For Ali, the death of Muhammad was the greatest disaster in life.

For Ali, the death of Muhammad was the greatest disaster in life. His world had revolved around Muhammad ever since he was born. Muhammad was the center and the circumference of his world. From that world, Muhammad had disappeared, and now Ali did not know how to grapple with it. He felt cut loose from his moorings, and life suddenly appeared to have lost its raison d’être for him. Ali was the genius of Islam. His character was sublime and his personality incomparable.

But he had depended upon Muhammad to act as a catalyst for his genius and personality to burgeon. He had all the potentialities that made him indispensable for Islam but it had taken the magic touch of Muhammad to make them rise to the surface. And now when he was 32 years old, when he was in the prime of his life, when he was at the zenith of his powers, and when he could give to Islam and to the rest of the world, far more than he had already given, Muhammad died.

Muhammad's death was a setback to Ali from which he never recovered the rest of his life. The reaction of Fatima Zahra, Hasan, Husain and Ali, to the death of Muhammad, was normal and predictable. All five of them made up a family circle, united in their love for, and obedience to God. Muhammad was the “axis” of this little circle. With his death, the “circle” was broken, leaving the other members of the family totally disoriented.

Perhaps they did not know at the moment, though they were going to know very soon, that Muhammad's death only foreshadowed a whole series of new shocks and sorrows for them. Thenceforth, they were going to be in a state of “siege” by sorrow. Each new day was to bring a new shock, and a new sorrow. But through this welter of disaster and tragedy, their faith in the mercy of God, and in the ultimate triumph of justice and truth, remained rocklike, and constant.

Their hope of winning the pleasure of God, kept growing ever stronger with each new wave of shock and sorrow. To withstand the shock of the death of Muhammad, the members of his family, sought and found succor from the One Source that never fails – the unbounded Mercy of God. The Death of Muhammad Mustafa and his Umma The Muslims owed Muhammad a dual allegiance; first in his capacity as the Messenger of God; and second, in his capacity as the Sovereign of Arabia.

None could withhold his loyalty and obedience to him in either capacity, and still remain a Muslim.