Ja'far al-Sadiq

Ja'far ibn Muhammad al-Sadiq (Arabic: جعفر ابن محمد الصادق, romanized: Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣādiq; c. 702–765) was an 8th-century Shia Muslim scholar, jurist, and theologian, and the sixth imam of the Twelver and Isma'ili branches of Shia Islam. Known by the title al-Sadiq ("the truthful"), Ja'far was the founder of the Ja'fari school of Islamic jurisprudence. The hadith recorded from al-Sadiq and his predecessor, Muhammad al-Baqir, are said to be more numerous than all the hadith preserved from the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the other Shia imams combined. Among other theological contributions, he elaborated the doctrine of nass (divinely inspired designation of each Imam by the previous Imam) and isma (the infallibility of the Imams), as well as that of taqiya (religious dissimulation under persecution).

Al-Sadiq is also revered by Sunni Muslims as a reliable transmitter of hadith, and a teacher to the Sunni scholars Abu Hanifa and Malik ibn Anas, the namesakes of the Hanafi and Maliki schools of jurisprudence. Al-Sadiq also figures prominently in the initiatic chains of many Sufi orders. A wide range of religious and scientific works were attributed to him, though no works penned by al-Sadiq remain extant.

Ja'far al-Sadiq was born around 700 CE, perhaps in 702. He was about thirty-seven when his father, Muḥammad al-Bāqir, died after designating him as the next Imam. As the sixth Shia Imam, al-Sadiq kept aloof from the political conflicts that embroiled the region, evading the requests for support that he received from rebels. He was the victim of some harassment by the Abbasid caliphs and was eventually, according to Shia sources, poisoned at the instigation of the caliph al-Mansur. The question of succession after al-Sadiq's death divided the early Shīʿa community. Some considered the next Imam to be his eldest son, Isma'il al-Mubarak, who had predeceased his father. Others accepted the Imamate of his younger son and brother of Isma'il, Musa al-Kazim. The first group became known as the Isma'ili, whereas the second and larger group was named Jaʽfari or the Twelvers.