Hello everyone, so this post is pretty late, I wanted to post it on the 10th of Muharram, that is Sunday but I've been busy. Anyway, here it goes... drop in your thoughts in the comments.
As soon as the new Muslim year began my social media was flooded with positive lessons and messages from Hussain (RA) story. The third Muslim Imam and grandson to the Holy Prophet, Hussain (RA) was martyred on the 10th of Muharram by the tyrant Yazid’s army after he was kept thirsty for 10 long days. 72 innocent people were tortured, their infants and all of their males were slaughtered. But this post will not talk about his widely known and respected personality or his very painful story. Today I will talk about its outcome, how we perceive it and how we can apply it to our own lives.
So, most of the posts talked about Hussain’s success, and
that word is what I would like to emphasize, ‘success’. I have believed that ‘success’
does not mean material gain, it is the name given to a constant struggle, for
what is right, till death, the name of earning respect and becoming closer to
Allah even if it means losing everything else. I have had this conversation
with many people, people who consider themselves successful and people who don’t,
most of them find it really hard to agree with my paradigm. Most believe that
success is material, success is tangible, success is the name of acquiring a
certain financial status in society, or a word attributed to people everybody
else is afraid of- this stems from a wrong interpretation of respect-.
And here I will take
Hussain’s (RA) example, because he did not fall into any of those categories.
Did he have material success? Did he conquer lands or make money? Or was he
feared? If he was feared Hurr would never have come over to his side, he would
have been afraid of Hussain’s (RA) reaction but that’s not what happened right?
All these attributes were qualitative of Yazid instead, he was wealthy, he had
luxuries and land and people who accepted him as a ruler. He was the one others
were afraid of for he was known for his cruel ways and bad habits. But who do
we preach to be successful, who do we remember as good?
Looking at it this way, success cannot mean what we usually
think it means. Hussain’s (RA) story shows that success is the name of a constant
struggle, a struggle which continues till death. It is not the end, it is not
permanent, it is constant and it requires effort. The current idea we have of
success would only mean that (God forbid) Hussain (RA) was the failure and
Yazid the successful.
I also believe that most of these incidents happened to
provide us with examples. These stories are still relatable today. We can still
extract lessons for ourselves and apply them to our daily lives. I appreciate
all the lessons people have got out of Hussain’s(RA) story but for me this one
is the biggest take away.
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