"The Battle of Karbala": Translator's Word

This is an English translation of a traditional Iraqi Shia oral narrative (epical storytelling) about the Battle of Karbala (680 A.D.), in which the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Al-Husayn and his companions were killed by Umayyad forces — the foundational tragedy of Shia Islam commemorated annually on Ashura. The source material is drawn from cassette recordings of the renowned narrator Sheikh Abdul-Zahra Al-Ka'bi, with dialect poems and narrator interpolations removed, and only standard Arabic poetry retained in translation. The four-part structure moves from a profile of the narrator, to a theological framing of Al-Husayn's revolt, to the battle narrative itself, and finally to the captivity journey of the surviving women and children from Karbala to Damascus and back. The translator (Taher Al-Shemaly, Kuwait, 2007) explicitly frames this as a Shia devotional text and warns readers the content is harrowing — describing atrocities including the killing of Al-Husayn's infant and the deliberate denial of water to the Prophet's household. A substantial phonetic guide for Arabic transliteration is included, along with a set of honorific abbreviations (PUH, MADH, etc.), signaling the work is aimed at non-Arabic-speaking readers who may be unfamiliar with Islamic liturgical conventions. The translator notes the version is a simplified rendering and that the full historical cruelty exceeds what is depicted here.

"The Battle of Karbala": Translator's Word

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