Jafar as-Sādiq

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The mausoleum of Ahl al-bait in the Baqīʿ cemetery in Medina, under which Jafar as-Sādiq's tomb is said to be, before it was destroyed by the Wahhabis in 1926

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad as-Sādiq ( Arabic ابو عبد الله جعفر بن محمد الصادق, DMG Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ǧaʿfar ibn Muḥammad aṣ-Ṣādiq ; * 699 / 700 or 702 / 703 in Medina ; † 765 ) was the sixth Imam of the Imamites . The Ismailis worship him as their fifth imam. The Twelve Shiite school of law is named after him as Jafariya , even if only a few rules can be directly traced back to him.

Life

Jafar was the son of Muhammad ibn ʿAlī al-Bāqir and Umm Farwa, a great-granddaughter of Abū Bakr . He lived most of his life in Medina , where he built up a circle of disciples as a hadith scholar and lawyer , including Abū Hanīfa , Mālik ibn Anas and Wāsil ibn ʿAtā ' . Jafar represented a scholarly form of imamate with no political ambitions. During the uprising of Zaid ibn ʿAlī in 740, he was passive. Even after the death of al-Walīd II , when most Shiites expected the Alides to take power , he remained neutral. Even during the Hasanid revolt of Muhammad an-Nafs al- Zakīya in 762, which was supported by many Shiites, he maintained neutrality, which is why he and the Husainids were left alone by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansūr .

Most of Jafar's Shiite followers lived in Kufa . These included the extreme Shiite Abū l-Chattāb , who revered him as a divine incarnation and was executed after an uprising in 755/56. The Imamitic Kalām scholar Hischām ibn al-Hakam also stayed in the vicinity of Jafar in his youth.

Jafar had five sons: Ismāʿīl and ʿAbdallāh from his Hasanid wife Fātima and the considerably younger sons Muhammad, Mūsā and Ishāq from his slave Hamīda. He designated his eldest son Ismāʿīl as his successor, but he died before his own death. This led to a disengagement among the supporters of Jafar, because some believed that a true imam could not be wrong. Jafar defended himself by saying that a divine change of will ( badāʾ ) had occurred that he could not foresee. However, the supporters who had turned away from him thought this was an excuse.

Breakdown of following after his death

Jafar was buried in the grave of his ancestors in the Baqīʿ cemetery in Medina. According to an-Naubachtīs , the supporters of Jafar split into six groups after his death:

  • the first group denied his death and said that he would come back as the Mahdi with the sword to rule over the people. This group was named Nāwūsīya after their leader.
  • a second group transferred their hopes to Jafar's son Ismāʿīl, denying his death and claiming that his father had actually only hid him out of fear so that he would return as Qā'im . This group was referred to as the "pure Ismāʿīlīya" ( al-Ismāʿīlīya al-ḫāliṣa ).
  • the third group claimed that after Jafar's death the imamate passed on to his grandson Muhammad , whom his son Ismāʿīl had fathered with a slave. The followers of this doctrine were called Mubārakīya after their leader.
  • the fourth group continued the imamate over Jafar's son Muhammad and his descendants, because they believed that Jafar had chosen him as his successor when he was a child. The group was called Shumaitīya after its leader Yahyā ibn Abī Shumait.
  • the fifth group, which was initially very numerous, recognized his son ʿAbdallāh as imam after Jafar's death, because he was then the oldest of his sons still alive. However, ʿAbdallāh died seventy days after Jafar's death, so that many followers of this group joined the sixth group. Those who further included ʿAbdallāh in the imam count were called al-Futhīya, after ʿAbdallāh's nickname al-Aftah ("the broad-nosed man").
  • the sixth group rejected the Imamat of ʿAbdallāh from the start because of his ignorance and arrogance and taught that his son Mūsā was the rightful imam. This group included a particularly large number of learned Shiites such as the theologian Hischam ibn al-Hakam .

While the Mubārakīya later developed into the main stream of Ismāʿīlīya, which the Imamate continued in the descendants of Muhammad and who regarded Ismāʿīl as their sixth Imam, the sixth group later developed into the Twelve Shia .

Jafar as-Sādiq was buried in the Baqīʿ cemetery , where his Baqīʿ al-Gharqad was before its destruction in 1926 by the Saudi government. Before its destruction in 1926 by the Saudi government.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hodgson: " Dj aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. II, p. 374b.
  2. ↑ See an-Naubachtī 55.
  3. ↑ See the description of the six groups in an-Naubachtī 57-67.
personal data
SURNAME Jafar as-Sādiq
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abu 'Abd-Allah Jafar ibn Muhammad as-Sadiq; Jafar ibn Muhammad
BRIEF DESCRIPTION sixth Imam of the Imamites, founder of the first Islamic school of law
DATE OF BIRTH around 700
DATE OF DEATH 765