Scene 2: MADINAH, 10 MUHARRAM

Click here to listen to the sound clip at the beginning of Scene 2

(inside a room in a small house. Mostly bare with some housework implements around)

Narrator: Back in Madinah...

(Um Salama is sleeping. All of a sudden, she wakes up with a start and gasps. Maryam rushes in)

Maryam: Um Salama, what's wrong? What happened?

Um Salama: I dreamed I saw my husband.

Maryam: You saw the Prophet? How fortunate!

Um Salama: (clearly traumatized) He was covered in dust. Tears were falling from his eyes, and he was throwing dirt onto his head.

Maryam: What could that mean?

Um Salama: I fear for his grandchildren, for before he died, Rasul Allah told me in horrible detail how his grandson and relatives would be brutally slaughtered in a distant, unforgiving land called Karbala. He left me some sand from there and told me that when his grandson was killed, the sand would turn to blood. I had hoped I would never see that day.

Maryam: But Husain went to Kufa, not Karbala.

Um Salama: Yes, the people of Kufa sent Husain thousands of letters begging him to come and rescue them from their tyrant. But if they do not stand up for themselves also, nothing will prevent Husain and his companions from being diverted and massacred.

Maryam: God forbid!

Um Salama: We have only way to find out.... Let this not be true... (pulls out vial and cries out) My God! Husain! Husain!

Maryam: (in amazement at the sand) This can't be!

Um Salama: Husain is dead, I am telling you!

Maryam: No...

Um Salama: Tell the people the grandson of the Prophet has been murdered!

Click here to listen to the sound clip at the end of Scene 2