Ashura: Why and How?

It is true that Imam Husayn (a) rose against the tyranny of Yazid. Yet when the Imam first made his objection to Yazid’s succession known, Yazid had only just come to power, and his long record of brutality had not yet taken shape. The injustice Husayn stood up to ran far deeper than the obvious instances of bloodshed and brutality that would later come to define Yazid’s rule. What Husayn was irreconcilably opposed to was Yazid’s claim to the leadership of the Muslim community, which in its true Islamic conception is the embodiment of the Prophet’s legacy. This was the gravest form of deviation—a grotesque distortion of the very essence of God’s guidance. It was against this distortion that Husayn rose up, refusing to yield even at the cost of his life.