Muhsin ibn Ali

Muhsin ibn Ali (Arabic: محسن بن علي), was a son of Fatima Al Zahra (the daughter of Muhammad) and Ali. Academic writers disagree on whether he was a still-born infant or died in a very young age after birth. In Shi'a belief, he was the unborn child of Fatimah miscarried after she was crushed behind a door during the events of Umar at Fatimah's house, when Umar and Abu Bakr attacked Fatima and Ali's house in order to force Ali into submission. Sunnis, however disagree and insist that Muhsin ibn Ali died in his infancy of natural causes.

Muhammad died in the city of Medina in 632 CE. In the ten years between the Hijra (the flight of the small Muslim community from Mecca to Medina) to the death of Muhammad, Islam had grown by leaps and bounds. It had become the greatest power in the Arabian peninsula.

The question of who was to succeed Muhammad was thus both a religious and a political question. Shi'a Muslims believe that Muhammad had settled the question before his death, by indicating that he wanted Fatima's husband Ali as his successor during his Farewell Pilgrimage-since the practice of naming a successor was a tradition from all of the previous prophets. The majority Sunni Muslims believe that Muhammad had not made any formal arrangements, leaving it up to the Muslim community to choose their own leader—as was the practice (called shura) in the pre-Islamic, tribal times.

A small, informal gathering of Muslim notables, which Ali did not attend, as he was busy in arranging the funeral of Muhammad, ended up throwing its support behind Abu Bakr as the new leader. Ali protested this arrangement. He and his supporters refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr. His supporters at that time were known as the Shi'at Ali, the party of Ali.

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