In 1915, Sarojini Naidu wrote a poem, The Imam Bara of Lucknow, describing the scene and emotions a…
انتشار: 2026/06/27 14:27 UTC
In 1915, Sarojini Naidu wrote a poem, The Imam Bara of Lucknow, describing the scene and emotions at a Muharram procession. Sarojini writes;Out of the sombre shadows,Over the sunlit grass,Slow in a sad procession,The shadowy pageants passMournful, majestic and solemn,Stricken, pale and dumb,Crowned in their peerless anguish,The sacred martyrs come.She described the scene of people wearing black and walking on roads burning with sunlight. According to Naidu, these people presented a scene from the past where they look like those great martyrs, Hussain and his comrades. Mourners were full of agony yet looked majestic amidst all the sufferings they bore. In her view these martyrs were ‘sacred’ and ‘peerless’. A perfect tribute by a non-Muslim poet to one of the most important martyrs of Muslims.Hark, from the brooding silenceBreaks the wild cry of painWrung from the heart of agesAli! Hassan! Hussain!The martyrdom of Hussain had inflicted a pain on the hearts of human civilizations, which they bore silently. The cries of Ali, Hassan and Hussain by the mourners, to Naidu, were an instrument to bring out this pain and relieve the heart of civilizations from silent agony.Come from this tomb of shadows,Come from this tragic shrineThat throbs with the deathless sorrowOf a long-dead martyr line.Love ! let the living sunlightKindle your splendid eyesAblaze with the steadfast triumphOf the spirit that never dies.For Naidu, this procession coming out of Imam Bara, Lucknow, symbolized a ‘sorrow’ which would never end. The tragedy of Karbala would always be mourned till the end of the times. Nature should keep witness of the victory of Hussain over his enemy. His victory lied in the fact that the principle for which he fought thrived even after him and the tyrant, Yazid, who killed him got erased like any other evil. So may hope of new agesComfort the mystic painThat cries from the ancient silenceAli! Hassan! Hussain!Naidu called the tragedy a ‘mystic pain’. It was no pain of a mortal’s death but of humanity. The pain she talked about is about the suffering truth had to undergo against evil. It was this pain for the right cause, which translated itself into the cries of ‘Ali! Hassan! Hussain!’. Sarojini hoped that one day, the world would be free from this pain. Truth will win over evil and the struggle of Hussain will reach its ultimate goal. #muharram@seyedjavadmiri
