The first Imam
Ali b. Abi Talib (a) was the Prophet's (s) cousin, raised in his house; the first man to believe; the one who slept in his bed on the night of the Hijrah; his son-in-law and the father of his grandsons; the sword of Islam at Badr, Uhud, the Trench and Khaybar; his brother in the pact of brotherhood; and, for the Shia, the successor he named at Ghadir Khumm. Passed over at Saqifa, he accepted the caliphate twenty-five years later and spent it fighting three rebellions.
Martyrdom
Struck by Ibn Muljam's poisoned sword at the dawn prayer on the 19th, he was martyred on 21 Ramadan 40 AH. His sons Hasan and Husayn (a) and Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya washed him and, as he had ordered, buried him by night in a hidden grave at al-Ghari outside Kufa, so that the Umayyads and the Kharijites could not violate it. The grave remained a secret known to his family until Imam al-Sadiq (a) revealed it more than a century later; it is now the shrine of Najaf.
Observance
The 21st of Ramadan is the heaviest day of the month: the majalis of the Imam's martyrdom are held through the night of Qadr that precedes it, Nahj al-Balagha and his last will are read, and in Iraq and Iran the day is a public holiday. The Shia hold him the father of Arabic grammar, of theology and of the law, and the fountainhead of every chain of Islamic learning.
Written for Shia Online Community. Dates and facts are checked against the references listed below; where the tradition records more than one date, all are given.
