Martyrdom of Imam Zayn al-Abidin (a)

The fourth Imam

Ali b. al-Husayn (a), known as Zayn al-Abidin ("the adornment of the worshippers") and al-Sajjad ("the one who prostrates"), was born in Madinah in 38 AH. He was at Karbala as a young man of about twenty-three but was too ill to fight, and so survived the massacre to be taken in chains to Kufa and Damascus. His sermons before Ibn Ziyad and Yazid, and Zaynab's (a) beside them, are the reason the world learned what had happened.

Thirty-four years in Madinah

Released and returned to Madinah, he led the Shia for thirty-four years through the upheavals of the Harra, the Tawwabun and the uprising of al-Mukhtar, keeping deliberately apart from politics and teaching instead through prayer. His supplications were gathered as al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya, and his Treatise on Rights set out the duties one owes to God, to oneself and to others.

Martyrdom

He was poisoned at the instigation of the caliph al-Walid b. Abd al-Malik and died in 95 AH (some say 94). The Shia commonly commemorate the martyrdom on 25 Muharram, though the twelfth is also recorded. He was buried in al-Baqi next to his uncle Imam Hasan (a); the dome over their graves was demolished in 1926.