SHAFAQNA- On the occasion of the holy Month of Muharram and mourning days of Imam Hussain (AS), Allameh Jafari institute has offered parts of the outstanding book “Imam Hussain (AS): The Martyr of the Pioneer Culture of Mankind” written by the late Allamah Muhammad Taqi Ja’fari to Shafaqna.
What Is Martyrdom?
Martyrdom means putting an end to the flow of life [which is the absolute desirable thing in the context of nature] in full awareness and familiarity with the nature and specifications of life and with the orientation which we shall now discuss.
Some Aspects of Martyrdom
- Putting an end to one’s life in order to defend the values, virtues and real lives of the members of the community.
- Freeing oneself of one’s physical embodiment and allowing the human spirit to fly up to achieve the level of divine intuition and the attraction of perfection as an effort to appreciation one’s own intelligible life as well as those of others.
- Determining the criterion for a justifiable life in this world.
Of course, it is obvious that those who are inconsiderate toward the truth and real value of life and regard life as merely eating, sleeping and fulfilling their animal desires are capable to comprehend neither martyrdom nor true life – which is of the highest merit and value of all.
In order to take into consideration how immensely significant martyrdom is, it is essential to understand two truths:
- The absolute importance of life; and
- The importance of the goal martyrdom intends to achieve.
It is by understanding the two truths above that we can comprehend what it means to lose one’s life voluntarily and with utmost awareness and delight.
A great deal has been said about the incredible significance and immensity of life. Here we shall just confine our discussion to one point. Let us say a human being enjoying the immense blessing of life – i.e. a person of completely balanced physical and mental well-being – is given a choice:
- To continue life and be endowed with reason, intellect, conscience and other potentials for perfection, or
- Own the whole universe while undergoing disturbances and disorders in life and its immensity and benefits.
A conscious human being of sound sense and mental stability will obviously choose to continue a life of physical and mental health.
The more aware the martyred human being is of the benefits and immensities of life, and the more capable the martyred human being is when it comes to using them, the greater and more valuable his martyrdom will be.
Examples of the Greatness of Human Life
When humans are alive, they:
- enjoy beauty,
- use their reason, ration and conscience,
- show affection and love,
- make explorations,
- intuitively discover truths,
- acknowledge the immense elegance of the universe,
- defend justice and righteousness,
- appreciate intelligible freedom and free will,
- are enlightened by knowledge and ideology,
- enjoy serving their fellow humans,
- are capable of bringing about civility and prosperity in the world,
- acknowledge the satisfaction brought about by lawfulness and orderliness,
- are overjoyed by bringing about revival in their fellow humans,
- understand emotions and connections,
- discover and explore the immensity of their internal feelings by means of making artistic innovations,
- save their fellow human beings and provide the grounds for their evolutionary progress through healthy rational and mental endeavors,
- discover the universe within their own selves as they widen and develop the dominance of their own “selves” upon the universe.
It is obvious that the advantages and immensities in life are countless. A conscious, aware human being will in fact lose a whole world by losing each of these advantages or immensities, for each of them alone can serve as the aim of and justify one’s life. Now we can well understand why Imam Hussain’s (AS) martyrdom is the greatest martyrdom ever to emerge in the history of mankind; despite knowing about all of the aspects and advantages of life and being endowed with them, he chose to lose life.
Part of series: Imam Hussain (PBUH): The Martyr of the Pioneer Culture of Mankind
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