Muhsin ibn Ali
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Al Muhsin or Mohsin, in Shi'a belief, was the unborn child of Fatima Al Zahra, the daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and wife of Ali ibn Abu Talib. Shi'a say that she miscarried after being crushed behind a door by men who had come to threaten her husband. Sunnis disagree and insist upon that Muhsin ibn Ali died in his infancy of natural causes.
Contents |
[edit] The death of Muhammad
Muhammad died in the city of Medina in 632 CE. In the ten years between the Hijra (the flight of the small Muslim community from Mecca to Medina) to the death of Muhammad, Islam had grown by leaps and bounds. It had become the greatest power in the Arabian peninsula.
The question of who was to succeed Muhammad was thus both a religious and a political question. Shi'a Muslims believe that Muhammad had settled the question before his death, by indicating that he wanted Fatima's husband Ali as his successor. The majority Sunni Muslims believe that Muhammad had not made any formal arrangements, leaving it up to the Muslim community to choose their own leader -- as was the usual practice (called shura) in Arabian tribes at that time.
A small, informal gathering of Muslim notables, which Ali did not attend, ended up throwing its support behind Abu Bakr as the new leader. Ali protested this arrangement. He and his supporters refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr. His supporters at that time were known as the Shi'at Ali, the party of Ali.
[edit] Pressure against the Shi'at Ali
It is not clear how many of the early Muslims supported Ali, or how long they held out against pressure from Abu Bakr's supporters. One source, quoted in Madelung (The Succession to Muhammad, p. 43), says that Ali and another prominent Muslim, Al-Zubayr, resisted for six months.
Nor is it clear exactly how the pressure was applied. Sunni versions of the events of this time tend to say that Ali resisted for only a short time, or even deny that he resisted at all, and insist that the only pressure applied was peaceful persuasion. Shi'a sources, on the other hand, depict a lengthy, violent persecution in which roving gangs of armed bullies of Nasibi's threatened Ali supportes with instant death if they did not submit to Abu Bakr.
[edit] The pillaging of Ali's house
Shi'a sources say that two days after Muhammad's death, Umar al-Khattab led a party of armed men to Ali's house. They called for the men of the house to come out and swear allegiance to Abu Bakr, and also threatened to burn the house down. No one came out, so the armed men pushed their way into the house. Fatima, who was pregnant at the time, was standing behind the door. She was crushed when the door was pushed open suddenly. She miscarried of a boy child, who was called Al Muhsin or Mushabbar. Fatima was gravely injured in the attack and died of her injuries some time later. Abu Bakr and Umar thus stand accused of killing both Muhammad's daughter and grandson. Sunnis however believe that this incident never took place.
Some Shi'a say that as Fatima was dying, she asked Ali to bury her in secret; she did not want Abu Bakr and Umar at her funeral. Other Shi'a say that Ali made this decision. In any case, the private burial dramatized the split in the Muslim community.
Sunni sources question this whole narrative, saying that it is a later invention of the Shi'a. The early historian Al-Tabari, a Sunni, records only that Talha and Al-Zubayr were inside Ali's house when Umar came to demand Ali's allegiance. Umar threatened to burn the house; Al-Zubayr came out with his sword drawn, but he stumbled and dropped his sword. He was seized and restrained. There is no mention of Fatima or a miscarriage.
[edit] Who is right?
The whole question of the events surrounding the Succession to Muhammad is an extremely vexing one, discussed at length in the article of that name. When both sides to the argument are marshalling competing oral traditions, or hadith, it comes down to a question of which hadith are more trustworthy. For a longer treatment of the difficulty of evaluating the sources, see Historiography of early Islam.
[edit] Sources
Madelung, Wilferd -- The Succession to Muhammad, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
