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10 October 680 CEReputable source · 2 sourcesDebated

The Battle of Karbala and the Death of Husayn

Muhammad's grandson is killed with his companions, cementing the Sunni-Shia divide

On the timeline · around 10 October 680 CE · The Umayyad CaliphateThe Rashidun Caliphs and the First FitnaThe Umayyad CaliphateThe Battle of Karbala and the Death of Husayn665 CE670 CE675 CE680 CE685 CE690 CE695 CE700 CE705 CE

Quick facts

Location
Karbala, near the Euphrates, modern Iraq
Date
10 October 680 CE
Killed
Husayn ibn Ali and most of his party
Commemoration
Ashura, observed annually by Shia Muslims

What happened

When Muawiya died in 680 CE and his son Yazid I succeeded him, breaking with Arabia's non-hereditary tradition of rule, Husayn ibn Ali, Muhammad's grandson through Ali and Fatimah, refused to recognize Yazid and set out from Mecca for Kufa in Iraq, where supporters had promised him backing. Yazid's governor suppressed the Kufan support before Husayn arrived, and an Umayyad force intercepted Husayn's small party, estimated at around 40 infantry and 32 cavalry against a much larger Umayyad army, at the desert plain of Karbala. After the Umayyads cut off the group's access to the Euphrates, fighting broke out on 10 October 680 CE, and Husayn's companions were surrounded and killed, including his ten-year-old nephew Qasim and several of his own sons and brothers, with Husayn among the dead.

Why it matters

Husayn's death at Karbala became the foundational martyrdom narrative for Shia Islam, commemorated annually in the mourning ritual of Ashura, and it hardened the political and theological break between Shia Muslims, who trace legitimate leadership through Ali's line, and the Sunni majority who accepted the Umayyad caliphate. The event also permanently damaged the Umayyads' religious legitimacy even among many Sunni Muslims.

How we know

The battle is described in the World History Encyclopedia drawing on the historians Hawting and Saunders; exact troop figures and some details of the fighting are explicitly flagged in that scholarship as difficult to separate from later legend and hagiography.

Sources

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Part of a timelineThe Rise of Islam30 events · From a trading town in the Arabian desert to a caliphate stretching from Iberia to Central Asia in under a centuryView all →
The Battle of Karbala and the Death of Husayn · The Rise of Islam · SourcedStory