Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi
(Toronto, Canada)
2) Exposing Yazid’s Family Background
O the son of the freed slave! Is it just that you cover your women and slave-girls with veils while you parade the daughters of Allah’s Messenger as prisoners?! You have torn their apparel coverings, exposed their faces, and the enemies ushered them on from one city to another. The dwellers of the caravansaries as well as the cities were looking towards them, and the people from near and far as well as the noble and the servants were scrutinizing their faces while they had neither a helper from their men folk nor a protector from their protectors.
First comment: “O son of the freed slave!” In the imperial court of Yazid, right in presence of the elite and the government officials of Sham, Zaynab exposes his family background. At the conquest of Meccain 8 AH, after seeing the strength of the Muslim army, Yazid’s grandfather, Abu Sufyan, and his family converted to Islam.
If Zaynab’s grandfather, the Prophet of Islam, had wished he could have made the people of Mecca (including Abu Sufyan and his family) as his personal slaves. But the Prophet manifested his benevolence and emancipated the people of Mecca by saying, “…Go, you are free…;” In other words, ‘I could have made your my slaves but I let you go as freed slaves.’
With such an exposure, the people of Sham heard for the first time that Yazid’s grandparents and father embraced Islam in the later years of the Prophet’s life and that they were the Prophet’s freed slaves.Such a revelation must have shattered the aura of “khalu ’l-mu’minin – the uncle of the believers” from the minds of the people of Sham!
3) Exposing Yazid’s Behavioral Background
There is neither anything unusual about you nor any surprise in your actions. How can there be any hope of consideration from child of a person whose mouth spat the liver of the righteous ones and whose flesh grew upon the blood of the martyrs. A person who looks towards us with disdain, rancor, vendetta and secret grudge does not wait long before displaying his hatred towards us, the Ahlul Bayt.
First Comment: Zaynab now describes the behavioral profile of Yazid: a profile in which she cannot expect any justice because his character is influenced by his grandmother, Hind, a ruthless and immoral person. As a proof to the people of Sham, Zaynab refers to the Battle of Uhud in which Yazid’s grandmother ordered her slave to cut open the abdomen of Hamza (the Prophet’s uncle), from which she took out his liver and tried to chew on it. That is why Yazid’s grandmother came to be known as“akilatu ’l-akbad – the liver-eater.”
Second Comment: Lady Zaynab also exposes Yazid’s inner hatred towards the family of the Prophet (the Ahlul Bayt). She informs the people of Sham that the family of Abu Sufyan is not part of the family of the Prophet; on the contrary, their hearts are filled with hatred towards the family of the Prophet, and they don’t hesitate in expressing their rancor. This is so, while all Muslim sects believe that based on the verse of muwaddah (42:23), to love the Prophet’s family is an essential part of Islamic faith.
