My faith is that the progress of Islam does not depend on the use of sword by its believers,
but the result of the supreme sacrifice of Husain, the great saint. 

Dr. Rajendra Prasad

The sacrifice of Imam Husain is not limited to one country, or nation, but it is the hereditary
state of the brotherhood of all mankind. 

Dr. Radha Krishnan

Though Imam Husain gave his life almost 1300 years ago, but his indestructible soul rules
the hearts of people even today. 

Swami Shankaracharya

It is Husain's sacrifice that that has kept Islam alive or else in this world there would be no
one left to take Islam's name. 

Rabindranath Tagore

In order to keep alive justice and truth, instead of an army or weapons, success can be
achieved by sacrificing lives, exactly what Imam Husain did. 

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

Imam Husain's sacrifice is for all groups and communities, an example of the path of
rightousness. 

Mrs. Sarojini Naidu

I congratulate Muslims that from among them, Husain, a great human being was born,
who is reverted and honored totally by all communities. 

Reynold Alleyne Nicholson

(1868-1945) Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge.

"Husayn fell, pierced by an arrow, and his brave followers were cut down beside him to
the last man. Muhammadan tradition, which with rare exceptions is uniformly hostile to
the Umayyad dynasty, regards Husayn as a martyr and Yazid as his murderer.

[A Literary History of the Arabs, Cambridge, 1930, p. 197]

(1819-1905) Scottish scholar and statesman. Held the post of Foreign Secretary to
the Indian government as well as Lieutenant Governor of the Northwestern Provinces.

"The tragedy of Karbala decided not only the fate of the caliphate, but of the Mohammedan
kingdoms long after the Caliphate had waned and disappeared. "

[Annals of the Early Caliphate, London, 1883, pp. 441-2]

Peter J. Chelkowski

Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, New York University.

"Hussein accepted and set out from Mecca with his family and an entourage of about
seventy followers. But on the plain of Kerbela they were caught in an ambush set by the.
caliph, Yazid. Though defeat was certain, Hussein refused to pay homage to him.
Surrounded by a great enemy force, Hussein and his company existed without water
for ten days in the burning desert of Kerbela. Finally Hussein, the adults and some
male children of his family and his companions were cut to bits by the arrows and
swords of Yazid's army; his women and remaining children were taken as captives
to Yazid in Damascus. The renowned historian Abu Reyhan al-Biruni states; ". then
fire was set to their camp and the bodies were trampled by the hoofs of the horses;
nobody in the history of the human kind has seen such atrocities."

[Ta'ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran, New York, 1979, p. 2]

Simon Ockley

(1678-1720) Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge.

"Then Hosein mounted his horse, and took the Koran and laid it before him, and,
coming up to the people, invited them to the performances of their duty: adding,
'O God, thou art my confidence in every trouble, and my hope in all adversity!'. He
next reminded them of his excellency, the nobility of his birth, the greatness of his
power, and his high descent, and said, 'Consider with yourselves whether or not
such a man as I am is not better than you; I who am the son of your prophet's
daughter, besides whom there is no other upon the face of the earth. Ali was my
father; Jaafar and Hamza, the chief of the martyrs, were both my uncles; and the
apostle of God, upon whom be peace, said both of me and my brother, that we
were the chief of the youth of paradise. If you will believe me, what I say is true,
for by God, I never told a lie in earnest since I had my understanding; for God hates
a lie. If you do not believe me, ask the companions of the apostle of God [here he
named them], and they will tell you the same. Let me go back to what I have.' They
asked, 'What hindered him from being ruled by the rest of his relations.' He answered,
'God forbid that I should set my hand to the resignation of my right after a slavish
manner. I have recourse to God from every tyrant that doth not believe in the day of
account."

[The History of the Saracens, London, 1894, pp. 404-5]

Edward G. Brown

Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic and oriental studies at the University of Cambridge

". a reminder of the blood-stained field of Kerbela, where the grandson of the Apostle
of God fell at length, tortured by thirst and surrounded by the bodies of his murdered
kinsmen, has been at anytime since then sufficient to evoke, even in the most l
ukewarm and heedless, the deepest emotions, the most frantic grief, and an
exaltation of spirit before which pain, danger and death shrink to unconsidered trifles."

[A Literary History of Persia, London, 1919, p. 227]