Musa al-Kadhim

Mûsâ ibn Ja‘far al-Kâdhim (Arabic: موسى بن جعفر الكاظم‎), also called Abul Hasan, Abu Abd Allah, Abu Ibrahim, and al-Kadhim (the one who controls his anger), was the seventh Shiite Imam after his father Ja'far al-Sadiq. He is regarded by Sunnis as a renowned scholar, and was a contemporary of the Abbasid caliphs Al-Mansur, Al-Hadi, Al-Mahdi and Harun al-Rashid. He was imprisoned several times, finally dying in Baghdad in the Sindi ibn Shahak prison. Ali al-Ridha, the eighth Imām, and Fatemah Masume were among his children.

Birth and early life

Musa al-Kadhim was born during the conflict between the Abbasids and Umayyads, and was four years old when As-Saffah, the first Abbasid Caliph, took the throne. His mother, Hamidah, was a former slave from either Berbery or Andalusia. Al-Kadhim was brought up in a large family, with nine sisters and six brothers. His oldest brother Ismail predeceased his father Ja'far al-Sadiq, who held the position of Imam. According to Twelver Shiites, Musa was chosen by divine order and decree of his father as the next Imam.