It is recorded that Imam Ali is said to have stated that, ‘two kinds of people will face God’s punishment: those who exaggerate my qualities, and those who degrade them’. Ali was the son of Prophet Muhammad’s uncle, namely his cousin, and later the Prophet’s son-in-law as well, after marrying his daughter, Fatimah. After the Prophet’s passing, he became, in the line of succession that followed, the fourth caliph of the Islam.
This somewhat simple and clear-forward description of Ali, nevertheless, holds within it the complications and proofs of how larger-than-life his legacy would become and continue to be in the Islamic, as well as, worldly traditions.
The first part of Ali’s introduction here follows his closeness with the last Prophet of God, Muhammad. Muhammad was the first Muslim and also the only Prophet for Muslims once the message of Islam was well spread. Muhammad was forty years old when the first revelations came upon him in the cave of Hira, where he used to go for meditations and recluse, given his dislike of the hustle and bustle of Mecca’s traders and pilgrimages of that time. For forty years, he had been a simple man, following the Abrahamic traditions, an honest tradesman which earned him Khadijah, a very rich businesswoman, and a kind and just man to all. The call of Prophethood, then understandably, distressed this simple man quite heavily, since the life after would have seemed a very demanding one. Ali was but a teenager at the time of Muhammad’s call of prophethood, but he, along with his devoted wife Khadijah, were the first to affirm the prophethood and became the second and third Muslims, as the followers of Islam would later be called. Moreover, Ali was being raised by Muhammad and Khadijah as an orphan, since Ali’s parents had passed quite early in his life. Muhammad, in reverse, was raised by Ali’s father, Abu Talib, after the passing of his parents, Abdullah and Amina, when Muhammad was only six years old.
This undeniable closeness between Muhammad, the last prophet of God, and Ali, became the breeding ground for Ali’s rise and legacy as the spiritual heir of Muhammad, and as the gate through which you enter the wisdom of Muhammad. But Ali’s relentless adherence to the prophet, especially when life for Muhammad got increasingly difficult on many levels after the prophethood, and his fierce military skills, along with his gifted scholarship, sense of wisdom, and purifying piousness – only strengthened this bond between the two – often likened to Moses and Aaron. After the prophet marries her only daughter, Fatimah, to Ali, following the divine matchmaking, Ali and Fatimah would go on to make the ‘best’, in all regards, family of the Islamic world, setting examples in both their relationship and parenthood.
However, once the question of prophet’s succession emerges, despite the obvious nudges of appointment of Ali from the prophet, combined with the obvious merits of Ali therealso, a series of unfortunate events begin, and the political desire for the expanding Islamic state, eventually gives in to imperialism and the bloody assassinations of three of four caliphs, as well as the two children of Ali, Hassan and Hussain.
While I may have given most of this review already to explaining my introduction to Ali, Abbas’s welcoming and comprehensive biography of Ali, consists but also of these tales of bravery during Muhammad’s life and of unfortunate tragedy and perseverance, after.
Based on six chapters, Abbas’s biography of Ali can be divided into three sections: Muhammad and Ali before prophethood; after prophethood; and the bloody and mismanaged succession thereafter. Reading this book, I realized how most of Ali’s biography had to consist of who he was with and what he did: with the prophet and being his right hand, with his family and being generous toward others, with the caliphs and being their advisor, and with the Sufis, historians, poets, and scholars of this world – being spiritual guide and source of inspiration.
This book does manage to touch on the spirituality, wisdom, and that gifted charisma of Imam Ali, which destined him to be ‘too great’, perhaps at times for his own good. Otherwise, it is a biography of events, stories, anecdotes – and a very enlightening one at that. Abbas also manages well when it comes to the schism between shia-sunni, hailing Ali as the ultimate binding force.
Yet the dichotomy that Ali foresaw, of his exaggeration and degradation, persists, and it is only through such leveling and compassionate biographies that we might finally succeed to find the middle ground, and unite.
Rating: 4/5 **** August 8,
2022_