For millions of Shi‘ah throughout the world, Ali remains the model of Muslim piety: the light that illuminates the straight path to God. He is, in the words of Ali Shariati, “the best in speech … the best in worship … the best in faith.” It is this heroic vision of Ali that has been firmly planted in the hearts of those who refer to the person they believe to have been the sole successor to Muhammad not as the fourth Caliph, but as something else, something more. Ali, the Shi‘ah claim, was the first Imam: the Proof of God on Earth.
