Ashura: This Blood Spilled in My Veins Book

Al-Husayn, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad and the son of the first Shi'ite imam, 'Alî, was slaughtered alongside many members of his family in the desert in 680. This memory is torture to me. But, basically, one can say "this memory is torture to me" of every memory, since each reminiscence envelops at some level the memory of the origin of memory, the torture that had to be inflicted on humans in order to make them remember (Nietzsche). The memory that the yearly commemoration of 'Âshûrâ' is trying to maintain is not only that of the past, but also and mainly the memory of the future, namely the promise of the Parousia of the twelfth imam, the long-awaited Mahdî--notwithstanding the passage of a millennium since his occultation--as well as the corresponding promise of Twelver Shi'ites to wait for him. 'Âshûrâ': a condition of possibility of an unconditional promise.Read More