Imam Zainul Abideen (AS): The Survivor Who Kept the Message

Quick Answer

• Who: Ali ibn al-Husayn (AS), known as Zainul Abideen and al-Sajjad, the fourth Imam of the Shia
• Born: in Medina, 38 AH, so he was about twenty-two at Karbala
• At Karbala: present and too ill to fight, which is why he survived and why the line continued
• After: taken captive to Kufa and Damascus, then returned to Medina and lived quietly for about thirty years
• Known for: worship and learning rather than politics, and for two books, the Psalms of Islam and a treatise on rights
• Died: in Medina around 94 or 95 AH, and is buried in Baqi al-Gharqad

Every story of Karbala ends with a survivor, and the survivor had almost nothing left to work with: no army, no authority, no city, and a governor who had already tried to kill him once.

What Ali ibn al-Husayn (AS) did with that situation is the least dramatic and most consequential career in the whole family. He did not fight, and he did not disappear. He taught, prayed, bought and freed people, and quietly created the network and the texts that the next generation used.

Who Was Imam Zainul Abideen (AS)?

Ali ibn al-Husayn (AS) was the son of Imam Hussain (AS) and the great-grandson of the Prophet (PBUH) through Ali (AS) and Fatima (SA). He is the fourth Imam of the Shia, and the only surviving son of Hussain (AS) to reach adulthood.

He was born in 38 AH, in Medina or possibly Kufa, and his birthday is marked by Shia Muslims on 5 Sha'ban. His mother is named differently across the sources, and the disagreement is worth stating rather than smoothing over. Sunni biographers like Ibn Sa'd describe her as a freed slave woman from Sindh. Shia sources, including al-Kafi, describe her as a daughter of the last Sasanian emperor Yazdegerd III, brought to Medina as a captive and given her choice of husband. The second account is where his title Ibn al-Khiyaratayn, son of the two best, comes from, and it is a Shia claim rather than a shared one.

His titles are less contested and are the best description of him. Zainul Abideen means the ornament of the worshippers, and he was known by it in his own lifetime. Al-Sajjad means the one who is constantly prostrating, and another name, Dhu al-Thafenat, refers to the calluses on his forehead from it.

What Happened to Him at Karbala?

He was there, he was ill, and that is the whole reason the family has a fourth Imam.

The sources say plainly that he was too sick to fight on 10 Muharram. When the fighting ended and the camp was looted, some of the soldiers wanted to kill him as well, and his life was spared. The account of how is in the story of Bibi Zaynab (SA): when the governor in Kufa ordered his execution after a sharp exchange, his aunt intervened and asked to be killed first, and the order was not carried out.

He then became a prisoner, which is a role he held for months. The captives were marched to Kufa, paraded through it in shackles with the heads of the dead carried ahead of them, and kept for a time before being sent to Damascus. A part of the mosque in Damascus still marks where they were held.

Why Was He Taken to Damascus?

Because the new caliph wanted the survivors displayed, and because a prisoner is easier to control in the capital than in his own city.

The journey is described in the sources as a progress through the villages, with the captives shown at each stop. In Damascus they were paraded and imprisoned before being brought to Yazid.

What happened in that meeting is one of the genuinely disputed points of the story, and the sources split along lines that are still visible today. One account, followed by historians including Laura Veccia Vaglieri, Wilferd Madelung and Heinz Halm, has Yazid behaving decently after a harsh first interrogation, saying he regretted his governor's conduct and would have pardoned Hussain (AS) had he lived. Another account has him gloating over the deaths as revenge for his own relatives killed at Badr, and dishonouring the severed head. Some historians, among them Moojan Momen and Husain Mohammad Jafri, read the release of the captives as a response to public opinion rather than remorse; Jafri notes that Yazid is not known to have reprimanded the governor at all.

The honest position, which this article takes, is that the sources disagree, and that the disagreement tends to follow the politics of the writer. What is not disputed is that the captives were eventually freed and sent back to Medina.

They may have passed through Karbala on the way home and stopped there to mourn. That detail matters more than it looks, because if it happened it is the first recorded visit to the grave.

What Did He Do for the Next Thirty Years?

Almost nothing that a chronicle would notice, and a great deal that outlasted the chronicles.

He went home and stayed out of politics. During the years when the Muslim world was splitting into rival caliphates, he refused to pledge to Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, left Medina when the city was in unrest, and was not touched when the Umayyads sacked it after the battle of al-Harra in 683. He is reported to have sheltered Marwan ibn al-Hakam's family during the revolt, which may be why he alone was exempted from a renewed oath to Yazid.

He also declined to support the two big revenge movements of his lifetime. The Tawwabin, the penitents of Kufa who rose to atone for deserting Hussain (AS), were crushed in 684 with no evidence that he was involved. Mukhtar al-Thaqafi asked for his backing and was refused; when Mukhtar took Kufa in 686 and killed several of the men responsible for Karbala, the Imam (AS) kept his distance.

That refusal is easy to read as passivity, and the sources do not let it be read that way. For many years he commemorated Karbala in private gatherings, out of reach of the authorities, and those gatherings are usually identified as the beginning of what became the Muharram ritual. He wept for his father for decades, and when people questioned the length of his grief he answered with a Quranic verse: he complained of his anguish and sorrow only to Allah, as Jacob had (12:86).

He also spent money in a way that later writers noticed more than his politics. He bought and freed dozens of slaves during his life, and he is described carrying food at night to destitute families in Medina with his face covered so that nobody knew who the giver was; after his death they found out. The Quran's description of the household that feeds the poor, the orphan and the captive without wanting thanks fits the reputation exactly: they give food, despite their own desire for it, to the poor, the orphan and the captive (76:8).

What he built instead of a movement was a school. He was a leading authority on hadith and law, respected far outside Shia circles, and among the scholars who transmitted from him were men like Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri and Said ibn al-Musayyib, standard Sunni authorities of the next generation.

What Did He Leave Behind?

Two books, and one of them is the reason his name is known beyond the mourning calendar.

Al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya, often called the Psalms of Islam, is the oldest collection of Islamic prayers, and it ranks in Shia tradition behind only the Quran and Nahj al-Balagha. Its core is fifty-four supplications, with an addenda and a set of whispered prayers. The book is a spiritual text rather than a political one, which is exactly what its author's situation produced. Its most famous single piece, the supplication of Abu Hamza al-Thumali, is still recited in the month of Ramadan.

Risalat al-Huquq, the treatise on rights, is the other side of the same mind. It sets out obligations in order, beginning with the rights of God, then of oneself, then of the people around a person: parents, children, relatives, teachers, neighbours, even the people one has wronged. It exists in two recensions and was written at the request of a follower. Modern readers tend to find it more useful than any of the political material from the same century.

The Quranic frame he is usually placed in is the verse of purification, which names the household of the Prophet (PBUH) (33:33). His father's stand is set out in the life of Imam Hussain (AS), and the way the mourning he began is observed today in what a majlis is.

How Did He Die?

In Medina, in his mid-fifties, and the cause is not settled.

Most sources place his death in 94 or 95 AH, and one line of report says natural causes. Shia authorities say he was poisoned at the order of the reigning Umayyad caliph, al-Walid, or perhaps his brother Hisham. This article does not choose between them, because the sources do not.

He was buried in Baqi al-Gharqad, next to his uncle Hasan (AS). A shrine stood over the grave until it was demolished in 1806, rebuilt, and demolished again in 1925 or 1926. Shia Muslims commemorate his death on 11 Safar.

The day he survived is the one the whole calendar turns on, and it is set out in what Ashura means. His eldest son, Muhammad al-Baqir, succeeded him, and a younger half-brother, Zayd, led the revolt of 740 that began the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam, which does not count his father among its Imams precisely because of his political quietism. Even his family's disagreements about him were inherited.

What Can a Reader Take From His Life?

Four things, and none of them requires agreeing with anyone's theology.

• Survival can be a decision, not an accident. He was the last adult male of his line and he acted like someone who knew it, for thirty years.
• Institutions outlast movements. The uprisings of his lifetime are history; the prayer book and the treatise on rights are still in use.
• Grief can be disciplined without being hidden. He wept for decades and still taught, prayed and administered a household. The two were not in conflict.
• What you refuse to join says as much as what you join. He refused three separate armed causes, each of which looked justified at the time, and outlived all three.

That is the least cinematic lesson in the Karbala story, and the one most people can actually use on a normal Tuesday.

Key Takeaways

• Ali ibn al-Husayn (AS), the fourth Imam, was born in 38 AH and survived Karbala because illness kept him out of the fighting.
• He was taken captive to Kufa and Damascus, and his life was saved in Kufa by his aunt Zaynab (SA).
• After returning to Medina he stayed out of every uprising of his lifetime and spent thirty years teaching and in worship.
• He is credited with founding the private commemoration of Karbala and with two books, al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya and Risalat al-Huquq.
• He died around 94 or 95 AH in Medina and is buried in Baqi al-Gharqad; the cause of his death is disputed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Imam Zainul Abideen (AS)?

Ali ibn al-Husayn (AS), the fourth Imam of the Shia, son of Imam Hussain (AS) and great-grandson of the Prophet (PBUH). He survived Karbala as a sick young man and lived about thirty years afterwards in Medina.

Why did he survive Karbala?

He was present but too ill to fight, and when soldiers wanted to kill him as well his life was spared. In Kufa the governor ordered his execution, and his aunt Zaynab (SA) intervened, asking to be killed first.

Was he at Karbala as a child?

No. He was born in 38 AH, which made him about twenty-two in 61 AH. The very young child of the household at Karbala is a different figure, and the sick young survivor in the accounts is him.

Why did he not fight the Umayyads?

He chose not to. He refused to back Ibn al-Zubayr, the Tawwabin and Mukhtar, and kept to worship and teaching. Shia tradition reads this as patience and as the preservation of a community that could not have survived another defeat.

What is al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya?

The oldest collection of Islamic prayers, attributed to him and called the Psalms of Islam. It contains fifty-four supplications plus addenda, and ranks in Shia tradition behind only the Quran and Nahj al-Balagha.

When did he die and where is he buried?

Around 94 or 95 AH in Medina. The cause is disputed: natural causes in some reports, poison at Umayyad instigation in Shia ones. He is buried in Baqi al-Gharqad next to his uncle Hasan (AS).

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Ali al-Sajjad", for his birth in 38 AH, the dispute over his mother, his illness at Karbala, the captivity in Kufa and Damascus, the conflicting accounts of Yazid's conduct, his later neutrality, al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya, Risalat al-Huquq, and his death and burial, at Wikipedia.org.
• Encyclopaedia Iranica, entry by Wilferd Madelung on Ali b. Hosayn b. Ali, for the life of the fourth Imam, the survival at Karbala and the captivity, at IranicaOnline.org.
• The Quran, Surah Yusuf, verse 86, on complaining of anguish and sorrow only to Allah, the verse the Imam (AS) cited for his long grief, at Quran.com.
• The Quran, Surah Al-Ahzab, verse 33, the verse of purification naming the household of the Prophet (PBUH), at Quran.com.
• The Quran, Surah Al-Insan, verse 8, on feeding the poor, the orphan and the captive, at Quran.com.

Disclaimer: This article separates what the early sources record from what later tradition added, and it names both sides where accounts of the Damascus captivity conflict. Where the cause of his death is disputed, the disagreement is reported rather than resolved. If you find an error, write to us through the contact page and we will correct it.