On the night of the 11th of Muḥarram 61 AH — the night immediately following ʿĀshūrāʾ — the bodies of the martyrs of Karbala lay unguarded on the plain, and…
On the night of the 11th of Muḥarram 61 AH — the night immediately following ʿĀshūrāʾ — the bodies of the martyrs of Karbala lay unguarded on the plain, and the order had been given to ride horses over them. Fiḍḍa, the devoted servant of Sayyidah Fāṭima al-Zahrāʾ who had accompanied the household of al-Ḥusayn to Karbala, had learned from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib a supplication upon the recitation of which a great lion would appear and submit to his command. After midnight, she recited this supplication, a lion came and bowed its head to the ground, and she spoke to it — telling it that these were the bodies of the children and companions of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, and asking it to guard them. The lion remained at the site of the martyrs until ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn arrived on the 13th of Muḥarram to bury the sacred remains. The exact spot where Fiḍḍa stood and the lion came to rest is what this maqām commemorates. Fiḍḍa herself was one of the most beloved figures of the Ahl al-Bayt. Gifted to Sayyidah Fāṭima by the Prophet ﷺ, she lived as an intimate of the household — the two women dividing the household tasks equally on alternate days, in a gesture that has been remembered for centuries as a model of human dignity. She remained devoted to the family long after Sayyidah Fāṭima's passing, was present at Karbala on the day of ʿĀshūrāʾ, and accompanied the captives through Kufa to Damascus, standing steadfastly beside Zaynab bint ʿAlī throughout. She is celebrated in the tradition for speaking exclusively in Quranic verses for the final twenty years of her life — a mark of the depth of her immersion in the household of revelation. The maqām stands in a narrow alley off ʿAbbās Street in the Bāb al-Najaf district of Karbala, approximately 315 metres from the Ḥusayni maqām. The alley carries her name — Zukāk Shīr-e-Fizza , the Alley of the Lion of Fizza, where shīr is the Persian word for lion. The structure is modest: a small room with a niche marking her station, a small green-tiled dome, and an exterior wall bearing a painted image of a crouching lion with the tents of the camp behind it. The site has been venerated for approximately 150 years and was restored after 2003. Her burial place is attributed to the Bāb al-Ṣaghīr graveyard in Damascus — this maqām marks not her grave but her presence on the most sorrowful night in Karbala's history.