ʿAlī ibn Mūsā ar-Ridā

Abū l-Hasan ʿAlī ibn Mūsā ar-Ridā ( Arabic أبو الحسن علي بن موسى الرضا, DMG Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Mūsā ar-Riḍā ; Persian pronunciation ʿAlī Reżā ; born 768 in Medina ; died August 818 in Tūs ) was a descendant of the prophet Mohammed , who is considered the eighth imam by the Twelve Shiites . Although Shiite sources claim that the nickname ar-Riḍā ("pleasure") was given to him by his father, it is more likely that he received it as an honorary title from the caliph al-Ma'mūn .

Early years

ʿAlī, a son of Mūsā ibn Dschaʿfar al-Kāzim , was born in Medina in 151 dH (= 768 AD) according to the Shiite doxographer al-Qummī . His mother was a Nubian slave whose name is given differently (Shahd, Sahā or Tahīya). When his father died in prison in 799, most of his followers turned to ʿAlī and recognized him as an imam. This group was called Qatʿīya (from Arabic قطع, DMG qaṭʿ  'assert with certainty') because they surely assumed the death of Mūsā. Some other followers of the father rejected Alī and taught that Mūsā al-Kāzim had escaped from prison, stayed in secrecy and would return as a Mahdi . This group, which did not last long, was called the Wāqifīya.

Ali ibn Musa al-Rida spent most of his life in Medina without making a noticeable appearance. Only the transmission of hadiths and the issuance of fatwas are known from his Medinan times.

Appointment as heir to the throne by al-Ma'mun

The medinic phase of his life ended when the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mūn invited him to his residence in Merw in 816 to determine him as his successor. Al-Ma'mūn wanted to use this step to heal the historical rift between the Abbasids and Alids (or between Sunnis and Shiites ). Whether the caliph himself or his vizier al-Faḍl ibn Sahl was the driving force behind this step is controversial. The imam went to Merw via Basra and Nishapur , but he was skeptical about the plan to designate him as successor to the caliph. Bayhaqi reports in his work Tarih-e Bayhaqi that the imam knew that the plan would not work, but that he did not dare to oppose the order of the caliph.

The proclamation as successor of the caliph took place in March 817 in Merw. The text of the document in which al-Ma'mūn affirmed this decision and announced it to the public has survived. In 817 ʿAlī ibn Mūsā with al-Ma'mun's daughter Umm Habib and ʿAlī's son Muhammad were married to al-Ma'mun's daughter Umm al-Fadl in order to mutually reinforce the bond. Al-Ma'mun bestowed the honorary title ar-Ridā on the imam , which insurgent Shiites had already used earlier to denote the descendant of Mohammed whom the entire Muslim community would accept as caliph. He lived in Marv in a house next to the Caliph's residence.

When the succession plan was officially announced, most of the Abbasid governors behaved loyally and swore allegiance to the designated caliph. Only the Abbasid regent in Basra refused allegiance and the Abbasid princes in Baghdad joined an uprising that broke out in the region of Iraq. The vizier al-Fadl had apparently withheld from the caliph how great the resistance had been in Iraq. The local population was already irritated by the move of the residence from Baghdad to Marv, and al-Faḍl himself had a bad reputation there. The appointment of Imam ar-Riḍā to succeed the Caliph was the event that broke the barrel.

It seems to have been Imam ar-Ridā himself who conveyed the real background of the Iraqi uprising to the caliph and induced him to set out with his court to Baghdad in order to put down the revolt and restore calm through his mere presence. On the way there, the vizier al-Fadl was murdered by some officers in February 818. When the caliph reached Tūs, ar-Ridā fell ill and died a few days later. His death is dated to the end of the month of Safar 203 dH (= end of August 818 AD).

Grave mausoleum and speculation about his death

Tomb mausoleum of ʿAlī ibn Mūsā ar-Ridā in Mashhad

The short interval between the murder of al-Fadl and the death of ar-Ridā gave rise to speculation that ar-Ridā also died a non-natural death. The caliph therefore asked a group of alid relatives of ar-Ridā, including his uncle Muhammad ibn Jafar, to examine his body to testify that he had died naturally. He then had ar-Ridā buried near the grave of his father Hārūn ar-Raschīd in the house of Humaid ibn Qahtaba in Sanābād near Nauqān. The place became one of the most important pilgrimage sites of the Iranian Shiites after the Imam's death. A shrine was built in honor of the Imam , which today houses one of the richest collections of art and cultural assets in Iran. Various theological schools of Shiite Islam started from here.

Despite the measures taken by al-Ma'mūn, some later Shiite authors charged that the caliph poisoned or had the imam poisoned. Other Shiite scholars such as ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Irbīlī (d. 1317), on the other hand, pointed to the personal esteem al-Ma'mūn had for ar-Ridā, and therefore considered it remote that the caliph should murder him for political reasons could have. Later, however, the general view of the Twelve Shia became generally accepted that ʿAlī ar-Ridā “died a martyr, murdered by al-Ma'mūn”.

ʿAlī ar-Ridā as a healer

ʿAlī ar-Ridā was considered early on in Shiite circles as a healer who had a special medical knowledge. In a tradition that was also included in the great collection of hadiths of Muhammad Bāqir al-Majlisī (d. 1700), one of the imam's companions describes how he received the recipe for pills based on cherry plums to treat hemorrhoidal diseases should help. Even greater awareness has the so-called "comprehensive remedy" ( ad-dawā' al-ǧāmi' )'Alī ar-Rida obtained, which among other things, saffron , cardamom , white hellebore and henbane was.

The Shiite tradition even ascribes a whole treatise on medicine to ʿAlī ar-Ridā, known as the "Golden Epistle " ( risāla ḏahabīya ). He is said to have written this tract for al-Ma'mun. The work is narrated in the name of a certain Ibn Jumhūr, who was one of the companions of ʿAlī ar-Ridā on his way from Medina to Khorasan. It was commented on in the 12th century. This comment is also the earliest evidence of the existence of the text.

The doctor and follower of the Niʿmatullāhīya order, Muhammad Taqī Kirmānī (d. 1800) claimed to have received the secrets of alchemy in a dream from ʿAlī ar-Ridā . A Sunni author from India, ʿAbd ar-Rahmān Tschishī, also attributed therapeutic powers to ʿAlī ar-Ridā. In his Sufi biographical collection Mirʾāt al-asrār , which he wrote in 1654 , he wrote that ʿAlī ar-Ridā had the ability to restore sight to blind people with his gaze and to heal skin diseases.

literature

• Francesco Gabrieli : Al-Ma'mūn e gli Alidi . Leipzig 1929.
• B. Lewis: Art. "ʿAlī al- Riḍā" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. I, pp. 399b-400a.
• W. Madelung: "New Documents concerning al-Maʾmūn, al-Faḍl b. Sahl and ʿAlī al-Riḍā" in Studia Arabica et Islamica: Festschrift for Iḥsān ʿAbbās ed. W. al-Qāḍī. Beirut, 1981, pp. 333-46.
• W. Madelung: "ʿAlī al-Reżā, the eighth Imam of the Emāmī Shiʿites" in Encyclopedia Iranica Vol. I, pp. 877-880. Online version
• Fabrizio Speziale: Il Trattato Aureo sulla medicina attribuito all'imām ʿAlī ar-Riḍā . Officina di Studi Medievali, Palermo, 2009.

See also

• Astana Quds Rezavi
• Fātima bint Mūsā

supporting documents

1. ↑ See Saʿd ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Ašʿarī al-Qummī: Kitāb al-Maqālāt wa-l-firaq. Ed. Muḥammad Ǧawād Maškūr. Maṭbaʿat-i Ḥaidarī, Tehran, 1963. p. 94.
2. ↑ Cf. Moojan Momen: An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam. The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi'ism. Yale University Press, New Haven et al. 1985. pp. 56f.
3. Jump up ↑ Gabrieli: Al-Ma'mūn e gli Alidi . 1929, pp. 38-43.
4. ↑ Cf. al-Qummī 94.
5. ↑ Madelung: "ʿAlī al-Reżā".
6. ↑ So al-Majlisī, cit. from Michael Cooperson: Al-Ma'mun. Oxford: Oneworld Publications 2005. pp. 76 f.
7. ↑ See Speziale: Il Trattato Aureo . 2009, p. 23.
8. ↑ Special: Il Trattato Aureo . 2009, pp. 29-34.
9. ↑ Special: Il Trattato Aureo . 2009, p. 5.
10. ↑ Special: Il Trattato Aureo . 2009, p. 25.