“The next morning both sides prepared for the slaughter. Ḥusain first washed and anointed himself with musk, and several of his chief men did the like; and one asking them what it meant, Ḥusain replied pleasantly, ‘Alas! there is nothing between us and the black-eyed girls of Paradise but that these troopers come down upon us and slay us!’ Then he mounted his horse, and set the Coran before him, crying, ‘O God, Thou art my confidence in every trouble and my hope in every adversity!’ and submitted himself to the judgment of his companions before the opened pages of the sacred volume. At this his sisters and daughters began to weep, when he cried out in bitter anguish self-reproachfully, ‘God reward the son of Abbas,’ in allusion to advice which his cousin, Abdullah ibn Abbas, had given him, to leave the women behind in Mecca. At this moment a party of the enemy’s horse wheeled about and came up to Ḥusain, who expected to be attacked by them. But it was Harro, who had quitted the ranks of the Syrian army, and had now come to die with Ḥusain, and testify his repentance before men and God. As Harro rode into the doomed camp, he shouted back to Amer, ‘Alas for you!’ Whereupon Amer commanded his men to ‘bring up the colours.’ As soon as they were set in front of the troops, Shamer shot an arrow into the camp, saying, ‘Bear witness that I shot the first arrow,’ and so the fight began on both sides. It raged, chiefly in a series of single combats, until noon-day, when both sides retired to prayer, Ḥusain adding to the usual office the ‘Prayer of Fear,’ never used but in cases of extremity. When shortly afterwards the fight was renewed, Ḥusain was struck on the head by a sword. Faint with the loss of blood, he sat down by his tent and took upon his lap his little son Abdullah, who was at once killed by a flying arrow. He placed the little corpse upon the ground, crying out, ‘We come from God and we return to Him. O God, give me strength to bear these misfortunes.’ Growing thirsty, he ran toward the Euphrates, where, as he stooped to drink, an arrow struck him in the mouth. Raising his hands, all besmeared and dripping with blood, to heaven, he stood for awhile and prayed earnestly. His little nephew, a beautiful child, who went up to kiss him, had his hand cut off with a sword, on which Ḥusain again wept, saying, ‘Thy reward, dear child, is with thy forefathers in the realms of bliss.’ Hounded on by Shamer, the Syrian troops now surrounded him; but Ḥusain, nothing daunted, charged them right and left. In the midst of the fighting, his sister came between him and his slayers, crying out to Amer, how he could stand by and see Ḥusain slain. Whereupon, with tears trickling down his beard, Amer turned his face away; but Shamer, with threats and curses, set on his soldiers again, and at last one wounded Ḥusain upon the hand, and a second gashed him on the neck, and a third thrust him through the body with a spear. No sooner had he fallen to the ground than Shamer rode a troop of horsemen over his corpse, backwards and forwards, over and over again, until it was trampled into the very ground, a scarcely recognisable mass of mangled flesh and mud.
“Thus, twelve years after the death of his brother Ḥasan, Ḥusain, the second son of Ali, met his own death on the bloody plain of Kerbela on Saturday the 10th day of Mohurrum, A.H. 61 (A.D. 680).”
From al-Ḥusain and his brother al-Ḥasan are derived the descendants of the Prophet known throughout Islām as Saiyids. [[SAIYID], [HASAN], [MUHARRAM].]
HUSBAND. Arabic zauj (زوج). A husband is not guardian over his wife any further than respects the rights of marriage, nor does the provision for her rest upon him any further than with respect to food, clothing, and lodging (Hidāyah, vol. i. p. 63), but he may be imprisoned for the maintenance of his wife (Ibidem, vol. ii. p. 628). The evidence of a husband concerning his wife is not accepted by the Sunnīs, but it is allowed in Shīʿah law (Ib., vol. ii. p. 685). The Muḥammadan law demands that a Muslim husband shall reside equally with each of his wives, unless one wife bestow her right upon another wife. (Ib., vol. i. p. 184.)
ḤUSNU ʾL-K͟HULQ (حسن الخلق). “A good disposition.” Abū Hurairah relates that one of the Companions once asked Muḥammad, “What is the best thing that has been given to man?” and Muḥammad replied, “A good disposition.” Muḥammad is also related to have said that the “heaviest thing which will be put in the scales of a Muslim in the Day of Judgment is a good disposition.” (Mishkāt, book xxii. ch. xix. pt. 2.)
AL-ḤUT̤AMAH (الحطمة). A division of Hell, mentioned in the Qurʾān, [Sūrah civ].:—
“Woe to every backbiter,
“Who amasseth wealth and storeth it against the future!
“He thinketh surely that his wealth shall be with him for ever.
“Nay! for verily he shall be flung into al-ḥut̤amah.