Hadith 21

red towards its people (Abu Bakr and Umar and Usman). They accepted these and they were narrating these as truth, and had they known that these are false, they would not have narrated these nor would they have made these to be their Religion, nor would they have reduced the ones who disagreed with them. In that era the truth became falsehood and the falsehood became the truth, and what was true became the lies and the lies became the true. And Rasool-Allah-saww had said: ‘You will be engulfed by strife during which the young will be nourished by it and the adults will grow old in, and the people will flow towards it and will take (the innovations) as the Sunnah. If anything is altered in it, they will say, ‘The people have become deniers and have changed the Sunnah’. When Al-Hassan Bin Ali-asws passed away, the strife and the afflictions did not decline, but they got magnified and intensified. There did not remain a friend of Allah-azwj except that he was in fear for his life or had been killed, or expelled, or became a fugitive, and there did not remain an enemy of Allah-azwj except that he displayed his arguments without hiding its innovation and misguidance. When it was a year before the death of Muawiya, Al-Husayn Bin Ali-asws performed the Pilgrimage, and Abdullah Bin Abbas and Abdullah Bin Ja’far were with him-asws. Al-Husayn-asws gathered the Clan of Hashim, their men, and their women, and their friends, and their Shiites from the Pilgrims who were among them, and from the Helpers who recognised Al-Husayn-asws and the Ahl Al-Bayt-asws. Then he-asws sent a message, ‘Do not leave anyone from the general Pilgrims from the companions of the Rasool-Allah-saww who are well known for their righteousness and their ascetism, but gather them for me-asws’. More than seven hundred men gathered for him-asws in Mina and they were in his-asws tent. Most of them were from the ‘Tabi’een’[34], and there were approximately two hundred companions of the Rasool-Allah-saww, and others. Al-Husayn-asws stood up among them. He-asws Praised Allah-azwj and Extolled Him-azwj, then said: ‘After that, you have seen what this tyrant (Muawiya) has done to us-asws and to our-asws Shias, and you know it and have witnessed it, and I-asws want to ask you all about something. If I-asws speak the truth, ratify me-asws, and if I-asws lie, belie me-asws. I-asws ask you by the Right of Allah-azwj upon you all, and the right of the Rasool-Allah-saww, and by the right of my-asws relationship with your Prophet-saww, when you travel from this place of mine-asws, you should keep it secret and only relate my-asws speech and invite all those who are your helpers from your tribes, the ones who are trustworthy and reliable from the people, and call them to what you know from our-asws rights, for I-asws am afraid that this matter (falsifying and fabrication of the Hadith) will obliterate the truth and will overcome it, They are intending to extinguish the Light of Allah with their mouths but Allah will Complete His Light, and even if the Kafirs abhor it [61: 8]. And he-asws did not leave out anything from what Allah-azwj had R