This track is a companion track, and each of its lines is 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).
It is the seventh in our series, following Where Is Your Brother, Am I Not Your Lord?, Twelve Words, Every Day Is Ashura, One Oil, One Flame and Sweeter Than Honey. The last track asked why the young went looking for liberation everywhere but in the house of God. This one takes one of those liberations at its word — the anti-colonial nation — and asks what it had in its hands on the morning after it won.
Each of the verses encapsulates the lessons of Session 7 of the Shahada (Witness) Series — Nothing More Precious Than Independence — and of the maqtal recited that same night, The Hands at the Euphrates: al-Abbas ibn Ali, the standard-bearer and water-carrier of Karbala.
The relevant sermon and maqtal links are provided below.
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“Nothing is more precious” — so a nation swore it true.
But tell me: more than what? And tell me: more than who?
SESSION 7 — the sentence. On 17 July 1966, in a broadcast from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh gave his people one line: nothing is more precious than independence and freedom. It became the motto of a nation. The night does not mock it. It asks the question every such sentence invites: more precious than what — and in the name of whom?
In Hanoi an old man gave his people words to bear:
“Nothing is more precious than our freedom” — like a prayer.
They rained down more on rice-fields than on Germany in war;
the planners promised three years — and they held for fourteen more.
It had the shape of witness: first the “nothing,” then the Name —
the bones of “no god but God,” but a flag inside the frame.
SESSION 7 — the form of a shahada. The sermon honours what that sentence carried. A country of farmers absorbed more bombs than were dropped on Germany in the Second World War; the planners in Washington expected it to fold within a few years, and they were wrong by fourteen. That endurance was real.
But the sermon’s sharpest observation is about the shape of the sentence itself. Nothing is more precious than independence has the same skeleton as la ilaha illa Allah — a negation that empties the world, and then one thing placed at its centre. The form of the witness is right. The question is what was placed inside the frame.
The Book gave leave to fight — and hung three locks upon the door:
for the wronged; for those cast out for saying “God,” and nothing more;
and for the cloister, church and synagogue and mosque — each place
where God is named. Not a flag. Not a nation. Not a race.
SESSION 7 — the three locks. The Qur’an’s first permission to fight, in Surah al-Hajj, comes with conditions attached. It is given to those who are wronged; to those driven from their homes only because they said “Our Lord is God”; and for the protection of the places where God’s name is much remembered — monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques. Not a flag, not a nation, not a race. The permission is locked to worship.
He poured it back,
the river in his hand —
the children first, who waited
in the tents upon the sand.
He poured it back.
The children first.
MAQTAL 7. The chorus is the one image every majlis knows. After three days without water, al-Abbas reached the river, cupped the water in his hand, saw in it the thirst of the children he had left behind in the camp — and poured it back. He would not drink before them.
Then seventy-five: the final helicopter climbed the sky;
the land was free — and then the camps, the boats, the children’s cry.
A cause that only says the “no” has nothing left to show
the morning after victory, when all the armies go.
But Ali wrote to Basra of a governor’s full plate:
“Shall I lie down filled and sleeping while the hungry wait —
while round me there are empty bowls and livers burning dry?”
That is the “yes” the “no” was for. That is the reason why.
SESSION 7 — the morning after, and the “yes.” In 1975 the last helicopters lifted off the rooftops of Saigon, and the war was over. What followed — the camps, the boats on the open sea, the hungry years — is the sermon’s point, made without scoring points against Vietnam: a cause built only on a “no” has nothing to offer the day after it wins. The pattern recurs wherever that is true.
Against it the sermon sets Imam Ali’s letter to his governor in Basra, Uthman ibn Hunayf, who had sat at a rich man’s banquet where the poor were turned away. Shall I lie down with a full stomach, the Imam wrote, while around me are hungry stomachs and burning livers? And he described his own table: two worn garments and two loaves. That is what the “no” was for.
In the Bekaa, Sayyed Abbas said what every pulpit owed:
“The poor are God’s trust round our necks” — the first lesson of the road.
And in Boukamal, Hajj Qasem left a letter on the sill:
“Forgive us that we used your home — I’ll pay; I always will.
I prayed two rak’ats here for you; I ask your prayer too” —
and signed it as a brother, as a son. The “yes” came through.
SESSION 7 — the “yes” in our own century. Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi, preaching in the villages of the Bekaa, said that the first lesson of Imam Husayn is the lesson of the poor: the poor are a trust from God upon our necks.
And in Boukamal, in Syria, Hajj Qasem Soleimani left a letter for a Sunni family whose home had been used while they were away. He asked their forgiveness, offered to pay for any damage, told them he had prayed two rak’ats in their home with them in mind and asked for their prayers in return — and signed himself as their brother, or their son. The sermon calls it the most humane passage of the night.
It isn’t graves, it isn’t banners, and it isn’t East or West;
it’s whose worship is your walking for — and that’s the only test.
“I don’t want Karbala to stay in history,” he said;
let every day be Ashura — and every land be fed.
SESSION 7 — the test. Not how many died for a cause, not whose banner it flew, not which side of the Cold War it chose. The sermon’s question is simpler and harder: whose worship is your walking for?
And Sayyed Abbas’s words — I do not want Karbala to remain only in history — are carried one step further: every day Ashura, every land Karbala, and every land fed. The maxim holds both the “no” and the “yes.”
The mother of the sons had four, and all four fell by noon;
the tallest held the standard high — they called him Hashim’s moon.
Three days the river ran, and none could reach it, none could drink;
he’d brought the water home before — and rode back to the brink.
He broke the line and reached the river, cupped it, cool and clear,
and in it saw his own face trembling — and the children, near.
“My soul, after Husayn, you’re nothing; theirs is the greater thirst.”
He poured it back into the river. The children would drink first.
MAQTAL 7 — The Hands at the Euphrates. Umm al-Banin, the mother of the sons, gave four sons to Imam Ali: Abd Allah, Ja’far, Uthman and al-Abbas, and all four fell on the same field on the same day. Al-Abbas was the standard-bearer — Qamar Bani Hashim, the moon of the Banu Hashim. And, as the maqtal says, the moon carries a light that is not its own.
For three days the river had been closed to the camp by five hundred horsemen. Al-Abbas had already broken through once, days earlier, and brought the water home — which is how he came to be called Saqqa, the water-carrier. On the morning of Ashura he rode out to do it again. He reached the river and cupped the water, and in it, the tradition says, he saw his own face and heard the children who were waiting. O my soul, after Husayn you are nothing — and these children are more thirsty than you. He poured it back, and filled the waterskin instead.
For three days, the maqtal records, the men of the household would not put water to their own mouths before the children had drunk first.
They took his right hand from behind — the standard crossed to his left;
they took the left — he caught it in his teeth, of both hands bereft.
An arrow found the waterskin and opened it to the sand —
the sand drank what the children would have drunk out of his hand.
His brother knelt and laid his cheek against his brother’s own:
“Now my back is broken” — and he rode the rest alone.
MAQTAL 7 — the hands. On the way back his right hand was taken from behind, and he moved the standard to his left. Then his left was taken, and he held the standard in his teeth. An arrow pierced the waterskin, and, in the maqtal’s words, the sand drank what the children would have drunk.
Imam Husayn knelt beside his brother and laid his cheek against his. Now my back is broken, he said, and my options have grown few.
So “nothing is more precious” — finish the sentence, and be true:
not a flag, and not a nation, but the One God, through and through.
One hand to raise the standard, and one hand to break the bread —
and if they take your hands from you, hold it in your teeth instead.
He poured it back!
(the river in his hand)
The children first!
(where is your brother?)
SESSION 7 and MAQTAL 7 — finishing the sentence. The form was right all along: nothing is more precious than… The song only asks that the sentence be finished truthfully — not a flag, not a nation, but the One God.
And it ends with al-Abbas’s two hands. The standard is the “no” — the refusal to bow. The water is the “yes” — the children fed before oneself. A cause worth carrying needs both hands. And if they take the hands, the maqtal tells us, the standard is still not let fall.
The maqtal’s own last word on it: the standard is the cause whose proof is its own carrier.
And it ends, as the whole series does, on the oldest question there is: where is your brother?
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.
A note on the visuals: Out of respect, this animation never depicts the faces of the Prophet Muhammad (S) or the Ahl al-Bayt (AS). Imam Husayn (AS) and Imam Ali (AS) appear with their faces unshown throughout, and Sayyedah Umm al-Banin (SA) is seen only from behind. Al-Abbas and his brothers appear with their turban cloth drawn across their faces, eyes only, and the children of the camp are seen only from behind. Nothing of the martyrdom is shown on screen: the standard simply passes from one hand to the other, and al-Abbas’s fall is told through his riderless horse returning to the camp.
A note on the sources: as the maqtal itself records, the cupped hand and the water poured back, and the standard held in the teeth, are preserved in Bihar al-Anwar and the lamentation tradition rather than in the earliest sources (al-Tabari, al-Mufid, al-Akhbar al-Tiwal). The song follows the maqtal.
