Today is the birthday of Hazrat Zainab (SA), the noble daughter of Imam Ali (AS), a lady who kept the memory of Karbala alive through her fervent speeches revealing the ugly picture of Yazid and his agents who perpetrated the most ignominious crimes ever committed by man.
Hazrat Zainab (SA) daughter of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), was brought up in an environment replete with virtue, piety and humanity.
She received Islamic education in the lap of her pious mother and father and thus obtained the peak of chastity and piety and became a typical Muslim lady.
She devoted her rich life to the service of the Almighty Allah in whom she believed sincerely and cognizantly. Hazrat Zainab (SA) was highly respected by her family members, as she was actually a perfect lady of Islam.
Hazrat Zainab (SA) was uniquely eloquent and bold vis-a-vis the infields. When her brother, Imam Hussein (AS) was martyred and they were taken captive, she spared no time disclosing the plots hatched by Yazid and his agents to smear the real picture of the Lord of Martyrs (Imam Hussein (AS). She is well-known for her provocative speeches delivered in the court of Yazid when she was taken there as captive.
Addressing Yazid, the murderer of the Lord of Martyrs, she proclaimed: "All praise is due to God. Greetings to the holy Prophet and his purified progeny. Allah's promise is always true when He says: "The evil was the end of those who did evil, because they rejected the communication of Allah and used to mock them." (30-10).
O Yazid, you have rendered us helpless with your ruthless forces.
Do you think you can decry our dignity before Allah, and gain repute before Him by your indecent treatment?" Now that the wheel of life runs as you wish, you have become arrogant and insolent.
The power you have usurped and boast for it is rightfully ours.
Do not be so unrestrained. Do not pretend that you are innocent and ignorant. Have you forgotten Allah's words: "And let not those who disbelieve think that Our granting them respite is better for their souls. We grant them respite only that they may add to their sins; and they shall have a disgraceful chastisement." (3-177).
Does justice in your eye mean that your wives and female servants live comfortably, while you have ordered your agents to take the daughters of the holy Prophet as captives and invite people to watch them, while they are left alone with their husbands slain? We cannot expect more than this from a man whose mother disembowels the martyrs (of Karbala) and eats their livers, and a man who has spite and grudges against the household of the holy Prophet.
You are a man who brags about his crimes and felonies, and one who vaunts when striking with his stick on the teeth of Imam Hussein (AS) (who was beheaded by the agents of Yazid who had his men bring his head to him).
This ignominious act of yours causes so much trepidation and foreboding among the people. One day will come when you will also join your coward and unmanly descendants, and there you will wish you had not perpetrated such crimes.
O Yazid, those who have exhorted you to accomplish such an obnoxious act (murdering the family of the holy Prophet of Islam), will once realize that a big chastisement and foreboding doom is awaiting them. With all the hardships and afflictions you have created for us, considering the fact that we are now your captives, I hold you in contempt and despise you.
"O Yazid, employ all your plots and ruses and exert all your energies to defame us. By God even by doing so, you can not wipe out our name engraved in the heart of our staunch followers, nor can you undermine our cause and message of divine revelation handed down to the holy Prophet (S), nor even can you robe us of our dignity. And you cannot remove the stains of shame and disgrace that is already on you.
Praise be to Allah who glorified us in endowing us with the rank and blessings of martyrdom, thus leading us to everlasting salvation, remission and prosperity in the hereafter.