| GREAT IMPRESSIONS --- A Ziyarat Travelogue (5) Syed-Mohsin Naquvi January 2009 ISRAEL'S ATTACK ON HAMAS IN THE GAZZA STRIP We saw the new crescent of the month of Muharram while in Karbala. Overnight the population of the city increased to something like four times its original size. The shrines would remain open twenty-four hours for the month of Muharram. On the second day of Muharram processions with beating drums and holding banners were taken out on various streets of Karbala welcoming Imam Husayn to the city – that was marking his arrival to the plane of Karbala in the 61st year of Hijra. Muharram is a sad occasion. It is marked with assemblies of lamentations, crying and weeping for the martyrs. But the city of Karbala was full of a euphoric celebration welcoming the Imam to her precincts. For me it was also an appropriate time to reflect on one of the greatest tragedies of human history --- how was it that the Prophet of Islam, the best man that ever existed, was replaced within a period of fifty years by a person such as Yazeed, the worst person in human history? We were in Karbala when news broke out that Israel had attacked the Palestinian group under the leadership of Hamas who live in the Gazza Strip. It was the 27th of December 2008. We watched the CNN report on the ensuing attack and then we watched the same report on the Press TV. Press TV is an English language channel which is broadcast from Iran. The difference between the two reports was so apparent to everyone. The CNN report was more surgical in its nature, highlighting the fact that the HAMAS group was a terrorist group and that they had been firing rockets into Israel that had caused Israel to attack the Gazza strip. The Press TV was quietly showing the extent of the damage to the civilian population and the disproportional killing and destruction caused by the bombing. They also had some good analysis and discussion in English. Press TV was also highlighting the criminal silence on the attack by such Muslim states as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. If we look at those facts in modern times vis-à-vis a human tragedy in which hundreds of innocent women and children were being killed while the pompous Muslim kings and leaders were sitting there supinely, we can understand immediately how a person such as Yazeed became the Khaleefa of Muslims and he was able to butcher the family of the Prophet of Islam in the name of Islam. The Muslim opinion about Yazeed's misdeeds is still divided even to this day. THE FUTURE OF KARBALA The city of Karbala is so crowded that there is no room for any further expansion. While the city of Najaf is going through a large re-building process, mostly funded by the Iranians, the city of Karbala too has to be redeveloped. The only way it can be done in some order is to raze all the buildings to the ground and re-build the whole city. The orderly way to do that will be to draw a circle of a half-a-mile radius keeping the twin shrines at its center. Build multi-storey block of apartments with shops on the ground floor at street level. Then move people living and working in the existing buildings into the new constructions. Once everyone has been re-housed, the authorities should flatten the central area and build huge natural parks and gardens in the central area which will have pathways leading to the shrines. For the elderly, children and women they should run battery operated carriages so that no pollution remains. I think the new government in Iraq has enough resources to implement this project even if there is no investment from outside. SAMARRAH AND KAZEMAYN After four days stay in Karbala, we left for Samarrah early in the morning. This time we had to walk to the bus stop and our baggage had to be carried on hand carts. That was because that early in the morning the three-wheeler rickshaws had not started running yet. We left Karbala for Samarra right after salat-ul-fajr that we performed in the mosque of the twelfth Imam. Since this was a day-time journey by road we were able to see the Iraqi country side at length. WE crossed both rivers, the Euphrates as well as the Tigris. That is because Karbala is located some sixty mile south of Baghdad on the western side of river Euphrates while Samarrah is located some 120 mile north of Baghdad on the eastern shores of river Tigris. Iraqi country side is full of open land, fields, scattered huts and dilapidated single storey houses. There is no sizable residential development anywhere in sight. One actually wonders as to what Saddam Husayn did with all the oil money he made during the 30 years of his oppressive rule. It appears that he spent the money on developing Baghdad, building his own palaces and on the province of Tikrit, his own hometown. He spent money on such useless projects as pumping out water from the marshes of Shatt-a-Arab because he wanted to starve the Shia fishermen and farmers in that area. Newspapers and other writings have extolled the development that was done in the Iraqi society during Saddam's rule. But there are no visible signs of that development or even the after effects of those developments. Our bus arrived in Samarrah in the early afternoon. We had stopped some half-a-mile away from the location of the actual shrine of the tenth and eleventh Imam for security reasons. Our readers would know that on the 22nd of February in 2006 the golden dome of the shrine was blown up – reportedly by terrorist groups but actually no one knows the identity of the terrorists. A few months later the twin minarets were also destroyed and then a few days later another explosion had occurred. We saw the signs of that battle with our own eyes. Some news media reports have called it The Samarra Massacre because of the large number of civilians who died in the U.S. led attack on the city. We had to walk that half-a-mile upto the gates of the actual shrine. That passage was lined on both sides by multi-storey buildings --- modern apartments with glass windows on top floors and shops on street level. But the passage was lined on both sides with 12 foot tall concrete barriers. Every window in the upper floors was broken. The buildings were deserted. The shops still had sign boards such as photographers and other merchants. There were large and small bullet holes in the walls of the buildings. There was no one living in those buildings or working. There was a lone food shop serving snacks. We entered the shrine after three security checks. There is extensive reconstruction in progress inside and around the building. The shrine has been badly damaged. A new dome is being erected in place of the one that was destroyed two years ago. Every wall of the shrine is cracked. The glass work in ceiling has all come lose and it is a hazard for the visitors. There were scaffoldings all over inside the shrine building but we were able to reach the Zareeh(sarcophagus) housing the graves of the two Imams. Even the nearby mosque, which houses the basement where the twelfth Imam was last seen, has been damaged by the fighting and subsequent explosions. We were allowed to go down the narrow staircase to the SARDAAB (basement). However, history tells us that this was not the first time in modern times that Samarrah had seen such fierce fighting. IN 1917, towards the end of the World War I, the British at the head of a 45,000 strong Anglo-Indian force had attacked the city of Samarrah to defeat the Ottoman control of Iraq and take over the city and the Baghdad-Samarrah Railway. We had two hours at the Samarrah Shrine. After Zuhr prayers we left Samarrah for Kazemayn. Let me just remind the readers that the Samarrah Shrine houses the twin gravesites of the tenth Imam Ali al-Hadi and of the eleventh Imam Hasan al-Askari. That is why the shrine is also known as Al-Askariyayn (the two Askarees). The sister of the tenth Imam, lady Hakima Khatoon as well as lady Narjis Kahtoon, the mother of the twelfth Imam, are also buried in the same precincts. At Kazemayn the seventh Imam, Hazrat Imam Moosa al-Kazim as well as his grandson the ninth Imam, Imam Muhammad Taqi al-Jawaad are also buried. That is why this shrine is also known as the Kazemayn (the two Kazims). The eighth Imam Hazrat Ali ar-Redha is buried in Mash-had, Iran. Imam Ali is of course, at Najaf and Imam Husayn is at Karbala. All the other remaining Imams are in Madinah. Imam Huasayn's sister, Janab-e-Zaynab is in Damascus, Syria and so is his four year old daughter Sakina or Sukayna. May Allah's blessings and our salams be unto all the holy souls. (.............. to be continued) | 
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