"The Battle of Karbala": A Biography of `Abdul-Zahr&aacut...

This is a hagiographic tribute prefacing a Shia Islamic lamentation text — a *maqtal* (martyrdom narrative) of Imam Al-Husayn — composed by Sheikh Abdul-Zahrá' Al-Ka`bee, a preacher from Karbala whose annual Ashurah recitations were broadcast on Iraqi radio starting in 1379 A.H. The biographical introduction memorializes the sheikh's ascetic piety, charity, and decades of work training a generation of preachers across Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf. Its central claim is that the sheikh was the authoritative living voice of Husaynid mourning culture: his recitation of the two-part martyrdom story — the battle of Karbala on Ashurah and the fate of the captives on the 40th day — drew crowds of thousands in Karbala's streets and was distributed on recordings to mosques and husayniyyas across the Muslim world. The text frames the sheikh's entire life as a form of devotional service to Imam Al-Husayn and the Prophet's Household, presenting his personal humility, sleeplessness, and public mourning rituals as inseparable from his religious mission. Readers interested in Shia commemorative practice, the role of oral-performative lamentation in Iraqi religious culture, or the biography of a mid-twentieth-century clerical figure will find this a primary-source window into that tradition.

"The Battle of Karbala": A Biography of `Abdul-Zahr&aacut...

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