Ali ibn Abi Talib

Ali ibn Abi Talib, a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad who married the Prophet's daughter Fatima, led the Muslim community as caliph from 656 until he was assassinated in 661. Sunni Muslims honour him as the fourth and last of the "rightly guided" caliphs of the Rashidun Caliphate; Shia Muslims revere him as their first Imam and as Muhammad's rightful successor. The dispute over his claim to leadership lies at the root of the division between the two traditions.

According to the traditional accounts, Ali was born in Mecca around 600 to Abu Talib, a leading figure of the Banu Hashim clan, and Fatima bint Asad; Shia tradition holds that he was born inside the Kaaba. When Abu Talib fell on hard times, the boy grew up in the home of Muhammad and his wife Khadija. He was among the very first to accept Islam, while still a boy; Sunni and Shia scholars differ on whether he or Abu Bakr came first after Khadija. The early historian al-Tabari records that when Muhammad called his kinsmen to Islam, Ali alone offered support and was named his brother and successor, a report Shia Muslims read as an early designation.

In 622, when Muhammad left Mecca for Medina, tradition says Ali stayed behind in his bed as a decoy. In Medina his marriage to Fatima produced the sons Hasan and Husayn. He served as a secretary and scribe, wrote down the Treaty of Hudaybiyya in 628, and fought in nearly every campaign, carrying the standard at Badr and Khaybar. The early sources celebrate his courage in battle and his mercy towards the defeated.

Returning from pilgrimage in 632, Muhammad stopped at a place called Ghadir Khumm and, by widely accepted accounts, declared that Ali was the mawla of all those whose mawla he himself was. Shia Muslims understand the word as "master" or "leader" and see the event as Ali's appointment as successor; Sunni Muslims understand it as an expression of love and support. When Muhammad died later that year, a gathering in Medina chose Abu Bakr while Ali was preparing the burial. Ali delayed his pledge of allegiance, probably until Fatima's death some months later. Shia sources describe a violent confrontation at Fatima's house; Sunni scholars reject those reports. Under Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman, Ali largely stayed out of public life, though he advised the first two caliphs on religious and legal matters. He criticised Uthman's favouritism towards his relatives but also tried to mediate between the caliph and rebels.

After Uthman's murder in 656, people in Medina urged Ali to take power and, after some hesitation, he accepted. He replaced provincial governors and divided state revenues equally among Muslims. Opponents accused him of failing to punish Uthman's killers. Aisha, Talha and Zubayr rebelled and were defeated near Basra in December 656, in the clash remembered as the Battle of the Camel, after which Ali made Kufa his base. The governor of Syria, Mu'awiya, refused to step down. Their armies met at Siffin in July 657; when Syrian soldiers raised copies of the Quran on their spears, Ali's troops pressed him to accept arbitration. The arbitration weakened him, and a group of his former supporters, the Kharijites, broke away. Ali defeated them at Nahrawan, probably in 658, but lost control of Egypt.

In January 661 a Kharijite named Ibn Muljam struck Ali with a poisoned sword during the dawn prayer in the mosque of Kufa, and he died about two days later. His son Hasan was recognised as caliph in Kufa but abdicated to Mu'awiya later that year, opening the way for the Umayyad Caliphate. The shrine at Najaf, widely held to be his tomb, is a major place of Shia pilgrimage. Sermons and letters attributed to him were gathered in the eleventh century as the Nahj al-Balagha; recent research attributes much of it to him, and it is prized as a model of Arabic eloquence. His son Husayn's death at the Battle of Karbala in 680 further shaped Shia identity.

Our 600 map shows Arabia shortly before the rise of Islam, and our 700 map shows the Umayyad Caliphate that emerged from the civil wars of his reign.