A senior Shia scholar was once of the view that perhaps Imam Husain
(a.s.) did not issue this statement. According to him, the companions of
Imam Husain (a.s.) did not perform any extraordinary feat. Then why
would the Imam say so?
However, his enemies had really displayed the worst cruelty. Imam
Husain (a.s.) was a flower of the garden of Prophethood. He was the
Imam of his time and the most beloved of Ali (a.s.) and Batool (Fatimah)
(s.a.). Therefore, any Muslim who would see the Imam surrounded by
such calamities would have surely come forward to assist him. Thus,
according to that scholar, those people were worst creatures who did
not help the Imam but those who helped him did not perform any
extraordinary feat.
That great scholar says: Perhaps God wanted me to come out of ignorance.
Therefore, I saw the battlefield of Kerbala in my dream and 1 was present
there. I was telling the Imam, “O son of the Messenger! I have come to
help you.” The Imam said, “Wait”. I waited till it was the time for Prayer.
(I have read in the books of Kerbala Tragedy that Saeed bin Abdullah
Hanafi and other companions became a human-shield in front of the
Imam so that he could pray. They were people having true enthusiasm.
When the parts of their bodies were getting cut and falling to the ground),
they were thinking:
The life I sacrificed was given by him only.
The fact is that, we have not the debt we owed.
The scholar says that the Imam told him in his dream:
“I want to offer Prayer. You stand in front of us. When the enemies
shoot arrows, stop them and do not let them reach us.” The scholar
said: “By all means”. He stood in front of the Imam while the Imam
started to pray. He says: “I saw a fierce arrow coming towards the
Imam. When the arrow came closer, I bent down involuntarily and
the arrow hit the holy Imam. I said: I seek the forgiveness of Allah
and to Him I repent. That was too bad. I will not let that happen
again. Now I will stop every arrow at my chest. Suddenly, another
arrow came and I again bent down to save my life. This arrow also
injured the holy Imam. Then a third and a fourth arrow came and
hit Imam only because every time I was trying to save my life. Then
suddenly my eyes fell on the Imam, and I saw that he was smiling
and saying: “I have not seen companions better and more loyal than
mine.’
Mausuat-e-Kalimat al-Imam al-Husain, Pg. 395