The Queen of Karbala

🔹The Eve of the Birth of Lady Zaynab al-Kubra
📅 Date: 1403/08/17 – 5 Jumada al-Ula 1446
✨ Session: Meshkat-e Noor
📖 Weekly Session on the Commentary and Interpretation of al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya (Supplication 20)
🎤 Speaker: Master Ali Saei

🌹 Greetings and Devotion to the Daughter of the Master of the Prophets (PBUH)
Peace be upon you, noble and wise lady.

—

🎉 Congratulations on the Birth
On the eve of the birth of this child of an ocean of knowledge, we offer our congratulations to the denizens of the heavenly realm.

🌊 The Station of Zaynab al-Kubra
Zaynab al-Kubra, daughter of an unfathomable ocean, is a child of heaven. Who can truly know Zaynab al-Kubra? She is the light that shines forth from the soul of Fatima, the very life of Fatimiyya. Fatima was martyred, and through Zaynab al-Kubra’s presence in the world, her martyrdom’s legacy spread far and wide. O God, let us know Zaynab, the adornment of the Gate of Knowledge. How can we know Zaynab? Without doubt, the world lives through Zaynab’s life; were it not for Zaynab, this Zaynab-like spirit and vitality would not be felt in the world.

🌸 Zaynab, Life-Giver to the World
Through Zaynab, God bestowed Zaynab-like life upon the world. Without her, the world would lose its strength and diminish. Through her worship, devotion and beautiful patience, Zaynab gave the world new life. Zaynab is the honour and dignity of the women of the world; she revealed a vast panorama of the signs of womanhood throughout existence.

🌺 Women as Signs of God
Women are signs of God, and Zaynab al-Kubra is their interpreter.

🔥 Zaynab and Satan
Who is Zaynab? She is the one who brought Satan to his knees. Zaynab thwarted all of Satan’s temptations and provocations.

✨ The Adornment of Worship
Zaynab is the adornment of worship.

👑 Zaynab, the Queen of Karbala
Who is Zaynab? She is God’s chosen agent, the conqueror of suffering, pain and calamity. She is a heroine of the family of Muhammad.

⚔️ Facing the Greatest Calamities
The greatest calamities have no equal—but Zaynab overcame them. She is the most beautiful manifestation of nobility and piety. Zaynab brought suffering to its knees and turned calamity into mourning; she engulfed every affliction. Her station is exalted beyond measure.

🌿 A Role Model for Women
Zaynab gave women a life to live and a source of pride. Whatever honour women possess, they owe to Zaynab. She is a role model for all women, a banner raised as high as the two bows’ length. She stood as guardian of the magnificent scenes embodied by her mother, Zahra, and her father, Ali al-Murtada.

⏳ Zaynab’s Patience
Zaynab made patience old and worn, and bestowed Zaynab-like life upon the earth.

🌼 Zaynab’s Lofty Spirit
How can we behold Zaynab’s pure spirit? She gave Karbala a Zaynab-like spirit, bestowed purity of spirit and redoubled strength upon this world, and made it more resilient against Satan’s deceit and guile. Zaynab is an embrace of tenderness and love, a world of embrace that holds all creation within it. Though people may not know it, the world draws sustenance from Zaynab. Just as we draw sustenance from the cosmos, we feel its effects even when we cannot perceive them directly. If we stop breathing, our entire being collapses; and if we do not draw sustenance from Zaynab’s spirit, the beauty and lustre of our worship will fade.

🌍 Nourishment from the Universe
We are nourished by the whole universe, and the universe in turn is nourished by us. Each human being is sustenance for another. We are nourished by the Zaynabic light, by the water of life, and by the sublime waves flowing through existence. Does the universe turn for no reason? No. We float in its heart, and with every passing moment find ourselves at new coordinates, amid a new landscape. Each moment brings us new sustenance as we pass through galaxies and nebulae at an unimaginable speed. The entire universe is engaged in glorification and remembrance out of love for God; every particle and galaxy calls upon Him in the language of its own love.

🌌 Nourishment from the Ahl al-Bayt
We are in a new state, amid a new event, at every moment, and fresh effects continually appear within us. With all this nourishment, why can we not feel it? Because we do not have just one dimension, but thousands, each undergoing nourishment and change. On the day this veil is lifted from our faces, our inner reality will be revealed, and the outcome of all this nourishment will become clear.

🐟 Like a Fish in the Sea
Like a fish in the sea, we open and close our mouths, perhaps unaware of the water and food that sustain us, yet they are what keep us alive. We, too, have layers of life within us that give us vitality and a living spirit.

🌼 Zaynabic Life and the Power to Change
Zaynabic life is like this too. Once we recognize it, who knows how far we might go? We are changing and transforming at every moment, and we must pay close attention to what nourishes us.

🌸 Women as Exemplars of Zaynabic Life
If women do not take this life as their example, they will become captives of the world. Zaynab is the child of قاب قوسین, and even Gabriel cannot behold her supreme horizon. It would be a pity for women to turn away from Zaynab and become captives of this lowly world. They must make themselves captives of Zaynab so that they may be freed from the world’s entrapments and the desires of the ego, and create incomparable beauty. Why does God not unveil the faces of believing women? Because if He did, there would be no trial, and the difference between believer and hypocrite would be plain. Zaynab is a precious jewel that has welcomed the light of God into her heart with love and acceptance.

💎 Zaynab, Receptive to Divine Light
The purity that dwells in Zaynab’s heart as its very jewel has made her a source of light that draws lovers to her. Zaynab turns God’s light beautifully within herself and has nurtured noble character, until she has become a landscape of virtues and a valley of God.

🌠 Comparing Oneself with Zaynab
No woman may compare herself with Zaynab; unless she has entered the Zaynabic path, she has no right to compare herself with her. Zaynab’s mind is occupied with God and her Beloved, while some people have turned themselves into playthings of the world and Satan. Zaynab is a sign of God’s beauty. If she is a woman, then what have the captives of the world to do with her? Zaynab is more than a woman; she is the interpreter of the sign embodied by believing women.

🌌 Zaynab and the Unseen World
Zaynab has realms both visible and invisible. We have not even seen what is visible of her, let alone what is unseen.

Can We Be Like Zaynab?
Look at your aspirations and you will discover whether you can become like Zaynab. We are as tall as our aspirations: if they reach no higher than the world, we are small and base. Zaynab says, “My God, You are my Paradise, my joy, my beauty, and my everything.”

🌌 Heavenly Aspirations
From the heavens, we should expect the celestial spheres, not dust. Our life is not confined to this world; it belongs to God, and delights beyond this world await us. This world is a testing ground, and true pleasure lies beyond it. God awaits us, while the pleasures of this world are fleeting; whoever chooses them will forfeit the delights of the Hereafter.

🙏 Attaining a Zaynab-like state
Let us strive to attain a Zaynab-like state, and ask God to grant us even a little of Zaynab’s sensibility, so that we may see the world through it. With this sensibility, let us worship God, behold Husayn, and view everything from Zaynab’s perspective. In such a state, we will turn away from all that is other than God.

🌸 Measuring our inner virtues
To take stock of ourselves, we must measure where we stand against the degrees of Zaynab’s virtue, and consider the depth and breadth of the virtues within us. Each virtue, joined with the others, creates a fresh and distinctive vision of who we are; the interplay of these visions shapes us into a new person in the universe.

🌼 Zaynab, the self-taught scholar
Zaynab is discerning: a scholar who knows without a teacher, and a woman of understanding who needs no one to explain things to her. She is the deputy of Fatima and al-Sajjad; the queen of the world and of souls, the wise lady of the Banu Hashim, and a partner in martyrdom. Zaynab is both the adornment of her father and his very essence. If we are to describe her, we must say: Zaynab is Zaynab. I know of no higher praise. She is a knower of God, a devoted worshipper, and complete. Whoever becomes Zaynab-like joins the company of pure women. Zaynab’s immense power of attraction has brought into being a constellation of holy, pure women, whose beauty and virtues have shone forth in this universe.

🌟 A woman’s special mission
Woman has a special mission from God, and every person has duties towards themselves, their fellow human beings, other creatures, and the entire universe. Yet each person also has a unique and particular mission, in direct relationship with the One they worship. Zaynab fulfilled this special mission to perfection, becoming a source of pride for women and for her mother, Eve. By following the path of truth, she thwarted the forbidden tree.

🌱 Purity and righteous action
Whoever turns away from the forbidden tree will come to know pure pleasures. Whoever does righteous deeds, whether man or woman, We shall grant a wholesome life and reward them with better than what they have done. Faith must be joined with righteous action. In the midst of the trials of Karbala, Zaynab cultivated worship—worship that safeguards the survival and stability of the universe.

🌄 The highest horizon of Zaynab’s righteous action
Who can attain a Zaynab-like life? This learned and God-fearing lady shines like the sun. If only women could reach the pure life of Zaynab, and experience its joy and vitality. If they were to taste this life for even a moment, they would flee the fleeting pleasures of the world and find their way towards Zaynab’s light.

💫 Zaynab and a mission beyond jihad
Zaynab showed that a woman can fulfil a mission that goes beyond jihad. Husayn knew well whom he was bringing into the heart of the trials of Ashura. Zaynab became the adornment of her brother Husayn’s uprising and resurrection.

🏅 Zaynab, mother of celestial martyrs
Zaynab showed that a woman’s pure embrace is a field in which martyrs are nurtured. In the arena of jihad, a virtuous woman struggles against corruption and immodesty. Her jihad surpasses mere striving and is bound to God: she looks beyond the material world and devotes herself to jihad and martyrdom.

🌸 The unveiling of a virtuous woman’s beauty
A day will come when the beauty of a virtuous woman is revealed and false beauties are swept away. Zaynab al-Kubra is the adornment of the Imam, the adornment of water—that very water which is the Manifest Imam. She is the adornment of Ali, who is himself the adornment of the universe; and Zaynab is the adornment of Ali.

📚 Zaynab, the adornment of knowledge and wisdom
Zaynab is the adornment of knowledge, the adornment of wisdom, and the sweetness of the universe. Every beauty in this world draws upon Zaynab’s grace. She is an adornment of existence, of the whole universe.

🌼 Zaynab, the Ornament of a Mighty Sign
Zaynab is the ornament of God’s great signs. She is a wondrous work of divine artistry, a world unto herself, and a remarkable tree. Zaynab was the guardian of honour and dignity, and she turned chaste women into protectors of the world’s honour. Chaste women are an impregnable fortress of purity, dignity and modesty; without them, the world would have fallen into corruption and decay. They have shown that purity triumphs over depravity. A chaste woman is like a light shining across a vast darkness, piercing the heart of evil. If this world has not perished beneath the weight of its many sins, it is thanks to the few chaste women who sustain its life.

🌺 Zaynab’s Strength in the Face of Evil
Zaynab triumphs over all the evils of her age, and beyond. Whoever speaks Zaynab’s name pierces the heart of evil. Zaynab is a child of light, of heaven and of knowledge. When the vile Ibn Ziyad brazenly taunted her, Zaynab brought him low with praise and gratitude to God. She praised God and said: «تنها فاسق و بدکار است که رسوا می‌شود و دروغ می‌گوید.» Defeated, Ibn Ziyad turned to another taunt and asked: «کار خدا را با برادرت و خانواده‌ات چگونه دیدی؟»

✨ Zaynab’s Beautiful Reply
Zaynab al-Kubra answered with a Zaynab-like vision: «ما رایت الا جمیلا.» She saw nothing but beauty; through her Zaynab-like gaze, she beheld the world immersed in God’s beauty. She reminded Ibn Ziyad that God had ordained martyrdom in His path for these people, and they had hastened to seek His pleasure. With strength, Zaynab declared that God would soon gather him and them together and bring them to account. “Then see whose victory it is.” And with a bitter barb, she said: «مادرت به عزایت بنشیند، یابن مرجانه.»