Angels Hastening

When, on an autumn Medina night in 61/680, the night that saw al-Husayn killed, Umm Salama was torn from her sleep by an apparition of a long-dead Muhammad, she slipped effortlessly into a progression of her co-religionists who, irrespective of status, gender or standing with God, were the recipients of dark and arresting visions. At the core of those Delphian dreams, peopled by angels or ginn or esteemed forbears and textured with Iraqi dust and martyrs' blood, was the Karbala' event. Her dream would be recounted by an array of Muslim scholars, from al-Tirmidi, stellar pupil of al-Buhari, and Ibn 'Asakir, untiring chronicler of Syrian history, to bibliophile theologian Ibn Ta'us and Egyptian polymath al-Suyuti. But this was not Umm Salama's only otherworldly encounter and she was not the only one to have al-Husayn's fate disturb her nights. This is their story.