Sunni scholarship has historically framed Karbala in a negative light interpreting it as an act of rebellion that brought harm to the Muslim ummah. Al-Husayn’s story in their eyes is an example of evil that occurs by standing against a ruler rather than an example of a stand against oppression and injustice. This is because for them, the political legitimacy of the ruling authority...

Now we turn to who truly betrayed al-Husayn. We have already refuted the false claim that the Shias were his betrayers. So then, who were they? Many of those who penned letters to Imam al-Husayn (AS) are counted by Ahl al-Sunnah themselves as reliable transmitters of hadith. How strange that their own narrators deceived Husayn, yet the blame is shifted onto the Shias! If treachery is to be condemned, then let it be condemned where it belongs.

In the narrative of Ahlus Sunnah, Husayn (AS) is portrayed as a miskeen young man with no experience in politics, who was overly optimistic in trusting the people of Kufa despite being warned about their treachery by the “senior” companions. He chose to trust them regardless of the advice he received and set out to Iraq to receive his bay‘ah and form a government. In order to appropriately defend the accusations attributed al-Husayn (AS), we proceeded to provide a full histor