Imam Ja’far as-Sadeq (AS), the Sixth Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA)

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On December 4, 765 AD (according to the Gregorian calendar), Imam Ja’far as-Sadeq (AS), the 6th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), was martyred in his hometown Medina through a fatal dose of poison given by Mansour Dawaniqi, the 2nd self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime. He was twelve years old, when his grandfather, Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS), the Survivor of the heartrending tragedy of Karbala, was martyred through poisoning.
At the age of 31, the mantle of imamate or divinely-decreed leadership of mankind came to rest on his shoulders following the martyrdom (also through poisoning) of his equally illustrious father, Imam Mohammad Baqer (AS). For the next 34 years, he spared no efforts to revive the genuine teachings of Islam, and in the process spurned the offer of caliphate by a general, since his God-given position was loftier than the worthless political rule that depended on the whims of insincere power-mongers.
As a matter of fact, the jockeying for political power of the Islamic state by the Omayyads and the Abbasids, provided the 6th Imam with an opportunity to groom a generation of scholars in different fields, including theology, Qur'anic sciences, hadith, jurisprudence, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, history, ethics, etc.
His famous academy of Medina at its height had 4,000 scholars studying different branches of knowledge, including the Father of Chemistry, Jaber Ibn Hayyan (Geber to medieval Europe). The founders of the four schools of jurisprudence of what later came to be known as the Sunni sect were directly or indirectly indebted to him. In short, the 6th Imam was the reviver of the pristine “Sunnah” (practice) and “Seerah” (behaviour) of his ancestor, the Prophet. In other words, his school of jurisprudence, the “Fiqh al-Ja'fari”, unlike other schools, is not any innovation or guesswork but the unsullied “Shari'ah” of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).