Zayn al-Abidin: Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Sajjad

Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib (c. 38–94 AH / 658–712 CE), known by the title Zayn al-Abidin, "the adornment of the worshippers", and also as al-Sajjad, "the one who prostrates himself constantly", was a son of al-Husayn ibn Ali and a great-grandson of the Prophet through his daughter Fatimah.¹ He was with his father at Karbala in 61/680, too ill to take part in the fighting, and was the only one of al-Husayn's sons to survive it; the biographers record that al-Husayn's descendants all trace their line through him.²³ He spent the three decades that followed in Medina, where he transmitted hadith, sat in the study circles of the city, and became known for the length of his prayers and for charity given at night.

The Sunni biographical literature counts him among the Successors (tabi'un) of Medina. Ibn Sa'd, the earliest of the biographers consulted, calls him trustworthy, reliable and scrupulous, and his reports appear in all six of the canonical Sunni hadith collections.⁴⁵ For the Twelver Shi'a he is the fourth Imam, and for the Isma'ilis the third.⁶ A collection of prayers attributed to him, al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya, came to be copied, commented on and translated widely.¹

He took no part in the armed movements of his lifetime. When the people of Medina rose against the caliph Yazid in 63/683 he kept away from them, he did not give his allegiance to Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, and he publicly repudiated al-Mukhtar ibn Abi Ubayd, whose movement in Kufa promoted the imamate of his uncle Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya.¹⁷ Wilferd Madelung's summary in the Encyclopaedia of Islam is that he "kept aloof from Shi'i activity and attracted no substantial following".⁸

The sources

The fullest early account of him is the entry in Ibn Sa'd's al-Tabaqat al-kubra, which places him in the second generation of the Successors of Medina and draws on reports from his sons, from his grandson Ja'far and from al-Waqidi.⁹ For Karbala and the year after it the main narrative is the one that al-Tabari assembled from Abu Mikhnaf, which includes reports going back to Ali ibn al-Husayn himself.¹⁰¹¹ The later biographical dictionaries — Abu Nu'aym's Hilyat al-awliya', Ibn Khallikan's Wafayat al-a'yan, al-Mizzi's Tahdhib al-kamal, al-Dhahabi's Siyar a'lam al-nubala' and Ibn Hajar's Tahdhib al-tahdhib — collect what the hadith critics said of him and many reports of his sayings and conduct, and al-Dhahabi grades the chains of several of them.¹² The modern reference works used here are Etan Kohlberg's entry in the Encyclopaedia of Islam and Ahmet Saim Kılavuz's in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.

The sources differ over his date of birth, his age at Karbala, his mother, the order of his birth among his brothers, the year of his death and the number of his children. Those differences are set out in the Historiographical Note at the end of the article.

Name, family and birth

Names and titles

He was Ali, son of al-Husayn, son of Ali ibn Abi Talib, of the clan of Hashim of Quraysh. His kunya is given as Abu al-Husayn or Abu al-Hasan. Ibn Sa'd records his son Abu Ja'far (al-Baqir) giving it as Abu al-Husayn in one report, and al-Dhahabi lists that form first; Ibn Khallikan and the TDV head their entries with Abu al-Hasan, and in al-Tabari's account Marwan ibn al-Hakam addresses him by it.^131415616 Abu Muhammad and Abu Abd Allah are also recorded.¹⁴

The title Zayn al-Abidin is explained in a report from Malik ibn Anas, transmitted by Mus'ab al-Zubayri: Malik said he had heard that Ali ibn al-Husayn prayed a thousand cycles of prayer every day and night until he died, "and he was called Zayn al-Abidin for his worship".¹²¹⁷ The other titles recorded for him belong to the same theme. Al-Sajjad means one who constantly prostrates himself; Dhu al-Thafinat, "the one with the calluses", refers to the hardened skin where his body touched the ground in prostration; and he was also called al-Zaki, "the pure", and Sayyid al-Sajidin, "the master of those who prostrate".¹⁶ Because the line of al-Husayn continued only through him, he is also called Abu al-A'imma, "the father of the Imams".⁶

Al-Husayn had two sons named Ali. Ibn Sa'd, followed by al-Dhahabi, Ibn Khallikan and the TDV, calls this one Ali al-Asghar, "the younger", and the son who was killed at Karbala Ali al-Akbar, "the elder"; in Ibn Sa'd's account of Karbala Ali ibn al-Husayn says himself that the brother who was killed was older than he was.⁹¹³¹⁵⁶ Kohlberg lists Ibn Qutayba, al-Baladhuri and al-Tabari among the historians who use the same names.^1[a]

His mother

Two accounts of his mother are given in the sources.

The earlier is Ibn Sa'd's. His mother, he writes, was an umm walad, a slave-woman who had borne her master a child, named Ghazala; after al-Husayn's death she married Zuyayd, al-Husayn's freedman, and bore him a son, Abd Allah ibn Zuyayd, "so he is the brother of Ali ibn Husayn through his mother".^9[b] Ibn Qutayba, as Ibn Khallikan quotes him, says she was a woman of Sind named Sulafa or Ghazala, and that after his father's death Ali married her to Zuyayd.¹⁸ Al-Mizzi describes her as a young slave-woman called Sallama or Ghazala.¹⁹ Kohlberg gives her names as Barra, Ghazala, Djayda and others, and records that some say she was an umm walad from Sind or Sijistan.¹

The second account makes her a daughter of Yazdagird III, the last Sasanian king of Persia. Al-Dhahabi names her Sallama Sulafa, daughter of Yazdagird; Ibn Khallikan calls her Sulafa, daughter of "Yazdagird, the last of the kings of Persia", and quotes al-Zamakhshari's Rabi' al-abrar to the effect that three daughters of Yazdagird were among the Persian captives brought to Medina in the caliphate of Umar and that Ali ibn Abi Talib gave one of them to al-Husayn.¹⁴²⁰ The TDV names her Shahrbanu and says she was brought to Medina during the conquests of Umar's time.⁶ Kohlberg describes this as the Shi'i tradition, in which her Persian name is given as Jihanshah, Shahrbanu(ya) or Shahzanan.¹

The title Ibn al-Khiyaratayn, "the son of the two chosen ones", rests on the second account: Ibn Khallikan and Kohlberg explain it by a saying attributed to the Prophet that God's chosen among the Arabs are Quraysh and among the non-Arabs the Persians, and Kohlberg records it as a Shi'i usage.²⁰¹

Both accounts make her an umm walad — al-Dhahabi, who gives the descent from Yazdagird, calls her one — and the sources remark on her son's birth to a slave-mother.¹⁴ Malik ibn Anas said that there was no one like him among the Prophet's family, "and he was the son of a slave-woman".²¹ Ibn Khallikan records that the people of Medina disliked taking slave-women as mothers of their children until three men grew up among them — Ali ibn al-Husayn, al-Qasim ibn Muhammad and Salim ibn Abd Allah — and surpassed the people of the city in learning and piety, after which the practice became sought after; he also quotes al-Mubarrad's story of a man whose mother was a slave, whom Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab showed the three of them one by one, each the son of a slave-woman.²⁰

Birth

He was born in Medina. Most sources give the year as 38 AH (658–9 CE); Ibn Khallikan specifies a Friday in that year, and al-Dhahabi says the date is an estimate.¹⁶¹⁸¹⁴ Other years are recorded and are given in the Historiographical Note.

Little is preserved of his early life. Ibn Sa'd records that Ibn Abbas greeted him with the words "Welcome to the beloved, son of the beloved".⁷ He married his cousin Umm Abd Allah, a daughter of al-Hasan ibn Ali, and their son Muhammad, later called al-Baqir, was born in 56 or 57, so that by the time of Karbala he was already a father.⁹²²

Karbala, 61/680

The journey to Iraq

When al-Husayn set out from Mecca towards Kufa in 60/680, his son Ali went with him, and several of the reports that Abu Mikhnaf collected about the journey and the battle are given on his authority.²³ In one report, narrated by Uqba ibn Sim'an, al-Husayn dozed in the saddle after leaving Qasr Bani Muqatil and woke repeating, "Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return" (Quran 2:156). Ali asked him why, and he answered that a horseman had appeared to him saying, "Men are travelling and the fates travel towards them." Ali asked, "Father, are we not in the right?" When his father said that they were, Ali answered that they need then have no concern.²³

On the evening before the battle he was ill. "I went near to hear what he would say to them," he recalled of his father's address to his companions, "even though at that time I was sick"; in another report he describes sitting that evening with his aunt Zaynab, who was nursing him, while his father recited verses on the passing of time.¹¹ The Encyclopaedia of Islam notes that the text of al-Husayn's address comes from his son's recollection of it.²

The tenth of Muharram

On the day of the battle the first of the family of Abu Talib to be killed was his elder brother, Ali al-Akbar, whose mother was Layla, daughter of Abu Murra ibn Urwa al-Thaqafi.²⁴² A young child of al-Husayn's was killed on his father's knee; Abu Mikhnaf's informants name him Abd Allah.²⁴

Ali ibn al-Husayn did not fight. Ibn Sa'd says that he was then twenty-three, ill and lying on his bed, and Kohlberg that he was found on a mat in the women's tent.¹³¹ When al-Husayn had been killed, Shamir ibn Dhi al-Jawshan came to the tent. In Ibn Sa'd's account Shamir said, "Kill this one," and a man among his own followers objected, "Glory be to God! Shall we kill a sick young man who has not fought?" In the account of Humayd ibn Muslim al-Azdi, which al-Tabari gives from Abu Mikhnaf, Humayd found "Ali al-Asghar ibn al-Husayn" stretched out on his bed, ill, with Shamir's foot soldiers asking whether they should kill him, and Humayd argued with them until the commander Umar ibn Sa'd arrived.¹³²⁴ Both accounts agree on what followed: Umar ibn Sa'd ordered that no one should enter the women's tent or harm the sick one.¹³²⁴² Humayd recalled Ali thanking him: "God kept evil away from me through your words."²⁴

Before Ibn Ziyad in Kufa

Umar ibn Sa'd took the daughters and sisters of al-Husayn, the children, and Ali ibn al-Husayn, still sick, to Kufa.²⁵ In Ibn Sa'd's version Ali tells how a man of the army hid him and treated him kindly until the governor's crier announced a reward of three hundred dirhams for him, when the man, weeping and saying "I am afraid", tied his hands and handed him over.¹³

Brought before the governor, Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, he gave his name. "Did God not kill Ali?" Ibn Ziyad asked. "I had a brother called Ali," he answered, "older than me, whom the people killed." "No, God killed him," said Ibn Ziyad. Ali replied with a verse of the Qur'an: "Allah takes the souls at the time of their death" (Quran 39:42).¹³²⁵ Ibn Ziyad had him examined to see whether he had reached manhood and ordered him to be put to death.²⁵² His aunt Zaynab held on to him: "Ibn Ziyad, you have had enough of our blood. I ask you by God, if you kill him, kill me with him." Ibn Ziyad let him go.¹³²⁵ In Humayd ibn Muslim's account Ali also asked the governor to send a trustworthy man with the women of the family.²⁵

Damascus and the return to Medina

Ibn Ziyad sent the survivors to Yazid in Damascus, Ali with a chain on his neck, under Muhaffiz ibn Tha'laba and Shamir; on the whole journey, al-Tabari's account says, he did not speak a word to either of them.²⁶ The Encyclopaedia of Islam records that Yazid addressed the family harshly at the beginning of the audience and that Zaynab and Ali answered him in kind.² In one of al-Tabari's reports Ali answered the caliph with the verse "No disaster strikes upon the earth or among yourselves except that it is in a register before We bring it into being — indeed that, for Allah, is easy" (Quran 57:22), and Yazid replied with "Whatever strikes you of disaster — it is for what your hands have earned; but He pardons much" (Quran 42:30).²⁶ Ibn Sa'd records that when a man of Syria claimed the captives as lawful booty, Ali told him that it would be lawful only if he left their religion, and Yazid told the man to sit down.¹³

After the audience Yazid's treatment of them changed. He lodged the women in a house with Ali, invited Ali to every meal, replaced what had been taken from them, and asked Ali to write to him from Medina with anything he needed.²⁶² He offered to let him stay in Damascus — "we will keep the ties of kinship with you and recognise your right", in Ibn Sa'd's words — or to send him home; Ali asked to go home, and Yazid sent him back to Medina with a gift and an escort.¹³⁶²⁶ The Encyclopaedia of Islam describes Yazid as treating him "with an almost affectionate courtesy".² Kohlberg records that the Mashhad Ali, which forms part of the great mosque of Damascus, is said to have been built at the place where he was held.¹

On the family's return to Medina, al-Miswar ibn Makhrama met Ali and asked whether there was anything he could do for him. Ali said there was not, and al-Miswar asked him to give him the sword of the Messenger of God for safekeeping, "for I am afraid that people may take it from you by force" (Sahih al-Bukhari 3110).

The revolt of Medina and the Battle of al-Harra, 63/683

Two years later the people of Medina renounced their allegiance to Yazid and drove the Umayyads out of the city. The Encyclopaedia of Islam records that the Talibis — the descendants of Abu Talib — and the Abbasids held aloof from the revolt.²⁷ Ibn Sa'd preserves al-Baqir's answer to a man who asked whether any of his family had joined it: "None of the family of Abu Talib took part, nor any of Banu Abd al-Muttalib. They kept to their houses."²⁸ Ali withdrew to a property of his outside the city, al-Tabari's account says, because he was unwilling to have any part in their course.¹⁶

When the Umayyads were leaving, Marwan ibn al-Hakam looked for someone to shelter his household. Abd Allah ibn Umar refused. Marwan then appealed to Ali ibn al-Husayn — "Abu al-Hasan, I have kinship with you; let my women be with your women" — and in al-Waqidi's account, which al-Tabari quotes from Ibn Sa'd, Ali took Marwan's women with his own to Yanbu'. Kohlberg names Marwan's wife A'isha, a daughter of the caliph Uthman, among those he sheltered there.¹⁶¹ In Abu Mikhnaf's account A'isha bint Uthman passed by Ali's estate on her way to al-Ta'if, and he asked her to take his son Abd Allah with her.¹⁶

The caliph sent an army under Muslim ibn Uqba against the city, and the battle was fought in the lava field of al-Harra on the north-eastern side of Medina at the end of Dhu al-Hijja 63, on 26 or 27 August 683.²⁷ According to al-Tabari's account, Yazid had told Muslim to seek out Ali ibn al-Husayn, keep the army away from him and treat him kindly, "for he has not become involved in any of the things in which they have become involved; his letter has come to me"; Ali, the report adds, knew nothing of the instruction.¹⁶ After the battle Muslim required the people of Medina to renew their oath of allegiance to Yazid in a form that declared them the caliph's slaves.²⁷ Ali was received differently. In al-Baqir's account, when Muslim asked for him, Ali came with two sons of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya; Muslim welcomed him, made room for him beside him on his couch and told him, "The Commander of the Faithful instructed me to treat you well."²⁸¹⁶ Kohlberg records that Muslim did not try to exact the oath of allegiance from him.¹

The years of Ibn al-Zubayr and al-Mukhtar

In the years of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr's rival caliphate, Ali did not pledge allegiance to him, but he escorted his sister Sukayna, al-Husayn's daughter, to Iraq for her marriage to Ibn al-Zubayr's brother Mus'ab, from whom he received a gift of forty thousand dinars.¹

Kohlberg records that most of the Shi'a of the time turned not to Ali but to Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya, a son of Ali ibn Abi Talib who, unlike al-Hasan and al-Husayn, was not descended from the Prophet, and whose imamate al-Mukhtar ibn Abi Ubayd promoted in Kufa.¹²⁹ Al-Mukhtar sent Ali a hundred thousand dirhams. Ibn Sa'd records that he was unwilling to accept the money and afraid to send it back, and so kept it untouched; when al-Mukhtar had been killed, he wrote to the caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan to send someone to collect it, and Abd al-Malik answered, "Cousin, take it; I have made it lawful for you."⁷ Al-Baqir also told Isa ibn Dinar that his father had stood at the door of the Ka'ba and repudiated al-Mukhtar. When someone asked how he could do so when al-Mukhtar had been killed for their sake, he answered that al-Mukhtar had lied about God and His Messenger.⁷

He was equally careful about what was claimed for his own family. Yahya ibn Sa'id heard him say: "People, love us with the love of Islam. Your love for us has gone on until it has become a disgrace upon us."³⁰²¹ Another version, addressed to the people of Iraq, adds, "and do not love us with the love of idols"; in Abu Nu'aym's version he tells the people of Iraq and Kufa, "Love us with the love of Islam, and do not raise us above our due."²¹³¹ Asked by a man who had come to him for the purpose when Ali ibn Abi Talib would be raised again, he answered, "On the Day of Resurrection, and then his own self will concern him."³²⁶ Speaking of Sa'id ibn Jubayr, who used to pass by them and whom they would ask about the shares of inheritance, he said, "We do not have what these people accuse us of," pointing towards Iraq.³³

Under Abd al-Malik and al-Walid

Relations with the Umayyad court

Kohlberg writes that he "studiously avoided any involvement with the authorities and adopted a quiescent attitude towards the Umayyads and the Zubayrid anti-caliphate".¹ Al-Zuhri described him as the best of his household in obedience and the most beloved of them to Marwan and to Abd al-Malik, and the TDV records the report that of all the Prophet's family Abd al-Malik loved him most.²⁸²¹⁶ Non-Shi'i sources, Kohlberg notes, describe a friendly relationship with the caliphs, Abd al-Malik consulting him about a message he had received from the Byzantine emperor, while Shi'i authors explain his dealings with the authorities as taqiyya, a precautionary concealment of belief.¹ Ibn Sa'd records al-Baqir's statement about the Umayyads: "We pray behind them without taqiyya, and I testify that Ali ibn Husayn prayed behind them without taqiyya."⁷

When he freed a slave-woman of his and married her, Abd al-Malik wrote to reproach him. Ali replied with the verse "There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of Allah an excellent pattern" (Quran 33:21) and reminded him that the Prophet had freed Safiyya bint Huyayy and married her, and had freed Zayd ibn Haritha and married him to his own cousin Zaynab bint Jahsh.³⁰¹⁸

Hisham ibn Isma'il

For four years the governor of Medina was Hisham ibn Isma'il, who, Ibn Sa'd records, treated Ali and his household with hostility and spoke against Ali ibn Abi Talib from the pulpit.³⁴¹ When al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik dismissed him, on 7 Rabi' al-Awwal 87 (26 February 706), he ordered that Hisham be made to stand before the people.³⁴¹ Hisham himself said that no one had been of more concern to him than Ali ibn al-Husayn, "a righteous man whose word is heard". Ali gathered his sons and the people of his household and forbade them to speak against the man. His son Abd Allah protested that they had waited for such a day; his father answered, "My son, let us leave him to God." When Ali passed Hisham in the street and said nothing to him, Hisham called after him: "Allah is most knowing of where He places His message" (Quran 6:124).³⁴

Patience in place of revolt

Ibn Sa'd records that Ali "used to forbid fighting". When a group from Khurasan complained to him of the injustice of their governors, he told them to be patient and to hold back, and said, "I say what Jesus said: 'If You should punish them — indeed they are Your servants; but if You forgive them — indeed it is You who is the Exalted in Might, the Wise'" (Quran 5:118).³³ He also spoke of the duty to command what is right: "One who abandons commanding the right and forbidding the wrong," he said, "is like one who throws the Book of God behind his back, unless he guards himself out of fear" — and asked what that fear was, he said, "that he fears a stubborn tyrant, that he will strike at him or exceed all bounds".³⁰

Learning and transmission

His teachers and the circles of Medina

He transmitted hadith from his father and from his uncle al-Hasan, and from Ibn Abbas, al-Miswar ibn Makhrama, Abu Hurayra, Safiyya bint Huyayy, Umm Salama and her daughter Zaynab bint Abi Salama, Abu Rafi' the Prophet's freedman and his son Ubayd Allah, Marwan ibn al-Hakam, Amr ibn Uthman, Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab and Sa'id ibn Marjana; his reports from his grandfather Ali ibn Abi Talib are mursal, with a link missing between them.^145[c] Al-Dhahabi lists Aisha among his teachers as well, but Abu Dawud held that he had not heard from her.¹⁴²¹ The TDV adds Jabir ibn Abd Allah and Abd Allah ibn Umar.⁶

The reports of his student years show him going to scholars wherever he found them. He sat in the circle of Zayd ibn Aslam, making his way through the crowd in the mosque to reach it. When Nafi' ibn Jubayr reproached him — "You are the master of the people, and you step over them to sit with this slave" — he answered, "Knowledge is to be followed wherever it is."³⁵³⁶ He answered in the same spirit a man of Quraysh who asked why he left Quraysh to sit with Aslam, the freedman of Umar: "A man sits where he benefits."³³ Yazid ibn Hazim saw him with Sulayman ibn Yasar sitting between the Prophet's grave and the pulpit, talking and studying together until the late morning.³⁷ Malik ibn Anas recorded that when he went to ask Ubayd Allah ibn Abd Allah ibn Utba about a question and found him at prayer, he sat and waited until Ubayd Allah had finished, and that Ubayd Allah, rebuked by his companions for keeping the Prophet's descendant waiting, said that whoever sought this learning must take trouble for it.²⁸ He asked Mas'ud ibn Malik to bring him together with Sa'id ibn Jubayr, because there were things he wished to ask him: "people come to us with what we do not have".³⁶

His students included his sons Muhammad (al-Baqir), Zayd, Abd Allah and Umar, and al-Zuhri, Abu al-Zinad, Zayd ibn Aslam, Yahya ibn Sa'id al-Ansari, Hisham ibn Urwa, al-Hakam ibn Utayba, Habib ibn Abi Thabit, Amr ibn Dinar and Abu Hazim al-A'raj; Abu Salama ibn Abd al-Rahman and Tawus, men of his own generation, also transmitted from him.¹⁴⁵ Al-Zuhri said that he had sat with him often.²¹ Ibn Sa'd records that when al-Zuhri had killed a man by accident and left his family to live in a tent, saying no roof would shelter him, Ali ibn al-Husayn passed by and told him, "Your despair is a graver thing than your sin. Fear God, ask His forgiveness, send the blood-money to the man's family and go back to your own." Al-Zuhri used to say that Ali ibn al-Husayn was the man to whom he owed the greatest favour.³⁰

His standing among the hadith critics

The verdicts recorded on him differ in emphasis. Ibn Sa'd describes him as "trustworthy, reliable, with many hadith, of high standing, elevated and scrupulous", and Abu Nu'aym says that he "transmitted much".⁴³⁸ Al-Zuhri judged his output differently: "I have not seen anyone with a better understanding of the law than he had, but he had little hadith." Kohlberg quotes the same verdict, and al-Dhahabi says that he was not a prolific transmitter.²¹¹ Al-Zuhri also said, "I have not seen a man of Quraysh more excellent than Ali ibn al-Husayn."²¹

Other judgements are of his reliability and character. Al-Ijli described him as a Medinan Successor, trustworthy.²¹ Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab, told by a man that he had never seen anyone more scrupulous than a certain person, asked whether he had seen Ali ibn al-Husayn, and said that he himself had seen no one more scrupulous.³⁸ Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shayba named as "the soundest of all chains" al-Zuhri, from Ali ibn al-Husayn, from his father, from Ali ibn Abi Talib.²¹⁵ When al-Zuhri once told him a hadith and remarked that he must already know it better, Ali answered that what is not known is not knowledge: "knowledge is what is known, and on which the tongues agree".²¹

Hadith transmitted through him

His reports run through the canonical collections. He transmitted from Safiyya bint Huyayy her account of visiting the Prophet at night while he was in seclusion in the mosque during the last ten days of Ramadan: the Prophet walked her back towards her house, and when two men of the Ansar hurried past, he told them that she was Safiyya, explaining that Satan runs through a person as the blood does and that he had feared some evil thought might enter their hearts (Sahih al-Bukhari 2035, 2038, 2039, 7171; Sahih Muslim 2175). He is one of the links in the report that "a Muslim cannot be the heir of a disbeliever, nor can a disbeliever be the heir of a Muslim", which al-Zuhri had from him, from Amr ibn Uthman, from Usama ibn Zayd (Sahih al-Bukhari 6764; Jami' al-Tirmidhi 2107).³⁹ Al-Tirmidhi also records the saying "Of the excellence of a person's Islam is his leaving what does not concern him" from al-Zuhri, from Ali ibn al-Husayn, from the Prophet, without the Companion in between (Jami' al-Tirmidhi 2318); the editors of that edition grade it da'if.

Other hadith show the household's affairs passing through his hands. Sahih al-Bukhari records that the endowment known as "the sadaqa of the Messenger of God" passed from Ali ibn Abi Talib to al-Hasan, then to al-Husayn, and then to Ali ibn al-Husayn and his cousin Hasan ibn Hasan, who managed it in turn (Sahih al-Bukhari 4034).

On the first three caliphs

Several reports record his view of the first three caliphs. Abu Hazim heard him asked what standing Abu Bakr and Umar had had with the Prophet; he pointed to the Prophet's grave and said, "the standing they have with him now".³²¹⁷ Al-Dhahabi gives a report from his son al-Baqir that when a man asked him about Abu Bakr and was surprised to hear him call him al-Siddiq, he answered that one better than he — the Prophet, together with the Emigrants and the Helpers — had called him al-Siddiq.³² He said of Uthman, "By God, Uthman was not killed rightfully."³³

Abu Nu'aym preserves his answer to a group from Iraq who spoke against Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman in his presence. He asked them whether they were among "the poor emigrants who were expelled from their homes and their properties, seeking bounty from Allah and [His] approval" (Quran 59:8), and they said they were not; then whether they were among "those who were settled in the Home and [adopted] the faith before them" and "love those who emigrated to them" (Quran 59:9), and they said they were not. He told them that they had disowned being either, and that he bore witness that they were not among those who "come after them, saying, 'Our Lord, forgive us and our brothers who preceded us in faith and put not in our hearts [any] resentment toward those who have believed'" (Quran 59:10). Then he sent them away.³¹ The TDV summarises his position as holding that nothing but good could be thought of the first three caliphs.⁶

Opinions in law and on the Qur'an

A few of his legal and exegetical opinions are preserved in the commentaries. Ibn Kathir names him, with Ibn Abbas, Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab, al-Hasan al-Basri and others of the early generations, among those who took Qur'an 33:49 as evidence that a divorce cannot take effect unless a marriage has preceded it.⁴⁰ On Qur'an 33:37, the verse concerning the Prophet's marriage to Zaynab bint Jahsh, Maariful Quran records his explanation, transmitted by al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Abi Hatim: that God had told the Prophet by revelation that Zayd would divorce Zaynab and that she would afterwards become his wife, and that this was what the Prophet had kept to himself. The same work notes that al-Zuhri and most of the commentators adopted this explanation.⁴¹

Worship

The biographers give many reports of his worship, and the reports vary in their strength. Ibn Sa'd records that when he stood to pray he was seized by trembling, and that when asked about it he said, "Do you know before whom I stand, and to whom I speak in private?"³³ Kohlberg adds that whenever the time of prayer drew near he would tremble and go pale, and that his devotions caused fears for his health.¹ Al-Dhahabi gives the report that he turned pale when he made his ablutions.¹²

Of his pilgrimages, Malik ibn Anas related that when he entered the state of consecration and began to pronounce the pilgrim's call, "Here I am, O God", he fainted and fell from his camel.¹²¹⁷ A longer version, transmitted through Sufyan ibn Uyayna, has him go pale and tremble so that he could not make the call, saying that he feared he would say "Here I am" and be answered "You are not"; al-Dhahabi notes that the chain of this version is mursal, with a link missing.¹² Tawus heard him prostrating at the Hijr beside the Ka'ba, saying, "Your little servant is at Your door, Your poor one is at Your door, Your beggar is at Your door, Your needy one is at Your door," and said that he had never called on God with those words in distress without being relieved.¹²

Kohlberg records that he was counted among the bakka'un, "the weepers", because for years he wept for his father and the others killed at Karbala.¹ Abu Nu'aym gives his answer when he was asked about his weeping: "Do not blame me. Jacob lost one son and wept until his eyes turned white, and he did not know that he had died. I saw fourteen men of my household killed in a single engagement — do you think the grief for them will leave my heart?"³⁵ When a death was announced in his house while he sat with others, he went home and came back to his place; to those who wondered at his composure he said, "We are a household that obeys God in what we love and praises Him in what we dislike."³⁵

Abu Nu'aym also preserves sayings of his on worship. "Some worshipped God out of fear, and that is the worship of slaves; some out of desire, and that is the worship of merchants; and some out of gratitude, and that is the worship of the free."⁴² Among the prayers Abu Nu'aym records from him is this: "O God, I seek refuge in You lest my outward self appear fair in the glances of eyes while my inward self is foul in what is hidden from them."⁴²⁴³ Zayd ibn Aslam remembered another: "O God, do not leave me to myself, for I am too weak for it, and do not leave me to Your creatures, for they will neglect me."⁴³ The inscription on his seal, al-Baqir said, was "All power belongs to Allah", words from Qur'an 2:165.⁴⁴

Charity and conduct

Charity given in secret

Many of the reports concern his charity. Abu Hamza al-Thumali reported that he carried bread on his back at night and gave it to the poor in the darkness, saying that charity given in secret puts out the anger of the Lord.⁴⁵⁴⁶ Kohlberg adds that he covered his face when he went out to give.¹ Muhammad ibn Ishaq recorded that there were people in Medina who lived without knowing where their livelihood came from, and that when Ali ibn al-Husayn died they lost what used to come to them at night.⁴⁵¹⁷ When his body was washed, marks were found on his back from the sacks of flour he had carried to the poor of the city; Shayba ibn Na'ama said that he had been thought miserly, and that after his death it was found he had been feeding a hundred households in Medina.⁴⁵⁴ Al-Dhahabi observes that the charge of miserliness came from the secrecy: his family thought he was hoarding the money he was giving away.⁴⁶

He also gave in the open. When someone came to ask of him, Ibn Sa'd records, he would get up and hand over the gift himself, saying that charity falls into the hand of God before it falls into the hand of the one who asks.³³ Al-Baqir reported that twice in his life his father divided his property with God, giving half of it away, and said, "God loves the believer who sins and repents."⁴⁷ When Muhammad ibn Usama ibn Zayd lay ill and wept over a debt of fifteen thousand dinars, Ali told him, "It is mine to pay."³⁸

He freed slaves as well. Sa'id ibn Marjana, a companion of his, narrated to him the hadith of Abu Hurayra that whoever frees a Muslim slave, God will save every part of his body from the Fire for every part of the slave's body; Ali thereupon freed a slave of his for whom Abd Allah ibn Ja'far had offered him ten thousand dirhams or a thousand dinars (Sahih al-Bukhari 2517; Sahih Muslim 1509).⁴⁸ Maariful Quran records a report, given by al-Alusi on the authority of al-Bayhaqi, of a maid who was helping him with his ablutions when the jug slipped from her hands and soaked his clothes. Sensing his anger, she recited, "who restrain anger", and he fell silent; "and who pardon the people", and he forgave her; "and Allah loves the doers of good" (Quran 3:134), and he told her, "Go; I give you your freedom."⁴⁹

Conduct

Many of the reports concern the ordinary dealings of his life. Juwayriya ibn Asma' said that he never took a single dirham on the strength of his kinship to the Messenger of God.¹²⁵ Al-Dhahabi records that when he rode through Medina on his mule he never told anyone to make way, saying that the road was shared and that he had no right to move anyone from it; and he did not strike his camel on the road from Medina to Mecca.⁴³³³ When a man insulted him and he looked away, the man said, "It is you I mean"; he answered, "And it is from you that I look away."¹⁷ When his cousin Hasan ibn Hasan quarrelled with him and said everything he could, Ali stayed silent; that night he went to Hasan's door and said, "Cousin, if what you said was true, may God forgive me, and if it was false, may God forgive you," and Hasan embraced him and wept.⁴³ To a group who came to praise him he said, "We are among the righteous of our people, and it is enough for us to be among the righteous of our people."³⁰

Ibn Sa'd's reports of his dress describe cloaks of khazz, furs, a heavy Kurdish shawl and turbans, and records that he would buy a cloak of khazz for fifty dinars, wear it through the winter, then sell it and give the price in charity, while in summer he wore two Egyptian garments bought for a dinar, quoting the verse "Who has forbidden the adornment of Allah which He has produced for His servants and the good [lawful] things of provision?" (Quran 7:32).³⁷ Among the sayings attributed to him are "Whoever is content with what God has apportioned to him is among the richest of people" and "Losing those one loves is exile".⁴²

Al-Farazdaq's ode

The best-known story about him is told by Abu Nu'aym, al-Mizzi and al-Dhahabi. Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, on pilgrimage before he became caliph, tried to touch the Black Stone and could not reach it for the crowd. When Ali ibn al-Husayn came, the people stood aside and let him through. The men of Syria with Hisham asked who he was, and Hisham said that he did not know him; the poet al-Farazdaq, who was there, said, "But I know him," and recited an ode in his praise.⁵⁰⁵¹⁵² Its opening line, in the form al-Dhahabi gives, reads:

This is he whose tread the valley of Mecca knows; the House knows him, and the sanctuary and the land outside it.⁵²

In al-Dhahabi's and al-Mizzi's telling, Hisham had the poet imprisoned at Usfan, and Ali sent him twelve thousand dirhams, which al-Farazdaq at first refused and then accepted.⁵²⁵¹

The authenticity of the story and of the poem is doubted. Kohlberg writes that the eulogy, "which exists in various versions, has been judged to be mostly or entirely unauthentic", citing studies by J. Hell (1915) and J. Weiss (1917).¹ The modern editors of al-Dhahabi's Siyar note that the verses are attributed to three poets — to al-Hazin al-Kinani, in praise of Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Malik; to Dawud ibn Salm, in praise of Qutham ibn al-Abbas; and to al-Farazdaq — and that Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani preferred the first attribution.⁵² Bashshar Awwad Ma'ruf, the editor of al-Mizzi, judges the chain of the story weak and finds language in the poem that was not in use until after Ali ibn al-Husayn's time.⁵¹ The TDV, by contrast, treats the ode as an important source for his standing and notes that many scholars wrote commentaries on it.⁶

Death and burial

He died at Medina in 94 AH (712 CE). Ibn Sa'd's informants placed his death in that year, among them his son al-Husayn, who said, "My father died in 94, and we prayed over him at al-Baqi'."⁴ Al-Dhahabi gives a report that he died on the night of Tuesday, 14 Rabi' al-Awwal 94, and the TDV places the death in Rabi' al-Awwal 94, December 712.⁵³⁶ So many jurists died in that year, Ibn Sa'd records, that it was called "the year of the jurists".⁴ His grandson Ja'far gave his age at death as fifty-eight.⁴

He asked that no one be sent to announce his death, that his bier be carried quickly, that he be shrouded in cotton, and that no musk be put in the spices for his body.⁴ When the bier was set down for the funeral prayer, the people in the mosque went out to attend it; Sulayman ibn Yasar prayed over him and followed the bier, saying that attending a funeral was dearer to him than voluntary prayer.⁴ He was buried in the cemetery of al-Baqi'. Ibn Khallikan specifies the grave of his uncle al-Hasan ibn Ali, under the dome over the grave of al-Abbas, and the TDV places him beside his uncle.¹⁸⁶

Wives, children and descendants

His wife Umm Abd Allah, the daughter of al-Hasan ibn Ali, bore him four sons: al-Hasan and al-Husayn al-Akbar, who died without descendants, Muhammad, called Abu Ja'far, and Abd Allah. His other children, Ibn Sa'd records, were born of slave-mothers: Umar, Zayd, Ali and Khadija; al-Husayn al-Asghar and Umm Ali, called Ulayya; Kulthum, Sulayman and Mulayka; and al-Qasim, Umm al-Hasan, called Hasana, Umm al-Husayn and Fatima — seventeen in all.⁹ Other counts are given in the Historiographical Note.

Two of his sons have a place in later history. Muhammad al-Baqir, the son of Umm Abd Allah, succeeded him as the fifth Imam of the Twelver Shi'a and, in Kohlberg's words, "pursued his father's quietist policy"; through his mother he was a grandson of both al-Hasan and al-Husayn.²² Zayd ibn Ali, born in Medina in 75/694–5 according to his son al-Husayn, led a rising against the Umayyads at Kufa in the caliphate of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and was killed in 122/740; the Zaydiyya branch of the Shi'a is named after him.⁹⁵⁴⁵⁵ Of al-Baqir's son Ja'far al-Sadiq, Ibn Sa'd preserves a report from Ali's son al-Husayn: their father came upon the narrator and Ja'far playing in a garden, asked al-Baqir how old Ja'far was, and on hearing that he was seven told him to have the boy begin praying.⁴⁷

The genealogists al-Asma'i and Ibn al-Barqi recorded that al-Husayn's line continued through no one but this son, and al-Dhahabi repeats it: "al-Husayn has no descendants except through his son Zayn al-Abidin."³⁵³

Works attributed to him

Three works are attributed to him.

Al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya, also called al-Sahifa al-kamila, is a collection of supplications for the occasions of worship, together with some passages on matters of belief.⁶ Kohlberg writes that it "gained wide popularity": it exists in numerous redactions, more than twenty commentaries were written on it, and it was translated into Persian in the Safavid period; fifteen "whispered prayers" (munajat) ascribed to him have been added to several modern editions.¹ The TDV records that Shi'i scholars gave the work great importance and collected his prayers not included in it into further volumes called the second, third and fourth Sahifa; it names among its commentators Shaykh Baha'i, Mir Damad and Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi, and notes that the twentieth prayer of the collection is known separately as the prayer for noble character, Du'a makarim al-akhlaq.⁶ It has been translated into English by William C. Chittick as The Psalms of Islam (London, 1988), and by Ahmed Muhani (Tehran, 1984).¹⁶

Risalat al-Huquq, "the treatise on rights", sets out the rights and duties owed by people to one another. It is preserved, in two versions, in two works of the 4th/10th century, Ibn Babawayh's Kitab al-Khisal and Ibn Shu'ba's Tuhaf al-uqul, and Chittick's translation is published in the same volume as the Sahifa.¹⁶

A short text known as al-Sahifa fi al-zuhd, on renunciation of the world, is preserved in al-Kulayni's al-Kafi.¹

In Sunni and Shi'i tradition

In the Sunni tradition he is a Successor of Medina whose reports stand in all six canonical collections and whose chain through al-Zuhri was praised as among the soundest; Ibn Khallikan calls him one of the masters of the Successors, and Abu Nu'aym places him among the Successors of Medina known for worship and devotion.^5211542

For the Twelver Shi'a he is the fourth Imam, between al-Husayn and al-Baqir, and for the Isma'ilis the third.⁶ Kohlberg records that in his own lifetime he at first enjoyed little support among the Shi'a, most of whom turned to Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya; that a group of the Kaysaniyya is reported to have recognised him after Ibn al-Hanafiyya's death; and that because of his quietism most of the Zaydis did not count him as an Imam.¹ Madelung writes that it was his son al-Baqir who, after his death, actively engaged in Shi'i teaching.⁸

Historiographical Note

The sources disagree on several points, and the article follows the decisions recorded below.

Date of birth. Most sources give 38/658–9, which the article follows; al-Dhahabi calls it an estimate. Ya'qub ibn Sufyan gives 33, and Kohlberg records 36 and 37 as well.¹¹⁴⁵⁶ Al-Baqir's statement that his father lived fifty-eight years, taken with a death in 94, would point to 36; Ibn Hajar reasons from the same figure, together with the age of twenty-three at Karbala, to a death in 94 or 95.⁵³⁵⁶

His age at Karbala. Ibn Sa'd, al-Zuhri and Ibn Hajar give his age as twenty-three, and al-Waqidi as twenty-three or twenty-four.¹³⁵⁶⁴ Some accounts describe him as a boy: in al-Tabari, Humayd ibn Muslim protests "this is only a boy" and Umar ibn Sa'd speaks of "this sick boy", and the list of the slain says that he "was regarded as too young" and so was not killed; the Encyclopaedia of Islam's entry on al-Husayn calls him "a sick boy", and Najeebabadi's History of Islam "the child".^2457258 Al-Waqidi rejected the accounts that he had not yet reached puberty, on the ground that his son al-Baqir had already been born, and Kohlberg notes that if those accounts were accepted his birth would fall in the 40s/660s.⁴¹ The article gives his age as about twenty-three.

His mother. The article gives both accounts, each attributed to the sources that hold it: Ibn Sa'd's account of an umm walad named Ghazala, with Ibn Qutayba's that she came from Sind, and the account, given by al-Dhahabi, Ibn Khallikan and the TDV and described by Kohlberg as the Shi'i tradition, that she was a daughter of Yazdagird III. Ibn Sa'd and Ibn Qutayba add that after al-Husayn's death she married his freedman Zuyayd.⁹¹⁸¹

The elder or the younger son. The article follows Ibn Sa'd and the majority in calling him Ali al-Asghar, the younger. Kohlberg records that al-Qadi al-Nu'man reversed the order, making him the elder and the brother killed at Karbala the younger, and that many Twelver authors call him Ali al-Awsat, "the middle one", keeping the name Ali al-Asghar for an infant brother killed at Karbala.^1[a]

Date of death. The article gives 94/712, the year of al-Waqidi, Ibn Sa'd, al-Bukhari, Yahya ibn Ma'in and a number of others, which al-Dhahabi calls correct. Other years recorded are 92, given by al-Fadl ibn Dukayn, which Ibn Sa'd rejects on the ground that the family and people of Medina knew better; 93, given by Ma'n ibn Isa; 95, given by Yahya ibn Bukayr; and 99 and 100, given by al-Mada'ini. Kohlberg gives 94 or 95.⁵³⁵⁶⁴¹

Cause of death. Shi'i authors hold that he was poisoned; the early biographical sources used here give no cause of death.¹⁶

Al-Farazdaq's ode. The story is told above as a report, with the doubts of Kohlberg and of the modern editors of al-Dhahabi and al-Mizzi about its authenticity and attribution, and the TDV's contrary estimate.

His children. The article follows Ibn Sa'd's list of seventeen. The TDV records counts of nineteen, seventeen, nine and eight, and Kohlberg says that he had between eight and fifteen children, four of them sons by Umm Abd Allah.⁹⁶¹

See also

• Husayn ibn Ali — his father, killed at Karbala in 61/680
• Battle of Karbala — the battle he survived
• Zaynab bint Ali — his aunt, who interceded for him before Ibn Ziyad
• Ja'far al-Sadiq — his grandson, the sixth Imam of the Twelver Shi'a
• Ashura — the tenth of Muharram, the day of Karbala
• The Umayyad Caliphate — the dynasty under which he lived after 61/680
• Sunni and Shia: Historical Origins — the early divisions of the community

Notes

References

Citations

Footnotes

1. E. Kohlberg, 'Zayn al-Abidin', The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, vol. 11 — the dedicated entry. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵ ↩²⁶ ↩²⁷ ↩²⁸ ↩²⁹ ↩³⁰ ↩³¹ ↩³² ↩³³ ↩³⁴ ↩³⁵ ↩³⁶

2. L. Veccia Vaglieri, '(al-)Husayn b. Ali b. Abi Talib', The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, vol. 3 — the address on the eve of the battle, Ali al-Akbar, the sick boy in the tent, and the journey to Kufa, Damascus and Medina. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

3. Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala', iv, 390 — al-Asma'i and Ibn al-Barqi on the descendants of al-Husayn; https://shamela.ws/book/10906/3543, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩²

4. Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, v, 221–222 — his last instructions, his death and burial, the year of the jurists, al-Waqidi on his age, the funeral, the hundred households, and Ibn Sa'd's verdict; https://shamela.ws/book/9351/2107, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

5. Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-tahdhib (Hyderabad), vii, 304–305 — his teachers and students, his narration in the six collections, and the verdicts on him; https://shamela.ws/book/3310/3074, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

6. Ahmet Saim Kılavuz, 'Zeynelâbidîn', TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 44 (Istanbul, 2013), pp. 365–366 — https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/zeynelabidin, register entry 2, islamansiklopedisi.org.tr. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²²

7. Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, v, 213 — Ibn Abbas's greeting, al-Mukhtar's gift and his repudiation of al-Mukhtar, and prayer behind the Umayyads; https://shamela.ws/book/9351/2099, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

8. W. Madelung, 'Shi'a', The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, vol. 9 — the generation after Karbala. ↩ ↩²

9. Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-kubra (Beirut: Dar Sadir), v, 211 — his mother, the names al-Asghar and al-Akbar, and his children; https://shamela.ws/book/9351/2097, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

10. Al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, vol. 19, trans. I. K. A. Howard (1990), the translator's foreword — Abu Mikhnaf as al-Tabari's principal source for Karbala; https://archive.org/details/the-history-of-al-tabari-vol.-19-the-caliphate-of-yazid-b.-muawiyah-a.-d.-680-683-a.-h.-60-64, register entry 12, archive.org. ↩

11. Al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, vol. 19, the events of the year 61 — the evening before the battle, in the reports of Ali ibn al-Husayn; register entry 12, archive.org. ↩ ↩²

12. Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala', iv, 391–393 — his worship, the reports of his pilgrimage with al-Dhahabi's grading, Malik on the name Zayn al-Abidin, and Tawus; https://shamela.ws/book/10906/3544, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

13. Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, v, 212 — Karbala, the man who hid him, Ibn Ziyad and Zaynab, Yazid's court, and the kunya; https://shamela.ws/book/9351/2098, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

14. Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala' (Beirut: Mu'assasat al-Risala), iv, 386–387 — names, kunyas, mother, birth, Karbala, teachers and students; https://shamela.ws/book/10906/3539, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

15. Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-a'yan, ed. Ihsan Abbas, iii, 266–267 — the name Ali al-Asghar and his place among the Successors; https://shamela.ws/book/1000/1277, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³

16. Al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, vol. 19, the events of the year 63 — Yazid's instruction to Muslim ibn Uqba, Marwan's household, the property outside Medina, and Muslim's reception of Ali ibn al-Husayn; register entry 12, archive.org. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

17. Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-tahdhib, vii, 306–307 — his pilgrimage, Malik on his name, the night charity, Abu Bakr and Umar, and the man who insulted him; https://shamela.ws/book/3310/3076, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

18. Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-a'yan, iii, 269 — Ibn Qutayba on his mother, Abd al-Malik's reproach, his birth and his grave; https://shamela.ws/book/1000/1280, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

19. Al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-kamal, ed. Bashshar Awwad Ma'ruf, xx, 383–384 — his mother; https://shamela.ws/book/3722/10514, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩

20. Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-a'yan, iii, 267–268 — the account of his mother's descent, al-Zamakhshari's story, the title ibn al-khiyaratayn, and the sons of slave-mothers; https://shamela.ws/book/1000/1278, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³

21. Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala', iv, 387–391 — the verdicts of Ibn Sa'd, al-Zuhri, Malik, al-Ijli, Abu Dawud and Ibn Abi Shayba, and "love us with the love of Islam"; https://shamela.ws/book/10906/3540, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

22. E. Kohlberg, 'Muhammad b. Ali Zayn al-Abidin, al-Bakir', The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, vol. 7 — al-Baqir's birth, mother and succession. ↩ ↩²

23. Al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, vol. 19, the account of al-Husayn's journey from Mecca to Karbala (the events of the years 60 and 61) — the reports of Ali ibn al-Husayn on the departure, and Uqba ibn Sim'an's report of the exchange at Qasr Bani Muqatil; register entry 12, archive.org. ↩ ↩²

24. Al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, vol. 19, the events of the year 61 — the death of Ali al-Akbar and of the infant Abd Allah, and Humayd ibn Muslim's account of Shamir and Umar ibn Sa'd; register entry 12, archive.org. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

25. Al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, vol. 19, the events of the year 61 — the captives taken to Kufa, and Ali ibn al-Husayn before Ibn Ziyad in the reports of al-Mujalid ibn Sa'id and Humayd ibn Muslim; register entry 12, archive.org. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

26. Al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, vol. 19, the events of the year 61 — the journey to Damascus, Yazid's court and the return to Medina; register entry 12, archive.org. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

27. 'Al-Harra', The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, vol. 3 — the revolt of Medina, the date of the battle, the oath exacted after it, and the treatment of Ali ibn al-Husayn. ↩ ↩² ↩³

28. Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, v, 215–216 — al-Zuhri on his standing with Marwan and Abd al-Malik, the Harra in al-Baqir's account, and Ubayd Allah ibn Abd Allah; https://shamela.ws/book/9351/2101, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

29. 'Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya', The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, vol. 7 — that he was not, like al-Hasan and al-Husayn, of the Prophet's blood. ↩

30. Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, v, 213–214 — commanding the right, "love us with the love of Islam", the refusal of praise, his counsel to al-Zuhri, and Abd al-Malik's reproach; https://shamela.ws/book/9351/2100, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

31. Abu Nu'aym, Hilyat al-awliya', iii, 137 — the Iraqis and Qur'an 59:8–10, "do not raise us above our due", and the kissing of alms; https://shamela.ws/book/10495/905, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩²

32. Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala', iv, 394–396 — Abu Bakr and Umar, al-Siddiq, and the question of Ali's return; https://shamela.ws/book/10906/3547, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³

33. Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, v, 216 — charity handed over himself, Sa'id ibn Jubayr, Uthman, his trembling at prayer, the people of Khurasan, his camel, and Aslam; https://shamela.ws/book/9351/2102, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

34. Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, v, 220–221 — Hisham ibn Isma'il; https://shamela.ws/book/9351/2106, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³

35. Abu Nu'aym, Hilyat al-awliya', iii, 138 — Zayd ibn Aslam, his weeping, and the death in his house; https://shamela.ws/book/10495/906, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³

36. Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala', iv, 388–389 — Zayd ibn Aslam, Nafi' ibn Jubayr and Sa'id ibn Jubayr; https://shamela.ws/book/10906/3541, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩²

37. Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, v, 217–218 — Sulayman ibn Yasar, and his dress; https://shamela.ws/book/9351/2103, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩²

38. Abu Nu'aym, Hilyat al-awliya', iii, 141–142 — Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab's verdict, the debt of Muhammad ibn Usama, and "he transmitted much"; https://shamela.ws/book/10495/909, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³

39. Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala', iv, 400–401 — the chain of the inheritance hadith; https://shamela.ws/book/10906/3553, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩

40. Ibn Kathir, Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Abridged), on Qur'an 33:49. ↩

41. Mufti Muhammad Shafi', Maariful Quran, vol. 7, on Qur'an 33:37 — his explanation of the verse. ↩

42. Abu Nu'aym, Hilyat al-awliya' (Cairo: al-Sa'ada), iii, 133–135 — his place among the devout Successors of Medina, and his sayings and prayers; https://shamela.ws/book/10495/901, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

43. Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala', iv, 396–398 — his prayers, Hasan ibn Hasan, and the road through Medina; https://shamela.ws/book/10906/3549, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

44. Abu Nu'aym, Hilyat al-awliya', iii, 140 — the inscription on his seal; https://shamela.ws/book/10495/908, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩

45. Abu Nu'aym, Hilyat al-awliya', iii, 135–136 — the night charity, the marks on his back and the hundred households; https://shamela.ws/book/10495/904, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³

46. Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala', iv, 393–394 — the night charity and al-Dhahabi's remark on the charge of miserliness; https://shamela.ws/book/10906/3546, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩²

47. Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, v, 219 — the division of his property, the pace from Arafat, and the boy Ja'far; https://shamela.ws/book/9351/2105, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩²

48. Ibn Kathir, Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Abridged), on Qur'an 90:13 — the report of Sa'id ibn Marjana. ↩

49. Mufti Muhammad Shafi', Maariful Quran, vol. 2, on Qur'an 3:134 — the report of the maid, given from Ruh al-Ma'ani on the authority of al-Bayhaqi. ↩

50. Abu Nu'aym, Hilyat al-awliya', iii, 139 — the story of al-Farazdaq; https://shamela.ws/book/10495/907, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩

51. Al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-kamal, xx, 400–402, with the editor's note — the story of al-Farazdaq and the judgement of its chain and language; https://shamela.ws/book/3722/10531, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³

52. Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala', iv, 398–399, with the editors' note on the attribution of the verses — the story of al-Farazdaq; https://shamela.ws/book/10906/3551, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

53. Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala', iv, 399–400 — the dates of his death, al-Baqir on his age, and his grave; https://shamela.ws/book/10906/3552, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

54. 'Zayd b. Ali b. al-Husayn', The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, vol. 11 — his birth and the Zaydiyya. ↩

55. Al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, vol. 19, the translator's note on Zayd ibn Ali — his revolt and death in 122 (740); register entry 12, archive.org. ↩

56. Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib al-tahdhib, vii, 307 — his dates of birth and death and his age at Karbala; https://shamela.ws/book/3310/3077, register entry 4, shamela.ws. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

57. Al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, vol. 19, the events of the year 61 — the list of those killed with al-Husayn; register entry 12, archive.org. ↩

58. Akbar Shah Najeebabadi, The History of Islam, vol. 2 — the account of Karbala. ↩

Sources

Works in the approved library. Cited by title and author, and by the entry used.

• Bearman, P. J., et al., eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new (second) edition — E. Kohlberg, 'Zayn al-Abidin' (vol. 11); L. Veccia Vaglieri, '(al-)Husayn b. Ali b. Abi Talib' (vol. 3); 'al-Harra' (vol. 3); W. Madelung, 'Shi'a' (vol. 9); E. Kohlberg, 'Muhammad b. Ali Zayn al-Abidin, al-Bakir' (vol. 7); 'Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya' (vol. 7); 'Zayd b. Ali b. al-Husayn' (vol. 11); 'Umm al-walad' (vol. 10); 'Mursal' (vol. 7).
• Al-Bukhari. Sahih al-Bukhari, translated by Muhammad Muhsin Khan. Riyadh: Darussalam.
• Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj. Sahih Muslim, Darussalam English edition.
• Al-Tirmidhi. Jami' al-Tirmidhi. Riyadh: Darussalam.
• Ibn Kathir. Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Abridged). Riyadh: Darussalam.
• Shafi', Mufti Muhammad. Maariful Quran, vols. 2 and 7.
• Najeebabadi, Akbar Shah. The History of Islam, vol. 2. Riyadh: Darussalam.

Classical works read at Shamela (register entry 4, shamela.ws).

• Ibn Sa'd. Al-Tabaqat al-kubra, vol. 5. Beirut: Dar Sadir.
• Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani. Hilyat al-awliya' wa-tabaqat al-asfiya', vol. 3. Cairo: al-Sa'ada.
• Ibn Khallikan. Wafayat al-a'yan, edited by Ihsan Abbas, vol. 3.
• Al-Mizzi. Tahdhib al-kamal fi asma' al-rijal, edited by Bashshar Awwad Ma'ruf, vol. 20. Beirut: Mu'assasat al-Risala.
• Al-Dhahabi. Siyar a'lam al-nubala', edited by Shu'ayb al-Arna'ut et al., vol. 4. Beirut: Mu'assasat al-Risala.
• Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani. Tahdhib al-tahdhib, vol. 7. Hyderabad.

Read at archive.org (register entry 12, archive.org).

• Al-Tabari. The History of al-Tabari, vol. 19: The Caliphate of Yazid b. Mu'awiyah, translated by I. K. A. Howard. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.

Encyclopaedia entry read at the TDV (register entry 2, islamansiklopedisi.org.tr).

• Kılavuz, Ahmet Saim. 'Zeynelâbidîn'. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 44. Istanbul, 2013.

The Qur'an (register entry 8, quran.com) — the English renderings of the verses quoted are those of Sahih International as given at quran.com.

Further reading

Offered to the reader for further study. Nothing in this article rests on the works below beyond what the sources above record of them.

• Imam Zayn al-Abidin Ali ibn al-Husayn. The Psalms of Islam: al-Sahifat al-kamilat al-sajjadiyya, translated with an introduction and annotation by William C. Chittick. London, 1988 — the English translation of the Sahifa and of Risalat al-Huquq recorded by the Encyclopaedia of Islam and the TDV.
• Ibn Asakir. Tarikh madinat Dimashq — the entry on Ali ibn al-Husayn, which the editors of al-Dhahabi's Siyar cite as the source of most of the reports collected there.
• Al-Mufid. Kitab al-Irshad, translated by I. K. A. Howard. London, 1981 — the Twelver Shi'i account of the Imams, cited by the translator of al-Tabari for Ali ibn al-Husayn.
• Jafri, S. H. M. The Origins and Early Development of Shi'a Islam. London, 1979.

External links

Approved sources only, each with its number on the Register of Approved External Web Sources.

• Zeynelâbidîn — the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, register entry 2, islamansiklopedisi.org.tr: the dedicated entry, in Turkish
• Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat al-kubra, the entry on Ali ibn al-Husayn — register entry 4, shamela.ws: in Arabic
• Al-Dhahabi, Siyar a'lam al-nubala', the entry on Ali ibn al-Husayn — register entry 4, shamela.ws: in Arabic