The Shia imam whose classroom trained two founders of Sunni law
Ja'far al-Sadiq barely left Medina, refused every rebel who begged for his backing, and set fire to one recruiting letter. Yet around four thousand scholars reportedly sat at his feet, including Abu Hanifa and Malik ibn Anas, whose schools of law still guide millions of Sunni Muslims today.
Born in Medina around 702, Ja'far carried an unusual double pedigree. His father, Muhammad al-Baqir, descended from Ali and Fatima, while Abu Bakr, the first caliph, was a great-grandfather of his mother, Umm Farwa. For his first fourteen years he lived beside his grandfather Zayn al-Abidin, watching the fourth Imam step back from politics and noting the respect Medina's scholars gave him.
His lifetime straddled one of Islam's great upheavals: the Abbasid overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty in the middle of the eighth century. Kinsmen rose in revolt around him, among them his uncle Zayd ibn Ali and later his nephew Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya. Ja'far kept to his father's quietist course. When the Khorasani rebel Abu Muslim wrote for help, he burned the letter and said that this man was not one of his, nor was the moment his.
That distance from power bought him room to teach while central authority was weak. Besides Abu Hanifa and Malik, Wasil ibn Ata, who went on to found the Mu'tazila movement, is listed among his pupils. Shia hadith collections cite more traditions from him than from all the other Imams put together, and the Ja'fari school of jurisprudence, the principal Shia legal tradition, bears his name. Sunnis also honour him as a trustworthy hadith transmitter, and many Sufi orders trace their spiritual chains through him. Doctrines credited to him include the designation of each Imam by his predecessor, the Imams' infallibility, and permission to conceal one's faith under persecution.
The new Abbasid rulers saw him as a latent threat. Shia sources say his house was set alight on their orders and that the caliph al-Mansur had him poisoned; he died in Medina in 765, aged about sixty-four. His death split his followers. The larger party accepted his younger son Musa al-Kazim and became the Twelvers, while a smaller group held to his eldest son Isma'il, who had died first, and became the Isma'ilis. His grave lies in Medina's Baqi Cemetery, whose shrine Wahhabis demolished in 1806 and again in 1925.
Source: Ja'far al-Sadiq
