Years of prison
Musa b. Ja'far (a), the seventh Imam, spent the last years of his life in the prisons of the Abbasid caliphate. He was first taken from Madinah to Baghdad under al-Mahdi and released; Harun al-Rashid imprisoned him twice, arresting him at the Prophet's (s) grave in 179 AH and moving him between the custody of Isa b. Ja'far in Basra, al-Fadl b. al-Rabi, al-Fadl b. Yahya and finally al-Sindi b. Shahik. His visitation prayer greets him as the one "tortured in the depths of the prisons". Harun's fear was of the Imam's following among the Shia and of the challenge his very existence posed to Abbasid legitimacy.
Martyrdom
He was poisoned in al-Sindi's prison and died on 25 Rajab 183 AH. To dispel the rumour that he had been killed, the authorities displayed the body on the bridge of Baghdad; his followers buried him in the cemetery of the Quraysh on the city's northern edge.
Kadhimayn
That cemetery became the shrine of Kadhimayn, where his grandson Imam al-Jawad (a) was later buried beside him, and it is one of the four great shrine cities of Iraq. Known in life as al-Kazim for his restraint and as Bab al-Hawa'ij, the door of needs, he remains the Imam to whom the Shia most often bring their petitions.
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.
