“May Allah curse Ibn Marjānah (meaning Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyād)! By Allah, had there been any blood relationship between him and al-Husayn, he would not have killed him.” By this he intended to impugn the recognition of his lineage, since his father, Ziyād, had been acknowledged as a son of Abū Sufyān Sakhr ibn Harb and had consequently come to trace his lineage to him. Both Banū Umayyah and Banū Hāshim are descendants of Abd Manāf.

It is reported that when al-Husayn’s belongings and family arrived before Yazīd, weeping and cries arose in his house over what had happened. It is also reported that he treated al-Husayn’s family honorably, provided them with good accommodation, and gave his son Alī the choice of remaining with him or returning to Medina. He chose Medina. The claim concerning the place in the Damascus congregational mosque called “the prison of Alī ibn al-Husayn” is false and has no basis.

Nevertheless, he did not carry out Allah’s prescribed punishment upon those who killed al-Husayn—may Allah be pleased with him—nor did he avenge him. Rather, he killed his supporters to secure his rule. It has also been reported that, concerning the killing of al-Husayn, he quoted verses whose utterance entails outright disbelief, such as:

“When those laden mounts appeared, and those heads rose into view
Toward the heights of Jayrūn,
The raven croaked, and I said, ‘Lament or do not lament;
I have exacted from the Prophet the debts owed to me.’”

This poetry is disbelief.

There is no doubt that people differ greatly over “Yazīd.” One group considers him an unbeliever; indeed, they consider both him and his father unbelievers. Moreover, they also declare Abū Bakr, Umar, Uthmān, and the majority of the Emigrants and Helpers to be unbelievers. These Rāfidah (rejectionists) are among the most ignorant and misguided of Allah’s creatures, and the worst of them in