The happening in the year: 61 (lunar calendar) is an occurrence of which all those who know Islam are aware, whether they are Muslim or not. It is more than 1000 years that everybody are talking about it and have written too many books, composed too many poems and elegies and have convened too many sessions on this occasion and about that subject. Millions of people are gathered together to cry for this. Every generation replacing the previous one has gathered around the grave of Imam Hossein (p.b.u.h.) as if he is shameful of what his precedents have done, has cried and has joined his soul as a friend and an obedient.

But, indeed, if the history would go back to repeat the same scent, to what sect would join all those who cry, all those who are shameful now?

In fact, how were the people at that time, when after half of century after death of the prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him and his progeny) Arab came back to its ancient negligence, as if there was never any Muslim in that land and there was never any Islamic brotherhood there.

Those who called Imam Hossein (p.b.u.h.) to themselves and promised to assist him, those who welcomed warmly his messenger and accepted his allegiance, joined his enemies when the moment came to take action and killed him to satisfy his foe. Or they escaped each to take a corner and to close the door of their houses to him, or they stood on the height to cry on his being oppressed and asked God to help him. When everything was finished and they felt peace, they told to themselves: a catastrophe came and passed.

It seemed that Imam Hossein (p.b.u.h.) knew the people quite well, who described them in his way to Kufa in a narration: “The People are the slaves of the world. They need religion so much so that they would organize his life. When it is the time to test, the religious people are few”. We know that there are Muslims who make efforts for religion  and its high name, then a day will come to be tested, and this is the day when his soul will overcome him, if his faith is not powerful, to find for himself a shelter, to put aside his duties at his option and go on to see a day when he might see there is a deep distance between what he does and what has been instructed by religion.

A sample of that group were those who had injured in the path to defend Islam, but when they saw that Imam of their day (Imam Ali (p.b.u.h.)) was not ready to grant to them wealth, in order to keep tradition of prophet, they parted Imam or stood against him and wonderfully, they named it religion! A group of naive and opportunist people gathered around him and the happening of Karbala was founded this way.

So, we might say that the most important reason for martyrdom of Imam Hossein (p.b.u.h.) was negligence of the people. In fact, Imam Hossein (p.b.u.h.) did fight with oppression and negligence and negligence is opposite wisdom aiming at intelligence which the people should possess. In other words, Imam Hossein (p.b.u.h.) was martyred for forgetfulness of the people, because if the people had thought about their own 50-60 years old history and had power to reason and to understand it and to learn a lesson, if they had not forgotten the tyrannies of Abou Sofyan and Moavieh and Ibn Ziad in Kufa and the betrayals of Omavi family, if they were not cheated by Moavieh who was pretending that he was religious only to preserve his personal interests, if they had thought deeply and had calculated correctly to see Imam Hossein (p.b.u.h.) was better for their religion and their world or Yazid, Moavieh, Obaydollah, …, such a crime had not occurred. That group who were ready to make war with pagans to approach God, treated the family of prophet this way and could not observe what is beyond the curtains of discord. The were seeing the appearance of Islamic prestige and were not paying attention to the content, the meaning, the principles which had been destroyed or they would interpret all in their own ways, so that they failed the test.  

On the other part, a group which made majority of the people in 61^st year (lunar calendar) were those who were born during era of Osman and were grown up in the end of era of Imam Ali (p.b.u.h.) and had entered the society in the era of Moavieh.  They had an ambiguous memory about the governance and what they had witnessed was ruling of Yazid.  

Among these groups, there were at the center of governance of Moavieh, some pure, pious and honest Muslims who could not coordinate with the majority and were suffering from their deeds, but most of them had isolated themselves and were passing their lives by praying God. Even if they would take some action or would say something, no one would listen to them.

From the important causes of the happening were corruption of heads, their bribery, and the blind obedience of the people. This happened either by those  who altered religion for the sake of their own world, or by those who were negligent and did not remove it and only were satisfied with the appearance of the religion, or those who kept silent!

We would rather consider the other speeches of Imam Hossein (p.b.u.h.) on his goals for this rebel, rather than only think about martyrdom of Imam and only listen to something about his martyrdom. We would rather think about how we should be, how we should think, how we should act. About the fact that if we were living at that time, to which sect we would join? The friends of Imam? Or his foes? Or to the sect of those who kept silent?