He also said, “May Allah curse the people of Iraq; I would have accepted far less than this of their obedience.”

Concerning Ibn Ziyād he remarked, “Had there been any bond of kinship between him and al-Ḥusayn, he would never have killed him” (2). Lamentation for al-Ḥusayn was heard in his own household, and when the members of al-Ḥusayn’s family were brought before him and the women encountered one another, they wept together. He then offered ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn the choice between remaining with him or returning to Medina; ʿAlī chose the return, so Yazīd furnished him with generous provisions for the journey.

Reports such as these—transmitted with chains that are far sounder and firmer than that broken, anonymous isnād—show that Yazīd did not display approval of al-Ḥusayn’s killing; rather, he outwardly expressed grief over it. Allah knows best what lay in his heart.

It is also known that he did not order the killing in the first place (1); nevertheless, he took no revenge upon the killers and imposed no punishment on them, for they had slain al-Ḥusayn to safeguard his throne. Had he fulfilled his obligation toward al-Ḥusayn and the entire Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them all), and had there appeared from him the justice and sound conduct that would lead us to interpret his affair in the most favorable light, the matter would be different. Yet no one has reported that he followed the very worst paths that require the prescribed penalty. What occurred under him at al-Ḥarrah, however, is unquestionably forbidden aggression. On the other hand, he took part in the first army that campaigned against Constantinople, and that is counted among his merits.

The point at issue here is that the claim that al-Ḥusayn’s head was taken to Syria in Yazīd’s time has no sound basis—let alone that it was transferred there after his era. What is firmly established is that it was taken to the governor of Iraq, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ziyād (2) in Kūfa, and the scholars state that it was buried in Medina.