Imam Hussein an example of purity, nobility in corrupt world

In an interview with the Press TV website, Dr. Rebecca Masterton, Director of the UK-based Centre for Shi'a and Cultural Studies, said people cutting across the religious and ideological divide worldwide respect Imam Hussain (AS) for his principled stand against the corrupt Umayyad regime of Yazid.

“Imam Hussain (AS) is someone that people can respect. People long for guides that they can rely on, those with courage and pure hearts, and there have always been very few,” she stated.

Masterton, a Muslim convert, said she feels “privileged and honored to have been led to knowing about Imam Hussain (AS) – an example of a pure, noble and far-sighted soul in a dark, corrupt world.”

“He inspires me to continue to seek knowledge,” said the British Muslim scholar, who regularly appears on TV stations in the UK and across the world to speak on religious and cultural issues.

The author of Shi'i Spirituality for the Twenty-First Cen
tury said when she converted to Islam, she didn’t know anything about Imam Hussain (AS) or the events of Karbala.

“It was a gradual discovery. Twenty years ago, in Egypt, I discovered that at Masjid Hussain, Cairo. They claim to keep the blessed head of the Imam (AS), but even then I never knew the narrative,” she said in a conversation with the Press TV website on the occasion of Ashura, the tenth of Muharram.

“It is something hidden from the majority. When I met the lovers of Ahl al-Bayt (AS), I realized that it was they who preserved the memory and the details of what had happened, otherwise it would have been forgotten and we would have a very different Islamic culture today.”

Ashura was observed with tremendous religious fervor across the world on Friday, with some countries observing it on Saturday, paying glowing tribute to Imam Hussain (AS) and other martyrs of Karbala.

Masterton said Imam's uprising in Karbala continues to be relevant in our age and time.

“We can see that from the time of Karbala, as Imam Hussain (AS) said, people still use religion for worldly gains,” she told the Press TV website.

“Societies are still in need of reform; truth-tellers are still assassinated; believers still lack the courage to stand for their beliefs, and therefore oppression and deprivation remain widespread.”