Husayn: A Symbol and a Warning

Essays by
Muhammad Iqbal
Abul Kalam Azad
Zakir Ḥusain Khan
Abul Alā Mawdūdī

Compiled and translated from Persian and Urdu into English by Mohd ‘Abd al-Rahman Sayeed Siddiqi

There is no disagreement between Sunnis and Shias that Imam Ḥusayn’s martyrdom in Karbala was a historical event illustrating true Islamic leadership and the exemplary character of someone who made a sincere attempt at safeguarding the ideology of Islam with the intention to retain it as an exact replica of the setup of the Prophetic era. But of late we see attempts by some to make Ḥusayn’s martyrdom a Sunni-Shia polemic.

This book is in response to that, it contains four essays on Karbala by four highly respected Sunni scholars and leaders, and we have added a new foreword to expand the story and give the reader a more comprehensive understanding of the importance of this heart-rending tragedy in Islamic history.