not inɻict mutilation on this man, for I heard the
Messenger of God say, ‘Avoid mutilation, even on a
vicious dog.’ ”
The assassin was executed the next day. Ali’s wound
had not been fatal, but the poison smeared on the sword
had done its work.
Hasan and Hussein washed their father’s body, rubbed
it with herbs and myrrh, and shrouded it in three robes.
Then, as Ali had instructed them, they set his body on
his favorite riding camel and gave it free rein. Forty
years before, Muhammad had given his camel free rein
to determine where the mosque would be built in
Medina. Where it stopped, there the mosque was built.
Now another sainted animal would determine where Ali
would be buried. Wherever it knelt, that was where God
intended Ali’s body to rest.
The camel went a half day’s journey, walking slowly
as though it knew its burden and was weighed down by
grief. It knelt some six miles east of Kufa, atop a barren,
sandy rise—najaf in Arabic—and there his sons buried
the man who would ever after be revered by all Muslims,
but by two very diʃerent titles: the ɹrst Imam of Shia
Islam, and the last of the four rashidun, the Rightly
Guided Caliphs of Sunni Islam.
“Today, they have killed a man on the holiest day, the
day the Quran was ɹrst revealed,” Ali’s elder son, Hasan,