Zayd ibn Ali

Zayd ibn Ali was a member of the Ahl al-Bayt (the household of the Prophet Muhammad): a son of Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-Abidin and a descendant of Ali ibn Abi Talib and of the Prophet's daughter Fatima. He was born and raised in Medina, where he gained a reputation as a scholar of the Qur'an and of religious law. His birth year is uncertain; traditional reports vary widely, and he is conventionally placed around 695 CE.

He is remembered above all for an armed rising against the Umayyad dynasty, the ruling caliphate of the day, under the caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik. Tradition holds that mistreatment by the caliph helped push Zayd toward rebellion. Moving to Kufa in Iraq, he gathered support among the local tribes, but his forces were quickly overwhelmed by the Umayyad governor Yusuf ibn Umar al-Thaqafi. Zayd was struck by an arrow and died in 122 AH/740 CE.

It is widely reported that many followers deserted him when he declined to denounce the early caliphs Abu Bakr and Umar. This moment is read very differently by later traditions. From his followers grew the Zaydiyya, the branch of Shia Islam that regards Zayd as Imam and is often described as the closest of the Shia schools to Sunni practice; Twelver and Ismaili Shia instead trace the imamate through his half-brother Muhammad al-Baqir. Sunni tradition, too, honors Zayd, and the jurist Abu Hanifa is reported to have supported his cause.