Ashura

Each year we live through the 10th of Muharram learning something new, hearing something shocking, recognizing our differences and similarities, wishing for change, this one tearful day is always accompanied by lots of contemplation. This year in that sense was no difference. We went through a process of identifying the ones that He loves, and distances ourselves from those that opposed them, in recognition of those He doesn’t want us to follow. Just like plants grow toward the direction of light, us human beings need to follow the direction of the light too, in the case of Ashura, Husayn is the light and our remembrance of Ashura is our pledge to ensure we will be at the side of his grandson. The question I always ask is “really, would I be on the side of Husayn if was around back then?” I ask the question sincerely because I would think I would be on the side of his grandson, but truly analyze your actions, I did. So when I pray without focus, when I don’t think before I speak, am I really representative of what Husayn had, and hence what his grandson, the Imam of my time needs. I spent the 9th day of Muharram preparing for the 10th day, I ironed clothes, got prayer items together, drank less water, had simple foods for iftar, collected up books, and straightened my mindset. The last preparation task is what took most time, how do you prepare yourself to knowing what massacre will take place, reading the news seeing that today’s society is no different to what the society was like back then, what differentiates me from them, how do I make a change, how do I prepare for my Imam, what do I do to not just present him with tears. As you can imagine, I had a lot of questions with not many answers. History gives some context to what my thoughts to the future are and should be. What must a human being go through to get to the level of not recognizing the Imam of their time, will I be like them? I teach kids, and I ask them if they would throw rubbish at the Prophet, it’s a story they’ve heard from young about how their Prophet was treated and demonstrative of his akhlaq. I always get a resounding, disgusted “NO”. Then I tell them how people did that to their Prophet. I then like to ask them if they do what their mummy’s tell them, and I’m pretty sure we’re all guilty of not doing that (even me). At this point my class is silent, I ask if they think the Imam’s did. I tell them how when we build up little attributes from their young age that we carry with us till the future, it’s the little things that we forget, respecting our parents, listening to our mummy’s, not talking over each other, these are the little things that lead us to recognize when we are wrong. I then go on to talk about how, when you do so many small naughty things you start to cover up your conscious and its afraid to tell you when you’re wrong, and that how people got to throwing rubbish at the Prophet. I’m not sure my story is totally theologically correct, but we’re given a way of life, akhlaq and humanity have a very close link, my point here is that when we start to ignore the smaller things we may get to level of those whom we ask God to withhold His rahma from.