The seventh Imam of the Twelver Shi’i was Abu’l-Hasan Musa ibn Ja’far known as al-Kazim (the forbearing). He was born in 128/745 (or according to other accounts 120/737 or 129/746) on the road between Mecca and Medina. His mother was a Berber salve called Hamida. He was about twenty years of age at the time of his father’s death.
The first years of his Imamate were concerned with a dispute over the succession to the Imamate. It appears the most of the followers of assuccession to the Imamate. It appears that most of the followers of as-Sadiq were expecting the latter’s eldest son, Isma’il, whose mother was a granddaughter of Zaynu’l-Abidin, the fourth Imam, to succeed to the Imamate. Then Isma’il died during his father’s lifetime and Musa’s followers claimed that as-Sadiq had then designated Musa, but there was some confusion among the ranks of Shi’a. Although for later generations, the most important group that split off at this time were those who considered the Imamate trasferred from Isma’il to Muhammad, Isma’il’s son (i.e. the Isma’ilis), it would appear from the reports that Musa was most strongly challenged by the claim of ‘Abdu’llah al-Aftah, the oldest surviving son of as-Sadiq. A number of influential followers of as-Sadiq are recorded to have at first followed ‘Abdu’llah and then later changed their allegiance to Musa.
Throughout the whole of his life, Musa was faced with hostility and harrasment from the ‘Abbasid Caliphs. During the Caliphate of al-Mansur which overlapped with the first ten years of Musa’s Imamate, the opposition was not so intense, but then came the ten years of the Caliphate of al-Mahdi. Spies were planted in Medina to watch for any sign of disloyalty emanating from Musa, and at least once during this period he was arrested, brought to Baghdad and imprisoned for a a while. It was, however, during the Caliphate of Harun ar-Rashid that the persecution of ‘Alids reached a climax. This Caliph is reported to have had hundreds of ‘Alids killed. On one occasion Musa was arrested and brought to Baghdad. The Caliph determined on his execution but than set him free as a result, it is said, of a dream.
In the last half of Musa’s lifetime, many of the Shi’is who had split off from him in the beginning of his ministry returned their allegiance to him. New followers were gained and important new centres establish in Egypt and north-west Africa.
The cause of Musa’s final arrest and murder is said to have been the result of the plotting of Harun ar-Rashid vizier Yahya ibn Khalid of the Barmaki family. When Harun put his son and heir Amin into the charge of Ja’far ibn Muhammad of the al-Ash’ath family, Yahya grew fearful that when Harun died, the influence of the Barmaki family would come to an end, and so he began to plot against Ja’far ibn Muhammad. Ja’far was secretly a Shi’i and a believer in the Imamate of Musa and so Yahya began to freed information to Harun about the fact that Ja’far considered Musa to be the real sovereign and sent him the khums. These reports were designed to raise the wrath of the jealous and easily influenced Caliph and to that end a relative of Musa’s was suborned into giving further evidence about the influence of Musa and how money came to him from all parts of the Empire.
That year, 177/793, when Rashid went on a pilgrimage, he caused Musa to be arrested and sent him to Basra and then to Baghdad. There, Musa was kept in prison and eventually killed by poisoning. This occured in the year 183/779.
Since there were rumours among the Shi’a that Musa, the Seventh Imam, would also be the last Imam and would not die but would be the Mahdi, Harun made a public display of Musa’s body in Baghdad (this was also to show people there were no marks on his body and that he had not met a violent death). Musa al-Kazim and of his grandson, the Ninth Imam Muhammad at-Taqi, became the centre of a separate suburb of Baghdad called Kazimayn (the two Kazims) and a shrine has stood over the site of these graves since the time of the Buyid dynasty. The present magnificent shrine dates from the early 16th century when it was built by Shah Isma’il, the Safavid ruler of Iran. The domes were tiled with gold in 1796 by Agha Muhammad Shah, the first of the Qajar dynasty of Iran. They were later re-tiled by Nasiru’d-Din Shah in the 1850s and most recently in the last decade by the Iraqi government.
Bibliography:
See M. Momen, An Introduction to Shii Islam (1985).