Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS)

The Axis of the Ismaili World

Of all the figures in Islamic history — companions, caliphs, scholars, saints — one stands at the absolute center of the Dawoodi Bohra religious universe: Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS).

He is simultaneously:

The cousin of the Prophet (SAW) and the son-in-law of the Prophet (SAW) — husband of Sayyidatuna Fatima al-Zahra (AS)
The first male to embrace Islam — the very first human being, after Khadija (AS), to accept the truth of Muhammad’s mission
The Wasi of the final Prophet — the designated legatee who received the esoteric (‘ilm al-batin) of the Quranic revelation
The first Imam — the beginning of the chain of spiritual authority that continues to the present day through the Fatimid Imams and then the Dais al-Mutlaqeen
The Asas (Foundation) to the Prophet’s Natiq — the silent depth to the Prophet’s speaking surface, the inner meaning to the outer word

In Ismaili theology, there is no Imam without Ali. The entire chain of Imams descends from him — through Hasan and Husain, through Zayn al-Abidin and al-Baqir and al-Sadiq and Ismail, through the Fatimid line down to Imam al-Tayyib (AS). And there is no Da’i without the Imam, which means there is no Da’i without Ali. The ‘ilm that Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin (TUS) holds today flows from the Prophet through Ali — through a chain of over fourteen hundred years.

A Brief Portrait of Ali (AS)

Full name: Ali ibn Abi Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib al-Hashimi al-Qurashi
Born: Approximately 600 CE, inside the Ka’ba in Mecca — the only person in Islamic history credited with having been born within the sacred precinct itself, a distinction of enormous symbolic weight
Father: Abu Talib ibn Abd al-Muttalib — the Prophet’s uncle, who sheltered and protected the Prophet throughout his Meccan mission at great personal cost
Mother: Fatima bint Asad al-Hashimiyya — who raised the Prophet (SAW) after his grandfather’s death, making her a second mother to the Prophet
Wife: Sayyidatuna Fatima al-Zahra (AS), the beloved daughter of the Prophet, called al-Zahra (the Radiant), the Mistress of Women of the Worlds
Children: Al-Hasan (AS), Al-Husain (AS), Zaynab al-Kubra (AS), Umm Kulthum (AS), Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya, and others
Titles: Amir al-Mu’minin (Commander of the Faithful), Asadullah (Lion of Allah), al-Wasi, al-Murtada (the Chosen One), Haydar (the Lion), Abu Turab (Father of Dust — given by the Prophet with great affection)
Martyrdom: 21 Ramadan 40 AH (661 CE), struck by the poisoned sword of the Kharijite Ibn Muljam while in sujud during Fajr prayer in the Masjid of Kufa

The Foundation of the Wasiyyat: Twenty-Three Years of Instruction

The Wasiyyat of Ali was not conferred in a single moment. It was the fruit of twenty-three years of extraordinary intimacy between the Prophet and his cousin.

Ali grew up in the Prophet’s household. When the Prophet (SAW) was a young man and Abu Talib was under financial strain, the Prophet took Ali to raise in his own home. Ali was, in practice, the Prophet’s son — raised under his direct care, shaped by his character, formed by his presence before any revelation had come.

When the first revelation descended in the Cave of Hira, Ali was among the first to hear of it. When the Prophet invited his close family to embrace the new message — the famous da’wat al-‘ashira in which he called his Hashimite relatives and asked who would support him — it was Ali, still a young man, who rose first and pledged his support, while his elders sat in embarrassed silence.

From that moment through the Prophet’s death, Ali was the Prophet’s constant shadow, his most trusted companion in matters of the spirit. He slept in the Prophet’s bed on the night of the Hijra while the Prophet slipped away to Medina — offering his life as a shield. He bore the Prophet’s standard in battle after battle. He was entrusted with the most sensitive diplomatic and religious missions. When the Prophet traveled to Tabuk and was criticized for leaving Ali behind in Medina, the Prophet spoke the words that became axiomatic: “You are to me as Harun was to Musa — except that there is no prophet after me.”

These twenty-three years constitute the period of transmission. The Quran has both a zahir — its apparent text — and a batin — its inner meaning. The zahir was proclaimed publicly to the community. The batin was transmitted privately to Ali. This is not an Ismaili claim alone; it is attested in various hadith traditions: the Prophet said, “I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate.” Ali himself would later say, “Ask me about the Book of Allah — there is no verse but I know whether it descended by night or by day, on a plain or a mountain.” This was not a claim to having memorized the text — every companion had done that. It was a claim to knowing the inner meaning, the context of cosmic revelation, the ta’wil that the zahir conceals.

Ghadir Khumm: The Explicit Nass

On 18 Dhul-Hijja 10 AH — returning from the Farewell Hajj, the last pilgrimage of the Prophet’s life — the revelation descended:

“O Messenger, deliver what has been revealed to you from your Lord. And if you do not, you will not have conveyed His message. And Allah will protect you from the people.” (Quran 5:67)

The Prophet stopped the caravan of approximately 100,000–120,000 pilgrims at a place called Ghadir Khumm — a watering place between Mecca and Medina, at a crossroads from which pilgrims would disperse to their homes. He ordered the stragglers to be waited for and the vanguard to return. He had a makeshift pulpit (minbar) assembled from camel saddles under the blazing midday sun in the heat of the desert.

He delivered a sermon. He asked: “Am I not more entitled to authority over you than you are over yourselves?” — invoking the Quranic concept of awla (priority, authority). The crowd answered: “Yes, O Messenger of Allah.”

Then the Prophet took Ali’s hand and raised it, and declared:

“Man kuntu mawlahu fa-Aliyyun mawlahu.” “Whoever I am his master (mawla), Ali is his master.”

He repeated it three times, then four, then made du’a:

“O Allah, be the friend of whoever befriends him, and be the enemy of whoever is hostile to him. Support whoever supports him, and abandon whoever abandons him.”

Shortly after, the verse was revealed: “Today I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you, and I am pleased for you Islam as your religion.” (Quran 5:3)

This event — Eid al-Ghadir, observed on 18 Dhul-Hijja — is the foundation stone of the Bohra religious year and of the entire Ismaili doctrine of authority. It is observed as a day of great joy and celebration (shukr al-wilayah — gratitude for guardianship) throughout the Bohra community worldwide.

The theological argument from Ghadir Khumm is clear: the Prophet, in the final weeks of his life, staged an unprecedented public event — stopping 100,000 people in the desert heat — to make a declaration about Ali. The staging itself argues that the declaration was of the highest significance. It was not a casual endorsement. It was the formal public nass: the explicit designation of the Wasi and first Imam.

The Verse of Wilayah (5:55) — The Quranic Nass

Ghadir Khumm was the spoken nass. But the Quran itself contains what Ismaili and Shi’a scholars regard as the written nass:

“Your wali (guardian/authority) is only Allah, His Messenger, and those who believe — who establish prayer and give zakat while bowing.” (Quran 5:55)

The classical occasion of revelation (sabab al-nuzul) for this verse, reported widely in both Sunni and Shi’a hadith collections, is this: Imam Ali (AS) was in prayer, in the position of ruku’ (bowing), when a poor man entered the mosque in need. Ali, without breaking his prayer, removed his ring from his finger and offered it to the man. The verse was then revealed, describing those who “give zakat while bowing.”

The Ismaili reading of this verse is precise: waliyyukum (your wali/guardian/authority) is Allah, then the Messenger, then “those who believe, who give while bowing” — i.e., Ali. The grammatical form (alladhina amanu — those who believe, plural) is understood as a plural of majesty for the singular Ali, which is a standard Arabic usage.

The sequence — Allah, Messenger, Wasi — mirrors the cosmological hierarchy: the divine, the prophetic, and the Imamate. Authority flows from Allah through the Prophet to the Wasi and then the Imams.

The Batin of the Quran: Ali’s Unique Knowledge

There are multiple hadith — reported across various Islamic traditions — in which the Prophet speaks of Ali’s unique relationship to the Quran:

“I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate. Whoever seeks knowledge should come through the gate.”

“Ali is with the Quran and the Quran is with Ali. They will not separate until they come to me at the Hawd [the Pool of Paradise].”

“I have left among you two weighty things (thaqalayn): the Book of Allah and my Household (Ahl al-Bayt). They will not separate until they meet me at the Hawd.”

In Ismaili ta’wil, the Quran and the Imam are consistently paired — not because the Imam is equal to scripture, but because the Imam is the living, speaking interpreter of scripture’s inner meaning. The Quran without the Imam is like a sealed letter: the words are there, but the key to fully understanding them rests with the designated interpreter.

Ali received this key directly from the Prophet — not through general study (which any companion could engage in) but through direct transmission of the batin over twenty-three years of intimate instruction. This is why Ali’s claim to authority in Ismaili thought is not merely political or sentimental. It is epistemological: he alone has the complete key to the Quranic revelation.

Ali as Wasi and as Imam: The Overlap

In earlier prophetic cycles, the Wasi and the Imam were sometimes distinct figures — the Wasi might not be the immediate head of the community. But in the Muhammadan cycle, the Wasi and the first Imam are the same person: Ali.

As Wasi, Ali received the esoteric knowledge of the Prophet and became its custodian.

As Imam, Ali was the rightful head of the Muslim community — the political and spiritual leader designated by the Prophet to lead after him.

These two functions — esoteric custodian and community head — are unified in Ali. This is the Ismaili position. The community’s head must have the esoteric knowledge; without the batin, leadership is blind. And the custodian of esoteric knowledge must also guide the community; knowledge locked in a private mystic without communal authority cannot fulfill its purpose.

After the Prophet’s death, Ali was politically marginalized — the caliphate passed first to Abu Bakr, then Umar, then Uthman. But in the Ismaili understanding, his Imamate never ceased. The zahir of political power and the batin of spiritual authority can temporarily diverge — but the Imam remains the Imam regardless of political circumstance. The ‘ilm continued to pass through Ali’s line.

Ali’s Significance in Ismaili Cosmology

In the grand Ismaili cosmological map, Ali occupies the position of Universal Soul (al-Nafs al-Kulliyya) — the second great principle, which receives from the Universal Intellect (associated with the Prophet) and transmits to all levels of existence below.

This cosmological positioning is not an abstract honor. It means that the entire created world, in its spiritual dimension, is sustained by the ‘ilm that flows from the Prophet through Ali. The chain from Prophet to Wasi is not merely a historical fact about one succession event — it mirrors and participates in the cosmic relationship between Intellect and Soul, between divine command (amr) and its reception and diffusion into being.

The famous cosmological poem attributed to Imam Ali — “Nahnu asmau’llah al-husna” (“We are the Beautiful Names of Allah”) — expresses this: the Ahl al-Bayt, and Ali at their center, are the names through which Allah is known, the faces through which the divine self-discloses to creation.

The Martyrdom on 21 Ramadan

On 19 Ramadan 40 AH, the Kharijite Abd al-Rahman ibn Muljam struck Imam Ali (AS) with a poison-coated sword as he rose for Fajr prayer in the Great Mosque of Kufa. The blow opened a wound to the head. Imam Ali lived for two more days, spending them in instruction of his sons, in prayer, in composure.

He passed away on 21 Ramadan 40 AH, the night of power in its most cosmic dimension — for the Bohra tradition holds that the night on which the Imam and Wasi of the age departs from this world carries a weight beyond ordinary time.

His final instructions to his sons Hasan and Husain — to be just, to preserve the trust of the Imamate, to care for the family, to maintain the bonds with the wider community — are preserved in the Nahj al-Balagha (The Peak of Eloquence), the collection of his sermons, letters, and sayings that stands as one of the supreme works of Arabic literature.

He was buried in Najaf al-Ashraf — the city that grew around his tomb and that today is one of the most visited sanctuaries in the Islamic world.

The 21st of Ramadan is observed throughout the Bohra community as a day of deep mourning and remembrance. The waaz delivered on this day is among the most emotionally charged of the year.

The Salawat on Imam Ali (AS)

السَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا أَمِيرَ المُؤمِنِين السَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا وَصِيَّ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ وَأَسَاسَ دِينِهِ السَّلَامُ عَلَيكَ يَا بَابَ مَدِينَةِ العِلمِ وَحَافِظَ الوَدِيعَة

Transliteration: Al-salamu ‘alayka ya Amir al-Mu’minin. Al-salamu ‘alayka ya wasiyya Rasulillahi wa asasa dinihi. Al-salamu ‘alayka ya baba madinat al-‘ilmi wa hafiz al-wadi’ah.

Translation: Peace be upon you, O Commander of the Faithful. Peace be upon you, O legatee of the Messenger of Allah and foundation of his religion. Peace be upon you, O gate of the city of knowledge and guardian of the trust.

اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى أَمِيرِ المُؤمِنِينَ عَلِيِّ بنِ أَبِي طَالِبٍ وَصِيِّ نَبِيِّكَ وَأَسَاسِ دِينِك

O Allah, send blessings upon the Commander of the Faithful, Ali ibn Abi Talib, the legatee of Your Prophet and the foundation of Your religion.

Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS) — The Wasi of the Final Prophet