This book of supplications composed by the first Imam, Ali b. Abu Talib (Amir al-Mu’mineen-lit. ‘Commander of the Faithful’) has been rendered into elegant and moving English by one of the world’s foremost scholars of Islam, whose translations of prayers and texts of the Shi’a Imams has done much to convey to a non-Arabic speaking readership the beauties, subtleties and profundities that are enshrined within these spiritual discourses addressed to God.In the present volume, the famous ‘Du’a Kumayl’ takes pride of place, a supplication which is recited every Thursday evening in countless mosques throughout the Muslim world, a practice that goes back to several centuries.A careful reading of this and the other prayers given here does more to evoke the sense of the spirituality underlying the Shi’a tradition than many formal treatises and expositions; they serve to enliven one’s sense of what it means to be immersed in a tradition dominated by the towering figures of the Ahl al-Bayt (‘People of the Prophetic Household’).
