Battle of Karbala

The Battle of Karbala was fought on 10 October 680, the tenth day of the month of Muharram in the Islamic year 61, at Karbala in present-day southern Iraq. A small band led by Husayn ibn Ali, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, was overwhelmed by a much larger army sent by the governor of Iraq on behalf of the Umayyad caliph Yazid I. Husayn and most of his male relatives and companions were killed. The event became central to the identity of Shia Islam and is commemorated by Shia Muslims every year on the day known as Ashura.

After the third caliph, Uthman, was killed in 656, Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, became caliph, but his authority was rejected by Mu'awiya, the governor of Syria. When Ali was assassinated in 661, his elder son Hasan made peace and handed power to Mu'awiya, who founded the rule of the Umayyad family. In 676 Mu'awiya named his son Yazid as his heir. Hereditary succession had no precedent among the caliphs, and several prominent figures, Husayn among them, opposed it.

When Mu'awiya died in 680, Yazid ordered the governor of Medina to obtain Husayn's oath of allegiance. Husayn refused and went to Mecca. Supporters of his family in Kufa, which had been his father's capital, wrote urging him to lead a revolt and promising their backing. He sent his cousin Muslim ibn Aqil ahead, who found wide support at first. But Yazid installed a new governor, Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, whose manoeuvres drained Muslim's support; his premature rising was crushed and he was killed. Husayn, apparently unaware of the change, left Mecca in September 680 with his family and a small following, despite warnings from several relatives and contemporaries.

Near Kufa, an Umayyad force of about 1,000 men barred his way and compelled him to turn aside. On 2 October he camped on the plain of Karbala, near the Euphrates. A second army of about 4,000 men arrived under Umar ibn Sa'd. Negotiations failed: Ibn Ziyad insisted that Husayn submit to his authority, and his troops cut the camp off from the river. What exactly Husayn offered in the talks is disputed in the sources.

On the morning of 10 October, Husayn's followers, most accounts say about 72 fighters, though some give larger figures, faced Ibn Sa'd's army. After exchanges of arrows and single combats, the Umayyad troops gradually surrounded and killed Husayn's companions, and then his relatives, including his son Ali al-Akbar and his half-brother Abbas. Husayn himself was finally struck down. His surviving son, Ali Zayn al-Abidin, who had been too ill to fight, was spared, and the women and children were taken captive, first to Kufa and then to Yazid in Damascus. Historians still debate how far Yazid himself should be held responsible for Husayn's death.

In Kufa, supporters who had failed to help Husayn formed the Penitents movement, which rose under the slogan "Revenge for Husayn" and was crushed in 685. Soon afterwards, Mukhtar al-Thaqafi took control of Kufa and executed many of those held responsible for Husayn's death before he was defeated and killed in 687. The historian Heinz Halm has argued that the killing at Karbala transformed what had been a political party supporting Ali's family into a distinct religious community.

For Shia Muslims, Husayn's death is a supreme example of sacrifice and of resistance to injustice, and he is honoured as the "prince of martyrs". Each year the first ten days of Muharram are a period of mourning, culminating on Ashura with processions, gatherings and recitations, and his shrine at Karbala is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Shia Islam. Public processions are first recorded in Baghdad in 963. In modern times the story has also been given political meanings, notably in the Iranian Revolution.

Our 700 map shows the Umayyad Caliphate at the height of its power, a generation after the battle. Karbala lies in modern Iraq.