Sultan Ali

Sultan Ali ibn Muhammad al-Baqir
'Ali ibn Muhammad 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. 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. 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 Ardahal, a village roughly 45 kilometers east of Kashan on August 7, 734 CE (27 Jamadi II, 116 AH). 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. 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.