Zainab bint Ali witnessed first-hand her brother Imam Hussain’s bravery in the Battle of Karbala, upholding Islam’s foundational ideals of egalitarianism and justice, refused to be silenced, challenged tyrant Yazid in his court and played a key role in memorializing her family’s sacrifice with resilience and eloquence, symbolising strength and defiance against tyranny
Al-Tall Al-Zainab or Zainab Hillock is one of the several sacred spaces dotting Iraq’s holy city of Karbala. Named after the Prophet’s granddaughter Zainab bint Ali, Al-Tall is essentially an elevated stretch of land where she would rush to check on her brother Imam Hussain and his comrades during the Battle of Karbala. Zainab was among the 880 AD battle survivors, while Imam Hussain and his 72 companions and family members were massacred.
Hussain’s refusal to legitimize Umayyad ruler Yazid‘s unjust rule triggered the battle, but not before the imam gave a 30,000-strong force a run for their money. Zainab bint Ali would climb the hillock near the battlefield to monitor the progress as her brother’s heroics fended off the enemy for 10 days as Yazid sought to intercept him before Hussain could join a brewing rebellion at Kufa in modern-day Iraq.
Hussain and his companions were besieged in the desert plains of Karbala from the first to the 10th of Muharram (the first month in the Islamic calendar)—Ashura. Their strategy of repelling Yazid’s soldiers by lighting flames worked until the seventh day, when the Euphrates was blocked to cut off the supply of water.
The Valiant Fight
Hussain was now forced to lead the fight in the open. He put up a valiant fight before his companions began to die painfully slow deaths of thirst. Hussain soldiered on, devising a plan that involved pitching tents near a hilly terrain to guard the rear of their camp. He kept Yazid’s forces at bay by digging a semi-circular ditch around the three sides of the campsite and having it filled with wood.
On the 10th day of the Battle, an exhausted and wounded Hussain collapsed outside his tent with an arrow stuck in his arm. A dart injured his face. Hussain was thirsty and wobbly, but somehow gathered the strength to lift himself off the ground. Hussain charged Yazid’s soldiers and overwhelmed the enemy until Yazid’s troops regrouped, surrounded him, and had horses trample his body after knocking him off his steed.
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Zainab bint Ali rushed to his aid but Hussain asked her to go back. Hussain was soon executed. The surviving women and children accompanying him were imprisoned in Damascus, where a chained Zainab challenged Yazid in his court. The eyewitness account Zainab bint Ali s detailed the events of the battle and its aftermath. She protected her family’s lone surviving male member, Hussain’s son Ali, who succeeded his father as the fourth imam. Had not it been for Zainab bint Ali, the Battle of Karbala would have gone unreported.
Memorializing The Sacrifices
Zainab bint Ali played a key role in memorializing Hussain’s fight for upholding Islam’s foundational ideals of egalitarianism and justice. A mosque marking her sufferings and the place where she mourned her brother when their encampment was attacked now stands on an elevated land in Karbala. With a ceramic blue-tiled dome and Turkish marbled walls, the mosque is essentially a memorial to the hill that existed at the time of the Battle of Karbala.
The memorial is among the places and spaces in Karbala seen to be ‘imbued with meaning’ where myth and reason coalesce. Aidan Parkes, a scholar at the Australian National University’s Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, writes that these assemblages of Ashura-oriented spaces, Karbala’s sites of collective pasts, and places of ritualized—and poetically ritualized—sacred landscape, combine cultural heritage and natural experience.
Zainab Hillock is often called the ‘mountain of patience’, denoting Zainab bint Ali’s revered position, courage, and strength. Zainab helped Hussain mount his horse from the hillock and ride one last time into the battlefield. She rushed to see her brother after almost all the male members of her family were killed.
The Responsibility
Hussain gave Zainab the responsibility of keeping safe the battle survivors—widows, orphans, and his sick son. When Yazid’s troops came to the women’s tents and looted them before setting them on fire, she rallied the survivors to confront the enemy. Zainab threw herself on the sole surviving male family member—her sick nephew—and saved his life on the battlefield. She kept him safe during their captivity. Zainab is most remembered in the elegies related to the Battle of Karbala after Hussain.
Thanks to her, the story lived on. Zainab bint Ali did not let the truth be buried with her family, writes academic Hassan Abbas. Even after witnessing the death of her entire family, adds Abbas, ‘her voice never wavered – not when she was being taken through the streets of Kufa with a ripped hijab, or through Damascus as a prisoner in chains.’
Known as an orator like her father, Imam Ali, Zainab bint Ali refused to be silenced when she challenged Yazid in his court. She addressed people in the centre of Damascus about what had befallen her family. Abbas writes that her defiance has not been forgotten; it echoes to this date as the story of Karbala is remembered in her voice.
Sameer Arshad Khatlani is a journalist and the author of the Penguin Random House book The Other Side of the Divide
