The Sweetness of Tears by Nafisa Haji Read Free Book Online Page A

arms. The second arrow struck true, too big for the baby’s tiny throat, digging into the cradling arm of his father.
    Imam Husain did not know what to do next—the only moment during all of the events of Karbala when he was unsure. Should he bury Ali Asghar so that his mother would not have to see what the cruel soldiers had done to her baby? Or should he take the body back to the camp so that she could see her beloved child for the last time and witness how they had responded to his plea? With the corpse of his baby in his arms, Imam Husain would begin the walk back to the tent where Ali Asghar’s mother waited, hoping that the soldiers had taken mercy on her child, then he would pace backward in indecision and grief. Seven times he did this, back and forth, before finally delivering Ali Asghar back to his mother. And the empty cradle is how we remember him.
    “But— they lost,” I said one Muharram afternoon when I was old enough to begin to understand the story. “Imam Husain and his friends. They lost the battle.”
    My mother shook her head. “No. They stood up against tyranny. Their story is alive. And as long as it is, as long as we remember their sacrifices, they have won. We remember their bravery for the first ten days of Muharram—we recognize that Imam Husain’s sacrifice was offered for us, we who are unworthy. And then for the rest of Muharram and for the next month of Safar, we remember those left behind—the captive widows and orphans who were marched through the streets of Muslim cities, in chains, to Yazid’s court at Damascus, where Imam Husain’s sister, Bibi Zainab, bravely challenged the tyrant, and bore witness to his oppression. We carry the story of what happened at Karbala with us in our hearts. Always. Do you know, Sadee, that my grandmother is buried there? All her life, she wanted to go to Karbala, on pilgrimage. Because she never went there, it was her dying wish to be buried there. So, her son, my father, made all the arrangements and took her to Karbala to lie at rest near the Imam. Her life had not been an easy one. She was a widow at an early age. And her stepson, my father’s older brother, didn’t treat her as well as he should have.”
    After a little silence, I asked, “What is a widow?”
    “A widow is someone whose husband has died.”
    “That’s what you are.”
    My mother was silent again, for a moment. “Yes.”
    “How did my father die?”
    “He—he was not well. And then he died.”
    I waited for more, but let it go when I found that my mother had no more to say on the subject.
    On the tenth day of Muharram, on Ashura, glued to my mother’s side, I felt the story of Karbala in my heart, offering the special prayers of the day, walking forward and backward seven times, reenacting and honoring Imam Husain’s moment of indecision, the grief and tragedy of the thirsty orphans, Sakina among them, and her baby brother killed in his father’s arms.
    H e has begun school now. He is old enough and can stand to be away from you, whether you like it or not,” I heard my paternal grandmother, Dadi, say to my mother in the Muharram when I was five years old. “Send him with his grandfather for the juloos on Ashura.”
    Dada, my grandfather, turned to me and asked, “What do you think, Sadiq? Are you ready to be a man now? To join the men’s Ashura procession through the streets of Karachi? All of your cousins will be there.”
    “Jaffer, too?”
    “Of course. None of the other boys would miss it for anything.”
    I nodded nervously, unaware that what he proposed would expose me to the masculine side of Muharram rituals—the side that was gruesome and violent, where matham was painful and bloody.
    I went with him on Ashura that year and heard noha s that sounded like battle cries, the beat of hands on chests like the blows of a choreographed kind of combat. Carpets of hot coals were raked over in preparation for bare feet to run across them. Carefully sharpened