680
Pilgrims gathered around the Husayn Mosque in Karbala during Arba’een, photographed in 2005.Image: SFC Larry E. Johns, USA · Public domainculture · Asia
The Battle of Karbala
On 10 October 680, the tenth of Muharram in the year 61 of the Islamic calendar, al-Husayn ibn Ali, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, was killed with most of his family and followers on the plain of Karbala, west of the Euphrates. He had refused to recognise the Umayyad caliph Yazid I and, invited by the people of Kufa, had set out to lead a revolt; the promised help never came, and his party of about seventy-two faced an army of some four thousand. The defeat secured Umayyad power. For Shi’i Muslims the day became Ashura, an annual occasion of public mourning that is still central to their faith.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Battle of Karbala ↗
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