The Meaning of Loyalty

But before reaching Karbala, there is another story that moved me personally: the story of Maytham al- Tammar.

Maytham was not a ruler, a commander, or someone with worldly authority. Outwardly, he was an ordinary man. But the measure of loyalty is not found in status. It is found in what a person refuses to abandon when everything else is taken away.

When Maytham was brought before Ibn Ziyad, he did not speak like a defeated prisoner. He spoke like someone whose heart had already chosen its centre. He told Ibn Ziyad that his master, Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib, had already informed him of the way he would be killed: that he would be crucified on a palm tree, that his arm and leg would be cut, that he would be left to bleed, and that on the third day his tongue would be cut before he returned to his master.

What makes this story so powerful is not only that Maytham accepted his fate. It is that he prepared for it with love. He used to visit the very tree on which he would one day be crucified. He would water it, pray beside it, and say to it, “You were created for me, and I was created for you.” To someone looking from the outside, this may seem strange. But to Maytham, this was not merely a tree of death. It was the place where his loyalty would become complete.

Ibn Ziyad thought he could turn this prophecy into mockery. He ordered that Maytham be crucified on that same tree, but that his tongue should not be cut. He wanted to prove that Ali had been wrong. Yet even while wounded, bleeding, and thirsty, Maytham did not beg for mercy. He used the moment as a pulpit. He called out to the people of Kufa and began speaking about the virtues of Imam Ali.

This is the point that stays with me. A person may speak of loyalty when life is easy. A person may claim love when love costs nothing. But Maytham’s loyalty became clearest when silence would have been safer. His body was chained, but his allegiance was not. His enemies could control his limbs, but they could not redirect his heart.

That is why Maytham’s story is not only a story of martyrdom. It is a story that forces us to ask what loyalty actually means. Is loyalty just love? Is it simply admiration? Is it attachment to a person, a community, or a memory? Or is loyalty something deeper: the unity of belief, love, obedience, speech, and sacrifice?
Maytham shows us that real loyalty is not proven by emotion alone. It is proven when conviction remains firm under pressure. It is proven when the tongue does not betray the heart, when the body does not betray the soul, and when fear does not become greater than truth.

This is where the Qur’anic understanding of loyalty becomes essential. In the Qur’an, loyalty is not a small or secondary matter. It is connected to the very meaning of monotheism. To say “There is no god but Allah” is not only to reject idols made of stone. It is also to reject every false centre of obedience, fear, submission, and desire. A human being cannot remain inwardly whole while being pulled by many masters.

The Qur’an gives a powerful example:
“God draws an example: a man jointly owned by several contending masters and a man belonging entirely to one man: are the two equal in comparison?” (39:29)

This verse speaks directly to the condition of the human soul. A person divided between many masters becomes scattered. One master pulls him toward fear, another toward desire, another toward wealth, another toward public approval, another toward comfort. He may appear free, but inwardly he is fragmented. His decisions are no longer guided by one clear truth, but by whichever pressure feels strongest at the moment.
By contrast, the one whose loyalty is gathered around God has direction. Every passing force does not control his life. He may still struggle, suffer, and feel fear, but his centre does not keep changing. That is the difference between a divided life and a principled life.

The Qur’an presents the same question through the words of Prophet Yusuf:
“O my two prison mates! Are different masters better, or God, the One, the Irresistible?” (12:39)

This question is not only for two prisoners in the time of Yusuf. It is a question for every age. What truly governs us? Is it God, truth, and justice? Or is it fear, ego, reputation, power, and comfort? Every person answers this question, not only through words, but through choices.

This is why loyalty must be active. It cannot remain a vague love hidden in the heart. The Qur’an describes the faithful response to divine authority as:

“All the response of the faithful, when they are summoned to God and His Apostle that He may judge between them, is to say, ‘We hear and obey.’ It is they who are felicitous.” (24:51)

Loyalty, then, is not selective obedience. It is not love when convenient and silence when tested. It is hearing and obeying when the command of God challenges the command of the ego. It is submitting to truth even when truth disrupts comfort.

But obedience to God also means refusing obedience to what opposes God.

The Qur’an says:
“So be wary of God and obey me, and do not obey the dictates of the profligate.” (26:150–151)

This is important because loyalty cannot be understood without moral refusal. If loyalty means giving oneself to truth, then it also means refusing to give oneself to falsehood. If loyalty means standing with justice, then it also means refusing to legitimise oppression. If loyalty means loving the friends of God, then it also means separating oneself from the values and actions of those who oppose God’s justice.
This is what repudiation means in its deeper sense. It is not hatred for the sake of hatred. It is not cruelty, arrogance, or uncontrolled hostility. It is moral clarity. It is the refusal to call falsehood truth simply because falsehood is powerful. It is the refusal to remain comfortable with oppression because resisting it is inconvenient.