In seventh-century Arabia, Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussain, sacrificed his life and his family members and companions in the desert of Karbala, Iraq, to resist the debauched ruler Yazid. In twentieth-century India, when the communal conflict was at its peak, Premchand wrote a play about this pivotal event of Islamic history and transformed it into a nationalist narrative. This first-ever English translation of Premchand's outstanding play Karbala (1924) is an illuminating blend of historical facts and imagination. It reveals Premchand's profound understanding of the communal conflict in early twentieth-century India and his unique way of imagining the nation, in tune with Gandhian principles of communal harmony and co-existence of religions.

This work is a translation of one of Premchand's plays, Karbala, published in 1924. It is based on an event in Islamic history, the battle of Karbala, in which the younger grandson of Prophet Muhammad, Hussain, was martyred along with his family at the hands of the sinful caliph Yazid bin Muawiya. Premchand's retelling of the historic episode was daring at a time when communal sentiments where running high.

Nishat Zaidi's expert translation brings Premchand's unique Indian version of the tragic killing of Hussain in the Karbala battle to the Englishreading public." - Hans Harder, Professor of Modern South Asian Languages and Literatures, Heidelberg University.