Sultan Ali

Sultan Ali ibn Muhammad al-Baqir

'Ali ibn Muhammad ibn 'Ali ibn al-Husayn was the son of the fifth imam of Twelver Shii Muslims and fourth imam of Ismaili Shii Muslims, Muhammad al-Baqir.[1] Born in Medina, 'Ali, known in Iran as "Sultan 'Ali," was dispatched by his father to the areas of Kashan and Qom, where he served as a Friday prayer leader and teacher; his popularity and his preaching of Shii Islam proved threatening to the local representative of the Umayyad dynasty.[2] The Umayyad representative's forces cornered and killed Sultan 'Ali and a band of his supporters, after a prolonged battle, and before a larger group of supporters could arrive, in Ardahal, a village roughly 45 kilometers east of Kashan on August 7, 734 CE (27 Jamadi II, 116 AH).[3] He is still revered by Shii Muslims, especially in Iran, where his burial place—which has undergone repeated renovations but dates, in part, to the Saljuq period—has become a site of visitation.[4] The shrine is known for a distinctive annual carpet-washing ritual (qālī-shūyān) that occurs on the seventeenth day of autumn to commemorate the day of Sultan 'Ali's martyrdom, a ritual that might have its origins in Sultan 'Ali's body having been wrapped in a carpet and brought to the site of his burial after his murder.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Lambton, A.K.S; Ed. B. Lewis, V. L. Ménage, Ch. Pellat and J. Schacht (1986). "Imāmzāda". Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition 3: 1169–1170.
  2. ↑ Burke, Andrew (2008). Iran, Fifth Edition. Footscray, Victoria AU: Lonely Planet. p. 231.
  3. ↑ Zojaji-Kashani, Majid (1999–2000). Hamasah-ye Tarikhi-ye Mashhad-e Ardahal. Tehran: Nashr-e Sobhan. ISBN 964-5978-33-5.
  4. ↑ Varjavand, Parviz (1998). "Emāmzāda iii". Encyclopaedia Iranica 8 (4): 400–412.
  5. ↑ Houtum-Schindler, Albert (1897). Eastern Persian Irak. London: J. Murray. pp. 88–89.

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