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Abū
Jaʿfar
Muḥammad
ibn
ʿAlī
al-Hādī
(Arabic:
أبو
جعفر
محمد
بن
علي
الهادي)
was
a
descendant
of
the
Islamic
prophet
Muhammad
and
the
son
of
Ali
al-Hadi
(d. 868)
and
the
brother
of
Hasan
al-Askari
(d. 874),
the
tenth
and
eleventh
Imams
in
Twelver
Shia,
respectively.
Some
may
have
expected
him
to
succeed
his
father
al-Hadi
to
the
imamate
but
he
predeceased
him
in
the
garrison
town
of
Samarra
in
Iraq,
where
al-Hadi
was
kept
under
surveillance
by
the
Abbasids.
His
shrine
is
located
near
Baghdad,
between
Samarra
and
Kadhimiya.
Considered
a
sacred
site
in
Twelver
Shia,
his
shrine
was
targeted
by
Sunni
militants
in
2016
in
a
deadly
attack
on
its
pilgrims.
Muhammad
ibn
Ali
al-Hadi
died
in
the
garrison
town
of Samarra,
then
the
capital
of
the Abbasids.
Some
expected
him
to
be
the
next Imam but
he
predeceased
his
father Ali
al-Hadi (d. 868),
who
was
kept
in
Samarra
under
close
surveillance
by
the
Abbasids
until
his
death
in
868 CE.
After
al-Hadi,
the
majority
of
his
followers
acknowledged
as
their
next
Imam
his
adult
son Hasan (d. 874), brother
of
Muhammad.
Hasan
is
commonly
known
by
the
title
al-Askari
(lit. 'military')
on
account
of
his
almost
life-long
detention
in
Samarra.
After
al-Hadi,
some
followers
of
the
Shia
figure
Faris
ibn
Hatim
ibn
Mahawayh
al-Qazvini
claimed
that
Muhammad
was
the
next
Imam,
even
though
he
had
died
before
his
father.
This
was
apparently
an
act
of
defiance
to
al-Askari,
who
had
sided
with
his
father
al-Hadi
when
he
excommunicated
his
erstwhile
representative
Faris
for
embezzling
religious
dues
and
openly
inciting
against
him. When
al-Askari
mysteriously
died
without
an
obvious
heir
in
874
CE,
some
rejected
his
imamate
because
they
argued
that
the
Imam
could
not
be
childless.
Among
them, Muhammadites believed
that
his
brother
Muhammad
must
have
been
the
rightful
eleventh
Imam,
even
though
he
had
predeceased
his
father
al-Hadi.
Thus
they
turned
to
the
offspring
of
Muhammad, or
considered
him
to
be
the Mahdi,
the
messianic
figure
in
Islam
to
(re)appear
at
the
end
of
times
to
eradicate
injustice
and
evil.
Probably
related
to
this
group
was Ibn
Nusayr,
who
regarded
al-Hadi
as
divine
and
claimed
to
be
his
prophet.
He
is
considered
the
founder
of
the Nusayris,
a Ghali sect
of
Shia.
The
Ghulat
(lit. 'exaggerators')
believed
in
the
divinity
of
the
Shia
Imams.
Nafisites were
another
group
who
believed
that
al-Hadi
had
appointed
his
son
Muhammad
as
his
successor.
Before
he
died
in
the
lifetime
of
his
father,
they
said,
Muhammad
designated
his
brother Ja'far as
his
successor.
More
specifically,
they
believed
that
Muhammad
entrusted
his
testament
to
his
servant
Nafis,
who
passed
it
on
to
his
brother
Ja'far.
The
latter
thus
claimed
he
was
the
successor
to
Muhammad.
Nafis
himself
was
killed. These
and
similar
sects,
however,
soon
disappeared
except
the
group
that
went
on
to
form
the
Twelver
Shia.
They
believe
in
the
imamate
of
the
messianic Muhammad
al-Mahdi,
a
son
of
al-Askari
whose
birth
is
said
to
have
been
concealed
from
the
public.
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