Hasan al-ʿAskari

The al-Askari shrine in Samarra 2017

Abū Muhammad al-Hasan ibn ʿAlī al-ʿAskarī ( Arabic أبو محمد الحسن بن علي العسكري, DMG Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-ʿAskarī ; * December 6, 846 in Medina ; † January 27, 874 in Samarra ) was a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed , who is venerated by the Twelve Shiites , the Turkish Alevis and the Alawites as the eleventh imam . He was the son of ʿAlī al-Hādī an-Naqī and his slave ʿAsafān, who Hasan later renamed Hudaith.

Life

Early years

After the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil 'alā' llāh ordered Hasan's father ʿAlī al-Hādī to Samarra around 848 and placed him there under house arrest, his son Hasan al-Askari also spent almost his entire life under arrest in his home in Samarra . During his imprisonment, he was only allowed a few visits to Baghdad , although they were always under guard. He married a Byzantine slave named Nargis Chatun. He also wrote some commentaries that were used by later scholars. Hasan's father ʿAlī al-Hādī had initially designated his eldest son Abū Jaʿfar Muhammad as his successor. Since he died during his lifetime, he appointed Hasan as his successor.

Quarrel with the brother about the imamate

After the death of īAlī al-Hādī, the imamate passed to Hasan. Some of his followers attributed prophetic or even divine qualities to him. These included in particular the followers of Muhammad ibn Nusair an-Namīrī, who were known as Namīrīya at the time, but were later referred to as Nusairīya .

There was also another group of imamites , led by Fāris ibn Hātim, who regarded Hasan's brother Jafar as the rightful imam. Some of them claimed that īAlī al-Hādī first designated his son Muhammad and presented him with the imamate's paraphernalia before his death ; the latter then passed them on to Jafar via his slave to-Nafis. The followers of Fāris were very direct in their opposition to Hasan and his followers, accused him of not being sufficiently educated for the position of imam, and insulted his followers as the "donkey party" (ḥimārīya) . Some of them even went so far as to declare Hasan and his followers to be unbelievers . This gave rise to a long-lasting enmity between Hasan and his brother, whom Hasan's followers accused of moral corruption.

The clashes between Hasan and Jafar became increasingly violent over time. The slave an-Nafis, on whom the Jafar party invoked, was found murdered in a pond. And two members of the imamite community of Samarra who had joined Jafar were driven out of the city by Hasan's followers and had to flee to Kufa .

Death and burial

Hasan al-ʿAskarī died on January 27, 874, at the young age of 28. Large numbers of people attended his funeral, including the Caliph al-Mutamid . The funeral prayer was said according to an-Naubachtī Abū ʿĪsā, the son of caliph al-Mutawakkil . Since Hasan left no "apparent son" ( walad ẓāhir ), his inheritance was divided between his brother Jafar and his mother Hudaith according to Sunni inheritance law. Hasan al-ʿAskari was buried in his house in the same room where his father was buried.

Succession crisis

Hasan's mother Hudaith, who was in Medina at the time of her son's death, rushed to Samarra after his death to prevent Jafar from appropriating her son's inheritance. She made the claim that one of Hasan's slaves was pregnant by him. Jafar, who viewed this as an invention aimed at excluding him from inheritance, denounced Hudaith to the government. The view that Hasan had a son was also held by ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd al-ʿAmrī, one of Hasan's closest followers. He announced that the imam had appointed his son as his successor, but that he had been hidden to prevent the government from arresting and killing him. However, many of Hasan's followers had doubts about the existence of this son.

In this way, there was a split among Hasan's supporters. While Hasan's mother and aunt Hakīma, the daughter of Muhammad al-Jawād , affirmed the existence and imamate of Hasan's son, Hasan's sister supported the imamate claim of Jafar. Both parties enjoyed the support of various government officials ( arbāb ad-daula ). In the end, however, Hasan's mother's claim that the slave was not pregnant turned out to be unfounded. After a dispute that lasted seven years, the inheritance was eventually divided between Hudaith and Jafar.

Overall, the Imamites split into numerous groups after Hasan's death , which are described in more detail by the Imamite scholars al-Qummī and an-Naubachtī, who both wrote doxographic works at the beginning of the 10th century . While al-Qummī in his "Book of Teachings and Sects" ( Kitāb al-Maqālāt wa-l-firaq ) names a total of 15 groups, an-Naubachtī counts 13 groups. The groups named by an-Naubachtī are the following:

• 1st group: she assumed that Hasan was only raptured and would return as a Mahdi .
• 2nd group: they taught that he died but would be brought back to life.
• 3rd group: it was led by ʿAlī ibn at-Tāhin from Kufa and said that Hasan had designated his brother Jafar as his successor before his death. She referred to the teaching of the Futhīya, which similarly claimed that after the death of Jafar as-Sādiq, his son ʿAbdallāh transferred the imamate to his brother Mūsā .
• 4th group: they claimed that Hasan was never an imam, but that his father ʿAlī had transferred the imamate to his brother Jafar from the beginning.
• 5th group: she joined those who believed that after the death of Hasan's father ʿAlī, the imamate had passed to his son Muhammad, a brother of Hasan.
• 6th group: they taught that Hasan had left a son, whom he named Muhammad and designated as his successor, but had hidden out of fear of his brother Jafar.
• 7th group and 8th group: they taught that only after Hasan's death was a son born to him and that he had decreed that his name should be Muhammad. But let this son be rapt and invisible.
• 9th group: she said that Hasan died childless and that the Imamate had ended with him, but that God would someday send a Qa'im from the descendants of Muhammad.
• 10th group: Like the 4th group, she said that Hasan's brother Jafar was the imam, but took the view that he had not received this from his father, but that he had first designated his son Muhammad, but after his death the imamate through an intermediary, the slaves an-Nafis, passed to Jafar. The group was called Nafīsīya.
• 11th group: she accepted Hasan's death, was convinced that there had to be an imam, but abstained from any opinion due to the general uncertainty.
• 12th group: they taught that there was an imam from the descendants of Hasan al-ʿAskarī, but considered it inadmissible to make any statements about his name and identity, to inquire about his whereabouts or to investigate him. This group calls an-Naubachtī as Imāmīya.
• 13th group: Like the 3rd group, they assumed that the imamate had passed to his brother Jafar after Hasan's death, but did not teach that there was a designation.

His role in the Faith of the Twelve Shia

The al-Askari shrine before 2006

It was a doctrine similar to that of the sixth group that ultimately prevailed in the Twelve Shia. The Twelve Shiites are convinced that Hasan left behind a son who was only five years old at the time of his death. The Twelve Shiite belief sees Muhammad al-Mahdī as the Mahdi who is supposed to appear again at the end of time to fill the world with peace and justice. Twelve Shiite sources say that when Hasan's brother Jafar was preparing for the funeral prayer, Hasan's son approached and asked him to stand aside, since only an imam could perform an imam's funeral prayer. Jafar stepped aside and the prayer was led by the deceased's five-year-old son.

A mausoleum was later built over Hasan's grave. This Al-Askari shrine is considered sacred by the Twelve Shiites. The shrine of the two imams was badly damaged by a terrorist attack on February 22, 2006, which led to Shiite-Sunni clashes throughout Iraq.

literature

Arabic sources

• Al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā an-Naubaḫtī : Kitāb Firaq aš-šīʿa . Ed. Hellmut Ritter . Istanbul: Maṭbaʿat ad-daula 1931. Digitized

Secondary literature

• Meir M. Bar-Asher: “The Qur'ān Commentary Ascribed to Ḥasan al-'Askarī” in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 24 (2000) 358–379.
• J. Eliash: Art. "Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. III, pp. 246b-247a.
• Heinz Halm : Art. "ʿAskarī" in Encyclopaedia Iranica Vol. II, p. 769. Online
• Etan Kohlberg: "From Imāmiyya to Ithnā-'ashariyya" in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 39 (1976) 521-543.
• Hossein Modarressi: Crisis and Consolidation in the formative period of Shiʿite Islam. Abū Jaʿfar ibn Qiba al-Rāzī and his contribution to Imāmite Shīʿite thought. Darwin Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1993. pp. 74-84.

supporting documents

1. ↑ Cf. an-Naubaḫtī: Kitāb Firaq aš-šīʿa . 1931, p. 79, line 15.
2. ↑ See Modarressi: Crisis and Consolidation . 1993, p. 65.
3. ↑ Cf. Naubaḫtī: Kitāb Firaq aš-šīʿa . 1931, p. 78.
4. ↑ See Modarressi: Crisis and Consolidation . 1993, p. 75.
5. ↑ See Modarressi: Crisis and Consolidation . 1993, p. 74.
6. ↑ See Modarressi: Crisis and Consolidation . 1993, p. 75.
7. ↑ Cf. an-Naubaḫtī: Kitāb Firaq aš-šīʿa . 1931, p. 79.
8. ↑ Cf. Naubaḫtī: Kitāb Firaq aš-šīʿa . 1931, p. 79.
9. ↑ See Modarressi: Crisis and Consolidation . 1993, p. 78.
10. ↑ Cf. an-Naubaḫtī: Kitāb Firaq aš-šīʿa . 1931, p. 79.
11. ↑ See Modarressi: Crisis and Consolidation . 1993, p. 78.
12. ↑ See Modarressi: Crisis and Consolidation . 1993, p. 77.
13. ↑ See Modarressi: Crisis and Consolidation . 1993, p. 79.
14. ↑ See Modarressi: Crisis and Consolidation . 1993, pp. 82f.
15. ↑ Cf. Ibn Hazm : al-Fiṣal fī l-milal wa-n-niḥal wa-l-ahwāʾ wa-n-niḥal . Ed. MI Naṣr and ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān ʿUmaira. Riyad 1982. Vol. IV, p. 158.
16. ↑ See Modarressi: Crisis and Consolidation . 1993, p. 79.
17. ↑ Saʿd ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Asarī al-Qummī: Kitāb al-Maqālāt wa-l-firaq. Ed. Muḥammad Ǧawād Maškūr. Maṭbaʿat-i Ḥaidarī, Tehran, 1963. pp. 102–116.
18. ↑ Cf. an-Naubaḫtī: Kitāb Firaq aš-šīʿa . 1931, pp. 79-94.
19. ↑ Cf. an-Naubachtī: Kitāb Firaq aš-šīʿa . 1931, p. 82.
20. ↑ See Halm: The Schia. 1988, p. 41.