Under Hisham
The Imamate of Muhammad al-Baqir (a) fell in the reign of the Umayyad caliphs Umar b. Abd al-Aziz, Yazid b. Abd al-Malik and Hisham. Hisham summoned him and his son Ja'far (a) to Damascus, staged a contest of archery to humiliate him and was humiliated instead, and had him watched in Madinah. The sources name several hands in his death — Hisham himself, Ibrahim b. al-Walid, or Zayd b. al-Hasan — and it is possible that more than one had a part; that he was poisoned in Hisham's reign is not in doubt.
Martyrdom
He died on 7 Dhu l-Hijja 114 AH, according to the most widely followed report, and was buried in al-Baqi beside his father Zayn al-Abidin (a) and his great-uncle Hasan (a). He had asked that mourners be hired to weep for him at Mina during the Hajj for ten years, so that the pilgrims of the whole community would remember him.
Legacy
His nineteen years of Imamate laid the foundation on which his son al-Sadiq (a) built the school of the Ahl al-Bayt (a); the hadith and exegesis transmitted from him fill the Shia collections. His grave was among those whose domes were destroyed in 1926.
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.
