The confusion that arises in these matters and others like them is often due to identical—or deliberately altered—names. A case in point is the shrine in Cairo (1) which people allege contains the head of al-Ḥusayn, may Allah be pleased with him. The tale originally concerned a shrine in ʿAsqalān that was likewise said to house al-Ḥusayn’s head; it is claimed that the head was later carried from there to Egypt. Yet this story is unanimously rejected by the scholars: not a single authority (3) ever asserted that the head of al-Ḥusayn was in ʿAsqalān. The accepted views are altogether different: his head was brought before ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Ziyād (4) in Kūfah, where a ḥadīth from the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—was recited to him, enraging him. Some people say the narration took place before Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah in Syria, but that claim is untenable, for the Companions named in the report (5) were all in Iraq.
(1) The site in Cairo that is claimed to be this grave still stands, now topped by several domes. Around it a host of polytheistic and innovative practices are carried out: circumambulating the tomb, invoking it instead of Allah, rubbing oneself against its walls, and other acts of shirk (polytheism) and bidʿa (religious innovation). We ask Allah for protection and that He purge the earth of these invented shrines with which the Shiʿa and the Sufis have sullied Muslim lands. It is well known that the first people to build domes over graves and turn them into pilgrimage sites and places of worship were the Shiʿa; the Fatimid dynasty erected the supposed tomb of al-Husayn in Cairo and others in Iraq, Syria, the Hijaz, and the Arabian Peninsula. The Sufi orders later took up the cause and are now the main sponsors of these innovations throughout the Muslim world.
(2) The printed edition reads: “wa-asluhu al-makdhub” (“and its fabricated origin”).
(3) Manuscripts B and D read: “minhum” (“among them”).
(4) ʿUbayd Allah b. Ziyad b. ʿUbayd—commonly called Ibn Ziyad b. Abi Sufyan and also known as Ziyad b. Abih—was born in 39/659. Muʿawiya appointed him governor of Basra in 55/675, and under Yazid he governed both Basra and Kufa. He died in 67/686. See: Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, 8:283.
(5) The report that enraged ʿUbayd Allah b. Ziyad is the hadith transmitted by al-Bukhari from Anas b. Malik: “ʿUbayd Allah b. Ziyad was brought the head of al-Husayn b. ʿAli; it was placed in a basin, and he began prodding it while saying something about its beauty. Anas replied, ‘He most closely resembled the Messenger of Allah, and his hair had been dyed with wasmah.’ ” See: Sahih al-Bukhari, “Virtues of the Companions,” chapter on the virtues of al-Hasan and al-Husayn, hadith no. 3748 (7:94). Ibn Kathir relates the incident as involving Zayd b. Arqam; see al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, 8:191.