SMHMShaheed Mudassir Hussain Mehdi
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علي بن الحسين

Imam Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-Abidin

peace be upon him

زين العابدينZayn al-Abidinthe adornment of the worshippers
السجّادal-Sajjadthe one who prostrates constantly
سيد الساجدينSayyid al-Sajidinthe master of those who prostrate
سيد العابدينSayyid al-Abidinthe master of the worshippers
ذو الثفناتDhu l-Thafanatthe one with the calluses of prostration
أبو الحسنAbu l-Hasanhis best-known kunya
أبو محمدAbu Muhammada kunya: father of Muhammad
علي الخيرAli al-KhayrAli the good, as he was known in his time

His life

  1. The fourth Imam of the Shia; the son of Imam al-Husayn, and the father of Imam al-Baqir. His imamate lasted thirty-four years, from Ashura 61 AH (al-Irshad of al-Shaykh al-Mufid; al-Kafi).
  2. The name of his mother is disputed. Shahrbanu is the best known, said to be the daughter of Yazdgerd, the last Sasanian king, who died giving birth to him (al-Irshad; 'Uyun Akhbar al-Rida of al-Shaykh al-Saduq); other names are also given, and some contemporary historians, such as Sayyid Ja'far Shahidi, doubt the Persian royal lineage.
  3. Born in Medina in 38 AH (659 CE) by the well-known view, so he saw part of the life of Imam Ali and was about twenty-three at Karbala; Imam al-Sadiq said he passed away aged fifty-eight (al-Tabaqat al-Kubra of Ibn Sa'd; Kashf al-Ghumma). Some reports put his birth near 48 AH (Sharh al-Akhbar of al-Qadi al-Nu'man).
  4. He was called Zayn al-Abidin for his worship: Malik ibn Anas reports that he prayed a thousand rak'as a day (al-'Ibar of al-Dhahabi), and al-Zuhri narrated that the Prophet said a caller on the Day of Resurrection will ask, 'Where is Zayn al-Abidin?', and it is as if I see my son Ali ibn al-Husayn ('Ilal al-Shara'i' of al-Saduq). He was called Dhu l-Thafanat for the calluses that prostration left on his forehead, palms and knees (Wafayat al-A'yan; Muruj al-Dhahab).
  5. When he rose to pray he trembled; asked why, he said: Do you know before whom I am going to stand? (Siyar A'lam al-Nubala of al-Dhahabi; al-'Iqd al-Farid). Malik ibn Anas reports that when he put on ihram and said the talbiya he fainted and fell from his mount (Siyar A'lam al-Nubala).
  6. Clear hadiths in the Shia sources name him his father's successor (al-Kafi), and the hadiths of the Prophet naming the Imams include his name (al-Ikhtisas; I'lam al-Wara). Al-Shaykh al-Mufid gives his superiority in knowledge and practice as proof (al-Irshad). The Prophet's sword and armour, kept by the rightful Imam, were with him, as even Ibn Sa'd records (al-Irshad; al-Tabaqat al-Kubra).
  7. At Karbala he was gravely ill and did not fight. When men came to kill him, some said: this sickness is enough for him (al-Irshad; I'lam al-Wara). In Ibn Ziyad's palace in Kufa he was again ordered killed; the intercession of Sayyida Zaynab and his own firm words saved him (al-Futuh of Ibn A'tham; Maqtal al-Husayn of al-Khwarazmi).
  8. He was carried into captivity in a jami'a, a chain joining the hands to the neck, and because he was too ill to sit the camel his feet were tied beneath its belly (al-Amali of al-Tusi; Maqtal al-Husayn of al-Khwarazmi). He is quoted: they mounted me on a lame, lean camel, while the head of al-Husayn was on a spear, the women behind me and the spears around us (Iqbal al-A'mal of Ibn Tawus).
  9. In the mosque of Damascus he gave a sermon in which he made himself, his father and his grandfather known to the people, and told them that what Yazid and his agents spread was false: his father was no rebel, but rose for the truth (Muthir al-Ahzan of Ibn Nama; al-Malhuf of Ibn Tawus; Zindigani-yi Ali ibn al-Husayn of Sayyid Ja'far Shahidi). After his sermon and Sayyida Zaynab's, opinion in Damascus turned and Yazid moved the household from a roofless ruin to a house near his palace (al-Irshad).
  10. A speech in Kufa is also attributed to him, but historians doubt it: its sentences resemble the Damascus sermon, and narrators may have mixed the two (Zindigani-yi Ali ibn al-Husayn of Shahidi).
  11. Imam al-Sadiq narrated that he wept for his father for forty years, fasting by day and praying by night; when food and water were brought to break his fast he would say: the son of the Messenger of God was killed hungry, the son of the Messenger of God was killed thirsty, and weep until his tears mixed with his food and drink (Bihar al-Anwar; al-Luhuf; Nafas al-Mahmum).
  12. In the uprising of Harra in Medina (63 AH) he kept apart from the revolt. When Marwan ibn al-Hakam, an enemy of the Ahl al-Bayt, could find no one to shelter his family, the Imam sent them with his own to Yanbu' (Zindigani-yi Ali ibn al-Husayn of Shahidi), and while Yazid's army held Medina he took responsibility for four hundred families and met their expenses (Kashf al-Ghumma).
  13. At night he carried bread on his back to the houses of the poor, saying that charity given in secret quenches the anger of the Lord; the sacks left marks on his shoulders, seen when his body was washed (Hilyat al-Awliya of Abu Nu'aym; Kashf al-Ghumma; Manaqib Ibn Shahrashub; al-Khisal). Only after his death did about a hundred families in Medina learn who had been feeding them (Sifat al-Safwa; al-Tabaqat al-Kubra).
  14. He bought slaves he did not need in order to free them, until Medina was said to hold a whole company of men and women he had freed (Zayn al-Abidin of Abd al-Aziz Sayyid al-Ahl).
  15. Al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya collects fifty-four of his supplications; after the Qur'an and Nahj al-Balagha it holds a high place among the Shia, who call it the Psalms of the Family of Muhammad, the Gospel of the Ahl al-Bayt and the Sister of the Qur'an (al-Dhari'a of Agha Buzurg Tihrani). Its transmission is close to mutawatir; al-Mufid narrates it in al-Irshad, and among Sunnis Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (Tadhkirat al-Khawass) and al-Qunduzi (Yanabi' al-Mawadda) quote from it.
  16. Risalat al-Huquq, the Treatise on Rights, sets out some fifty duties a person owes: to God, to his own self and limbs, in prayer, fasting and charity, to the ruler and the ruled, the teacher and the student, to parents, spouse, children, neighbours and others. Its oldest full texts are in Tuhaf al-'Uqul of Ibn Shu'ba (fifty rights, without a chain) and in al-Khisal and Man la Yahduruh al-Faqih of al-Saduq (fifty-one, adding the right of the Hajj).
  17. Abu Hamza al-Thumali narrated that in Ramadan he spent most of each night in prayer and recited at dawn the supplication now known by Abu Hamza's name (Iqbal al-A'mal of Ibn Tawus; Misbah al-Mutahajjid of al-Tusi). Ziyarat Amin Allah is the greeting he recited at the grave of Imam Ali (Kamil al-Ziyarat; Misbah al-Mutahajjid). Al-Mufid writes that Sunni scholars too narrated much knowledge from him: supplications, counsel, the merits of the Qur'an, the lawful and the unlawful (al-Irshad).
  18. Al-Shaykh al-Tusi counts 170 of his companions, among them Abu Hamza al-Thumali, Abu Khalid al-Kabuli and Jabir ibn Abd Allah al-Ansari (Rijal al-Tusi).
  19. Asked by a man from Syria about the Verse of Purification (33:33), he said: we are meant by the Ahl al-Bayt (Tafsir Ibn Kathir); asked about the Verse of Affection (42:23), he said it means love for us, the Ahl al-Bayt (Tafsir Furat al-Kufi). In the Hadith of Jabir on the verse of those vested with authority (4:59), the Prophet names him after al-Husayn (Yanabi' al-Mawadda of al-Qunduzi).
  20. Sunni scholars praised him: al-Zuhri said, I found no Hashimite better or more learned in jurisprudence than him (Tadhkirat al-Huffaz of al-Dhahabi; al-Bidaya wa l-Nihaya); al-Shafi'i called him the most learned in jurisprudence in Medina (Sharh Nahj al-Balagha of Ibn Abi l-Hadid).
  21. He was martyred in Medina by poison given on the order of the Umayyad caliph al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik (Muruj al-Dhahab of al-Mas'udi; al-Ithaf of al-Shabrawi), in 95 AH; some reports give 94 AH. WikiShia gives 25 Muharram; the day is disputed. He was buried in al-Baqi beside his uncle, Imam al-Hasan (al-Irshad).
  22. He had fifteen children, eleven sons and four daughters, among them Imam Muhammad al-Baqir, whose mother was Umm Abd Allah, the daughter of Imam al-Hasan, and Zayd ibn Ali (al-Irshad; Manaqib Ibn Shahrashub).

Days

  1. 38 AH659 CEBorn in Medina
  2. 61 AH680 CEAt Karbala, ill; his father martyred, his imamate begins
  3. 61 AH680 CETaken captive to Kufa and Damascus; his sermon in the mosque of Damascus
  4. 63 AH683 CEThe uprising of Harra; shelters four hundred families in Medina
  5. 95 AH713 CEMartyred by poison in Medina; buried in al-Baqi

Family

الحسينImam al-Husayn
علي بن الحسينImam Zayn al-Abidin
محمد الباقرImam Muhammad al-Baqir
زيدZayd
عبد اللهAbd Allah
عمرUmar
الحسين الأصغرal-Husayn al-Asghar
فاطمةFatima
خديجةKhadija
أم كلثومUmm Kulthum

In the Qur’an

إِنَّمَا يُرِيدُ ٱللَّهُ لِيُذۡهِبَ عَنكُمُ ٱلرِّجۡسَ أَهۡلَ ٱلۡبَيۡتِ وَيُطَهِّرَكُمۡ تَطۡهِيرٗا ٣٣

Indeed Allah desires to repel all impurity from you, O People of the Household, and purify you with a thorough purification.

The verse of purification · Al-Ahzaab 33:33

ذَٰلِكَ ٱلَّذِي يُبَشِّرُ ٱللَّهُ عِبَادَهُ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ وَعَمِلُواْ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتِۗ قُل لَّآ أَسۡـَٔلُكُمۡ عَلَيۡهِ أَجۡرًا إِلَّا ٱلۡمَوَدَّةَ فِي ٱلۡقُرۡبَىٰۗ وَمَن يَقۡتَرِفۡ حَسَنَةٗ نَّزِدۡ لَهُۥ فِيهَا حُسۡنًاۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ غَفُورٞ شَكُورٌ ٢٣

Such is the good news that Allah gives to His servants who have faith and do righteous deeds! Say, ‘I do not ask you any reward for it except the love of [my] relatives.’ Whoever performs a good deed, We shall enhance its goodness for him. Indeed Allah is all-forgiving, all-appreciative.

The verse of affection · Ash-Shura 42:23

يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓاْ أَطِيعُواْ ٱللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُواْ ٱلرَّسُولَ وَأُوْلِي ٱلۡأَمۡرِ مِنكُمۡۖ فَإِن تَنَٰزَعۡتُمۡ فِي شَيۡءٖ فَرُدُّوهُ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ وَٱلرَّسُولِ إِن كُنتُمۡ تُؤۡمِنُونَ بِٱللَّهِ وَٱلۡيَوۡمِ ٱلۡأٓخِرِۚ ذَٰلِكَ خَيۡرٞ وَأَحۡسَنُ تَأۡوِيلًا ٥٩

O you who have faith! Obey Allah and obey the Apostle and those vested with authority among you. And if you dispute concerning anything, refer it to Allah and the Apostle, if you have faith in Allah and the Last Day. That is better and more favourable in outcome.

The verse of those vested with authority · An-Nisaa 4:59

Peace be upon you, O master of those who prostrate.

Peace be upon you, O adornment of the worshippers.

Peace be upon you, O son of the master of the martyrs.

Peace be upon you, and the mercy of God and His blessings.

Sources