This track is a companion track - and each of its lines are built from the series of sessions developed by the Truth Promoters Group for Muharram (Ashura) 1448 (June 2026) and Safar (Arbaeen) 1448 (July/August 2026).
This is the opening track of the series. Each of its verses encapsulates the lessons of Session 1 of the Shahada (Witness) Series — Where Is Your Brother? — and of the maqtal recited that same night.
The relevant sermon and maqtal links are provided alongside each verse.
Lyrics for the Song (Anthem/Nasheed)
INTRO
Before the ground had ever held a grave,
before a single tongue had learned the word,
two brothers brought their offering to God,
and only one was heard.
Session 1 — Where Is Your Brother? The sermon opens by refusing to begin at Karbala. To recover the word shahada, it goes back instead to the very first person who earned it — a man our own majalis have quietly let slip out of the rotation. If we cannot see Habil for what he was, the sermon argues, we will not see Imam Husayn for what he was either.
Verse 1
One gave the best and softest of his flock;
one gave the leavings he could spare.
And the one who gave the less looked across the field
at the one whom God found fair.
“I will kill you” — the cruellest mouth the earth had ever heard;
and the other raised no hand at all, but raised a word:
Session 1 — Surah al-Ma’idah (5:27). “Recite to them the story of the two sons of Adam, in truth. When each of them offered a sacrifice, it was accepted from one of them and was not accepted from the other. He said: ‘I will surely kill you.’ He said: ‘God accepts only from the God-fearing.’”
The sermon notes that the Qur’an does not name the brothers — the tradition names them, but the Book calls them simply the two sons of Adam. The story is universal before it is particular. And the Book preserves no description of the killing at all: no method, no violence, no blood. What it preserves are Habil’s words.
Pre-Chorus
“I will not raise my hand against you,
though you stretch out yours for mine.
I fear my Lord, the Lord of all that is” —
the first witness of the line.
Session 1 — Surah al-Ma’idah (5:28), and Allamah Tabataba’i’s al-Mizan. Two sentences: a refusal, and the reason for the refusal. Together they form the first act of witness in human history. Habil is not passively dying — he knows exactly what is coming, and he answers not by fleeing, not by fighting, not by begging, but by testifying.
Allamah Tabataba’i observes that God quotes Habil’s words without rebuttal, without qualification, without caveat — and pairs this with Surah Fatir (35:28), “Only those endowed with knowledge truly fear God among His servants.” The logic is exact: if the Qur’an confirms that Habil feared God, and only the knowing truly fear God, then God has confirmed Habil as a man of knowledge. Not an innocent victim — a conscious, knowing witness whose testimony was rooted in understanding.
And the Allamah answers the objection directly: Habil refused to kill. He never refused to live. The verse does not say he was killed and knowingly failed to defend himself. He said only, I do not wish to kill you. The distinction is everything — a victim submits, but a witness refuses to become the mirror of his oppressor.
Chorus
And where is your brother? — the oldest question cried,
the first word the Unseen ever asked of those who lied.
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” — and the answer’s always true:
yes, you are; you always were; and it’s asked tonight of you.
Session 1, and the Maqtal of the First Night. The question that gives the session its name — asked of the first blood the earth had ever known, and, as the sermon has it, a question the Unseen has been asking this creation ever since. The maqtal carries it forward in the voice of the Imam of our Age, who watches and who waits.
Verse 2
The grass had never drunk a man before;
the ground did not know what to do.
He carried, set him down, and carried him once more —
and the first killer never knew.
Till God sent down a crow to scratch the earth
and show him how to bury what he’d done:
the first grave dug by a bird, in a young earth’s sight,
over the one who would not raise his hand to fight.
Session 1 — Surah al-Ma’idah (5:30–31). “Then God sent a crow, scratching at the ground, to show him how to cover the body of his brother. He said: ‘Woe to me! Am I not even able to be like this crow?’ And he became of those who regret.”
Here the sermon locates the heart of its argument. The Qur’an tells us that Qabil regretted. The first witness changed the heart of his own killer.
When a person is merely killed, the killer walks away; the crime is absorbed into history and the world moves on. But when a person testifies — when they stand where they stand, say I fear God, and refuse to raise their hand — the killing becomes something the killer cannot digest. It sits in him. It works on him. This is the mechanism of true witness: it is not the dying that does the work, it is the testimony in the dying. Habil’s death did not save Habil — he was already accepted before the killing ever took place. Habil’s death changed Qabil.
Chorus
And where is your brother? — the oldest question cried,
the first word the Unseen ever asked of those who lied.
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” — and the answer’s always true:
yes, you are; you always were; and it’s asked tonight of you.
Session 1, and the Maqtal of the First Night.
Bridge
And the question never stopped — it crossed the years,
it fell on every field, it found us here;
on every Cain who ever turned and lied
“I do not know” — while another brother died.
But the candle that he lit out in that field
has never once gone out, and never will:
from Noah’s grief to Abraham’s bared stone,
to Karbala — to here — you’re not alone.
Session 1 — Shaheed Motahhari’s candle. The metaphor that holds the entire series together, from The Martyr: “The martyrs are the candles of society. They burn themselves out and illuminate society. If they do not shed their light, no organisation can shine.”
The same mechanism that worked on Qabil was at work at Karbala. Yazid’s soldiers killed the Imam — but the killing did not end the matter; it began it. Every tear shed for Imam Husayn in every Muharram in every century is evidence that the witness is still doing its work. The candle is still burning. And the sermon’s closing section maps the road ahead — the chain running from Habil through Nuh, Ibrahim, Zakariyya and Yahya, to Karbala — which is the road the second track of this series walks.
Verse 3
He is not the first victim — hear it plain —
he is the first witness, he’s the first flame;
the grain of the whole chain was in his throat:
“I fear my Lord” — the one unbroken note.
Session 1 — the five kinds of death, and the indictment. This is the verse that carries the sermon’s central claim, and the one the whole series turns on.
Shaheed Motahhari names five categories of death. The third is death as the victim of a crime — shocking and pitiable, but carrying no glory, because the victim had no voluntary part in it. The fifth is shahada: a death consciously and knowingly embraced for a sacred cause, in the way of God — the only death that is higher and holier than life itself. Two elements define it, and both are necessary: the life is offered for a cause, and the offering is made consciously.
And then the indictment, which the sermon reads aloud and lets sit in the room: “It is regrettable that most of the preachers who narrate the story of Karbala call Imam Husayn the Master of Martyrs — and yet they have little analytical insight into the question of martyrdom. They describe the events in such a way as though he lost his life in vain.”
Had it really been that simple, Shaheed Motahhari writes, the Imam would be remembered only as an innocent man greatly wronged — but he could not be called a martyr, let alone the Master of Martyrs. The same error a modern listener might make about Habil is the error our pulpits have been making about Imam Husayn for generations. The difference between the third category and the fifth is the difference between a victim and a candle. A victim is an object of pity. A candle is a source of light.
Outro
So where is your brother? The question’s in your hands;
the candle’s in your keeping where the long chain stands.
Don’t wait the dark in stillness — wait with your hand laid down,
wait with the candle burning, and an answer of your own.
Where is your brother?(you always were his keeper)
Where is your brother?
(keep the candle lit)
Session 1 — the pact, and the supplication. The sermon ends by asking something of the room: for the nine nights that follow, do not use the word shaheed unless you can say what it means — not what it makes you feel, what it means. If you cannot define it, carry the silence instead, and let the silence ask the question you have been avoiding.
This is not a call to stop weeping. Tears without understanding water the soil; understanding without tears leaves it barren. What is warned against is grief that stops at grief — that never asks what the witness chose, and what that choice asks of us.
And the night closes on the image this track ends on: peace be upon the candle that was lit tonight, and that will not be put out.
Production Credits & Transparency
We believe in blending original, human creativity with the latest digital tools to bring these historical stories to life in new ways.
Lyrics & Concept: 100% original, written by our human team, based on the sermons and maqatil indicated alongside each of the verses.
Music & Vocals: Composed and generated using Suno AI.
Visuals & Animation: Lego-style cinematic scenes generated and meticulously montaged using AI visualisation tools by our team.
