We Are the First Semites: The Lie of an Inherited Hatred
🕯 The Accusation on the Table
Is Shiism inherently anti-Semitic? In our worldview, in our doctrine, do we despise Jews? Is Judaism a religion that the followers of the Ahl al-Bayt are taught — by nature and by nurture — to hate?
These last centuries, and more sharply these last months and weeks, there has been a flood of talk that Shia doctrine is built on the hatred of Jews. That a single word of criticism against injustice, oppression, or genocide is enough to brand a person an anti-Semite — a term thrown loosely, often by people who don't even know what they're accusing you of.
And the claim has shifted. It used to be "Islam is anti-Semitic." But the moment the Shia stood at the forefront — the Shia resistance, the Shia on the front lines — the label moved. Now the story became: we could sit at the same table with Muslims, but it's the Shia who are anti-Jew. You cannot relinquish the reality that the accusation moved precisely when the Shia stepped forward.
The frightening part is that those who make the claim cite references — from the Qur'an and from the Sunnah. If you're not familiar with the answers, you might fall prey to it and think: maybe my worldview really does teach me to hate. Maybe that's why we can never get along. These are dangerous questions, because what doesn't affect your life today will affect it sooner than later. Laws are pushed on the back of these ideas. Hatred is nurtured and taught — on their side and on ours.
So tonight we open the pages of history and go to the very references used to brand the Shia as anti-Semitic — and ask how true it really is.
⚖️ First Answer: We Are Semites Ourselves
Before anything, look at the word. Anti-Semitism should mean hatred of everyone with a Semitic background. Last I checked, "Semite" traces back to Shem.
Prophet Nuh (Noah) is your prophet, my prophet, a prophet for Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike — we all agree he was a man of the highest quality. According to the biblical narrative, his three sons started the nations: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Japheth went toward Europe and Eurasia. Ham stayed in North Africa — and here is something worth noting if we want to talk about racism: one interpretation of the Torah holds that Ham was cursed, and his descendants became black as that curse. Talk about racism — look back at your own narrative, and I wonder who the real anti-Semite is. I'm not a rabbi; I'm willing to be corrected. But do the same for me: don't take a shrewd interpretation from an extremist splinter group and decide Islam is inherently anti-Semitic — that riffraff doesn't even know what the word means.
And Shem? From his descendants come the peoples known as Semitic. The Semitic languages — Akkadian, Syriac, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, even Amharic, the Ethiopian tongue. That's why the words overlap: salām, shalom. They go back to one proto-origin. So if you belong to that lexical family — as an Arab, a Hebrew, an Aramean, an Ethiopian — you are a Semite.
So why is "anti-Semitic" reserved for the hatred of Jews alone? To hand one group a monopoly over the term is itself racist. If you hate Arabs, you are anti-Semitic, because we too are Semitic — in our tongue, our manner, our speech. A people is defined by the language it speaks: Armenians live in the region but are not Arab because they don't speak Arabic; Iranians are in the heart of the East but are distinct. So how do I tell an Arab from a non-Arab? By the speech. I speak Arabic, you speak Hebrew, you speak Aramaic, you speak Syriac — we are all Semites.
So don't let anyone bully you by saying that because you criticise genocide, you've become anti-Semitic. Habibi, I am part of that ethnicity. And even if I weren't — who gave you the keys to an entire ethnicity?
🩸 Second Answer: Racism Is the Sunnah of Shaytan
Is it even legitimate in Islam to discriminate by race? It is inherently racist, and it is ḥarām. And the very first racist was Iblīs.
When Allah created Adam and commanded the angels to prostrate, He asked Iblīs what had prevented him:
قَالَ مَا مَنَعَكَ أَلَّا تَسْجُدَ إِذْ أَمَرْتُكَ
Qāla mā mana'aka allā tasjuda idh amartuk
"He said: What prevented you from prostrating when I commanded you?"
This was a being who had worshipped Allah — one narration says for six thousand years, another that a single prostration took him three thousand years. Impressive worship. But you must worship God on His terms. The order was not "worship Adam" — it was "Adam is the means; worship Me through him." You can have a good heart and good intentions, but you still have to enter the right password to connect to the Almighty.
And Iblīs's true colours showed. His problem was never "how can I worship a man?" — he knew full well he was worshipping Allah. (Let this teach the people who ask, why do you turn to your Imams? — we draw nearer to Allah through them. Allah told the angels to draw near and intercede through Adam. And who is greater than Adam except Muhammad and the family of Muhammad?) No, Iblīs's real issue was racism:
أَنَا خَيْرٌ مِّنْهُ ۖ خَلَقْتَنِي مِن نَّارٍ وَخَلَقْتَهُ مِن طِينٍ
Anā khayrun minhu, khalaqtanī min nārin wa-khalaqtahu min ṭīn
"I am better than him: You created me from fire and created him from clay."
He's made of mud, I'm made of fire — and who said fire is better? Says who? Says me. Just because. No reason — just supremacy.
So the first racist was the cursed one. Which means if you are racist today, you are following the sunnah of Iblīs. Racism is satanic. Keep this allegation away from us — that our dīn obliges us to hate a people for being a people. That is not what Allah taught us. That is the sunnah of Shaytan, and it is not from our sunnah.
🕊 Third Answer: Did the Prophet Hate the Jews of Medina?
Now the central allegation: admit it — your Prophet despised the Jews of Medina.
In Mecca the Prophet ﷺ barely dealt with a Jewish community — a few Christians here and there, a Christian monk — but no Jewish tribes. In Medina he met what one narration counts as twenty Jewish tribes, three of them prominent. These three came out to receive him when he entered the city, wondering what this new prophet's claim was about.
Why were Jews in the middle of the Arabian desert at all — why leave Canaan, Egypt, Palestine for an empty wilderness? Because their ancient scripture told them the final messenger would emerge from that region, so they came to meet and support him. But when the Prophet arrived, their reaction was: oh no — he's an Arab, from the line of Ismā'īl. The Prophet and the Jews share one grandfather, Ibrahīm (a), who had two sons — Ismā'īl and Isḥāq. They had hoped the last prophet would come from the line of Isḥāq, from their own. He came from our cousins' line instead.
A chief rabbi, Abdullah ibn Salām, came to test him. Tell me — how do you sleep? Our scriptures describe how the final prophet sleeps; answer correctly and we'll believe you. The Prophet said: I sleep with my eyes closed but my heart open. — That is exactly what the scripture says. Then: what is the name of the angel that descends upon you? — My personal angel is Jibrīl (Gabriel).
And here it collapsed. How unfortunate — that is the very angel we despise. Had it been any other, especially Mīkā'īl, we would have accepted you. For Mīkā'īl is the angel of sustenance, money, and power.
There is a hadith that Allah set Mīkā'īl over the order of the cosmos — overseeing the rain, every drop counted and preserved in an open record. I looked up the average storm cloud: somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion raindrops, and that angel keeps the tally of every one, in every cloud, across the world. Yet the hadith says: this angel who can count every raindrop cannot keep count of the reward a believer earns when they send ṣalawāt upon Muhammad and his family. You can count all those raindrops — but you cannot count the reward of the ṣalawāt.
But their grievance was with Jibrīl, the angel of destruction — whose single wing destroyed an entire town. The very name Jibrīl ends with the suffix that refers to God: the strength of God, power from Allah. We're sorry, they said, but it's that angel. And Allah revealed:
مَن كَانَ عَدُوًّا لِّلَّهِ وَمَلَائِكَتِهِ وَرُسُلِهِ وَجِبْرِيلَ وَمِيكَالَ فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ عَدُوٌّ لِّلْكَافِرِينَ
Man kāna 'aduwwan li-llāhi wa-malā'ikatihi wa-rusulihi wa-Jibrīla wa-Mīkāla fa-inna-llāha 'aduwwun li-l-kāfirīn
"Whoever is an enemy to Allah, His angels, His messengers, Gabriel and Michael — then surely Allah is an enemy to the disbelievers."
Whoever hates My angels, I hate. And Jibrīl in particular — no, that is the Prophet's own personal angel. There were only two creations honoured with the title Rūḥ Allāh, the Spirit of God: one was Jibrīl, and the other was 'Īsā (Jesus). The Prophet loves this angel, and you hate him. So the Prophet told them: God has just revealed that to be at war with His angels is to be at war with Him. They refused. Move along, then.
📿 The Constitution and the Three Tribes
So when the Prophet ﷺ entered Medina he made a constitution with the Jews, to make clear: I am not at war with you. A different religion does not mean I hate you. On the contrary — you are People of the Book.
قُلْ يَا أَهْلَ الْكِتَابِ تَعَالَوْا إِلَىٰ كَلِمَةٍ سَوَاءٍ بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَكُمْ
Qul yā ahla-l-kitābi ta'ālaw ilā kalimatin sawā'in baynanā wa-baynakum
"Say: O People of the Book, come to a common word between us and you."
We worship Allah and associate none with Him. They conceded: you won't hurt us, you'll let us live. Should we fight in your wars? He said: No — why would I force you to fight a cause you don't believe in? Just don't be troublemakers, and don't commit treason. They signed. Live. Trade in our markets, we'll trade in yours. This constitution is preserved in the narrations and deserves to be studied — a genuine peace agreement, accepted by all three tribes.
The first tribe. One day a Muslim woman in hijab went to buy jewellery from this tribe, who held a monopoly over the jewellery markets — trusting she was safe under the Prophet's covenant. As she sat at a stall, a rascal crept behind her and, without her knowing, pinned the hem of her garment to the plank she sat on. When she rose, her clothing was pulled away and she was exposed. She cried for help; instead the men ganged up and began to harass her — we'll help you, if you give us more. She wept: fear God, don't do this. A Muslim man, hearing her screams, came and investigated, found her exposed and surrounded, stepped in — a fight broke out, he killed one of them, and the group killed him.
A word to the men: this was never a Jewish–Muslim matter — it is humanitarian. No woman should ever be in that position. Be chivalrous, God-fearing men. Muslim or not, Jewish, Christian — if a woman is in distress, run and help. You're driving, you see she's not comfortable — are you okay? She's struggling to cross a busy street — can I help you? If she says no, leave her be. If that were your mother, your sister, your aunt, you'd be grateful another man feared Allah for her sake. Put those muscles to something. This is the dīn of Imam Husayn (a): he once broke his i'tikāf to help a man in need, saying that to fulfil a brother's need is greater than a thousand acts of devotion.
Word reached the Prophet ﷺ that a Muslim woman was assaulted and a Muslim man killed. Did he commit a holocaust? No. He went to those responsible: we signed an agreement — you wouldn't harm us, we wouldn't harm you. They refused. So he laid siege to the district — none in, none out — until the perpetrators were found. They confessed. And what did he do? He did not behead them. He exiled them. Leave. He forgave when he could have killed. He played it gently — this was the first altercation. So he expelled them from Medina, and they went to two places — remember this line: some went to Shām, and the rest went to Khaybar.
The second tribe. Blood money was owed: a Muslim had been killed by accident, and this tribe had agreed to contribute to the diya whenever innocent blood was spilled. The Prophet ﷺ went to their farms outside Medina with Imam Ali (a). They told him to wait outside while they fetched the money. As the Prophet stood resting in the shade against a wall, the people of the house plotted: why don't you relieve us of this man? Climb up, take a boulder, and drop it on his head while he rests — this is your one chance. A man volunteered, climbed up with a great cinder block. As he let it fall, Allah commanded the Prophet: step to the right. He stepped aside, and the boulder exploded on the very spot where he had stood.
Allah saw it all. The Prophet rose: Enough — I'm leaving. They thought he'd send an army. Instead he sent a message through Imam Ali: You have ten days. Leave, or it is one-on-one. Look at his magnanimity — when I could exercise power, I chose mercy — though they had just tried to assassinate the head of state, which in any nation carries the gravest punishment. These are people who don't know any better. You have ten days. Get out of Medina. They refused. On the tenth day he sent Imam Ali with men: the final straw — leave, for you tried to kill the one more beloved to us than our own parents. They left. Again, some went to Shām, and the rest went north — a little over a hundred kilometres north of Medina, to Khaybar.
🩸 The Treason of Khaybar and the Trench
The third tribe — the final straw. He had been merciful when they harassed a woman and killed a man; merciful when they tried to assassinate him. Now came the Battle of the Trench.
The Muslims were surrounded on multiple fronts by the disbelievers of Mecca. It seemed finished, until Salmān al-Fārisī proposed: dig a trench around Medina — we did this in Persia, and it defended us. The Prophet agreed; they began to dig. But the third major Jewish tribe of Medina saw it as their chance: they've dug a trench — but we'll arm the Meccans with what the Muslims don't have. These Medinian Jews had lived there for centuries; they had developed weapons — long swords, long spears, arrows — and stockpiled food. They committed treason, handing the Meccans three things: swords, arrows, and food. When an army has weapons and stockpiled provisions, nothing short of heavy artillery defeats it. They backstabbed the Prophet ﷺ.
And so all the expelled and treacherous tribes converged at Khaybar. By the seventh year after Hijra, every backstabber and peace-violator lived there — and from there they made their announcement: Muhammad ibn Abdullah must leave, or we will come and eliminate him.
⚖️ The Massacre That Never Was
It is recorded — in the work of Ibn Isḥāq — that the Prophet ﷺ seized 900 men and massacred them, then ordered a mass grave dug. Our brothers and sisters from the other school say: but it's in the books. Is it true? No — for several reasons.
First, the Qur'an itself disproves a total killing:
فَرِيقًا تَقْتُلُونَ وَتَأْسِرُونَ فَرِيقًا
Farīqan taqtulūna wa-ta'sirūna farīqā
"A group you would kill, and a group you would take captive."
A group killed, a group taken captive — not all slaughtered. Second, the narration says he held them all in one woman's house before passing judgment — and no single house holds 900 men and women. Third, the chain of this report runs back to the very members of the tribe who committed the treason — of course they would over-exaggerate. Isn't that their tactic? Throw a stone, then claim we must defend ourselves; cry "he burned my farm" when he did nothing. They over-express, they exaggerate, they lie. Ibn Isḥāq relied on the traitors themselves to report what happened to them.
From the Shia literature we have a hadith: it was not 900 — it was 40. The Prophet of God took some captive and killed the rest, by the hand of Imam Ali. Yes — this is treason, and treason in any country carries the death penalty. The rest he exiled. And where did they all go? They went to Khaybar.
So by the seventh year, the whole nation of backstabbers had gathered in the fortresses of Khaybar, headed by their chiefs, threatening to march on the Prophet ﷺ and destroy him.
🕯 Khaybar: The Flag to the One Whom God Loves
Allah commanded everyone to march. The event of Khaybar still shakes the core of the anti-Shia elite to this day. It is Khaybar that made them hate us — not the other way around.
When the Muslims arrived the threat was leveled against them, and the Prophet ﷺ came. Most of us know only one episode of Khaybar — Imam Ali coming to save the day. But this lasted not one or two days; one hadith says over four months, because Khaybar was not a single fortress. One narration counts eight to ten fortresses. One after another, a battalion under Imam Ali with a white flag would march, breach the walls of a fortress, and return. It came down to the last fortress — and that one was the most difficult.
This is always the tactic of those people: they feel safe behind walls. They must build the largest wall to separate themselves from the goyim — from "the rabble that is not God's chosen people." That is how you dehumanise a fellow human: you say they are not chosen, so their life is worthless — go ahead, carpet-bomb them, wall them off, cut off their food and water, shield yourselves in domes and save yourselves and not them.
By the wisdom of Allah, when they reached the last fortress the odds were brutal: the Muslims were roughly 1,600 with only 200 horses; the Jews were 20,000 — 10,000 strong soldiers, 1,000 horsemen. And that day Imam Ali fell ill — a severe infection in his eyes, the swelling letting him see only a few feet ahead. After he had destroyed the nine other fortresses, he stepped back to rest. And Allah said, in effect: if Ali is out, let's see another lead.
Read the Sunni histories — al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Aḥmad — I say this not to score points; they all record it. The first man given the flag was Abū Bakr: let him charge, let him lead. He took a group to the fortress, they fought, and he returned: I couldn't do it; it was too much for me. The Prophet ﷺ said: give the flag to your friend. Umar grabbed it — I've got this — marched to the fortress, and began praising the bravery of the enemy: do you know who is behind this wall? The most fearsome warrior who ever was. He came back having failed, and the Prophet said: why would you do that? You frightened them — but I had to warn them who was behind the wall — and you did the opposite. You frightened our own Muslims. That was the dumbest thing you could do. When you go to war, be brave — you don't tell your men the enemy is a terrifying giant. You are a horrible leader in this.
Then the Prophet ﷺ said the line:
لَأُعْطِيَنَّ الرَّايَةَ غَدًا رَجُلًا يُحِبُّ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ وَيُحِبُّهُ اللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُ
La-u'ṭiyanna-r-rāyata ghadan rajulan yuḥibbu-llāha wa-rasūlahu wa-yuḥibbuhu-llāhu wa-rasūluh
"Tomorrow I will give the flag to a man who loves Allah and His Messenger, and whom Allah and His Messenger love."
The first condition was simply: a man. (When the two who failed had returned, their own soldiers called them cowards, and they called the soldiers cowards in turn — each crying jabān, jabān — "you're the coward." Enough, said the Prophet. Tomorrow I give the flag to a man.) The next condition was the one that matters: who loves Allah and His Messenger, and whom Allah and His Messenger love — always advancing, never retreating in cowardice. When I say charge, why would you turn back?
Every companion said: it can't be Ali — he's sick. When the Prophet ﷺ emerged from his tent to hand over the flag, the tradition says many stood on their tiptoes — let him see me, let him say me. You can claim you love God and His Messenger, but how can you be sure they love you? The Prophet emerged and asked: Where is Ali? — He's sick; pick another. — Bring him to me.
They brought Imam Ali. And here is the beauty: the Prophet ﷺ laid Imam Ali's blessed head on his lap, looked at his face, took from his own holy saliva and applied it to the Imam's eyes. Imam Ali later said that from that day until the day he died his eyesight never failed — I could see the stars and beyond. He rose. Allah's Messenger dressed him in his own armour — one narration says his turban too — gave him the flag, and said: charge, Ali.
🩸 Marḥab, the Lion, and the Gate
Imam Ali took only about twenty Muslims and ran to the fortress. Marḥab watched from above and saw him coming — jogging, the hadith says, for Imam Ali would only attack one who attacked him; if he ran at you, you had better run. He raised his hand:
اللَّهُ مِن أَمَامِكَ وَاللَّهُ مِن خَلْفِكَ وَاللَّهُ عَن يَمِينِكَ وَاللَّهُ عَن شِمَالِكَ
Allāhu min amāmika wa-llāhu min khalfika wa-llāhu 'an yamīnika wa-llāhu 'an shimālik
"Allah is before you, Allah is behind you, Allah is to your right, Allah is to your left."
The mercy of Allah is above you, and the prayer of Muhammad ﷺ is with you. Imam Ali charged — smiling, for he knew what was coming.
First a fighter came out: one strike, and Imam Ali was done with him. Then Marḥab emerged — no joke, a Goliath. He had carved a helmet from a granite boulder and wore a mountain of rock upon his head. He boasted his name and his armour. Imam Ali answered with a single word — I am the one whose mother named him a ferocious lion of the battlefield, always advancing:
أَنَا الَّذِي سَمَّتْنِي أُمِّي حَيْدَرَهْ
Anā-lladhī sammatnī ummī Ḥaydarah
"I am the one whose mother named me Ḥaydarah (the lion)."
Marḥab began to shiver. His nursing mother had warned him: fight any man, my son — but never one whose name means lion; he will kill you. Marḥab even wore a ring engraved with a lion, saying, this is the man who will one day kill me. Now he saw a man half his size declaring: my name is lion, and my mother named me so — answering the exact warning Marḥab had carried his whole life.
And the hadith says Shaytan came in the form of a Jewish rabbi — I think he's still doing it today — and whispered to Marḥab three things: women always make mistakes (for Shaytan despises women — misogynistic is the word), so disregard your mother's warning; there are many men named Ḥaydar, it needn't be him; and he's half your size — go and fight. Marḥab agreed. As he emerged, Imam Ali rushed, and with a single strike split through the granite helmet to the throat — a blow so loud that all of Khaybar and all the Muslims heard it, and Jibrīl cried out in the heavens and to the earth.
Then a problem: the gate had been slammed shut. Imam Ali ran to it, said move aside, and lifted the gate itself — one tradition says he pushed it toward the enemies and then hurled it. Afterward, forty men together could not lift that gate. When Allah's Messenger was asked how Ali had done it, he said: eighty angels lifted it with him.
And later, when they saw Imam Ali struggling to break a piece of stale bread against his knee, they asked: you tore the gate of Khaybar from its hinges, and now you struggle with bread? He said:
مَا قَلَعْتُ بَابَ خَيْبَرَ بِقُوَّةٍ جَسَدِيَّةٍ بَلْ بِقُوَّةٍ إِلَهِيَّةٍ
Mā qala'tu bāba Khaybara bi-quwwatin jasadiyyatin bal bi-quwwatin ilāhiyyah
"I did not uproot the gate of Khaybar by bodily strength, but by divine, God-given strength."
🕊 We Have No Issue With Jews — Only With Zionism
I mention all of this from Khaybar because that history bred in them a hate for all people. It was a famous Zionist journalist — when we lost the one whose loss still aches in our hearts every single day, on that 27th of September — who made it very clear, using the same terms that were used when the Muslims won the victory and avenging at Khaybar. They play with our history and brand us inherently anti-Semitic.
That label cannot exist, because it makes no sense. First, we are Semites ourselves. Second, racism is racist and satanic. Third, we have no issue with Jews — say it plainly, don't get it twisted: we have no issue with Jews. Jews have issues with Zionists. Norman Finkelstein, a son of Holocaust survivors, has spoken at length about how he cannot tolerate seeing the blood of children spilled — over what? Over land, over dirt, over nationalism.
And if you still think the Shia are inherently anti-Semitic — did you forget 1941, the Farhud in Iraq? The problem is that some of us don't read. When the Jews of Baghdad were being persecuted and killed — over 190 murdered in their homes — it was a wave of anti-Semitism. The British Empire had toppled the monarchy, leaving a vacuum of authority for some days, and in that vacuum many backward-minded Muslims — I say it, and it's true — began to kill Jews and seize their wealth, reasoning: the British toppled our government and you are loyal to them, so watch us avenge it on you. Many Jews fled, many were robbed.
And it was the marja'iyya, the scholars, who issued fatāwā: it is ḥarām to kill Jews. It is ḥarām to take their homes — and if you take a Jew's home and pray in it, your prayer is void. Don't touch their shops. Don't take their jewellery. Don't go near their children, women, and men. They are innocent. Our marja' gave a fatwa protecting them; our scholars defended their honour, their land, their property — and the least we could do was honour our own. They tried their best, because they are not racists, not built with hate, not from a worldview that says for every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep. They could play the dirty game — but they don't. Do you know why? Because the same man you hate — the one who humiliated you at Khaybar — runs through their veins too. The school of Ali will not come down to your level.
🌙 The Free Companions: Karbala's Answer to "You Are Racists"
At the end of the day, it is Imam Husayn (a) who teaches us: if you decide to live among us as human beings and not as animals, you will be treated as such — and we will never chase you or give you the treatment you gave us, because that is who we are. We are from a madhhab of principles, and we will give our very lives for it.
If you call us racist — look who sat in the camp of Husayn. Everyone was welcome. The only conditions: be a free human being, and have a link to the heavens. What about my past? I don't care. He brought the old and the young, the Christian and the non-Arab.
There was Wahab al-Kalbī, a Christian, invited into the camp. There was Jawn, an Abyssinian slave who had served before. On the night of the tenth, Husayn gathered his seventy-two companions before a campfire: tomorrow they want only me — not you. It's not your fault in any way. If you wish, I'll turn off this lantern so you can leave without our watching you walk away in embarrassment. I'll keep it off a minute. He turned off the lantern; a minute passed; he turned it back on — seventy-two remained. And one of them said:
وَاللَّهِ لَوْ قُتِلْنَا ثُمَّ أُحْيِينَا ثُمَّ قُتِلْنَا أَلْفَ مَرَّةٍ مَا فَارَقْنَاكَ
Wa-llāhi law qutilnā thumma uḥyīnā thumma qutilnā alfa marratin mā fāraqnāk
"By Allah, if we were killed, then brought back to life, then killed a thousand times over — we would never leave you."
By Allah, even if we were killed and our limbs severed, burnt to ashes and scattered to the wind — and if that happened a thousand times — we would never leave you, Husayn. And Husayn wept, and said: I have never seen companions more loyal or better than my own.
Then came al-Ḥurr — who only a week earlier had blocked the water from Husayn's family and children — riding from the opposition. The companions reached for their swords; Husayn said: leave him. He has come to repent. Al-Ḥurr dropped to his knees with his son: Do I have a chance to be redeemed? Any other man would have raged at the one who denied his children water. But Husayn said: I have already forgiven you. What a heart. Al-Ḥurr asked to be the first to fight; this is not your war, said Husayn — no, allow me, I cannot live with this guilt. Before he charged, al-Ḥurr told the army what had broken him: the night he heard Jawn foretell that tomorrow hands will be cut and heads will fly; the sight of fires lit around the women's tents to protect them; hearing Shimr mock Husayn about hellfire — as if Husayn ibn Ali and hellfire belong in one sentence; and worst, on the morning of Ashura, hearing Shimr tell the horsemen to sprinkle water on the hooves of your horses, they're too hot — while the family of the Prophet had not drunk for three days. And he said the line we should each say whenever tempted:
إِنِّي أُخَيِّرُ نَفْسِي بَيْنَ الْجَنَّةِ وَالنَّارِ فَلَا أَخْتَارُ عَلَى الْجَنَّةِ شَيْئًا
Innī ukhayyiru nafsī bayna-l-jannati wa-n-nāri fa-lā akhtāru 'alā-l-jannati shay'ā
"I am choosing for myself between Heaven and Hell — and I will never choose anything over Heaven."
He fought valiantly, killed many, and fell. As he lay dying, Imam Husayn cradled him and said: you are truly free (ḥurr), as your mother named you — free in this world and free in the next.
🩸 Wahab, the Christian Bridegroom, and the Last Child
One after another the companions went. Among them, Wahab, married only two weeks, hesitant to leave his bride. His mother told him: that is the son of Fatima. Were it not for his father, you would not have been born — we were Christians who could not conceive, and it was by the dua of Ali that you came. Now go and help his son, the stranger in Karbala. Wahab joined. As he fought, he heard someone cheering him — and turned to see it was his once-hesitant wife. What changed you? — Two things: I heard Husayn cry out, "Is there anyone to help us, anyone to aid us?" — and I saw his daughters weeping. I could not bear it. Go and make me proud. Wahab fell, struck on the head; his wife rushed to mourn over him, and she too was struck down — and they returned together to Allah.
And last, a young orphan boy, about twelve, whose name the hadith does not even give us. His mother sent him. Can I fight? — You're a young boy; there is no fight for you. Go back to your mother. — My mother is the one who sent me. He went out, and Husayn could not refuse.
Even as the bodies lay on the field, the loyalty held. Umm Wahab — no, the wife of Zuhayr — sent a servant to cover her martyred husband's body to protect his honour. The servant returned having not covered Zuhayr. Why not? — As I walked, I saw the body of Abā 'Abdillāh al-Husayn lying on the ground with nothing to cover him but the earth and the sun. I knew I was meant to cover Zuhayr — but I covered Husayn instead.
🌙 Closing Reflection
The accusation falls apart on its own terms. We are the first Semites — to hate Arabs or Aramaeans or Ethiopians is as anti-Semitic as anything, so no one group owns that word. Racism is the sunnah of Iblīs, the first racist, who fell not over theology but over I am better than him — so a dīn that obliges hatred of a people for being a people is the worship of Shaytan, not of Allah. And the history they weaponise — Banū Qaynuqā', Banū al-Naḍīr, Banū Qurayẓa, Khaybar — is in every instance a story of covenant offered and covenant broken, of mercy extended where slaughter was deserved, of exile where execution was the law of every land.
The proof is not in argument but in conduct: a marja' who, in the ruins of 1941 Baghdad, ruled it ḥarām to touch a Jew's home, shop, or child. A Husayn who forgave the man who denied his children water, and who welcomed a Christian and an African slave to die beside him as free men. We have no issue with Jews — only with the Zionism that spills the blood of children over dirt. And the reason we will not come down to that level is the same reason they cannot forgive us: the man of Khaybar, Ali, runs through our veins — and the school of Ali does not trade hatred for hatred. If you live among us as human beings, you will be treated as such. That is who we are.