34 Facts About Muhammad al-Jawad

Twelver sources often justify the imamate of the young Muhammad al-Jawad by drawing parallels with Jesus and John the Baptist, both of whom in the Quran received their prophetic missions in childhood.

In 830, Muhammad al-Jawad was summoned to Baghdad by al-Ma'mun, who married his daughter Umm Fadhl to the former.

Muhammad al-Jawad's successor, Ali al-Hadi, was already born in 828 to Samana, a freed slave.

Muhammad al-Jawad was born in Medina, or in a village near Medina founded by his grandfather, Musa al-Kazim.

Muhammad al-Jawad's father Ali al-Rida, the eighth of the Twelve Imams, was a descendant of Ali ibn Abi Talib and Fatima, who were the cousin and the daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, respectively.

Muhammad al-Jawad might have belonged to the family of Maria al-Qibtiyya, a freed slave of the prophet and the mother of his son Ibrahim, who died in childhood.

Muhammad al-Jawad stayed behind in Medina when his father al-Rida traveled to Merv in Khorasan at the request of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun.

Muhammad al-Jawad was about seven years old when his father died.

The attribution of this latter exchange to Muhammad al-Jawad is uncertain since a similar exchange between al-Ma'mun and some Sunni scholars is described by the tenth-century hadith collection Uyun al-akhbar al-Rida.

At any rate, it is at the end of this assembly that al-Ma'mun formally married his daughter to Muhammad al-Jawad, according to al-Mas'udi and al-Mufid.

Kitab al-Irshad implies that Muhammad al-Jawad returned to Medina after this episode in Baghdad.

The departure of Muhammad al-Jawad was apparently facilitated by Abd al-Malik al-Zayyat at the behest of the caliph.

An exception here is the account of al-Mas'udi which does not explicitly state that Muhammad al-Jawad was summoned by al-Mu'tasim.

At any rate, Muhammad al-Jawad died there in the same year, some ten months after his arrival, at the age of about twenty-five.

One such attempt against Muhammad al-Jawad was prevented by one of his supporters, Ahmad ibn Hammad al-Marwazi, who was nevertheless an advisor to Ibn Abi Dawud, the influential.

The caliph apparently abandoned his plan to dishonor Muhammad al-Jawad by parading him while intoxicated after Ahmad convinced the about the futility of this plan, saying that the ire of the caliph would only strengthen the loyalty of Imamites for Muhammad al-Jawad.

Similar to his predecessors, al-Jawad lived modestly and gave to the poor generously, according to Dwight M Donaldson.

Baghestani adds that Muhammad al-Jawad gave charity at the beginning of every month and interceded with the officials on behalf of the people.

Muhammad al-Jawad's arranged marriage in 215 AH to Umm al-Fadl did not result in any children.

Ali al-Hadi, the successor of Muhammad al-Jawad, was born to Samana, a freed slave of Moroccan origin, circa 212 AH.

The daughters of Muhammad al-Jawad are named differently in the sources.

Muhammad al-Jawad died on 6 Dhu al-Hijjah 220 AH in Baghdad, after arriving there in Muharram 220 at the request of al-Mu'tasim, who hosted him and his wife during the visit.

Muhammad al-Jawad died at the age of about twenty-five, the youngest among the Twelve Imams.

Muhammad al-Jawad was about seven years old when his father al-Rida died in 203 AH.

Wardrop points out that there were very few qualified alternatives to Muhammad al-Jawad anyway, naming his uncles, Ahmad ibn Musa and Abdallah ibn Musa, and a different Hasanid with the latter name.

That there was no clear alternative to Muhammad al-Jawad is the view of the Muslim jurist Hossein Modarressi.

Wardrop thus concludes that the main challenge to the imamate of Muhammad al-Jawad was his young age, given that the imamate was viewed by the Shia as the ultimate source of knowledge and guidance.

Imamite authors have noted that Jesus received his prophetic mission in the Quran when he was still a child, suggesting that Muhammad al-Jawad received the requisite perfect knowledge of all religious matters through divine inspiration from the time of his succession, irrespective of his age.

Some followers of Muhammad al-Jawad received permission to work within the Abbasid government for the benefit of the Shia community.

Muhammad al-Jawad adopted a quiescent attitude and kept aloof from politics, similar to many of his predecessors.

In particular, Ibn Mahziar was the agent of al-Jawad in Ahvaz and wrote two books, namely, Kitab al-Malahim and Kitab al-Qa'im, about occultation, which is the eschatological belief that Mahdi, a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, has already been born and subsequently concealed from the public.

In Shia sources, Muhammad al-Jawad is credited with some, that is, supernatural acts or miracles sometimes attributed to saints in Islam.

When visiting the Imam, he decided to gather some of the earth upon which Muhammad al-Jawad had set foot, a desire that he later deemed sinful.

Muhammad al-Jawad is said to have announced the succession of Ali through his main agent, Muhammad ibn al-Faraj, or through Abu al-Khayrani.