Abu’l-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Muhammad, who is known by the titles al-Hadi (the guided) and an-Naqi (the distinguished), was born in 212/827 or 214/829 in Medina. His mother was a Moroccan slave called Samana. He was seven years old when his father died. Once again the Shi’is were faced with the problem of the child Imam.

During the remaining years of the Caliphate of Mu’tasim and the five year Caliphate of Wathiq, al-Hadi and the Shi’is were relatively free and unmolested. All this was to change, however, with the Caliphate of Mutawakkil which began in 232/847. During this reign, both Shi’is and Mu’tazilis came under an intense persecution.

In 233/848 Mutawakkil summoned al-Hadi to Samara, the new ‘Abbasid capital north of Baghdad. Although received hospitably and given a house in which to live, al-Hadi was in reality a prisoner of the Caliph, The quarter of the city where al-Hadi lived was known as al-’Askar since it was chiefly occupied by the army (‘askar) and, therefore, al-Hadi and his son Hasan are both referred to as ‘Askari or together as ‘Askariyayn (the two ‘Askaris). Al-Hadi lived in Samarra for twenty years, always under the observation of the Caliph’s spies. It is reported that at least once Mutawakkil attempted to kill al-Hadi but was frustrated by a miracle. Al-Hadi continued to live in Samarra after the death of Mutawakkil in 247/861 and during the brief reign of Muntasir and the four-year reign of Musta’in until his death in 254/868 during the Caliphate of Mu’tazz. Real power was, by this time, in the hands of the Turkish Generals of the Caliphs and so it is difficult to see what advantage there would have been to the Caliph in poisoning the Imam as most Shi’i histories claim. Shaykh al-Mufid, among the early Shi’i writers, does not state that the Imam was poisoned.