our condolences to the islamic ummah on the mardom and the anniversary ofdom of imam hussain, peace.

upon him, the month of muharram is of course the first month of the islamic hijry calendar, but it's also the month in which muslims commemorate the affor mentioned martterdom of say the battle of karbala in of modern day iraq. hussain was the grandson of the prophet muhammad ali and the son of imam ali and zahra. peace be upon them both. his marterdom took place on the 10th of muharram in the 61st year after hijrah by the forces loyal to the calif yazid, supposedly himself a muslim ruler. this day has come to be known as ashura. hussein's martin at karbala has had deep religious and socio-political consequences that are still being felt until this very day, not least in how they've inspired others to stand up for their own rights against tyrants and dictators the world over. in this episode we'll discuss the events of the battle of karbala, what lessons it contained for the muslims and what similarities there are with the ongoing genocide against the people of and palestine. first we take a look at the events that led to the battle of. the marterism of hussein

ibn ali on the plains of karbala is pivotal event in islamic history, symbolizing the struggle against tyranny and injustice. the events leading tomortism began with the political and religious turmoil following the death of prophet muhammad. the omayad dynasty anzid sought to consolidate power demanding allegiance from key figures. including hussein, the grandson of prophet muhammad, and a revered leader. hussein refused to pledge allegiance to yazid, whom he viewed as an illegitimate and corrupt ruler. this refusal was rooted in his commitment to justice and the principles of islam. the people of kufa, disillusioned with rule, invited hussein to lead them in revolt. hussein set out for kufa with a small group of family and followers, despite. mornings of

treatury. yazid's forces intercepted hussein's caravan at karbala, despite being vastly outnumbered, hussein chose to camp on the banks of the euphrates river. negotiations failed as yazid's demands for hussein's submission were unwavering. deprived of water and supplies for days, hussein's camp injured immense hardship. on the 10th of muharram, the battle commenced. hussein and his followers numbered around. 72, faced a well-equipped army of over 30,000. the battle was brutal and one-sided. hussein's companions and family members, including his infant son, were killed in succession. hussein fought valiantly, but was eventually surrounded and murtered. the aftermath was equally tragic with the women and children of hussein's camp taken captive and paraded through cities. saint stand at karbala became powerful symbol. of resistance

against oppression, inspiring generations and profoundly shaping shia islam's identity and rituals. his martterdom is commemorated annually during mar, particularly on ashhura, through morning and reenactments, reinforcing the themes of sacrifice, justice and resilience. the discuss this important topic are two very special guests. we're proud to welcome sister fatima shahrastani, sister. fatima is a student in iran, she has a great interest in world affairs and runs an educational group for young ladies to discuss world events through an islamic lens. also joining us online is brother klem ali, a civil rights advocate with legal background and a deep interest in the affairs and conflicts of the global south. assalomu alaikum to you uh both. sister fatima, let's begin with yourself here in the studio, and i did want to also uh commend you as well. i understand you're 15 years old and yet you display such maturity and uh passion for

islam and for the political, social responsibilities of muslims, so it's interesting for me to get the perspective of someone who's uh so young and uh, you get to get involved, and i guess so first question would be to you, uh imam hussein alaihi salam didn't submit to uh the demand of yazid, why was it that he didn't submit to his allegiance? because some would argue wasn't yazid a legitimate islamic ruler? salam, thank you for having me here, the rest of the imam, they didn't accept to give allegiance, the leader of the time did not force them to give allegiance, they said, okay, don't fight with us, but um, also don't give allegiance, but what yazid? with imam hussain is, he said, well either kill you or you give allegiance, there is no option of you not giving allegiance, and imam hussain had to fight for his islamic duties and for the um the prophet, so he did not give his allegiance, and it's interesting, you do say that, because it's uh, it was a binary

choice, as you said, with other some of the other imams, there were choices that were maybe more flexible given to them, and imam hussain made clear, the likes of me don't submit - to... the likes of you, um, a highlight i think as well of yaz's corrupt character as well, it was the nature of his uh, his personal character and the character the omeil empire at the time. brother karim, if we can come to you, now there are many who have drawn comparisons to modern day scenarios, in which ways do israel and global zionism have similarities to the regime of yazid? there are several similarities i want to run through quickly before landing on perhaps what is the most important one, so not only are they armed to... not only have they surrounded the palestinians, not only have they also put them in camps, not only have they restricted and prevented aid and water from reaching them, and not only are they murdering them with such genocidal intent, but also in such violent and and horrific traumatizing ways, the way in which

the zinis settle regime is spreading misinformation is very similar to what happened in the time of yazid, the tyrant for instance, 'when the caravan of imam hussain after ashhura were being marched through several bazars and towns and cities, people were joining in and celebrating the fact that these criminals that these usurpers of the leader of their time were being paraded, and it's this way of spreading misinformation of lying about who is who that people'. people joined the wrong side and it wasn't only until they realized that these are lies that they came to regret their behavior and they came to support and they came to sympathize with the women of the cameraman who are left, then spread the message further and wider, which is why we're sitting here today. for

instance, there were many instances or there's examples narrations that exist that people didn't even know that imam husain pray. thank you brother. there are some who say that imam hussein led himself and his uh group that were with him, his family and his companions knowing that he was going to lose the battle, so why would he fight in those circumstances? um, i think the question here is wrong because he didn't lose the battle, so he couldn't have known that he was going to lose the battle if he didn't lose the battle, because it depends on what you define as losing, yeah, if you define it as dying, well the quran we have... mean marters are alive people, so in that case he didn't sl, but the main thing is his point was and he actually said that he's going to revive the nation of his grandfather, rasulullah, so he

act what he set off to do and what his goal was, he did it, so he did not lose, he might have been killed, but that's not losing, and we see that and... lot of cases, even in gaza right now, and blood does defeat the sword, even though it might not seem instant, but it does, yeah, and there's the um, yeah, of course in the material sense, a battle may be lost, but there are many other aspects to it, which i guess is how people have interpreted speech, salam to yazid, where she essentially said, you will never wipe our memory, and we see 1400 years later, the way people commemorate imam hussein every year, and take inspiration from him. in the modern context, now we take a look at how the people of palestine have themselves, as we were discussing, uh, being inspired by the sacrifice of imam hussein alaihi salam, the words of some of their own most notable figures. as many make the link between the battle of carbala and the genocide against

the people of gaza. there have been several examples of palestinians themselves drawing inspiration from the story of imam hussain alaihi salam. jamal al-dura. the father of muhammad, the 12-year-old boy, famously killed in september 2000 by israeli regime forces in gaza, has spoken about how imam hussein alaihi salam has inspired. نحن تعلمنا من الحسين الشهاده والدفاع عن الحق رحمه الله عليه رحمه واسعه وسيد الشهداء في الجنه من خلال احتلال فلسطين الى يومنا هذا 75 عام وما زال الاحتلال موجود على ارض الفلسطينيه ما زالت يوميا تتجدد دماء الحسن يوميا على ارض فلسطين دماء الحسين كانت في من ابناء فلسطين تنزف

يوميا ولن يتوقف نزيف القتل الى هذا الان قضيه محمد وقضيه ابناء الحسين هي قضيه ماساويه وللاسف ما زالت تتكرر منظر استشهاد محمد since october the 7th we have also seen reports of senior god.

dispelling the notions that the people of palestine are sectarian or that they have abandoned the path of truth that is encapsulated in the... who it happened to that being said, we hear not because of what happened but because of every year the stories of what happened to the personality. how can your mind not make a comparison when you see father hugging the

dismembered body of his son in gaza, where we have an oppressed group of people who are being brutalized and oppressed and terrorized and massacred and butchered by those who are armed to the teeth in the numbers of hundreds of thousands have. one can tell me and tell everyone else to think saying whenever they drink water, but can turn a blind eye to the suffering of human beings like them when they are calling out is there anyone there to help me, then this is surely a misguided interpretation of what the heini spirit and message really meant, so what we've seen from gaza over the... n months are horrific, horrific and traumatizing videos and images

of fathers holding up their dead children to the cameras of the world, begging for it to be seen and for people to act for them. when we are relying on historical nations 1400 years ago, and even the oral tradition of this brings us to tears, when we see it happen in front of our very eyes to our brothers and sisters, not just in faith, but also in humanity, 'then really we have to make a choice in ourselves, which is that are we - or are we in the campus of say? are we ready sacrifice or are we ready to sit back and allow it to happen? and by sacrifices can come in many forms, through activism you can sacrifice your social life, you might sacrifice your family life, you might sacrifice relationships that you have that you built for many, many years are very important to you, the people your definitely sacrifice time'. "and you will sacrifice what is important to you or what brings you joy

and pleasure and happiness in life, all for the greater cause of serving the husseini mission of standing up for the oppressed against the tyrant of the yazid or the muawiya or abu sufyan of your day. in this case, and in this case it is plain sight that the zionist settler regime is the yezid. the more double sufyan of today, now sister fatima, i know you want to come in there as well, there are some who may say that the story of imam hussain is something that is for the history books or for the... books of morning and do you believe that to be the case or do you think that imam hussein stance was a lesson intended for later generations to learn from? well aren't history books wrote written for future generations to learn from um every story we hear of history or we listen or we read um they're all intended for

us to learn from and we actually see that in the quran one third of the book of allah is stories of the prophets. and um many times in the quran he says why he's send these stories, so for example in surat yusuf, aya 111, the first part is there, there is certain certainly moral in their accounts for those who have intellect, and this is referring to story that the quran had said, so we see that learning... from history is very important and even imam ali has hadith that he says um he's learned so much from history etc. and why is it so key to learn from imam hussein story or any other imam story is because they're infallibles and everything they do is the truth and they never commits mistakes or sins so we know

that's what they did is correct and we have to follow their lead yeah and um find it's a bit of a couple people do say things like, oh, you can't compare to them, they're infallibles, but i say, yeah, but they're there to teach us, they are the the light, the guiding lights of salvation, so of course no one compares to them, and it's the same as this argument now, can you compare with, and i think it's a strong man argument, nobody's saying they're the same theologically, of course imam status is so great that even allah cried for him, so i think it's a bit of a bad faith argument when people make this claim, because nobody's saying that they are equal or... one's worse than the other or that is worse for example, but that there is lessons in it and similarities in it, and if there are similarities in the oppression, then there are also similarities in the response and in the resistance that you should show in that case. now, brother karim, ashuraa has inspired many around the world, but in particular muslims, how has it inspired those uh in the modern era, i'm

thinking in particular with regards to uh the success of the islamic revolution in iran, and of course... palestinian resistance and their stance as well, i grew up in madalis where i heard every day is ash and every landers karbala and i believe that from what i've seen over the last eight nine months that i'm not the only one clearly who heard that i've seen many many familiar friends and faces from the community come out and support the movement not just on the ground how also in leadership positions giving speeches and guiding people towards a heini inspired message, one that is no to humiliation and one that is yes to death of dignity. the islamic revolution, the islamic iranian revolutionaries and the palestinian resistance today have several things in common with imam hussain and that is that

they draw inspiration from his absolute relentlessness to the notion of sacrifice for truth, sacrifice for being on the right side of history and sacrifice because they accept the understanding and the belief that all life belongs to god, god has given them life, and therefore they must use as in the way in which imam hussein and those that came before him and indeed after him wanted us to in order to enjoin the good and forbid evil. absolutely, thank you brother kariem for that. for the final question, i'd like to come back to you, sister fatima and ask you uh, there's a saying that sometimes you know a man by knowing his friends, but also you can know a man by knowing who his enemies are. do you think that applies when we look at the story of imam hussain and also of course in the modern context as well? um, i think that you cannot generalize it, so you

can have two um, two people that are... on the falls fighting with each other, for example, abdullah bin zubair was somebody that fought against yazid and he was an enemy of yazid, but when you see why he fought against him and what his intentions were, he wanted to replace yazid and become a tyrant himself, so here you have an example that you see abdullah bin zubair's enemy was yazid, but he was not a good person, exactly, um, but i think to be able to tell who's on the truth, you can if you know... what their intention is, and if you know what they are fighting about, then yes, you usually can tell who's on the hack and who's on the false? yeah, so in... you see that imam hussein was fighting for um his intentions were for the sake of allah and he was fight he was fighting to not give allegiance to

yazid which was a tyrant and an oppressor and we actually see that in gaz as well even though we might not know about themselves or we might just have recently heard about them but when we see why they are fighting they're fighting for their home land to not be taken from them and we see that their intention. is purely for the sake of allah, so we can tell who's on the hack and who's on the battle? yeah, absolutely, and do always think about the question of palestine and and the disposession of the people of palestine, because if you look at who found it israel or the illegitimate entity there, um, it's the same people, allah says one sin in the quran in particular, which is going to war with him, which is riba usury, and it was the people, the same families who created the modern banking system, who made their wealth from us. 'who founded the state of uh israel, the zionist entity, and i always say in that context when you know who that enemy is, and how that enemy is opposed to the palestinian

people and to the resistance axis, the islamic republic of iran and all the allies in the region, in that sense it reaffirms that you're doing something right, because the people on the other side are described as being the enemies of god or being at war with god as well, and that's why we always say inshallah that imam mehi will come and bring victory for us and for all the good people in the world'. inshaallah sister fatima, i'd like to thank you so much for your uh contributions today, you've really uh raised the level of discussion and uh taught me some things as well, which is always a good thing, as well to brother kareem, i'd like to thank you as well, unfortunately that's all we have time for today, i'd also like to thank you at home for watching us, you can join us again next week for another edition of i on islam, assalam alaikum warahmatullah.

today's show we'll be taking a look at the us presidential race and what it might mean in terms of the united states future policy towards palestine and israel. in the second part, we'll be evaluating the outcome of the british general election and whether it's likely to affect uk's relationship with a sinist entity. most presidential candidates wouldn't even be able to point to palestine a map. they have no idea of the nuances uh involved, the history of the conflict. we didn't ever think that we could get a break through like that in the... pass the p system because it's it's designed to avoid that kind of thing, but we got five uh seats.

i believe that the working together we can make history.

crisis, devastating wars, terrorism, the israeli lobby. crackdown, diplomacy, us political violence.

headlines and press tv, more than 141 palestinians are killed and some 400 others injured in just one day of the israeli general side of war on gaza. muslims in iran and around the world, special morning ceremonies on the eve of tasoa. yes, presidential candidate donald trump survives assassination attempt during a campaign rally in pennsylvania. the shooter was killed on the scene.