In the vast, burning silence of the desert,

Where no river ran and no mercy flowed,

A handful of souls stood taller than the mountains.

Raphic Burdo, a poet from Sindh, the Land of Indus Civilization shares his poem

Karbala: A Prayer Performed with Blood

In the vast, burning silence of the desert,

Where no river ran and no mercy flowed,

A handful of souls stood taller than the mountains.

And beneath the shadowless sun of Karbala,

They wrote not history –

But eternity.

 

It was not a war.

It was a prayer performed with blood.

A stand not for victory,

But for truth that would not kneel.

 

Imam Hussain, grandson of the Prophet,

Carried not weapons of ambition,

But the unbearable weight of conscience.

He did not rise to conquer lands,

But to guard the soul of a faith

Twisted by power and poisoned by silence.

 

He faced an empire –

But did not flinch.

He faced betrayal –

But did not curse.

He faced death –

And in doing so, gave life to the living.

 

Around him, stood the few who knew:

Truth is not measured in numbers.

Ali Asghar, the infant –

His cry pierced the heavens.

Zainab, the sister –

Her voice shook the tyrant’s throne.

 

What was Karbala, if not the final sermon?

A sermon with no pulpit, no minbar –

Only dust, grief, and unshaken resolve.

 

And yet, from that dust, rose a cry so luminous,

It still echoes in every heart that longs to be free.

 

“Every day is Ashura.

Every land is Karbala.”

 

Because oppression still wears crowns.

Because truth is still exiled.

Because power still demands that we bow,

And every Hussain still says:

“I will not.”

 

Karbala is not a tale of the past.

It is a mirror held to our age.

It asks not what happened,

But what will you do when the call comes?

 

Will you be Yazid’s silent courtier,

Or Hussain’s thirsty, defiant companion?

 

For the battle between right and wrong

Was never meant to end in 680.

It lives on –

In parliaments and prisons,

In boardrooms and borderlands,

In hearts that break – and rise again.

 

And so we remember.

Not to weep only – but to wake.

Not to mourn only – but to march.

 

For Karbala is grief, yes.

But above all –

Karbala is a compass.

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Read: Ode to the Indus