Husayn, the Prophet's grandson, refuses allegiance to Yazid and is killed with his small company at Karbala on the tenth of Muharram; his martyrdom becomes the defining memory of Shia Islam, commemorated every Ashura.
Tagged: Muslim Sunni Islam Twelver Shia Islam
The Event
- Date
- 680 (exact)
- Also called
- Ashura
- Era
- Umayyad; Standard periodization of Islamic history
- Location
- Karbala; today Karbala, Iraq
- Traditions
- Islam
- Streams
- Twelver Shia Islam, Sunni Islam
- Key figures
- Husayn ibn Ali, Yazid I
How the Tradition Tells It
For Shia Islam, Karbala is the axis of sacred history, commemorated in Ashura mourning and the ta'ziya passion plays. Sunni Islam also honors Husayn as the Prophet's grandson and condemns his killing, while rejecting the mourning rites and the doctrine built on the event.
Connections
- Mu'awiya founds the Umayyad Caliphate; resisted
Primary Sources
- Al-Tabari, History
- Al-Khwarizmi, Maqtal al-Husayn
Secondary Sources
- Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future (Norton, 2006)
- Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800 (Cambridge, 2003)
Provenance: HIST-0214; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-27.
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