[Foundation-l] Muhammad

[Robert Rohde]

In Shi'a Islam, Ali and his descendents are the true political and religious
successors to Muhammad.  He was a contemporary of Muhammad's, the first man
other than Muhammad to accept Islam, and after Muhammad's death was
considered an infallible leader in his own right.  Sunnis also revere him,
but don't consider him infallible and recognize a more complicated set of
legitimate successors to Muhammad.

Aside from Muhammad himself, Ali is probably the most important figure in
the founding of Shi'a.  I've been told that depictions of Ali are relatively
common in Shi'a areas (more so than any historical Muslim leader including
Muhammad), though I have no direct knowledge of this.
-Robert Rohde


On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 3:01 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> Mathias Schindler wrote:
> > 2008/3/3 Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>:
> >
> >>  However, it so happens that the man on the image represents not the
> >>  prophet, but an imam (Ali, since the image is from Persia).
> >
> > Is there any source to back this statement up, except for its origin
> > and one face feature?
>
> I dunno. The document seems to come from BNF. But the BNF website is
> seriously unhelpful on that matter :-)
> All I found is http://expositions.bnf.fr/livrarab/pedago/grands/0_01.htm
>
> I gather a scholar could help us on this. I can ask the guy of course,
> but will only do so is there a minimum of support. I have no idea why he
> suggests it is Ali. I do not know enough the history of Muslim religion.
>
> However, whilst I was wandering around, I must say the diversity of
> faces this faceless person has been represented with, is quite amazing :-)
>
>
> >>  May I suggest a solution ?
> >>  - Change of the name of the picture to islam.jpg instead of
> mohamet.jpg
> >
> > Changing the name from one non-descriptive name to another
> > non-descriptive one is not quite helpful. In the case of
> > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maome.jpg , the description
> > contains a lot more useful information for a proper file name.
>
> Agreed.
>
> Ant
>
> > Mathias
> >
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