Abu Muhammad Hasan ibn ‘Ali, known as al Mujtaba (the chosen) is considered by Shi’is to have become the Imam after the death of ‘Ali. Hasan was born in the year AH 3 in Medina and was brought up in the household of the Prophet himself until the latter’s death when Hasan aged was about 7. There can be no doubt that the Prophet had a great fondness for his two grandchildren, Hasan and Husayn, whom he reffered to as the ‘chiefs of the youth of paradise’ and about whom he had been widely quoted as saying ‘he who has loved Hasan and Husayn has loved me and he who has hated them has hated me’. Most of the companions of the Prophet still alive could remember how the Prophet used to caress and kiss these two grandchildren of his and how he had even interrupted his sermon on one occasion because Hasan had tripped and fallen.
Hasan was thirty-seven years old when his father fell at the hands of the assassin Kufa. It is known that many of the surviving companions of the Prophet, both of the Medinan Ansar and the Meccan Muhajirun, were in ‘Ali’s army. So they must have been in Kufa at the time of ‘Ali’s assassination and therefore must have assented to Hasan being acclaimed Caliph in succession to his father a few days later, for there is no record of any dissent to this in Kufa, nor indeed of any dissent in Mecca and Medina.
Of all the twelve Shi’i Imams, Hasanis the one who has been disparaged most harshly by Westerns historians. He has been derided for having given up the Caliphate to Mu’awiya without a fighting. Hehas been described as uxorious,unintelligent, incapable and a lover of luxury. This harsh criticism is rejected by Shi’i historians. They point out that Hasan’s abdication was not an act of feeble cowardice but a realistic and compassionate act. Following the assassination of ‘Ali, the Kufan army had railed around Hasan to face the advancing Syrian army led by Mu’awiya. But Mu’awiya’s spreading of false reports, his secret agents and liberal bribes had wreaked such havoc among Kufans that Hasan had seen his army melt away. In this situation abdication was the only realistic course of action open to Hasan and avoided pointless bloodshed.
In the correspondence between Mu’awiya and Hasan that led to the abdication, it is interesting to note that Mu’awiya brushed aside Hasan’s objections thata Mu’awiya had no precedence in Islam and indeed was the son of the most prominent opponent of Islam by asserting that the situation between him and Hasan now was the same as that between Abu Bakr and ‘Ali after the death of the prophet, that Mu’awiya’s military strength, political abilities and age were of more importance than Hasan’s claim to religious precedence. In other words, as Shi’i historians point out, political power was to become the arbitrator of leadership in Islam rather than religious considerations.
The Kufan’s, by their wavering, their disunity and their fickleness, had let Hasan down badly, as they had his father ‘Ali, and as they were going to do with his brother Husayn some twelve years later. Part of the Kufan army rebelled against Hasan, part of it went over to the Syrians and the rest melted away. Even Hasan’s own tent was plundered, he himself wounded. Small wonder than that he felt he had no choice but to abdicate.
Mu’awiya needed Hasan’s abdication to lend some plausibility and justification to his own seizure of power; a mere military victory would not have been enough. Therefore, he was happy to offer Hasan generous terms including general amnesty for Hasan’s followers, a large finanacial settlement for Hasan himself, and, according to some accounts, a futher condition that the Caliphate would revert to Hasan on Mu’awiya’s death.
Hasan, after his abdication in 41/661, retired to Medina and led a quiet life. He refused to involve himself in any political activity-which was a very pragmatic action, in that although delegations came to him to offer him with their support if he would rise up, Mu’awiya had such a firm grip on the Empire that any uprising would have been doomed to failure. And, in any case, Hasan had given hi word and signed and agreement.
Hasan died in 49/669 at the early age of forty-six. It is stated by the Shi’i historians and confirmed in some of the Sunni historians that he was poisoned by his wife at the investigation of Mu’awiya. Certainly nothing could have suited Mu’awiya’s purposes more since it paved the way for his plan to ensure the succession of his son, Yazid.
Hasan was buried in Medina in al-Baqi’ cemetary next to his mother, Fatima.
Bibliography:
See M. Momen, An Introduction to Shii Islam (1985).