Imam Ali al-Hadi

The tenth of the Twelve Imams; remembered as a jurist and a man of ascetic piety. His full name is Abu'l-Hasan Ali b. Muhammad al-Jawad b. Ali al-Rida al-Husayni al-Askari.

He was born in 214 (829) in the village of Surayya, three miles from Medina, founded by Musa b. Ja'far. His father was Muhammad al-Jawad al-Taqi. His kunya was Abu'l-Hasan; his best-known epithets are al-Hadi and al-Naqi. He is also called Nasih, Fattah, Amin and Murtada. Because he lived in the Askar quarter of Samarra near Baghdad, he took the nisba al-Askari.

When his father — with whom he had lived six years in Samarra — died, he was recognised as imam by the Twelver Shia despite his youth.

Under the caliphs al-Wathiq and al-Mu'tasim he spent his life in Medina in asceticism and piety, teaching Qur'an, hadith, theology and law. Under al-Mutawakkil he was denounced to the caliph several times. The governor of Medina, Abdullah b. Muhammad, accused him of keeping weapons, a book the authorities considered objectionable, and property belonging to his partisans. Ali al-Hadi wrote the caliph a letter in his own defence; al-Mutawakkil believed him and replaced the governor.

Later, when word came that the Shia were preparing to attack the caliph, al-Mutawakkil sent Yahya b. Harthama to Medina to bring him to Baghdad. The officers found him alone, facing the qibla, reciting the Qur'anic verses of promise and warning, and took him to Samarra (848). He passed the rest of his life there under supervision — though he could move about the city, meet people of rank, and remain in contact with his followers.

He died in Samarra in 254 (868) and was buried in the house where he had lived.

His Circle of Influence — Poets such as Awfi, Daylami and Muhammad b. Isma'il al-Saymari wrote verses in his praise. He had four sons — Hasan al-Askari, Husayn, Muhammad and Ja'far — and a daughter, A'isha (or Aliyya); his lineage reaches Fatima and Ali in the eighth generation, and continued after him through Hasan and Ja'far. Ja'far, having claimed the imamate after his brother Hasan al-Askari's death, is known among the Shia as Ja'far al-Kadhdhab.

His Works — Three treatises are attributed to him: Risala fi'l-radd ala ahl al-jabr wa'l-tafwid (a critique of the Jabriyya and the Qadariyya, published within Ibn Shu'ba's Tuhaf al-uqul, Beirut 1969); Qit'a min ahkam al-din (on law, transmitted by Shahrashub in Mukatabat al-rijal an al-Askariyyin); and Mubahathat Yahya b. Aktham (also in Tuhaf al-uqul).