Sultan Ali

Sultan Ali ibn Muhammad al-Baqir ibn 'Ali ibn al-Husayn was the son of the fifth imam of Twelver Shii Muslims and fourth imam of Ismaili Shii Muslims, Muhammad al-Baqir.[1] Born in Medina, 'Ali, known in Iran as "Sultan 'Ali," was dispatched by his father to the areas of Kashan and Qom, where he served as a Friday prayer leader and teacher; his popularity and his preaching of Shii Islam proved threatening to the local representative of the Umayyad dynasty.[2] The Umayyad representative's forces cornered and killed Sultan 'Ali and a band of his supporters, after a prolonged battle, and before a larger group of supporters could arrive, in Ardihal, a village roughly 45 kilometers east of Kashan on August 7, 734 CE (27 Jamadi II, 116 AH).[3] He is still revered by Shii Muslims, especially in Iran, where his burial place—which has undergone repeated renovations but dates, in part, to the Saljuq period—has become a site of visitation.[4] The shrine is known for a distinctive annual carpet-washing ritual (qālī-shūyān) that occurs on the seventeenth day of autumn to commemorate the day of Sultan 'Ali's martyrdom, a ritual that might have its origins in Sultan 'Ali's body having been wrapped in a carpet and brought to the site of his burial after his murder.[5]