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Imam
Sajjad ( Ali ibn Husayn entitled Zayn al-abidin and Sajjad ) was the
son of the third Imam , and his wife , the queen among women , the
daughter of Yazdigird the king of Iran . He was the only son of Imam
Husayn to survive ,for his other three brothers Ali Akbar , aged
twenty-five , five year old Ja'far and Ali Asghar ( or Abdullah )
who was a suckling baby , were martyred during the event of Karbala
. The Imam had also accompanied his father on the journey that
terminated fatally in Karbala, but because of severe illness and the
inability to carry arms or participate in fighting he was prevented
from taking part in the holy war and being martyred . So he was sent
with the womenfolk to Damascus . After spending a period in
imprisonment he was sent with honor to Medina because Yazid wanted
to conciliate public opinion . But for a second time , by the order
of the Umayyad caliph , Abd al-Malik , he was chained and sent from
Medina to Damascus and then again returned to Medina .
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The fourth Imam , upon returning to
Medina , retired from public life completely ,closed the door of his
house to strangers and spent his time in worship . He was in contact
only with the elite among the Shi'ites such as Abu Hamzah Thumali ,
Abu Khalid Kabuli and the like . The elite disseminated among the
Shi'ah the religious sciences they learned from the Imam . In this
way Shi'ism spread considerably and showed its effects during the
imamate of the fifth Imam . Among the works of the fourth Imam is a
book called Sahifah sajjadiyah .It consists of fifty-seven prayers
concerning the most sublime Divine sciences and is known as 'The
Psalm of the Household of the Prophet' .The fourth Imam died (
according to some Shi'ite traditions poisoned by Walid ibn Abd al-Malik
through the instigation of the Umayyad caliph Hisham ) in 95/712
after thirty-five years of imamate. |