According to oft-repeated accounts of medieval Muslim historians, the Umayyad army attacked the encampment of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, al-Husayn ibn ʿAli, and his small entourage at Karbala (in southern Iraq) on the tenth day of Muharram 61/680. By the end of the day, al- Husayn was severely wounded or already dead. The victorious Umayyads then proceeded to cut off his head. Seventy-one other members of the Prophet's family – men, women and children – were killed in the assault. Al-Husayn's attempted revolt against the newly established ruling dynasty was nipped in the bud. While his body was interred on the battle ground, his head was carried off on the point of a spear in a triumphal procession, initiated by Kufa's Umayyad governor ʿUbayd Allah b. Ziyad. The procession exhibited also the heads of the other men killed at Karbala, as well as the survivors: mainly women, and only one of al-Husayn's sons, the young boy ʿAli Zayn al-Abidin, who in the years to come was recognized as the fourth imam, the spiritual leader of the ʿAlids (or proto-Shiʿis). They were paraded through several towns en route to Damascus. The inhabitants of Tikrit, Mosul, Qarib al-Daawat, Hims, Baalbek and Damascus are said to have rejoiced at the sight of the defeated insurrectionists, whereas their counterparts in Qinnisrin, Shayzar, Kafr Tab, Saybur and Hamah took offense at the killing and humiliation of the Prophet's kin. Along the way, the decapitated head allegedly performed various wonders. For instance, it recited from the Qurʾan and convinced monks and rabbis to embrace Islam. Blood that dripped from the head in different places affected miracles and consecrated the ground, generating new sacred spaces and cults.

When the procession of the defeated kin of the Prophet reached Damascus, al-Husayn's head was brought before the Caliph Yazid. According to several sources, the caliph cruelly revelled at the sight. Other sources claim that he was appropriately remorseful and moved to tears. In his multiple accounts of this episode, the renowned historian al-Tabari (d. 310/923) depicts Yazid as wavering between elation and anguish. On the one hand, he orders his wife to mourn for the Prophet's grandson; on the other hand, he insolently pokes a cane inside al-Husayn's lifeless mouth.