Re: Shia and Suni ?
Can someone please give me the oldest references they can find in whatever language of the account of Kerbala? I would like to see this from both Shia and Sunni sources ...
JazakAllahukhairun!
.........
An interesting thing once told to me by one of my tutees who is from a Shia family. I have no idea what type of Shia he was and I do know neither he nor his family were religious at all, so it is possible he just narrated to me an odd ball story.
The story goes:
There was someone on a train journey in Pakistan who needed to drink water he was going to die when an old man, a maulana came to him and presented an empty drinking vessel. He said to the thirsty man, "Drink" but the man could not as the vessel was empty. The old man asked him "Do you not believe in the waqia of Kerbala?" the man was silent and then the old man instructed, "if you believe in the waqia of Kerbala then you can drink" the man said that he believed in it and when he tried drinking lots of water began to flow from the vessel.
I understood that this story has nothing to do with true Shia beliefs. Instead however, it seemed rather odd that this man who had water did not give a thirsty man some water, when many people around the world who are not even Muslim should be given water when they are thirsty despite their beliefs. Also, why would the belief in a historical event have any significance to water? This could not be answered by my tutee, but I left the topic there and nothing more was said about it.