Ada beda antara Hadhrat Imam Husain bin Ali bin Abi Talib radhiyallahu 'anhu dengan Syarif Husain. Husain yang pertama hidup pada abad 7 Masehi, cucu Nabi Muhammad saw dari ibundanya, Siti Fatimah, putri sang Nabi.
Syarif Husain bin Ali (1856-1931) ialah Gubernur Makkah yang diangkat pada 1908 oleh Turki dan Raja Hijaz antara 1916-1924. Dengan dukungan Lawrence of Arabia (agen Inggris di Timur Tengah), Ia memberontak terhadap khilafah Turki Utsmani pada Juni 1916.
Seakan mendapat karmanya, ia mengalami nasib yang sama. Disibukkan dan dikalahkan oleh pemberontakan. Dengan bantuan Inggris pula,Ibnu Saud (buyut moyang raja Saudi Arabia yang sekarang) menyerang dan mengalahkannya pada 1924, sehingga Syarif Husain harus turun tahta Hijaz dan memilih Siprus sebagai tempat tinggalnya sejak itu. Syarif Husain meninggal di Amman, Yordania.
Keturunan dari Syarif Husain ini yang kemudian memegang kekuasaan di Yordania sampai sekarang dan Iraq pada masa kerajaan (raja Iraq dikup oleh pemberontakan militer).
Adapun perbedaan-perbedaannya ialah demikian:
Pertama, Husain yang pertama bukanlah pemberontak lagi bukan pengkhianat. Sedangkan yang kedua, adalah demikian.
Perbedaan kedua; Husain yang pertama tidaklah menyesali apa-apa yang telah dilakukan atau diperjuangkannya. Ada pun yang kedua, ia menyesali dan dengan sedih mengenangnya.
Sharif Hussein himself ran away from the Hejaz following a Wahhabi uprising, and was kept in Cyprus by the British. What he said in his disappointment, humiliation, and pain is striking: “What we are experiencing is the divine punishment for our betrayal of the Ottomans.” For details, see Şevket Süreyya Aydemir’s “Enver Pasha,” Vol. 3, p. 311.
In the year 1942, while the World War II was ongoing, President İsmet İnönü sent diplomat Feridun Cemal Erkin to a number of Middle Eastern capitals to make contacts, to test the air. King Abdullah I, who received Erkin in Amman, spoke of a memory he had shared with his father Sharif Hussein: “My father was in great pain. One day, the palace band was giving a concert in the palace yard. It was hot, the windows were open. The band started playing the İzmir March that we all knew. I shut the window to stop those very old memories from haunting my father.”
Sharif Hussein wanted the window to be opened. He said: “Son, why are you closing that window? To prevent the İzmir March from making me remember old days, right? I am a subject who rebelled against his benefactor, I have a huge sin on my hands. I thought I would be the king, but God has made me into an exile. I became sick, I took refuge here.”
King Abdullah continued conveying the words of his father Sharif Hussein to Feridun Cemal Erkin: “Open that window and let me listen to that march. Let the strength of the guilty conscience I have multiply with the return of those old memories. Let the pain I suffer in this world get deeper with the weight of the guilty conscience, until the Supreme Being pardons this sinner in this world and saves him from a bigger punishment in afterlife.”
