The Imam and the caliph
The last years of Imam al-Sadiq's (a) life fell under the Abbasid al-Mansur, who had summoned him to Iraq more than once and watched his enormous following with suspicion. The Imam had refused every offer to lead a revolt — from Abu Muslim, from Abu Salama, from his uncle Zayd's partisans — and practised precautionary silence towards the court, but the school he had built in Madinah, with its thousands of students, was itself a challenge to a dynasty that claimed to rule in the name of the Prophet's (s) family.
Martyrdom
He died in Madinah in Shawwal 148 AH; the later sources fix the day as the 25th. Al-Shaykh al-Saduq, Ibn Shahrashub and Sayyid Ibn Tawus state that he was poisoned at al-Mansur's order, though al-Mufid held the manner of his death uncertain. To protect his son and successor Musa al-Kadhim (a) from the caliph, he named five executors in his will — al-Mansur among them — so that the true heir was known only to his close companions. He was buried in al-Baqi with the three Imams before him.
After him
The Shia split over the succession into the Ismailis, the Fatahiyya and others, but the main body followed Imam al-Kadhim (a). The school of law and hadith that bears his name — Ja'fari — remains the framework of Twelver Shia practice.
Written for Shia Online Community. Dates and facts are checked against the references listed under Research & books; where the tradition records more than one date, all are given.
