Ali (c. 660–661)
ALI (c. 660–661)
: Fourth caliph (656–661). The son of Abu Talib, Ali was the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, whose daughter, Fatima, he married. Father of Hassan and Hussein—the only male descendants of the Prophet—Ali, according to some, should have succeeded Muhammad. After the death of Muhammad, Ali refused to recognize the election of Abu Bakr as caliph. It was only after the assassination of the third caliph, Uthman, that he became caliph himself, in 656. Under pressure from Aisha, the third wife of Muhammad, Governor Muawiyah, a relative of Uthman, denounced the succession, thus provoking an armed conflict. Arbitration resulted in Ali being declared in the wrong. He was assassinated by a Kharijite in the Great Mosque of Kufa, Iraq, in 661.The main schisms within Islam were born from these events. The Shiʿites have become the partisans of Ali, and the Sunnis the heirs of Muawiyah, and later of the Umayyads. Ali's tomb, in Najaf, Iraq, is a Shiʿite pilgrimage site.