This blog post is a synthesis of weeks 4 and 5.\u00a0 In week 5, during lecture, we discussed the differences between Sunnis and Shia Islam.\u00a0 The split occurred when the question of post-prophetic authority arose.\u00a0 Who was to inherit the Prophet\u2019s authority and lead the people?\u00a0 Who was to succeed him?\u00a0 Eventually, two major branches arose: Sunni Islam, and Shia Islam.\u00a0 The Sunnis believed in either the caliphate, or the alim (learned scholar), while the Shias believed in the Imams, direct descendants of the Prophet.\u00a0 This split occurred after the assassination of Ali, who was not only the fourth caliph, but also the first Imam.\u00a0 In other words, Ali was respected by both Sunnis, and Shias.\u00a0 As the closest living relative of the Prophet, and his cousin, and his son-in-law, Ali was held in great esteem by Shias.\u00a0 That he was a man of great piety and character only heightened the respect that Shias felt towards him.\u00a0 In fact, among the Shias, he is almost as revered as the Prophet himself.\u00a0 Stories about Ali, and what he said, similar to the hadith, are greatly valued.<\/p>\n
In week 4, in the section readings we read about poems written in praise of the Prophet.\u00a0 Given this background about Ali, that he was almost as respected as the Prophet, it would be natural that among Shias there would be poems about him.\u00a0 Many poems have been written about Ali and his stories; in particular, you find many such poems in Rumi\u2019s Masnavi<\/em>, an epic narrative in a sense.\u00a0 For this blog post, I decided to write my own poem in veneration of Ali, which is below:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Anonymous, and shrouded in moonlight<\/p>\n Humble, our first Imam acted in right<\/p>\n Visited and gave coins to those in need<\/p>\n His generosity teach us it might.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The poem that I wrote takes the form of a rubaiyat<\/em>, a quatrain with a rhyme scheme, generally AABA, utilized by Omar Khayyam, an eminent 11th<\/sup> century Persian poet and mathematician.\u00a0 My poem was about the generosity of Ali, a story that I had heard about.\u00a0 It would serve not only as a tribute to Ali, but also as a reminder about the value of generosity. \u00a0He gave not in order to be recognized or acknowledged, but to simply give and be recognized in the eyes of God. \u00a0Generosity is a value that is quite important in Islam, and its significance is reflected in the well-known five pillars of Islam, where one of the pillars is to give to charity.\u00a0 Islam teaches us to give to those who are less fortunate than us, and I hoped to convey that message through the poem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This blog post is a synthesis of weeks 4 and 5.\u00a0 In week 5, during lecture, we discussed the differences between Sunnis and Shia Islam.\u00a0 The split occurred when the question of post-prophetic authority arose.\u00a0 Who was to inherit the Prophet\u2019s authority and lead the people?\u00a0 Who was to succeed him?\u00a0 Eventually, two major branches […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6337,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6337"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/56"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}