Ali Zayn al-Abidin
c. 659 CE–c. 713 CE · Karbala
Ali ibn al-Husayn, called Zayn al-Abidin ("ornament of the worshippers") and al-Sajjad ("the one who prostrates much"), was a great-grandson of the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima. Sources place his birth around 38 AH (c. 658-659 CE), most likely in Medina. His mother is named by early reporters such as Ibn Sa'd as an umm walad (a freed slave-mother); the popular later tradition that she was a captured Sasanian princess, "Shahrbanu," is regarded by modern scholars as a legend that grew up in the ninth century, not as attested history.
He is best known as the son who survived the massacre at Karbala in 61 AH (680 CE), where his father al-Husayn and many kin were killed by Umayyad forces. Reports agree he was spared because he was too ill to fight; he was then taken captive with the women of the household to Kufa and on to the Umayyad capital, Damascus, before being allowed home to Medina.
There he lived a quiet, scholarly, devotional life, remaining politically neutral during the civil wars of the period. Even non-Shia tradition esteemed him, and Sunni authorities such as al-Zuhri transmitted from him. Shia tradition attributes to him al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya (a celebrated collection of supplications) and the Risalat al-Huquq ("Treatise on Rights"). He died around 94-95 AH (c. 712-714 CE) and was buried in the Baqi cemetery in Medina. The claim that he was poisoned on Umayyad orders is a traditional Shia account, not independently confirmed.
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Karbala
What they did here
Present at the killing of al-Husayn and his companions on 10 Muharram 61 AH (October 680 CE). Reports agree he survived only because he was too ill to fight, and was then taken captive.
About Karbala
Karbala, in central Iraq, is one of the holiest cities of Shi'i Islam as the site of the battle of 680 in which Husayn ibn Ali (d. 680), grandson of the Prophet, was killed; his shrine there is a major place of pilgrimage. The imams Ali Zayn al-Abidin and Muhammad al-Baqir are connected to the events and memory of Karbala.
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Ali Zayn al-Abidin’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
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The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Ali Zayn al-Abidin’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
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