Alids

Alids (Arabic: العلويين, romanized: al-ʿAlawiyyīn) are those who claim descent from Ali, the fourth Rashidun caliph (r. 656–661), the first imam in Shia Islam. Ali was also the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

The main branches are the Hasanids and Husaynids, named after Hasan and Husayn, the eldest sons of Ali from his marriage to Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad. As the progeny of Muhammad, they are revered by all Muslims. The Alids have led various movements in Islam, and a line of twelve Alids are the imams in Twelver Shia, the largest Shia branch.

In addition to seventeen daughters, various sources report that Ali had eleven or fourteen, or eighteen sons. His first marriage was to Fatima, daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who bore Ali three sons, namely, Hasan, Husayn, and Muhsin, though the last one is not mentioned in some sources. Muhsin either died in infancy, or was miscarried after Fatima was injured during a raid on her house to arrest Ali, who had withheld his pledge of allegiance from the first Rashidun caliph Abu Bakr (r. 632–634).

The first report appears in Sunni sources and the latter in Shia sources. Hasan and Husayn are recognized as the second and the third Imams in Shia Islam, their descendants being known as the Hasanids and the Husaynids, respectively. They are revered by all Muslims as the progeny of Muhammad and honored by nobility titles such as Sharif and Sayyid.

Ali and Fatima had two daughters, Zaynab and Umm Kulthum. After the death of Fatima in 632 CE, Ali remarried and had more children. Among them, the lineage of Ali continued through Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiya, Abbas ibn Ali, and Umar al-Atraf, their descendants were honored by the title Alawi (lit. 'of Ali'). Respectively, they were born to Khawla al-Hanafiyya, Umm al-Banin, and Umm Habib bint Rabi'a (al-Sahba).

Mu'awiya seized the rule after the assassination of Ali in 661 and founded the Umayyad Caliphate, during which the Alids and their supporters were heavily persecuted. After Ali, his followers (shi'a) recognized as their imam his eldest son Hasan. After his death in 670, they turned to his brother Husayn, but he and his small caravan were massacred by the Umayyads in the Battle of Karbala in 680. Soon followed the Shia uprising of al-Mukhtar in 685 on behalf of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiya. Many more Shia revolts followed afterward, led not only by the Alids but also by other kinsmen of Muhammad.

The main movements in this period were the now-extinct Kaysanites and the Imamites. Named after a commander of al-Mukhtar, the Kaysanites energetically opposed the Umayyads and were led by various relatives of Muhammad. Their majority followed Abu Hashim, the son of Ibn al-Hanafiya. When Abu Hashim died around 716, this group followed Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abd-Allah, the great-grandson of Muhammad's uncle Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib.

The Kaysanite movement thus aligned itself with the Abbasids, that is, the descendants of Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib. On the other hand, the Imamites were led by the quiescent descendants of Husayn through his only surviving son, Ali Zayn al-Abidin (d. 713), their fourth imam. His son Zayd ibn Ali was an exception for he led a failed uprising against the Umayyads around 740. The followers of Zayd went on to form the Zaydites, for whom any learned Hasanid or Husaynid who rose against tyranny was qualified as imam.