Zaheer Abbas Merali

I have seen many articles talking about Barack Obama and his middle name Hussein. None of them point out how much he should be proud (and America also to have a presidential nomination candidate) to have been named after such a great personality from the human race, Husayn Ibn Ali.

Just a few quotes about his personality from some heroes of humankind in one way or another about Husayn Ibn Ali:

Mahatma Gandhi: “My faith is that the progress of Islam does not depend on the use of sword by its believers, but the result of the supreme sacrifice of Husayn (A.S.), the great saint. I learned from Husayn how to be wronged and be a winner.”

Charles Dickens: “If Husayn fought to quench his worldly desires, then I do not understand why his sisters, wives and children accompanied him. It stands to reason therefore that he sacrificed purely for Islam.”

Thomas Carlyle: ” The best lesson which we get from the tragedy of Karbala is that Husayn and his companions were the rigid believers of God. They illustrated that numerical superiority does not count when it comes to truth and falsehood. The victory of Husayn despite his minority marvels me!”

We have just completed 2 months of mourning where every year we commemorate the inhumane massacre at Karbala on Ashura day (Muharram 10 in the Islamic calendar) of Imam Husayn (A.S.), his companions and his family (including a young baby who was murdered with a 3 pronged arrow) and his companions and also the torture of the women and children left over who were taken as prisoners with clothes ripped off them and earrings torn off them and made to walk chained from Karbala in Iraq to Kufa in Iraq and then Damascus paraded all along the way as captives and then imprisoned in Damascus. It is a very emotional period for all Muslims as we see the family of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) being butchered and treated worse than animals so soon after the death of the Prophet by so called Muslims.

It brings some parallels with some current day Muslims who terrorise innocents such as in the inexcusable events of 9/11, and maybe it should help Senator Obama to be an even stronger candidate to be commander in chief of the USA by sharing a name with such a great man.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 12:10 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.