The Survivor of Karbala
At Karbala (680 CE), Ali ibn Husayn was gravely ill — some accounts say burning with fever. He could not stand, could not fight. When Shimr ibn Dhil Jawshan approached to kill him, Zaynab al-Kubra threw herself over him and Umar ibn Sa’d overruled: the sick man would be spared.
He was taken in chains with the women of the family — his aunts, his sisters, the children — on the march to Kufa and then Damascus. In Yazid’s court, Zaynab spoke; in Kufa’s streets, Zaynab spoke. Ali ibn Husayn, when he finally spoke before Yazid, made his own speech that is preserved in the sources.
He was eventually released and returned to Medina.
Al-Sahifa Al-Sajjadiyya
The collection of 54 supplication-prayers (du’as) attributed to Ali ibn Husayn is called Al-Sahifa Al-Sajjadiyya — “the Book of the Prostrating One” — or Zabur Al Muhammad (the Psalms of the Family of Muhammad). In Shia tradition, it is the third most sacred text after the Quran and the Nahj al-Balagha of Imam Ali.
The prayers cover every human state and need — morning and evening, at the start of the month, for parents, for children, for the sick, for enemies, for gratitude, for shame after sin. Their Arabic is of the highest literary register. They encode Ismaili and Shia theology in the grammar of prayer.
His Quiet Resistance
He refused political activity and public opposition after Karbala — in an entirely different mode from his grandmother Fatima or his aunt Zaynab. He taught in Medina, prayed, fed the poor secretly at night, and released slaves.
The story: after his death, the people of Medina discovered that many of the city’s poor had been fed by an unknown provider for years. When they looked at his body, they found calloused marks on his back from carrying sacks of flour and food to the needy houses at night.
See also: Seerah Husayn, Seerah Ali, Seerah Khadijah, Understanding Walayah, Dai Al Mutlaq, Ismaili Dawat Organization