Ali ibn Musa al-Ridha
The Eight Imam
Imam Rida
(Ali ibn Musa) was the son of the seventh Imam and according to well
known accounts was born in 148/765 and died in 203/817.
The eighth
Imam reached the Imamate, after the death of his father, through Divine
Command and the decree of his forefathers. The period of his Imamate
coincided with the caliphate of Harun and then his sons Amin and Ma'mun.
After the death of his father, Ma'mun fell into conflict with his
brother Amin which led to bloody wars and finally the assassination of
Amin, after which Ma'mun became caliph. Until that day the policy of the
Abbasid caliphate toward the Shi'ites had been increasingly harsh and
cruel.
Every once
in a while one of the supporters of Ali ('alawis) would revolt, causing
bloody wars and rebellions which were of great difficulty and
consequence for the caliphate. The Shi'ite Imams would not co-operate
with those who carried out these rebellions and would not interfere with
their affairs. The Shi'ites of that day, who comprised a considerable
population, continued to consider the Imams as their religious leaders
to whom obedience was obligatory and believed in them as the real
caliphs of the Holy Prophet (sawas). They considered the caliphate to be
far from the sacred authority of their Imams, for the caliphate had come
to seem more like the courts of the Persian kings and Roman emperors and
was being run by a group of people more interested in worldly rule than
in the strict application of religious principles.
. The
continuation of such a situation was dangerous for the structure of the
caliphate and was a serious threat to it. Ma'mun thought of finding a
new solution for these difficulties which the seventy-year old policy of
his Abbasid predecessors had not been able to solve. To accomplish this
end he chose the eighth Imam as his successor, hoping in this way to
overcome two difficulties; first of all to prevent the descendants of
the Prophet (sawas) from rebelling against the government since they
would be involved in the government themselves; and secondly, to cause
the people to lose their spiritual belief and inner attachment to the
Imams. This would be accomplished by having the Imams become engrossed
in worldly matters and the politics of the caliphate itself, which had
always been considered by the Shi'ites to be evil and impure. In this
way their religious organisation would crumble and they would no longer
present any dangers to the caliphate. Obviously, after accomplishing
these ends, the removal of the Imam would present no difficulties to the
Abbasids.
In order
to have this decision put into effect, Ma'mun asked the Imam to come to
Marw from Medina. Once he had arrived there, Ma'mun offered him first
the caliphate and then the succession to the caliphate. The Imam made
his apologies and turned down the proposal, but he was finally induced
to accept the successorship, with the condition that he would not
interfere in governmental affairs or in the appointment or dismissal of
government agents. This event occurred in 200/814.
Soon
Ma'mun realised that he had committed an error, for there was a rapid
spread of The Followers of Ahlu Bayt. Increasing growth in the peoples
attachment to the Imam, even from the army and government agents. Ma'mun
sought to find a remedy for this difficulty and eventually had the Imam
poisoned and martyred. The Imam was buried in the city of Tus in Iran,
which is now called Mashhad.
Ma'mun
displayed great interest in having works on the intelectual sciences
translated into Arabic. He organised gatherings in which scholars of
different religions and sects assembled and carried out scientific and
scholarly debates. The eighth Imam also participated in these assemblies
and joined in the discussions with scholars of other religions. Many of
these debates are recorded in the collections of Shi'ite hadiths. |