however, suggested allowing her to choose her husband, to which Umar agreed and she chose Ali's son, Husayn. She is said to have died shortly after giving birth to her only son, Ali. Life Ali ibn al-Husayn was about two years old when his grandfather, Ali, died. He lived ten years during the imamate of his uncle, Hasan, and ten years during the imamate of his father, Husayn. His own imamate lasted for thirty-five years and he died in 94 or 95 AH at the age of fifty-seven, during the caliphate of al-Walid I or his younger brother, Hisham. Birth and early life Most sources report that Ali ibn al-Husayn was born in Medina in 38 AH (658–9 CE). He may have been too young to have remembered his grandfather, Ali, and was raised in the presence of his uncle, Hasan, and his father, Husayn, who were Muhammad's two grandchildren. In Karbala In 61 AH (680 CE), Muhammad's grandson, Husayn, and a small group of supporters and relatives were massacred in the Battle of Karbala by the large army of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid I, to whom Husayn had refused to pledge an oath of allegiance. Ali ibn al-Husayn was present in Karbala but too ill to participate in the fighting. After killing Husayn and his supporters, the Umayyad troops looted his camp and found Ali ibn al-Husayn lying deathly ill in one of the tents. Shimr is said to have wanted to kill him but his aunt, Zaynab, appealed to Umar ibn Sa'ad, the Umayyad commander, to spare his life and the latter let him be. In Kufa After the battle, Ali ibn al-Husayn and the women and children were marched to Kufa as captives, alongside the heads of Husayn and his supporters. According to the Shia author al-Shaykh al-Mufid, the captives were carried on bare camels and chains were placed around Ali's bleeding neck while he was sapped by illness. Kufan women began to cry at the sight of the captives, and Ali is said to have commented that, "They are weeping and lamenting over us! So who has killed us?" The governor of Kufa, Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, is known to have treated the captives with considerable contempt. Ibn Ziyad at first intended to kill Ali but was dissuaded. Sharif al-Qarashi writes that, under the impression that all sons of Husayn were killed in Karbala, Ibn Ziyad