Muhammad al-Jawad

Muhammad al-Jawad ("the generous"), also called al-Taqi ("the God-fearing") and known in Shia hadith as Abu Ja'far al-Thani, is counted by Twelver Shia Muslims as the ninth of their twelve Imams — the line of leaders they hold to be the Prophet Muhammad's rightful spiritual successors. Sources agree he was born in Medina in 195 AH (810–811 CE), though the exact day is disputed.

He was the only son of the eighth Imam, Ali al-Rida. When al-Rida died in 818, the succession of a boy of about seven to the imamate became controversial; his supporters argued that divinely granted knowledge does not depend on age, citing the Qur'anic account of Jesus speaking in the cradle. This recognition is a position held within Twelver Shi'ism and was not universally accepted.

The Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun drew him into court politics, marrying his daughter Umm al-Fadl to al-Jawad (the marriage was consummated in 215 AH/830); it produced no children. Later the caliph al-Mu'tasim summoned him from Medina to Baghdad, where he died in 220 AH (835) at roughly twenty-five — the shortest life of any of the twelve Imams.

Most Shia authorities report that he was poisoned at his wife's hand; Sunni sources are silent on the cause, and the early Shia scholar al-Mufid doubted the murder account. He was buried beside his grandfather Musa al-Kazim in the Quraysh cemetery in Baghdad, the site of today's Kazimayn shrine.