Musa al-Kazim

Musa al-Kazim (c. 745–799 CE / c. 128–183 AH) was a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and a son of the Medinan scholar Ja'far al-Sadiq. In the Twelver branch of Shia Islam he is revered as the seventh of the twelve Imams — the divinely guided leaders Twelvers hold to have succeeded the Prophet — though this status is a position held within Twelver Shi'ism, not a point all Muslims accept. His epithet al-Kazim ("the forbearing," one who restrains anger) reflects the patient temperament tradition ascribes to him.

When Ja'far al-Sadiq died in 765 without an openly named heir, his followers divided. Most who became the Twelvers recognized Musa; another group followed the line of his brother Isma'il and became the Isma'ilis. Which succession was rightful is contested between these communities and is reported here as their respective positions, not as settled fact.

Musa lived mostly in Medina, teaching and keeping clear of open politics, but the Abbasid caliphs watched him warily. Reports say the caliph Harun al-Rashid had him arrested (c. 795), held first in Basra and then in Baghdad. He died in 799 in the custody of al-Sindi ibn Shahik. Twelver tradition, voiced by scholars such as al-Shaykh al-Mufid, holds that he was poisoned; the early historian al-Tabari does not state a cause, and many Sunni writers regard the death as natural. He was buried in Baghdad, at the cemetery now called al-Kazimiyya after him.